A good point of view, worth discussing.

Well, I was only refering to social mentality the scope of which is limited to the general outlook of society and not that of individuals one by one.

In the Turkish cinema of the 60´s and 70´s, you would hear all non-muslim foreigners being called as gavur which is derived from the Arabic word kafir meaning infidel or blasphemous.  Tourists would be blamed for smelling like pigs and you name it. We no longer have this bullshit in our movies or in our daily conversations. This is a sign of advancement.

In the past, Europe seemed to be light years ahead of us. Today, the difference is mostly in the financial department. There are areas where I feel Turkey is better than most of Europe and that includes the capacity of improving oneself and getting rid of stereotypes.

 Yes, there is even a little child song about it

Uç, uç  uður böceði

Akþama baban sana terlik, pabuç alacak

Fly, fly, lucky bug

In the evening

Your father will bring you shoes and slippers.

Trudy, Ladyinred and Libralady,

Of course you do have a point. If that problem in the mind did not exist, it would be nonsense to get offended by words, descriptions and choices of vocabulary. Nevertheless, there is indeed a racial awareness still going strong today. This racial awareness splits people into camps. There are many who use this race specific vocabulary for derogatary purposes. There are tens of thousands of people filling stadiums in the heart of Europe booing African players, calling them names, jumping on their seats like monkeys. Samuel Eto´o is just one of these players. He even thought about leaving Europe and playing for an Uzbek club despite being one of the best players in the world. On the other hand, there still a disturbed and agitated black community in the US. This tension sometimes causes violent incidents. If you can not defend an argument in say Harlem or Bronx where the problem (as far as I know) is more evident, you shouldn´t defend it in Paris either.

Whatever we think, whatever that goes through our minds is registered in our language. Language is a mirror of who we are. We cannot think about anything that is impossible to convey in language. Though seemingly incorporeal language therefore, is an organic part of the human body. Language serves a pathway for younger people into our cultures. If you belong to a culture where it is normal to treat people of different colors as if they are different creatures, you see nothing wrong in doing so. You do have a problem if your child wants to marry one of them, if you run into a black person in a dark street and vice versa. If you are a cop, you regard a black person as a potential criminal though he may actually be more innocent than you ever have been. All these are in the thinking and in the language which are mutually related. The starting point of all of this nonsense is the feeling that people of different colors are essentially different. It has such an easy starting point...

In other words, if your language contains myriad of phrases differentiating between blacks and whites then you do have a problem in your social mentality which is properly reflected in the mirror of language. Language is a snapshot of all your social dynamics at any given time.

Any person including a child must see a human when he looks at a person of whatever color in the first place. Any associations in the mind about the nature or personality of that person with his/her skin color is a racist association which we keep inheriting to new generation.

The wovel ( â )  is no longer used in Turkish because it has  actually never existed. Its use was due to a misconception. There is only one wovel (a) and three consonants (k),(l),(g)  that have softer (or maybe lispier) versions that only occur before an (a).

For example, in the word kaðýt, (k) is different from the (k) used in kalýn.  When we say kalýn we use the same consonant used in English. However when we say kaðýt we produce a little bir more frontal and relaxed plosive sound in the glottal opening. It is of course difficult to describe pronunciation by writing. You should listen and repeat.

Turkish word used for black people is "zenci" a derivative of zanci from the Persian language. A quick browse about the origins of this word produces the interesting etymology of the town of Zanzibar.  Zanci originally means rusty.

Interestingly Turks had not had contact with any black people before the 11th century. Therefore all the vocabulary describing them was borrowed from other cultures.  People used the word zenci for ages and then began using siyah or siyahi following the anti racist trend in the US.  The word zenci is now kind of avoided in formal situations.

I have always found the American people to be  extra sensitive about skin color.  Although people in Turkey can´t be called homogeneous racially, there are just a couple words used to describe skin color like esmer and acik tenli (dark and light skinned) or sarýþýn (blonde). 

I know there are many races living in the country but in my opinion race must not be used as part of one´s identity in the US (and any other place).  I mean, we shouldn´t call people as that black lady over there, that white boy etc.  If we don´t know their names, we must call them just a man or a woman. In a newspaper article, unless it is really needed, we musn´t introduce people as black, yellow or white; just their names and surnames. This way we can clean racial awareness in society by educating children accordingly.

Wow, you are fluent in French aren´t you?

I was once warned about the incorrect use of words describing races.

True. There is also the possibility that a person could chose not to get involved in any armed conflict just because it contradicts with his/her belief or opinion. In the case of Muhammad Ali, there are other factors which he explained by saying that he had no interest whatsoever in taking part in the wars of the Christian community his being a Muslim who would only answer a call to arms issued by Muslim leaders in line with the teachings of Quran.  That would be a holy war or jihad which is the Islamic version of crusade.

Today by definition most industrialized societies are run by secular regimes requiring worldly and religious affairs to be seperated. In other words, while it sounds logical to open a window for different beliefs, it seems rather problematic to accord legislation to the specific needs of individual religions in certain controversial matters like military service.  The cause of Muhammed Ali therefore a controversial one too. True, he is a conscientious objector but he also states he would answer a religious call to  war and how much does that violate his responsibilities as a citizen is a matter of curious debate.

On the other hand, if a nation attacks other nations by intentionally placing themselves on the side of a certain religion and demonizes other religion(s) how secular can it be?  For example,  the EU describes itself as a community with shared values. It goes without saying that many of those are Christian values. That is why the EU is often referred to as a  Christian club. That also points out to the wide spread public preference among European countries about staying together as a Christian society.

Other aspects of his decision as laid out in the paragraph I quoted from your reply are quite applausable since his stance requires both sacrifice and bravery. In the end, he loses his fighting license, a few golden years in his cintillating career which was spent in stead  facing  fierce criticism. It takes being in his shoes to understand the difficulty and complexity of that decision.

I tend to think conscientious objectors must not necessarily be cowards. There are different opinions and different measures of decency. As explained before, I am not a conscientious objector myself. Nevertheless, if people become conscientious objectors because of their beliefs or ideologies then we should at least listen to them. They can still be recruited if constitutionally military service must be compulsory and can be assigned supportive duties that don´t involve killing people. This may serve a  middle point for them. I understand there will be radical minds who will think even a supportive role will be a violation of their beliefs but when we look at the matter from the other angle, if other people must die for their countries they must do something in return. In other words, there must be a comprimize.