Wonderful news: Arabs love Turks!

A recent study by the prominent Turkish think tank TESEV has found that Turkey is the most popular country for the people of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq (and Iran). As well as its methodology (the research is based on telephone interviews with over 2,000 people), the principal finding of the study was impressive: The Arabs like Turkey. 

That’s wonderful news. If in the near future Turkey should consider applying for membership of the Arab League, instead of the European Union, the accession process should be much smoother and eventual membership guaranteed. But Turks are not Arabs? Never mind, they are not Europeans either. 

According to TESEV, the Arab love affair with Turkey has four explanations: the country’s economic power; its democratic credentials; its Muslim-ness, and; its fierce pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli polity. It is puzzling why Arabs think Turkey, with its roughly $10,000 per capita income, and not Saudi Arabia or the much-wealthier-than-Turkey Gulf countries, is an economic power. Similarly, Turkey’s “democratic credentials” could be considered a joke when viewed through a western compass; but, sadly, they are in fact “impressive” for the Arab world, confirming what this column refers to as the “bon pour l’Orient” reality. 

More problematic is the Arab thinking on the good criteria to like and dislike: Muslim-ness and anti-Israeli polity. Although Muslims often – and sometimes rightfully — complain of Islamophobia in the West; their own mindset unmistakably reveals powerful evidence of Judeo-phobia. In fact, the same study found that over 60 percent of Middle Easterners polled view Israel and the United States as the biggest obstacle to peace in their region. 

Some observers believe the findings of the survey reflect “Muslim modernity.” What they deem as “modernity” is indeed “modernity” if we understand that to mean posh villas, fancy cars, internet use, more advanced electronic toys and tablet computers. All the same, “I-like-him-because-he-is-Muslim” or “I don’t-like-him-because-he-is-not” can hardly be defined as modern thinking. For instance, a recent study revealed that Turks think books are the 132nd most important commodity in their lives. Gucci headscarves must have found a better ranking in this newfound Muslim modernity!

And according to TESEV’s poll, Turkey, whose popularity was measured at 78 percent, was followed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE - 70 percent), Palestine (66 percent), China (65 percent), Saudi Arabia and Lebanon (64 percent) and Egypt (62 percent) in terms of positive sentiments felt. So, the Arab “top five” are: Turkey, the UAE, Palestine, China and Saudi Arabia. Which, in other words, tells us the Arabs are certainly not craving democracy! Modernity? 

Modernity, in fact, is to question the wisdom behind feeling attached, en masse, to the world’s most undemocratic countries. Modernity is to long for better democracies, not autocracies merely because these autocracies share one’s own religion, or, in the case of China, have either no religion or a religion which the Arab respondent does not view hostile. 

Ironically, the advocates of the fancy terms “liberal Islam,” “Muslim democracy,” and “Muslim modernity” are unintentionally discriminating against their fellow worshippers. The contents of liberalism, democracy and modernity are universal. Prefixes and suffixes around Islam/Muslim only mean that Islam/Muslims are not good enough to embrace these universal values; that their faith puts practical limits on the degree to which Muslims can enjoy democratic/modern/liberal culture as they are universally defined. 

Oh, by the way, what a simple twist of fate! The Middle Eastern refugees passing by way of Turkey almost invariably seek new homes in the non-Muslim lands of the West, instead of the countries they so dearly love: Turkey, the UAE, Palestine, China and Saudi Arabia…

Source: here

Hm, 2000 people by phone to represent the entire Arab world is a bit slim. And I didn´t know Iran was part of the Arab world, but perhaps that´s why it´s between (...). But back to my point, why don´t they just look at travel agency bookings or airline bookings? My guess is that China wouldn´t pop up so high, but Turkey still would.

Good point about the Judo-phobia. I have encountered this so many times, it´s not funny anymore! And I have to say, the media in the Islamic world is not helping either. I remember anti-Jewish remarks from my friends whenever Israel was on the Turkish (and Dutch) news for killing Palestines, but when Palestines were on the Dutch news for killing Israeli´s, somehow it didn´t show up in the Turkish news! And the difference between Israeli and Jewish is also not clear to a lot of people.

I think it´s good enough!

Let´s assume Arab population is 100 million people.

It hardly seems possible that surveying only 2000 adults
would be of any value. But it is, and it can be proved mathematically that if the
sample of 2000 adults is selected at random, then the results are accurate to
within 3% more than 95% of the time.

You can even simulate it yourself if you are able to code it and kow what Monte-Carlo simulation is. Just randomly create a population whose 80 % loves Turks (for example). And select 2000 samples out of that 100 million and you should get a result for that sample space within 77 to 83 % for 95 % of the times (i.e. 95% of the times your results would be in the range 1540 to 1660 ).

The population of the Arab League combined is over 355 million people, not 100 million. And in the research they also contacted people who live outside of the Arab League countries, so we have to deduct that of the 2000. So...I still think it is a bit slim.

That doesn´t make much difference (more can be read: here). It was just an example for illustration purpose.

Out of curiosity I coded a Monte-Carlo simulation with 355 million population (80% loves and 20% hates)  and 2000 samples and I get the results as expected.

Here is the result of first 17 experiment for 2000 samples selected randomly.

1: hates=380 loves=1620
2: hates=403 loves=1597
3: hates=414 loves=1586
4: hates=374 loves=1626
5: hates=405 loves=1595
6: hates=377 loves=1623
7: hates=412 loves=1588
8: hates=390 loves=1610
9: hates=396 loves=1604
10: hates=410 loves=1590
11: hates=385 loves=1615
12: hates=390 loves=1610
13: hates=405 loves=1595
14: hates=389 loves=1611
15: hates=372 loves=1628
16: hates=388 loves=1612
17: hates=407 loves=1593

(stopped it here as it was lengthy to run a simple experiment)

As can be seen, you get the ratios close to 80% for 2000 samples.

It didn´t say 80% love Turkey and 20% hates Turkey. It says popularity of Turkey is 78%, and some other countries were also mentioned. It actually says nothing about what question was asked exactly. I don´t know how this proves that Arabs love Turkey. It just another example of a news headline making a research result sound big or shocking, while the article itself doesn´t give much proof.

Right! I only showed how it works by modeling. I assumed they were asked "love or hate?" and they ansered "yes or no"?

1500 year old Bible found in Ankara

In an Ankara court, a 1500 year old Bible written in Aramaic with Syriac script was found and transported to a museum in Ankara. It´s reportedly worth some 40 million TLs (~23 m USD). It´s also reported that Vatican has asked for a permission to examine the Bible.

Ankara Adliyesi Adli Emaneti’nde 1500 yıllık bir İncil bulundu. Bugün´ün haberine göre, Hz. İsa’nın ilk öğütlerini verdiği Aramice dili ve Süryani alfabesiyle yazılı tarihi İncil, polis nezaretinde Ankara Etnografya Müzesi’ne devredildi. 8 yıldır adli emanette bekletildiği ortaya çıkan İncil’in değerinin 40 milyon lira olduğu tahmin edilirken Papalık, İncil üzerinde inceleme ve araştırma talebinde bulundu.

ETNOGRAFYA MÜZESİ’NE GİTTİ
Ankara Adalet Sarayı’nda değeri 40 milyon lira olduğu iddia edilen 1500 yıldan fazla tarihe sahip İncil olduğu iddia edidi. Sekiz yıldır adli emanette tutulduğu belirlenen İncilmahkeme kararıyla polis eşliğinde vemakam otosuyla Etnografya Müzesi’ne eslim edildi. İlk incelemelerde Süryanilere ait olduğu belirlenen İncil’in Aramice diliyle Süryanice alfabeyle yazıldığı öğrenildi. Deri üzerine yazılmış, deri kaplamalı İncil’in kültür varlığı olduğu ve müzelik değeri olduğu için koruma altına alındığı kaydedildi.

Source: here and here

This is one of the most idiotic articles I have ever read. Anyone calling himself a journalist must first of all know about the basic facts about his/her country. What can the audience of this piece of junk article be: primary school students? Comparing Turkey with Saudi Arabia a welfare society almost singularly dependent on oil, with a country featuring economic depth and diversity essentially based on the hard work of its people. This guy doesn´t even know income per capita doesn´t denote economic power. I am sure he hails Kuwait and Luxembourg as economic giants too.

Turkey has a much larger economy than even the richest Arab League country (about twice as large as Saudi Arabia) and its GDP per capita is better than most Arab countries save a few oil-rich ones.

Let´s set the record straight, most Turkish people don´t like Arabs and vice-versa. It is only through the efforts of our Arab loving government that we are getting popular in the region. Our TV shows also help with our publicity. It is not that I endorse this lack of affection but it is unfortunately true.

Unfortunately, most of our journalists are utterly shallow creatures. Many of them are bigots to start with, some are sexist and some are machos. There are female columnists writing about their g-strings and some advocating hijab claiming that would liberate them. It is getting more and more difficult to find a piece of news free from bias, partiality and bigotry.

So maybe it was an idiotic article but it woke you from your coma!  Where have you been?