Please, no explanations at all or long answers,

Only a simple yes or no.

We don't need this thread to start a debate. I only want to see the groups perception.

Has Turkish Language Class become too anti islam and anti turkish?

Yes

I've been here around 2 and a half years, and in that time I've seen a change towards a more anti Turk and definitly anti Islamic rhetoric.

What a loaded question..without explanation NO......

I agree with teas, it's an incredibly loaded question and I am sure that those who have been around here long enough already know who will respond and how they will respond.

And Keith, come on man, you broke your own rule...what happened to a simple yes or no answer?

No.

No.

It goes through phases on and off, depending on the people who join

.

Aw damn, I should have quoted you Keith! Now you have gone and edited your post and made my comment look out of place!

Maybe!

I have only been on the site for 8 months or so.

Some people post anti Turk and anti Islam comments.

But we have seen a rash of resignations

I am waiting to see what develops.

YES ABSOLUTELY...

'NO' from me.

Actually, I have a feeling that some of my posts might be part of the reason why some people feel the site is more 'anti Turkish and anti islam'.
well..
If you think, the 'empty nationalism' is turkish and not being in the herd is anti-turkish;

if you think, supporting 'army's involvement in politics' is turkish but critising it anti-turkish;

if you think, 'pure racism' is turkish and 'being against' it is anti-turkish;

if you think, 'supporting islam as a regime' is turkish and 'being against' is anti-turkish;

if you think saying 'our eastern problem can be only solved by incursions' is turkish and 'hey. we did it nth times but no solution so far' is anti-turkish.

if you say 'islam gives more freedom to women' is islamic but saying 'show it to me where' is anti islamic..

Then..
well..
let it be..

Exactly, besides, some of us have been here long enough to have already discussed interesting sites, food, clothes etc. If you don't believe me - search the archives. We talked about holidays, behaviour, music. We even discussed shaving. Is it possible to go on about these things forever? Lots of language tips were given and are still available in the Language forum. If somebody has a language question they should post it instead of complaining that nobody discusses language here. The thing is, not many users are active in the forum. Those who are usually have known each other for a long time so instead of discussing language questions on board, we ask them by PMs and are sure to get a straightforward, personal explanation

Now Keith is going to kill me for getting off topic...

Shoot me if you want or make fun of my counting skills but here's what I got (a poll should have a closure, right?)

This poll was started to show that my thoughts are not in the minority. Kudos to Catwoman for listening to members and attempting to make positive changes. Thats all I can ask for.

Who voted NO here,
we know them are from anti-Islam ,anti turkish group ,
Therefore, the result appears like that ,so this vote unfair

Well elham I won't speak for everyone else who voted no, I know they are quite capable of speaking for themselves. However, I voted NO and you will not find one solitary post of mine that is anti-islam OR anti-turkish...not one. You really shouldn't make such assumptions.

Elham, if you were of a different opinion, why didn't you vote?

Besides, I voted NO and I am not anti-Islamic and definitely not anti-Turkish.

Once again you are broad-banding and making a very generalized and simplistic statement. How do you know what other members knowledge base of Islam is? Maybe that is your perception, but, you have no clue.
When you…and others…post your “informational” links, aren’t they skewed to your belief system? That doesn’t make them any more fact or anymore correct than anyone else’s OPINION.

And it was your opinion that there was not anti-islamic comments on the site. Obviously, others feel like comments have crossed the line. Everyone has their individual threshold of tolerence for sensitive subjects. I dont even know what you are going on about anymore. This isn't even about a specific point anymore...

Although, there is a lot of people who did think yes. They voiced there opinions on this and left the site, so they are unable to take part in this poll. I still speak to quite a few on msn who left for this reason.

I have explained on several occasions that I am not a believer. Nevertheless, I believe criticism directed towards religions from those who are not essentially involved in that religion is nothing but a violation of personal freedoms of those people.

You can come up with lots of arguments to criticize the Hindus, Buddhists,Muslims,Christians and Jews. This is not something unheard of. Muslims do this to Jews and vice versa. Many countries split because of differences in faith,ethnicity and culture e.g. India - Pakistan and Yugoslavia. What that criticism has served is a huge question mark.

I believe faith should remain between the believer and the believed. Regimes must not impose a certain belief onto people. Both in Europe and here in Turkey this mistake was made repeatedly. The palace and Anatolia diverged into different sects. The result was a large scale cleansing operation that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people over the centuries. The Nazi Germany detested the Jews living in their country, the Serbian snipers barbarously massacred their Bosnian brothers and neighbors. The cause was religion; religion claimed more lives than fatal epidemic diseases did.

If a woman prefers to wear a veil just because her free mind tells her that she should then no one can stop her from doing that. If however there is oppression in her country and if she is denied of free choice therefore, all the women and men in the world must do something to set her free. Should we send tanks and war planes or drop bombs to achieve that? Should we feed our greed by stealing the resources of other countries taking advantage of their weaknesses? This is what is happening out there.

We must be looking forward to a fairer world. How will the world be fair if we cannot become fairer towards others ourselves?

Good points, Vineyards. Thanks.

I think it's important that members are able to voice their opinions to Admin/Moderators in private so that they can keep their political/religious standpoint private. Many people on the site don't mind others knowing this information but some people do and have worked hard to keep it private. I hope members will agree that everyone should have the right to give their examples, if they have them, in confidence.

OK , we might say the loud voices of the past may have no problem in posting such information publicly. However, there will be many who simply follow the threads and don't get involved because they have not felt comfortable (whichever viewpoint they have). This does not mean they don't have an opinion about whether or not some members have been anti-whatever subject has been discussed. So, these are the members that may wish to remain in the shadows, but put forward their point of view in confidence, via pm. After all, whether they join in political and religious based topics or not, they are members and they have a right to give their views to Admin, in confidence.

Would we, as citizens of our respective homelands appreciate our government requesting that we tell them openly who we voted for in elections? I doubt it because we have a right to keep such information personal to ourselves. Similarly all TC members have a right to vote in private or refrain from voting at all if the poll is on the public forum (so figures may be wildly inaccurate to date, whichever way the swing might be). They also have a right to resist posting their views (whatever persuasion they are)on the public forum. Silence does not mean agreement one way or another, it may simply mean apprehension that they will be judged.

I once heard some one say . . . well as usual I can't remember the exact words, so I hope someone will help me . . . I think the quote went something like this:

"There are three things one should never discuss with friends, religion, politics and . . ." Ha ha I can't remember the rest of the quote and there may only have been 2 things . . .

Well if this is advice for friends, then there's no hope for acquaintances and strangers

It's sad that perhaps we sometimes see ourselves as belonging to a particular " group" on the site because once we get into that senario it's easy to draw "battle lines" . . . that's a little strong but I can't think of another phrase, I'm sure people understand what I mean though. By "group" I am thinking more of friendship group rather than political or religious group. I guess we are all guilty of this and by the same token there have been some great differences of opinion between friends too.
When we have these debates with our friends though, we tend to forgive and forget (that belies the quote I gave earlier I think ).

Well, Catwoman, I was not referring specifically to you in that post. I did not imply that anyone is limiting anyone's freedom by criticizing him/her. Nonetheless, I did say such criticism is indeed fruitless. I seperately explained that believing is a personal freedom. You of course do not limit any personal freedoms by indicating your opinion. Nonetheless again, if criticism turns into a fight and causes people to take sides and if restrictions are imposed upon people barring their freedom of speech then all the balance is suddenly deranged and people think badly of one another. If you (literal) criticize someone, you (literal again) should let that person criticize you back. In doing so, you (not literal this time) should try to remove any obstacles that may prevent that person from indicating his/her opinions freely.

The inevitable outcomes of this choice are fighting and then more fighting, and then more and more fighting followed by still more fighting and sadly no conclusion.

If we want to improve something, we should determine our scope carefully. We cannot solve all the problems in one go because we are ourselves both the sources and the victims of the same problems.

Thanks Karpusqueen. I like Peter Ustinov...
I know my English is a bit old fashioned but I like it this way.

Vineyards looks like a white Michael Jordan actually...

Life is full of enigmas...

Look at what's happening here - some members were unhappy with what the site was like, a poll was introduced to investigate the feelings of TC members. Although the result was in favour of those who didn't mind what the site had looked like, decisions were made to improve the site. Yet, still the minority who expressed their discontent in the poll keep complaining about the poll not having been anonymous. Please, do realise that although you were in minority, changes are being introduced. I can't understand what is bugging you about that...

Quoting catwoman: Quoting vineyards: The inevitable outcomes of this choice are fighting and then more fighting, and then more and more fighting followed by still more fighting and sadly no conclusion. Therefore, I would like us not to fight...

Here is the recipe if you don't want to see people fight consider this:

Although we call humans as intelligent creatures their mindset is essentially not very different from those of animals. In other words, every human has a list of priorities which gets into play when people make statements,decisions or amendments. On becoming a mother, a woman adopts a different mindset. Her child becomes the center of her life (exceptions don't break the rule). She has now produced another person whom she is supposed to love, protect and confirm regardless of who the child really is. To a mother her child is on top of her list of priorities. Faith is an equally important priority for so many people. You know almost in everyone's book, it is written that Abraham attempted to sacrifice his son to God. Today, the followers of Abraham, Jesus, Mohammad can do much and much more than that. When you criticize their religion, in effect, you are attacking their mindsets. Many religions consider this blasphemy. Blasphemy is a major sin according to all religions.

Just remember how the Christian world were divided into so many sects, so many different subcultures. A consul was held in Nicea (modern day Izmit near the Sea of Marmara)those who believed that Jesus was God formed one sect and those who said God was God and Jesus was just a prophet formed another. Then a gentleman translated the bible into German which caused the formation of yet another sect and they all butchered one another mercilessly. They probably considered the other sects as deviants, who committed blasphemy.

Alevites formed a seperate sect and did not ever get near Sunnites also refusing to worship in mosques because they defended Ali was a prophet too and he was slain in a mosque. Then the Sultan slain so many thousands of them in one go claiming that they were committing blasphemy.

So, the magic formula is:

Don't go and tell a mother that her child sucks, she will probably attack you...

When you criticize people think about their mindsets and priorities...

Sure she'll be enraged. But there's a difference between telling a mother her child sucks and telling her that her child misbehaves. The former is insulting, the latter criticism

The emphasis there is not on the reaction of a mother.

Some people just like to provoke people to get reactions. They like to belittle what others have or are or believe in to make themselves feel better. There is a BIG difference between the people who are using the site and ALSO have discussions with different views regarding religion and politics etc. and the people who have come on with ONLY the intention to provoke with no genuine interest in Turkey at all. It's very chidish.

100% right Kirsty and those are the types of threads that will get locked in a heart beat...

I would just say that often times, people don't post to get reactions, but they still get reactions... but of course, we would never dare to blame those who have hurt feelings, right?

GG, how about cooling down (that goes for everybody)? Let's turn over a new leaf and keep posting here in a polite manner. I don't think there's anything bad about making KeithL mod. So far he's been doing a good job so let's give him some credit...

Peace Train, then why are you and your friends constantly complaining that there's something wrong with the web site if you know that you cannot publicly state your reasons! Why haven't you simply pm'd admin or a mod for that as well? This is really beyond me!

I saw members who insulted the prophet of Islam here and some other making fun including moderator also and as expected nothing happened to them. Same disrespectful behaviour applied to founder of Turkish Republic.

Btw what happened to provecateur of this site? it seems she was deleted and reason “users request” (who did she insult this time? Admin?) but adonis deleted and reason“personal attacks”.

sorry my laptop has problem

This is the core of the issue. We agree that especially the Taliban terrorizing women in Afghan is wrong. There really isn't much to discuss. But, what is the purpose of the thread?

Well..Actually..
sorry to everybody but this is becoming a comedy show here..
First of all, of course the question itself keith asked:
"Has Turkish Language Class become too anti islam and anti turkish?"

if you ask what the definition of anti-turkish or anti-islam, everybody will give different answer. Because, it is as good as me asking everybody that 'am I handsome or not'..

The second thing is the roundness of those words, because you dont have a proper definition of those entities.

You may think that when somebody says 'hey..there is a link here saying that mohammed got married to 9 years old child' is and insult to islam..

But Is it really insulting islam? is it true that 'that incident' happened? what is wrong with mentioning it?
and as a person who have strong beliefs and who feels offended, dont you have ENOUGH knowledge TO DEFEND mohammed?

Somebody gave a link, I remember, saying that 'Ataturk was a dictator'.
Is it anti Turkish? Is it really anti -turkish? well may be that person knows something historically which you dont know.
and dont you have ANY knowledge about ataturk to defend him?

It totally defeats the purpose of a forum if you can't discuss anything negative or controversial about Turkey, its culture or its religion. I talk openly about these topics with many of my Turkish friends and husband...and they don't get nearly as uppity as people on this site. People have been completely disrespectful and downright rude about my country and I have never complained. I have also been ridiculed for my religious convictions...but I have never complained about that either. My whole point is, offense is often taken where none is intended. I think many people think they want to discuss differences but really they want to convince other people that they are wrong.

I think we need Dr.Phil in TC to clear all our problems here

Even Alpha, I defend his right to post his occasional anti-US threads. But its any personal attack that accompany's the message that should not be allowed.

I think there was a misunderstanding of Keith's words. We have agreed that there will be no censoring as to what kind of news can be posted and discussed as long as the discussion does not contain insults and personal attacks and is not meant to either promote or to denigrate Islam.

I have been on this site for over 3 years and have really noticed a different in some topics. Some that are brought up on a regular basis and i feel just started to get an arguementative reaction from people.Some people are anti turkish and anti islam, but also some of the turks are disrespectful of other people countries or beliefs.Please let have turkishclass back to what it use to been. A SITE FOR LEARNING TURKISH LANGAUGE AND CULTURE.

only turkish is forbidden on turkish class forums

Lapinkuta, if you go through the forum archive, you'll see there are many threads criticising USA.

That's why this forum could do with a search engine...not everybody likes checking all posts, especially that usually the content of a thread has nothing to do with its title ...

TO: Admin and ALL CLASSMATES

I have received the following warning - in my private mail - from one of the leading "free thinkers" of this group.

I have requested Admin to confirm whether or not she is authorised to issue such a patronising and biased warning.

If it turns out that she is, I will no longer post any further messages and will ask my account to be deleted. If she is not however, I would expect her to stop her involvement as a moderator.

----------------------

catwoman 13 Mar 2008 Thu 07:51 am

Hi AlphaF,
I would like to let you know that we decided to not have any topics about Israel or American politics in the forums any more. So please don't start those threads as they will be deleted.

Thank you.


This post is my evidence how they start a new topic or change secretly...

again - do try keeping up-to-date

http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_11_28727_2

If arguing was a religion it would win hands down! Please everyone........................ Libra = the sign of balance, equilibrium and harmony, so lets have some my dear friends!

Tomorrow is a new day, and for us ugly Westerners it is Easter when we gorge ourselve stupid on Hot Cross Buns and easter eggs and if anyone can tell me why, then I will buy them dinner!

Kisses to everyone and I said I could not tell you what sort of mood I am in!

Actually,it says, she was 26,27 yrs old when he SAV died,ve Allahü âlem

Does anybody know for sure how old she was when the marriage was consummated?

There are also hadiths which say Ayşe was 17-18 when she was married also some hadiths say she was engaged to Cübeyr before she had married the Prophet. Which one do we trust? But people who wants to attack Islam, firstly hold onto these hadiths of Bukhari&Muslim and ignore others as they like. Actually it maybe proved through Kuran and some hadiths comparing both together, Ayse said she was a playing child when the 46th verse of surah Kamer revealed(this hadith is also from Bukhari ironically), this means she was bigger enough to remember when&where this verse revealed, logically she maybe 8-9 years old at that time, and surah Kamer is one of the surahs which was revealed in first years of Islam(4th year of Islam) in Mekkah. As we know that the Prophet and Ayşe married two years after the migration of muslims to Medina then it is clear according to these that she was about 17-18 or 19 when they were married.

No one is supposed to prove anything to anyone.

I know i did not prove anything, as i said in my post . I just transferred what i know, anything wrong?, i did not start this discussion btw.

I am not referring specifically to you but please for a second think about the absurdity of raving about the age of Aisha in a language learning site. Did it stop there and the parties just noted one another's point of view there would be no problem but there is usually more to it.

In the end, I suppose, this is the wrong place for having such discussions. To avoid bitterness, we should really mind our own belief and refrain from criticizing others'.

I am not a moderator of this forum.
I said "I suppose" in other words I am not sanctioning anybody's thoughts, I am just putting forward my opinion at a time when people are getting into these fruitless discussions.
Since the beginning, I have defended the need for respecting each other's faith.

It is a very serious accusation to say that Mohammad had a 9 year old wife which by today's standards is a child abuse case. Do you think such matters should really be discussed here? What kind of an outcome do you expect out of that?

I wouldn't object to discussions about specific details pertaining to a belief system.

For example,
What do you think about after life, how is it described in your faith?
What is the purpose of Asure day?
Why do you fast?

Above questions indicate a geniune curiousity about Islam.
They should be more than welcome and actually provide an excellent opportunity for cultural exchange.

We should support mutual understanding and tolerance. We shouldn't talk about prophet's sex life based on unproven information.

If you look at the posts, I just gave aysa's age- mohammed as an example as a non insulting subject in the begining.
It was just an example. I was, clearly, not try to open a discussion about it. (But some of the muslim friends picked on it and took it as an insult -again-.)

Respecting eachother's faith is one of my princepals too but with a slight difference: you believe critisisim towards religion is violation of personal freedom of speech,whereas I dont.

And although I would not open a subject personally about 'if Mohammad had a 9 year old wife'. But I would not object it either from the 'personal speech point of view'.

And I also mentioned before what is wrong about your idea of 'critisisim towards religion is violation of personal freedom of speech'.
Becasue, critisisim towards religion is NOT 'violation of personal freedom of speech'.

I said in one of my posts:
"any beliefs which are not true or valid will only be revealed through criticism.
What this means is that if people care about the truth, they should not be afraid of criticism.
if they are true then this will strengthen them; if they are wrong, then they will are free to follow new beliefs."

And also I mentioned that

"each person deserves respect as a human being.
But their belief does not get that respect automatically..
The belief has to earn that respect. "

I really reccommend religious people should be more tolerant about 'anything' regarding their religion.
When you dont, it really looks like you are inline with the man in the cave who threathened denmark about the cartoons, with the people who were happy with fatwa about salman rushdie or with the people who tried to burn aziz nesin alive because he wanted to publish satanic verses in Turkish.

So the consequences of whose opinions have we been suffering in the form of misunderstandings, protests and eventually personal attacks?

For my own part, I wouldn't like anyone to call me "zindik", "infidel" or whatever just because I don't believe in one of the established belief systems. It is none of their business, this is a matter of belief and belief is not a matter of discussion.

Discussing religion on an intellectual level demands first of all the presence of a proper platform. Do you think this is the right platform?

Furthermore, if we are hoping to reform a religion, we must really be concentrating on the principal tenets of it. Do you think people are really bringing up such matters?

Today, almost everyone knows everything about every culture, every religion. There is no need to advertise a religion; just be a good believer and stay away from harm's way. If most believers act like that, others will become curious about what causes those people to be so enviable. To my knowledge, Gandhi did not openly invite anyone to become a Buddhist but a Western journalist J. H. Holmes after spending so many years scrutinizing his life dubbed him the greatest man since Jesus and Buddha. So, many Europeans have been converting into the Buddhist faith ever since.

Don't you think the proper way to reform our faith is through setting a good example to others with our stance in life, with our philosophy and the strength of our personalities and not through criticizing a prophet based on unestablished facts about his life?

Last but not least, I do not like when people greet foreigners using religious words. Everyone believes in something, you believe in yours and I in mine. The relationship between people believing in different faiths should be personal not communal, especially in this age.

When a group of French tourists visit a town in our country as a group of people, they do not act like a group of missionaries in search of souls waiting for salvation. They visit that town because they are interested in the people living in there. They spend time there for enjoyment mainly, they do not mind about who believes in what. The people using these forums are not very different from those tourists. They are a group of people who are linked to Turkey for some reason. They are interested in Turkish people, turkish culture and yes, Islam but I suppose no one is really interested in letting this service turn into an arena where religious wars are fought.

Sorry, I was a bit sleepy when I made that quotation. Plus, I write very carelessly.