Sanctimonious
Aenigma would use this word very often.

The government cannot transport individualism or personal freedom on trucks. These concepts develop themselves without the direct influence of the government.

Personal freedom or individualism will be just void concepts in a region that do more to maim a country than to contribute to its progress. DTP hails Ocalan as the leader of the Kurds so do the masses in a couple of Eastern province. The party keeps receiving votes of the Kurdish citizens. If Ocalan is their leader, they are not serving this country at all. It is natural that Kurds are disturbed at seeing the symbols of this country. They prefer their own tri-color flag, they have their own leader. All that has to be done is waiting until the day comes.

Congratulations on you observations. These are your own observations. I always happily defended that we Turks don't have racist elements in our culture after hearing so many UK and Swedish people talk about skin colors, religious beliefs so frequently.

Catwoman, we Turks criticize ourselves more than you know. We have been doing this for at least a couple of centuries.
Sadly, nothing gets better by criticizing when critics contain destructive elements.

For example, when someone implies that our oath is wrong because it contains racist, nationalistic elements then I am entitled to asking this question: why am I supposed to understand that oath the way you do? Why should I not use the word Turk whereas it means nothing more than a citizen of Turkey.

Ethnically, you can be a Kurd, Armenian or whatever but if you are a citizen of this country you are a Turk. You can call yourself an Armenian Turk but it is different from being an Armenian citizen living in Armenia. You need to serve this country. If you don't want to serve this country international laws permit immigration rights. If you feel loyal to Armenia, you are free to go and live there.

For my own part, I never thought about immigrating to the US or the UK because I never felt like serving American or British people or their intererests. I have always wanted to preserve my culture and values, and let me tell you I am very, very, very and very comfortable with a great majority of those values.

I agree with both Keith and Alameda. Global Village project was a lame one from the very beginning. We are all different countries, cultures, nations. I am astounded at seeing how easily some of us have solved the mystery of foreign cultures.

In today's world, you cannot run even the simplest form of international business unless you understand the internal mechanisms of the society you are doing business in.

I am neither like Roswitha, Catwoman, Deli Kizin, Alameda or anyone else belonging to a different nation. I am what I am and it is your problem if you think I am doing the right thing when I live up to your expectations in terms of thinking and reasoning. All that you are doing is trying to reverse irreversible values deep rooted into cultures. I have an accomplished culture which is not like yours, my music is not even similar to yours, my philosophy can be something to be ridiculed from say a German's point of view but in fact it is my life and soul and I am proud of being a member of this culture because it makes me happy.

The schools in Turkey educate Turkish children. Those children will live in Turkey not in Washington or London. They will hopefully stay and work for their country. We know how weakness is penalized in the international arena of politics where everyone works for their interests. We would like them to love their country at least as much as a US, English or Polish person does. (We don't even want them to love it as much as the French do).

Summarily, we would like to hold on to our cultural heritage by living and dying as Turks.

I am proud of my ancestors and I don't mind if they were as poor as African people or as rich as the Swedish. Thanks to the lives of hundreds of thousands of hungry, battered troops that defended their motherland at Dardanelles could we survive as a nation fighting against the English, the French, the Italians, the Greeks and the Indians all at once and at a time when there was no money in the government's coffers. The leader of these people produced a new republic from the ashes of the past. This new republic achieved an unprecedented transformation process which saw the collapse of old institutions, a destruction of the superstitions and quantum leaps in all spheres of life. We needed to be oriented towards a target and we needed to be polarized politically to make that possible. This is a known process.

We know all the heroes of other nations including imaginary ones like Superman or the 50's heroes like Montgomery and Patton, let us not forget Stallone and his
American propoganda series. Those are so comical, in Turkey only comedy versions of them are shot.

Our nationalists are fewer, calmer and essentialy more moderate than the US nationalists I have come accross on the net. For every one hundred ultranationalists with a racial discourse we have just one or two.

There are two big waves in the world today; one is the rise of nationalism which began one and a half centuries ago and it is still going strong, and the other one is the rise of individualism.

There are two types of economic models in the world today; one is based on natural resources and the other is on industry. Industrialized countries used nationalism to split countries into more managable chunks. They neeeded individualism to augment consumption. Individualism destroyed the patriarchal family model and gave way to the formation of new homes with extensive needs in all departments. Nationalism killed peace and harmony and it provided the final curtain for old society.

Once there was prose, poetry, music, social activities, now these are all replaced by an arguably more efficient society of lonesome souls seeking happiness everywhere.

Today, happiness is the most sought after asset.

I have always found this interesting; Black people in the UK speak just like white UK citizens. Whereas in the states, the black population seem to speak a completely different dialect. Of course, this is based on the Black figures presented to us in movies and shows but then most black celebrities also speak with a different accent.

Libralady, the UK was a social state before Thatcher. She said it would not go on like that. Have there been any major changes in the country's healthcare system since her?