TC is the site that its all users say they miss its old days and that misses none of its old users!

I disagree!! TC is a site where people FREQUENTLY talk of missing old users, mourn them as if they were dead and fail to see the huge contribution of new users.

He was a great translator and was very well able to explain things!!

You go vineyards! I felt patriotic in Turkey and I'm not even living there! In 'old' cultures there is a homogeniety that the U.S. can't touch (except the Native Americans) and groups that have clung to their country of origins culture. Turkish people have a lot to be proud of. I think it would be great to feel good about being where you are from, I certainly don't. As for this threads topic...Turkish class is a very helpful site. There do seem to be little cliques here. Overall the people here are very friendly and helpful, which is also my impression of Turkish people in general. My translation T-E skills have gotten much better by practicing on the posts. Unfortunately the other way E-T...COK ZOR!

Vineyards has the right to defend patriotism and femme has the right to criticize it. I don't understand though why vineyards feels the need to bash her personally in his post. Would that mean something about himself as a person?

So, The Empire Strikes Back!
Let's put the record straight. You insulted me in a private message and when I complained, you said it was a private message. Then I sent you a private message and asked whether it would be OK if I called you "a bitch" or "a slut" because it was just a PM.

You also publicly accused me of sending you vile PM's in which I insulted you. Being in suspicion I found and posted the originals of those messages to prove that they did not contain any insulting words. Then you accused me of violating your privacy by posting messages sent to you in the public forum.

Now are we facing yet another lie Ms. Aenigma?

My informal thought.....does anyone (myself included) actually pay any attention to the "language" portion of the site?

i think patriotism is a thing with the help of which the wide mass is manipulated.

TC, with its true type font bigger than 15, is well suited to especially the hypermetropic!

Everyone has a different view of certain concepts. For example, what is regarded as a religious requirement by some can be seen as an act of barbarism by others. There used to be people who sacrificed their lives with all the best intentions in sake of communism but to some others they were just a bunch of bastards whose heads had to be crushed.

If your understanding of patriotism is more in the lines of chauvenism then you probably see no difference at all between patriotism and nationalism either. This kind of a misconception is very much like my regarding a dentist as a torturer no matter how useful in reality a dentist is.

Hello Folks.

I'm back and I look forward to have some nice discussions with our fellow members. But be careful. You might get banned if you are using a language that is too argumentative or slang or implies a religious perspective. I'm sure we will be able to find a forum rule you are violating.

Just kidding. It's nice to be remembered. Cheers.

It is impossible to establish a complete control over all the aspects of life. It is in man's nature to have a desire to use opportunities. If you find an abandoned newspaper on the bus, you would like to read it. If you are a very rich person, you'd spend a poor worker's annual income on a dinner party and that would be perfectly normal to you.

No matter how much you complain of the way governments and media use the coercion they have; they will always be in place and running on their own natural paths.

When you study society in a wider context, you will notice how archaic it actually is. Just like myriad layers of sediments forming in a lake, the traces of bygone years are perpetually recorded in the muddy waters of society. If we could drill through all these sediment layers and reach the end of it, we would probably find a caveman there who is responsible for all that mud and blur.
Generation after generation people did their best to destroy the caveman by constantly improving all the aspects of society. Yet the caveman is still with us. We took the axe in his hand and gave him a-bombs to nuke tens of thousands of people in one go.

As a matter of fact, patriotism is very much like the love you have for your family. You love your country, and your identity. If there is love in your family chances are that there is love in you too. You open up your eyes to the beauties of this world then. Because you are a love child and you know what love is. Your parents loved each other and you learned from them. Similarly, if you love your country and feel that you can do whatever sacrifice to save it just like you would if your family were in danger, that will not do any harm to anyone. It will indeed make love prevail.

Here is the magic formula: love yourself, love your family and friends, love your country and love this world that we all live in.

I am in love with this world. I thank million times to the unknown creator for the oxygen it gave us, for the sun that heats and energizes us, for the abundant foods and all the other riches we are given.

I think this Turkish Class is great because it allows us to find out other peoples views on culture, news, media, nationalities, general feelings etc and not just on the language being learned.

Hi teaschip1,
I'm not actually 'back', just passing by. Yes, I'm still in London. I will return back to Turkia when my job finishes. Bye.

Hello Catwoman,

Everything is fine. Thanks for asking. Cheers.

Hmmm...you mean....like when communications is censored by those in charge? :-S

I think through out history, there has always been a very thin line between patritoism and nationalism. Someone has to be quite careful about where that line is.
I was looking at the wiki for patriotism link
Patriotism is often portrayed as a more positive alternative to nationalism
patriotism is distinguished from nationalism by its lack of aggression or hatred for others, its defensiveness, and positive community building

As far as patriotism in Turkey is concerned, well, most of our patriots are nationalists with racist elements. I find it quite disturbing actually.
And that type of patriotism should be bashed and smashed into pieces.
In the end, all nationalists call themselves patriots as well. Hitler was a patriot, so as Stalin, so is Bush.

thehandsom, you are contradicting with your own statement when you say most patriots in Turkey are nationalists. Well if someone is a nationalist then he is not exactly a patriot by definition. Maybe you would like to say something like this: of those who can be broadly (and unnecessarily) categorized as patriots, nationalists, right-wing chauvenists etc. the majority is held by nationalists. Even so, patriots are patriots and nationalists are nationalists. You shouldn't refer to one of them and describe the other.

As I wrote earlier, definitions of those concepts vary dramatically depending on the culture or subculture you belong to. Just because you consider yourself thehandsome not every girl is supposed to be crazy for you.

Reason your reason.

Catwoman take your time and write a few more paragraphs to explain your opinion. All you are saying is yes it is true; no it's not right.
Here is my answer: no, you are wrong...

You did not answer my question.

vineyards
all you turkish boys including all other easterners (kazakhs too) speak the same like machines, you all are brought up by one unfailable system. and the worst thing you dont see it.

greeks are bad, very bad, its absolutely okey for turks to speak bad of greeks, but when greeks talk bad of turks its unacceptable!

Catwoman, what is the relation of Ataturk with Stalin and Hitler? Is he more akin to them than femme is to Kazakhstan?

Many Polish friends I chatted online curse Turks. With so many Balkan countries cursing Turks (for example when you are playing a computer game) passes for a routine salutation which is solemnly made. They say (including some Kazakhs) Hey ....... Turk .... get the hell out of here. I rarely see any Turks showing this kind of a reaction to them. I believe their brains are washed in their families and in the churches they go. This problem is more evident among teenagers who don't know yet any systematic ways to exercise their hatred.

Nevertheless, there is a full district called Polonezköy in Istanbul. Our sultan opened up the doors to thousands of them in their difficult times. Today, all those Polish settlers enjoy a very good life in their new home. It is unbelievable why an avarage Pole should hate a Turk because our history is full of accounts of our troops helping them out of besieges and attacks. The same is true for the Jews too. We did make a number of outrageous mistakes too. For the time being none has been proven and research continues with all sorts of claims being made.

Today I am chatting with one Kazakh and a Polish girl whose only problem seem to be the anti western sentiment in Turkey. To put the record straight, I do have lots of friends in the Western world and I am a fan of their music, culture and heritage. What I am against is the nationalistic policies the so called falcons in American are following. For example, did any one of the debaters here ever read the National Defense Doctrine of the US government. After reading it you will realize why Bush can be categorized alongside Hitler. Because even Hitler could not dare pass such an aggressive defense doctrine in his hey day.

Catwoman follow this link to read the Polish account of what forced the Poles to come to Turkey and what happened to them here : http://www.polonezkoy.com/history.html


The we can discuss your remaining prejudices as well as the reasons why me and other Turks should be blatantly cursed by the Poles we meet.

Let me tell you beforehand, you have enough prejudices to fill the Earth.

It can never be anyway.

Where we are supposed to be honest about our past, you are supposed to be honest about the present situation. It is the christiandom which sets you apart from the East. In our glorious past there were crusades. The crusades did not start with Turks. They came to Istanbul at the time of the Byzantine and pillaged the city doing unheard of malice, stealing the city's ornaments to put them on display in their own towns. Turks took up the sword to defend the muslim world and they succeeded in that as they reached the heart of Europe in Vienna. It is this threat that demonized Turks as the vandals from the East, the scorch of God. It is still that notion that keeps us apart. History is a bit tricky, there is not a single version of it. As a result, you can't claim you thoroughly know it.

vineyards, you are still that boy who needs to grow up.
kazakhs cursed turks? oh, how dare they curse holy turks?
look, if we talk about internet, we meet different people on net. if i base my opinion on those whom i met on net, i should really have a disgusting attitude towards turks, greeks, arabs, spaniards as well as kazakhs and poles.
as for kazakhs who fought against turks relating to the oil business, i wouldnt touch the subject.
turks in my country, i mean males, i remember them as those who used to have good trading skills, or e.g. those who had cars (it was luxury to have one at those times) and were busy driving russian girls.
as for the attitude of kazakhs towards turks, unfortunately, the majority loves and respects turks, when ussr collapsed, kazakhs were very proud to study in turkey or establish new turkish high schools in the country. it was smth very prestigous. but i saw the results: the boys i knew, whom i really liked, became women haters due to the islamic brainwashing in the turkish universities, suddenly they stopped talking to me just because i was a woman.

as for poles, sorry, poles actually dont have a clue about turks and turkey. most of them recall turkey as a nice country where they were forced to travel to get cheap goods to sell in bazars.

So, aside from the Nationalist Vs. Patriot debate...WHAT ARE YOUR INFORMAL THOUGHTS ON TURKISH CLASS??

I think the Balkans and Central Europe do keep rememberance of turkish invasions, rememberance that often takes form of a well preserved stereotype nowadays, including sometimes idioms, too.
Hungary keeps the memories of being beinkg pasalik. and as for Transylvania (formerly independent principate, alterning with inclusion in Habsburg Imperium, then Hungarian Kingdom, now included in Romania) rememberance of fights and paying tributes to the Ottoman Empire is quite alive. The material tributes and human sacrifices are the hardest to forget... If you ask macars, they will tell you about macar children kidnapped to be brought up as janissaries who eventually would end up fighting against christians, about the new-born girls to whom their parents had a cross burned on their forehead so that they would not be carried away by the turks.

But also, and i am speaking merely for Transylvania here, there is still alive the memory of Prince Rakoczi, the greatest ruler of Transilvania (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_II_R%C3%A1k%C3%B3czi) , who after being defeated in the kuruc - labancz war refuses polish krown offer , accepts Ottoman invitation and takes exile in Tekirdag, along with many macar noblemen. One of his followers is Ibrahim Muteferrika, a transylvanian converted to Islam, the first Muslim to run a printing press with movable Arabic type (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_Muteferrika). Muteferrika was born in my town .
Hystory in the Balkanians is tormented, sometimes swinging back and forth like a pendulum between the addherence at or the conquerence by the one of the two empires...i think it would be a nice change to overcome past and prejudices. Looking from a (my) Balkanian point of wiev, at first sight it is easy to have prejudices, at a second you will be in doubt of the former prejudices, several sights might strongly confuse you... Then again, hystory is like a turning wheel. It repeats itself. In the meanwhile, stereotypes lasts.

Excuse me, but....:-S Just a little reminder:

Criticism of Ataturk is like holding a red flag in front of a bull....and you must know that. Without Ataturk there would be no Turkey. Including his name in relationship with Stalin or Hitler is insensitive to the extreme, or it is provocative. What on earth are you trying to do here?

9. Avoid personal disputes and arguments. Personal correspondence postings should be kept at a minimum. Personal attacks or insults directed towards other users will not be tolerated. Basically if you don't have anything nice to say then just don't say it all. If somebody posts an insulting comment do not reply to it. It will only result in starting a flame-war. Instead, send a Private Message to one of the forum moderators and they will take care of it.
10. Any discussion on politics or religion and religious matters is strictly prohibited.

As an administrator Catwoman, it seems you should be particularly sensitive to these matters, instead of fanning the flames.
In looking at this thread (and others), it appears you are injecting religious and political matters to the conversation.

Catwoman are you really sending these posts for discussing something or is it just a pillow fight for you? If you are aware of a better form of hospitality and virteous treatment in your own history please quote it to me.

I believe in the decency of my own hospitable people and I am proud of being one of them. I don't think they deserve anyone of the disparagement you are trying to direct at them. You can't judge an entire nation with observations based on a few people.

I dont agree with you vine..
I dont think my satements were contradicting at all.
I was simply trying to say that there is a thin line between them and someone has to be very careful where it stands.
And all nationalists call them patriots (culture or country is nothing to do with it). When you hear some patriotic comments from a Turk, I always get a bit suspicious to be honest, thinking that 'OMG here comes another racist'. And, sadly, 99% of the time I am right.
The meaning of those words differ from culture to culture? They might.
But, however, racism is racism anywhere.


About my list: I was trying to say that all those leaders did/do these things for some reasons. They had/have patriotic reasons why they do or did.
They were all patriots in their definitions.
About Bush: Oh boy..He deserves to be in that list. If he will not be, what are we going to with nearly 1 million dead Iraqies or Afghans? What are we going to do with 4 million displaced people in Iraq? And all of these are STILL going on as we write/read here.

About Ataturk: He was a dictator sometimes. He did make mistakes. But dont forget he was a very good soldier lived in the last century's world.
He was a dictator to stop anybody being a dictator after him and he tried to creat a democratic society from ashes.
I dont think he should be in that list. But we, Turks, should not be cross with people critisising him either. Because we can easily defend him.

About racisim and nationalism in Turkey: There is a lot to say. We , Turks should know our past better. We should know how it all started, we should know how it was centuries ago (no racism I believe), how it was a century ago (rise of nationalism world wide) , how it was during and after WW2 (racist ideas, hitler, Nihal atsiz in Turkey) and where we are now after all.
We can not just say 'centuries ago we welcomed jews from spain' and forget 1915 , how we kicked out greeks, how we tried to call kurds 'turks living in mountains, walking on the snow and making sounds -kart-kurt'. We should face all our history without fear and without picking up some part of it only.
So we can move on.
....
Phew...
I looked at what i wrote..It looks pretty serious stuff (deaths/dictators etc)..
Lets forget all above
here is a link for people, who miss istanbul alot.

There is again a thin line that seperates us in our definitions of certain concepts. You are describing chauvenist nationalists and categorizing them as patriots just because they call themselves as such. We musn't base on people's ow asssumptions as to who they are. We know that everyone thinks he is right so they chose the best sounding attributes when describing themselves.

I will cut it short because I don't want this one to go out of control too. If you want to discuss this we must either do that via PM's or through some other political forum.

I believe we are all guilty at one time or another in discussing political or religous topics. Even replying or posting in a forum where discussions on these topics are taking place is considered to be guilt by association. However, we all of the freedom to choose whether or not to partake in such discussions or reading these threads.

I personally find many of the posts to be hyprocritical from certain individuals here. It's ok to scrutinize, attack and insult others in your own manner. However when the table is turned, I see quotes by members reciting the rules here. How hyprocritical is that, I ask.

The same members who feel violated and insulted that their past, present government,leader and country is being thrown under the bus. Have no problem insulting another countries government or leader. The saying goes you reep what you sow. Don't expect people to give you the respect that you lack in the first place. You don't deserve it!

I hear more Bush bashing at this site than I hear in the media. The facts are we all live in countries where we have militaries who have led or participated in some form of violence. Whether it's current or in the past it's part of history now.

We all have our own opinions here on whats right and wrong. But if you continue to express yours here so freely, be prepared to get a reaction and this may not be the reaction your looking for either.

Bush drunk at a wedding in 1992

Bush drunk at a wedding

I would drink too.

I prefer a frosted mug with Heineken, please. Imagine that I prefer imports over domestic.

While we are celebrating our Holly month Ramazan,some of TC members were celebrating with us,by bashing
İslam,Muslims and Turkish people of course 'for they are guilty of being Muslims and Easterns too i guess'
and TC allowing it!

İ really dont know,what is your problem people ?!!

Muslim Flag In Venice
http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_7_22021_-1

İs a relationship between turkish man and English woman possible ?
http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_15_7864

We who we are,and you who you are, we didnt ask you to be like us,and we dont want to be like you too,we are Muslims,and you are Christians ,or Jewish ,..ect

Want to know eachothers?
Want to know about us ? Why criticise us then?
You disagree with our religion in many things ?we disagree with yours too,but we dont bash or attack!

WHAT İS YOUR POİNT ?!

We are bad ?! Ok dont be like us ..and THAT İS İT !
İslam is bad ?
Ok dont be Muslims !
Turkish men are bad ?
Ok then dont fall in love with them and dont marry them !

But have respect for who and what we are,as we have for who and what you are !

Seeing as it seems you are referring to me in the below quote, I'd like to ask just where I attacked anyone. When a post seems inaccurate, I do scrutinize the contents. Pointing out inaccurate posts is not an attack.

Teaschip1 said "I personally find many of the posts to be hyprocritical from certain individuals here. It's ok to scrutinize, attack and insult others in your own manner. However when the table is turned, I see quotes by members
reciting the rules here. How hyprocritical is that, I ask."

Yes, I posted the forum rules here.....it seems they have been ignored. They are hard to find, so I was trying to make it easier for people to find.

Teaschip1 said "The same members who feel violated and insulted that their past, present government,leader and country is being thrown under the bus. Have no problem insulting another countries government or leader. The saying goes you reep what you sow. Don't expect people to give you the respect that you lack in the first place. You don't deserve it!"

I have never posted anything here that is not a proven fact. I am amazed at the ignorance of some of the members here and the inaccurate posts.

Teaschip1 said "I hear more Bush bashing at this site than I hear in the media. The facts are we all live in countries where we have militaries who have led or participated in some form of violence. Whether it's current or in the past it's part of history now.

We all have our own opinions here on whats right and wrong. But if you continue to express yours here so freely, be prepared to get a reaction and this may not be the reaction your looking for either."

I have not been expressing opinions. I have been reporting facts.

I am not anti-West, but I am distressed by the current trend towards commercialization and commodification of everything. Is nothing sacred? Is nothing part of the commons? Even peoples genome can be patented. What is that? Seeds from plants are infertile and they cross pollinate, making whole fields nonproductive, just so some coropration can profit on it? Even such a precious resource as water is being bought and sold. Where are we going with this?

Corporate Water Privitization:
http://www.sierraclub.org/committees/cac/water/

One-Fifth of Human Genes Have Been Patented, Study Reveals
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1013_051013_gene_patent.html

Refering to me alameda ?
İ didnt mean you,those were my informal thoughts about TC in Ramadan !

No, I was not referring to you Canli, I was responding to teaschip1. In my post I quoted her, not you. I too am very distressed with the vitrioic comments here.

Ramadan Mubarak!