To: Torie
And of course Turkey. What happened to the critical mass there? Really not easy to say. Culture is a big part of it. And a government not afraid to clamp down when necessary, I think. Not soft on terrorism, or plans to overthrow the government.
But of course, even in Turkey there are islamists working toward the goal islamists are usually working towards.
77 posted on
07/26/2002 9:13:52 PM PDT by
Cachelot
To: Cachelot; Caligirl for Bush; Torie
The brand of Islam practiced by us Turks has always been different than the Arab motto. There never was any animosity agains Christians or Jews. What happened to the Greeks and Armenians had to do with nation politics, not with religion. Yet females were generally handicapped in Ottoman years, not as much as in Arabia, however, the empire was ruled indirectly by mothers of Sultans for many years.
Many people will say that when the Turks conquered what was then Constantinople, than it was done in the name of Islam. Was it in the name of Islam then that we conquered Arabia? What we did, we did to further and later to preserve our national and imperial borders. Ottoman and then modern Turkish policy were never driven by religion, but by national (and sadly, sometimes personal) interest.
81 posted on
07/27/2002 7:07:20 AM PDT by
a_Turk
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