on turks

Thursday, June 09, 2011
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ON TURKS (I)
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Armenians are not Christian Turks.
Neither are Kurds Mountain Turks.
Armenians and Kurds have been around much longer than Turks.
And the chances are they will be around long after.
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Freedom is a fundamental human right.
It is the right and duty of all oppressed people
to rise against their oppressors.
Which is what the Kurds are doing today;
and which is what Armenians
and Turks themselves did
(together with several other nations)
at the turn of the last century
in the Ottoman Empire.
*
At a critical point in their history, however,
Turks made the wrong decision by adopting the slogan
“Turkey for Turks,” which in reality meant
sultanism without the sultan,
fascism instead of democracy, and
massacre instead of compromise.
*
Had the Turks chosen multiculturalism
as opposed to monoculturalism,
they would now be a superpower
and a dominant force in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Because they went in the opposite direction
they are now vulnerable to Kurds
who will eventually bleed them to death
so that even a kick will be enough
to scatter the bones of the Ottoman skeleton.
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Kemal may be the Father of modern Turkey
but he is also its gravedigger.
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Moral I: Every idea has its contradiction
and sometimes the contradiction is closer to the truth.
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Moral II: Free speech matters because
it exposes fallacies and it doubles our options,
thus allowing us to make the better of two choices.
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Moral III: Even the best ideas become destructive
when implemented in the name of consistency.
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Moral IV: Tolerance and flexible moderation are preferable
to inflexibe fanatcicism and intolerance.
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Friday, June 10, 2011
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ON TURKS (II)
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Because they betrayed us,
they accuse us of betraying them.
Because they massacred us,
they accuse us of massacring them.
Who believes them?
Only their own brainwashed dupes.
*
At the turn of the last century
both Turks and Armenians agreed on the fact that
Sultan Abdulhamid II was neither
a representative of Allah on earth
(as he pretended to be)
nor a benevolent dictator,
but a ruthless, degenerate tyrant
who oppressed Turks
and subjected Armenians
to successive waves of massacres.
*
With the full agreement and cooperation
of the Armenian political leadership,
the Young Turks deposed and exiled the Sultan,
after which they betrayed the Armenians
by adopting and implementing a policy of extermination
on the grounds that Armenians
(including unarmed women, children, and old men)
were a threat to the territorial integrity of the Empire.
*
Now then, go ahead and accuse Armenians
of betrayal and massacre,
and while doing so try to keep in mind that
Turks outnumbered Armenians forty to one.
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Saturday, June 11, 2011
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ON TURKS (III)
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Has anyone ever bothered to see
how many times the expression "human rights"
or "free speech" occurs in the many speeches
delivered by fascist leaders?
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If you think today
what you thought ten years ago,
or if you still believe everything
your schoolteacher or imam taught you,
you can be sure of one thing:
the last ten years of your life
have been a waste of time
because you have learned nothing.
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Where disagreement and dissent
are classified as criminal offenses,
the men at the top will be serial killers.
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Wars, revolutions, and massacres
are also expressions of dissent and criticism.
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The insane outnumber the sane
because reasonable men are in no position
to violate anyone's human right of free speech.
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Where indoctrination is identified with education,
recycling propaganda will be identified with thinking.
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No matter how corrupt, incompetent, and stupid,
a power structure will always have
its defenders, supporters, and dupes.
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Whenever I am criticized by a brainwashed dupe,
I can only think of the Turkish expression:
“Yedii boka bak!” – if you will forgive my French.
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