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Hidden Women.. [Turkish Editorial]
Hurriyet ^ | 4/25/2003 | Bekir COªKUN

Posted on 04/25/2003 11:10:30 AM PDT by a_Turk

The fundamentalists have denied women.

Women have been assumed not to exist in law, social life, in business.

While counting two women's witness equal to one man's, they've made women second class.

They bought and sold her like a commodity.

There's not one woman in any assembly outside the closed family unit.

They wouldn't even let them enter places of worship.

And even when they finally had to leave this world they love, women do not take their place at the final ceremonies held in mosque courtyards..

*

From northern Africa to Afghanistan, from the Sudan to Azerbaidjan, without exception, this is the reason for the lands of Islam being so poor, backward, and oppressed.

Any country where you ignore fifty percent of the population, any country where you reduce the workforce by fifty percent and force them to be consumers only..

Any country where you exclude those creative, loving, peaceful women from political office and force them to remain at home..

That country will be bankrupt..

Just like the muslim countries from northern Africa to Afghanistan, from the Sudan to Azerbaidjan.

*

And Turkey?

Because it is home to women a bit more free, a bit more respected, a bit more vocal, Turkey is a bit less bankrupt in comparison.

That is why the headscarf discussion is important.

Outside of the shows by the speaker of Parliament, the ruling party wives are home, quiet, and almost non-existent.

That's what bothers me..

Hidden women whose silhouettes can occasionally be seen in the media, who are seated in the back rows at celebrations, who are horrified of the media, who don't know what to do, who are forbidden to speak..

Sure they deserve respect.

They are each mothers..

Home makers, who weep during hard times, who cannot show their happiness during good days, intimidated..

And to top it off, prisoners of an ideology which is criticized and blamed by at least seventy five percent of the population..

Women who can't just say: "If it's a problem, I'll remove my turban.."

That's what bothers me..

Women who exist, but almost don't.


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: freedom; fundamentalism; headscarf; islam; islamists; turkey
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To: George W. Bush
You are still refusing to read and understand the facts I have been showing you all day. Please allocate at least one day of your time to really read and understand the documents and websites I have presented to you. Before you continue to slander my ancestors and accuse them of crimes they have not committed, you can at least show some respect for a nation which has lived side by side with nations of other religions at a time when belief in another religion or membership of a different race was enough cause for death or deportation in the rest of the world.
101 posted on 04/26/2003 6:55:40 PM PDT by Turk2 (Dulce bellum inexpertis)
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To: a_Turk
The patient I referred to had three babies. When the youngest was 18 months old the husband raped the child to death. This drew the attention of the authorities, who were finally able to throw the father in prison, declared the woman an unfit mother, and rescued the surviving kids from a nightmare of squalor and abuse and get them into foster care. The mother finally made it to the State mental hospital. She was as sick as her husband.
102 posted on 04/26/2003 7:02:48 PM PDT by Mortimer Snavely (More Power to the Troops! More Bang for the Buck!)
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To: a_Turk
Your comments characterize a widespread problem that has been plaguing the USA for at least forty years now. We have levels of mental illness and just plain callous, brutal disregard for life which would have been considered something out of a social science fiction book fifty years ago.
103 posted on 04/26/2003 7:09:18 PM PDT by Mortimer Snavely (More Power to the Troops! More Bang for the Buck!)
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To: a_Turk; George W. Bush; Turk2; Mortimer Snavely; Mihalis
The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide specifies five criteria the presence of any single one of which suffices to qualify the crime as genocide. The Christian Armenian genocide by the Muslim Turks meets, not one, but at least four of said criteria. That is why it has been recognized as genocide not only by the Association of Genocide Scholars ( in 1997) , the Encyclopedia of Genocide (in 1999) and a group of eminent Holocaust scholars ( in 2000), but also by the following international institutions:
1980 Minority Rights Group, London. The Armenians, Report No. 32.
1984 Permanent Peoples' Tribunal.
1984 World Council of Churches.
1985 The UN Subcommission of Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.
1987 The European Parliament.
1989 The American Union of Hebrew Congregations.
104 posted on 04/26/2003 7:11:40 PM PDT by eleni121
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To: George W. Bush; All
Here is a good source on the misconceptions of Turks in the West at the time.

Les Massacres d'Armenie
Pierre Loti



Our dear and more than ever admirable France is, I believe, a country in which one lives in the utter ignorance of what is going on at the neighbor's. Turkey, for example, who was our ally during centuries, however, is unknown to us as the regions of Central Africa or the moon. Although the winters in Constantinople are much harsher than in Paris, nevertheless, I see our tourists arrive in Constantinople with linen clothes in December! Haven't I read in great Parisian newspapers, while my ship struggled snow storms for weeks, "Isn't Mr. Pierre Loti the happy one to be at the Bosphorus, the land of eternal Spring!" Because, you understand, this country is in the Orient, isn't that so; then, for the most of the average French, when one says Orient, one thinks of blue skies, sun, palm trees and camels. And in their amusing ingenuity, they confuse Turk with Kurd, Ottomans with Levantines, etc.; for them, all who wear a red hat, are always the Turks.

Go and try to open the eyes of some of the bourgeois back home, who, from father to son, are mesmerized into idiotic stupor, do I dare say, about the alleged ferocity of my poor friends the Turks. At the beginning of the Balkan War, was I not scoffed at, insulted, menaced enough for having taken their defence, for having dared to say that the Bulgarians, on the contrary, were cruel brutes and that their Ferdinand of Coburg (of whom all our ladies had taken fancy to and displayed his colors) was nothing but a wretched monster.)

Of that one, for example, of Coburg, I am vindicated today, because he has unmistakably proven what I have tried to warn: five times traitor in ten years and firing behind the back of the Allies without warning them, I do not see how one could ask for more! As to his soldiers, -- almost direct descendants of the Huns, -- I could relate first hand of their atrocities, I could cite about the devastating reports of the international commissions sent to the scene, but no one wanted to hear. No, it were the Turks, always the Turks, the Turks that one wanted to shame, and, as Gospel truth, one accepted at home, the periodic short communiqués of the Palatinate Ferdinand, who repeated this refrain: "The Turks massacre, the Turks continue to kill and commit the worst of horrors, etc., etc."

For different reasons, I will keep quiet about the dealings of some of the Christian allies of the good Bulgarians of the era.

My goal, today, is only to affirm, once again, this acknowledged truth, furthermore to those amongst you who have taken the time to document, namely, that the Turks have never been our enemy. The enemy of the Russians, oh! that unquestionably yes, they are and how, by all means, they would not be, under the continuous and relentless menace of the latter, who do not even make an effort to hide their obstinate intention to destroy them. It is not to us that they have declared war, but to the Russian, and who in their place would not have done the same? Later, history will say, among other things, how it was begun, that war, by some savages from Germany, aboard the small boats of the Sultan's fleet and who, in order to make things irreversible, did not hesitate to fire, without warning to the Russian side even before Enver, who perhaps still hesitated, was informed about it. Besides, what do the Turks owe us? Since the Crimean Expedition, we have not stopped to march with their enemies, and, in the last place, during Balkan War, without doubt, in order to thank them for their generous hospitality, that they gave us during all the years in their country, we have grossly insulted them, continuously, in almost all our newspapers, that which caused them, I know, the most painstaking stupor. It is a desperate act that in order to escape being crushed by Russia, that they threw themselves to the arms of the detested Germans, -- I say detested, because I am assured by a intimate minority, basically, they excrement it. Like how then to wish upon them a fatal error without mercy which had so many extenuating circumstances and for which that are prepared to make an honourable apology.

Oh! what prejudice brought on to France, if we would have had to give the Russians this Constantinople, which was a French city from the heart, a city where we could have said to be at home, and where the Russians, barely arrived, would have expulsed us as undesirable intruders! What breach of this principle of nationalities, nevertheless invoked today by all peoples, what breach if it would have been executed a certain shady signed agreement which tore, on top of Stamboul, from the Turkish homeland, still its cradle since its birth and all the Asiatic cities, Trebizond, Harput conquered by arms, it is true, but, which, with the centuries became centers of pure Turkishness! But this dubious Sazonnow agreement, recently divulged by the Bolsheviks, the Russian defection made it fall in deliquescence, and now, the day of solemn rules, the question of Turkish nationality will be put to the members of the Peace Conference, and it is then to those I put all my hope, for my poor Ottoman friends, even though one has already circumvented them, I know that, in order to render them unfavorable for their cause, but I have confidence in them just the same, because they could not fail to be, here like in all things, impeccable and magnificent justiciary.

I said that they were not our enemy, these so slandered Turks, and that they went to war with us against their heart. Moreover, I also said, and I said all my life, that they compose the most healthful elements, the most honest of all the Orient, -- and the most tolerant also, much more than the Orthodox element, although this last assertion is to make the non initiated wild. Now, on these two points, here are all of a sudden, since the war, thousands of witnesses who give me reason, even before the most hardheaded. Generals, officers of all ranks, simple soldiers, who left France full of prejudices against my poor friends of over there and considering me a dangerous dreamer, spontaneously wrote to me, for pure conscience sake to tell me unanimously: "Oh! how you know them well, these chivalrous people, so gentle to the prisoners, to the wounded, and treating them as brothers! Count on us, upon our return, to join en masse our testimonies to yours." I would like to be able publish them all, these innumerable signed letters, so sincere and so touching, but they would be a fill a book!

To end, here is an anecdote, which I chose from a thousand, because it is typical. In 1916, an out of control French seaplane fell in Palestine, near a Turkish military post; the officers in charge there, after having made with courtesy, our aviators prisoners, telegraphed to the pasha, Governor of Jerusalem to ask for orders, and they were word-for-word answered this: "Treat them as your best relatives or your friends." The recommendation was, moreover, foreseen, because they had already treated them as brothers or friends fallen from the sky. And a few days later, when they received the order to send them to Jerusalem, knowing them to be money-less, they pitched in together to loan them necessities to make their trip comfortable. And finally, without worrying to be disowned by our fighters down there, I dare to say that most of our soldiers, returned from the mad escapade of Dardanelles, would have been wasted at the beaches, if the Turks did not put in a great effort to let them re-embark; in general, they ceased fire on the French boats each time there was not a German brute tailing them.


105 posted on 04/26/2003 7:12:43 PM PDT by Turk2 (Dulce bellum inexpertis)
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To: eleni121
So? Am I now supposed to believe because these people think it happened? Am I supposed to disregard the hundreds of mass graves all over Anatolia full of corpses of Turks?
106 posted on 04/26/2003 7:15:46 PM PDT by Turk2 (Dulce bellum inexpertis)
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To: Turk2
You had better wake up and start making the effort to dig up the bones of the genocided Greeks and Armenians and Assyrians that successive Turkish governments have hidden from Turks themselves for so many years. Hey the Germans have partially dealt with their crimes and so have the japanese (less so). Don't be like the Commies and refuse to face the sordidness of Muslim Turk genocides.
107 posted on 04/26/2003 7:53:34 PM PDT by eleni121
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To: George W. Bush
More sysmbols of Turkish brutality.

Orthodox Christians Celebrate Easter

no thanks to us Turks who have oppressed and slaughtered them for a millenium ofcourse. I wonder why there is not one single Orthodox Church in Rome. How happy Greeks would have been under the benevolent Catholic Venetian rule. Especially around when your continent was being discovered. Hell, they might have even taken the homes and belongings of Jews their fellow (as would have had to be under Catholic rule) Catholics expelled from Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany etc. which the vicious and barbaric Turks gave refuge to.

108 posted on 04/26/2003 8:43:39 PM PDT by Turk2 (Dulce bellum inexpertis)
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To: eleni121
What is this Greek genocide you have been talking about? Are you just plain ignorant or has the propaganda totally taken over your mind?
109 posted on 04/26/2003 8:45:24 PM PDT by Turk2 (Dulce bellum inexpertis)
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To: a_Turk
This woman had five bastards and was sexed and beaten by a different man every night.

Every single night without exception for years on end? My, that is some amazing dedication, isn't it?
110 posted on 04/26/2003 9:00:54 PM PDT by George W. Bush
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To: George W. Bush
This sort of thing is extremely common. I see it every day.
111 posted on 04/26/2003 9:11:31 PM PDT by Mortimer Snavely (More Power to the Troops! More Bang for the Buck!)
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To: Mortimer Snavely
This sort of thing is extremely common. I see it every day.

At least the women aren't forced to wear veils.

Move out of the cities.
112 posted on 04/27/2003 3:03:04 AM PDT by George W. Bush
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To: a_Turk
Thanks. I just read your response now as I have a very big ping list and it takes some time to scroll through it if I take a day off.

I thought it was something like what you posted but I just wanted to hear it from you. I would boycott them myself.

Notice how I did not make a judgement call on the Turkish Special Forces article, I just wanted to hear from you on this subject.

I don't think it is inconceivable that Turkey would send in specialists into Kurdistan. When I read the story, it did not seem likely that these WERE Turkish Special Forces and the silence about the story suggests many things. To me, it suggests that the US Army was incorrect.

Thats the news for ya'!

113 posted on 04/28/2003 4:58:11 PM PDT by Arioch7
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To: Allan
Pinf
114 posted on 04/28/2003 10:03:49 PM PDT by Nogbad
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To: George W. Bush
"At any rate, most of this history hardly matters, especially if one is engaging in the futility of arguing with a holocaust denier."

Your rebuttel was well done and quite correct. I'm glad you took the time and effort to lay out the facts for those of us who were not so well schooled in the history of the Armenian holocoust.
I believe Turk is a typical well schooled deceptive liberal and a possible christian hater. Hard to say. I wonder if he would be open to state his political and religious standing?
115 posted on 04/30/2003 4:56:38 PM PDT by wgeorge2001 ("The truth will set you free.")
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To: wgeorge2001

Whenever someone claims what you were told is a lie, you claim that she/he hates you and that his/her statements aren't based on facts and logic but hatred...


116 posted on 01/16/2005 7:12:12 PM PST by Vixa
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To: Vixa

Whassup buddy? Are you here to defend the Muslim Turks? Or are you another holocaust denier?

If not, then there is no need to respond to postings of 2 + years ago.


117 posted on 01/17/2005 5:00:03 PM PST by eleni121 (Four more years and four more again after that...)
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To: eleni121
I'm just a new member who happens to be interested in the middle eastern issues. This one was one them that I believed that I had to post a my comment on it. If the thread is futile now, why do u still talk about the holocaust, that is engineered by the allies in WW1 to get USA into the war...
118 posted on 01/17/2005 5:14:20 PM PST by Vixa
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To: Vixa

Another Turk another day...ho hum.

I hope you get a chance to watch "24".


119 posted on 01/17/2005 5:30:36 PM PST by eleni121 (Four more years and four more again after that...)
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