Its almost impossible to stress enough how many hypocritical double standards there are between the way in which some societies treat religious minorities (Christians especially) in their countries ...
..... and the protections and liberties they demand while living in our societies.
Turkey is the prime example of these hypocrisies, it is (or perhaps was), a Muslim majority country trying to gain membership of the EU as a 'European country,' and is a case in point.
A hundred years ago there was still a flourishing 20% of the population that was Christian, but this community then faced a century of deliberate persecution. Starting in the first world war with the genocide of the Armenian's (only 50,000 are left in Turkey, from a previous population of 2 million), then in the 1920's when more than a million Greeks were forced out of Turkey to Greece. While only around 300,000 Muslims from Greece were relocated back to Turkey leaving behind a large Muslim population in some regions of Greece. Not something which can be said to be the case for Christian numbers in Turkey today.
This systematic persecution continued with the assaults on the Greeks of Istanbul, the last remaining sizeable pocket of the population that were in the city when it was renamed Constantinople in AD 330, including suffering a crippling wealth tax (Christians only), with the officially organised anti-Greek pogroms in 1955 (mobs raping Greek women, and burning Greek businesses), and then finally, the mass expulsions in 1964, left the Greek community in tatters.
Today, only 0.2% of the Turkish population is officially not Muslim. And yet, what do the Muslims (and indeed Turkey) demand of the West? Full rights to emigrate here. Full legal protection to practice their religion and to expand it ... and a significant proportion of the Muslims living in the West even demand the recognition of 'Muslim areas' and that Sharia law be imposed in them. So what do the supine leaders in the West do? Why they continually bend over backwards to try not to offend those making these demands.
These assaults on the tiny non-Muslim population in Turkey continues to this day, and include the editor of an Armenian Christian community newspaper 'Hrant Dink', which serves the tiny Armenian population, being murdered outside his offices by Turkish nationalists in 2007 ... However some Turks do recognise what has happened and is still occurring, and rather bravely, given the current Turkish religious nationalism, which is still seeing further assaults on what are termed 'crusaders,' try to remember it.
In 2014, Turkish writer Cengiz Aktar organised an exhibition to try and show some awareness of the cultural loss to Turkish society, which he feels the expulsions of the Christians and the Jews represented.
"The ethnic cleansing of these non-Muslim minorities was a huge brain drain," says Mr Aktar "It also meant the disappearance of the bourgeoisie because not only were they wealthy, but they were artisans. Istanbul lost its entire Christian and Jewish heritage."
But its fair to say that those sentiments are not universally shared, and fall on largely on barren ground, as Turkish Muslim nationalism has grown under the Islamist-rooted government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... who, while he plays lip service to protecting minorities, allows nationalist thugs to regularly attack them. Catholic churches are subject to fairly regular attack, with a spate of murders of Catholic missionaries and priests a few years ago, and the Catholic basilica in Istanbul, being vandalised.
Catholic Father Iulian Pista, reported that "To be a Turk now means you have to be Muslim. In the past, being a pious Muslim was looked down upon. Now Friday prayers are encouraged. Society here is becoming Islamised. Recently, I've seen youngsters defecate and urinate in my church as they shout 'Allahu akbar' ['God is great']. I also believe God is great but the way they say it is threatening."
President Erdogan constantly stresses his 'Islamic identity', and that the only true Turks are in his support base of 'conservative' (that word again) Muslims. He whips up the nationalists whenever he wants a reaction, so the mood is hardening against what's left of the Christians, who are excluded from this view of 'Turkishness', even though of course, they are original inhabitants of the land.
Mr Cengiz Aktar describing the treatment of Christians stated that "No country in the region - including Iran - is as homogeneous in terms of Islam as Turkey. It's a mono-colour country - it's a Muslim country." Sadly when all this is pointed out, many Turks who support Erdogan's vision, would just shrug and point slyly at the house and land that their families gained by expelling the non-Muslims .... just one of the many delights the Turks gained by ethnic cleansing Christians from their own lands.
Oh, and as last little thing .... no one in Turkey really thinks the country is 'European' ... they are Muslim, and regard the Middle East as their background. When I visited the country regularly (something that stopped when Erdogan's party took power), a liberal Turk, told me that every 50 miles East you travelled in the country, you were also going 100 years back in time for values.
Something I can confirm from experience ....
 |
| Armenian's Being Marched To Their Fates in WWI |
..... and the protections and liberties they demand while living in our societies.
Turkey is the prime example of these hypocrisies, it is (or perhaps was), a Muslim majority country trying to gain membership of the EU as a 'European country,' and is a case in point.
A hundred years ago there was still a flourishing 20% of the population that was Christian, but this community then faced a century of deliberate persecution. Starting in the first world war with the genocide of the Armenian's (only 50,000 are left in Turkey, from a previous population of 2 million), then in the 1920's when more than a million Greeks were forced out of Turkey to Greece. While only around 300,000 Muslims from Greece were relocated back to Turkey leaving behind a large Muslim population in some regions of Greece. Not something which can be said to be the case for Christian numbers in Turkey today.
This systematic persecution continued with the assaults on the Greeks of Istanbul, the last remaining sizeable pocket of the population that were in the city when it was renamed Constantinople in AD 330, including suffering a crippling wealth tax (Christians only), with the officially organised anti-Greek pogroms in 1955 (mobs raping Greek women, and burning Greek businesses), and then finally, the mass expulsions in 1964, left the Greek community in tatters.
Today, only 0.2% of the Turkish population is officially not Muslim. And yet, what do the Muslims (and indeed Turkey) demand of the West? Full rights to emigrate here. Full legal protection to practice their religion and to expand it ... and a significant proportion of the Muslims living in the West even demand the recognition of 'Muslim areas' and that Sharia law be imposed in them. So what do the supine leaders in the West do? Why they continually bend over backwards to try not to offend those making these demands.
These assaults on the tiny non-Muslim population in Turkey continues to this day, and include the editor of an Armenian Christian community newspaper 'Hrant Dink', which serves the tiny Armenian population, being murdered outside his offices by Turkish nationalists in 2007 ... However some Turks do recognise what has happened and is still occurring, and rather bravely, given the current Turkish religious nationalism, which is still seeing further assaults on what are termed 'crusaders,' try to remember it.
In 2014, Turkish writer Cengiz Aktar organised an exhibition to try and show some awareness of the cultural loss to Turkish society, which he feels the expulsions of the Christians and the Jews represented.
"The ethnic cleansing of these non-Muslim minorities was a huge brain drain," says Mr Aktar "It also meant the disappearance of the bourgeoisie because not only were they wealthy, but they were artisans. Istanbul lost its entire Christian and Jewish heritage."
 |
| Eradication Of Christians From Turkey - 1914 populations were very different. |
But its fair to say that those sentiments are not universally shared, and fall on largely on barren ground, as Turkish Muslim nationalism has grown under the Islamist-rooted government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... who, while he plays lip service to protecting minorities, allows nationalist thugs to regularly attack them. Catholic churches are subject to fairly regular attack, with a spate of murders of Catholic missionaries and priests a few years ago, and the Catholic basilica in Istanbul, being vandalised.
Catholic Father Iulian Pista, reported that "To be a Turk now means you have to be Muslim. In the past, being a pious Muslim was looked down upon. Now Friday prayers are encouraged. Society here is becoming Islamised. Recently, I've seen youngsters defecate and urinate in my church as they shout 'Allahu akbar' ['God is great']. I also believe God is great but the way they say it is threatening."
President Erdogan constantly stresses his 'Islamic identity', and that the only true Turks are in his support base of 'conservative' (that word again) Muslims. He whips up the nationalists whenever he wants a reaction, so the mood is hardening against what's left of the Christians, who are excluded from this view of 'Turkishness', even though of course, they are original inhabitants of the land.
Mr Cengiz Aktar describing the treatment of Christians stated that "No country in the region - including Iran - is as homogeneous in terms of Islam as Turkey. It's a mono-colour country - it's a Muslim country." Sadly when all this is pointed out, many Turks who support Erdogan's vision, would just shrug and point slyly at the house and land that their families gained by expelling the non-Muslims .... just one of the many delights the Turks gained by ethnic cleansing Christians from their own lands.
Oh, and as last little thing .... no one in Turkey really thinks the country is 'European' ... they are Muslim, and regard the Middle East as their background. When I visited the country regularly (something that stopped when Erdogan's party took power), a liberal Turk, told me that every 50 miles East you travelled in the country, you were also going 100 years back in time for values.
Something I can confirm from experience ....
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