Talk:Turkey

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Archives

Please do not edit archived pages. If you want to react to a statement made in an archived discussion, please make a new header on THIS page. Baristarim 03:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Archives:

The article of 1911 Edition of Encyclopaedia Brittanica about Turkey posted by User:3210

Archives continued

Note: There have been contoversial issues in the past. Please check the archives on the right to overview the past discussions before making any substantial changes.

Contents

[edit] Comments

[edit] Is Turkey officialy an islamic or a secular country ?

My question is basically a question of intrenational law vs. the state's constitution.

Since: the OIC says that its goal is to: "promote solidarity among all islamic member states"

-Turkey officially appoints a foreign minister to the "Conference of Ministers" of the OIC, so it de facto acknowledges itself to be an islamic state,

-the Turkish representative, Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, is a Turkish official, representing the State of Turkey and acting on its behalf at the meetings of the OIC, and not on behalf of a private group (e.g. an Islamic Union of Istanbul, or something like that)

- The OIC is a group of countries, not individuals(by the way, the TRNC is not a full member of the OIC - and obvioulsy with no right to vote - but an observer state, as is the Russian Federation)

In a way, it is clear that Turkey admits, at least de facto if not de jure, that it is an islamic state - maybe not in the sense that (sunni) Islam is the state religion, but certainly not indifferent towards the religion of its citizens, as it would be in a 100% secular state. I agree that Turkey "has a strong tradition of secularism" in a kemalic sense, but that's not quite the same as being a secular state (I don't think that Italy or Spain are members of a Catholic Union).

Again, I think it's just a detail in international law not worth lingering on, but it is funny that Turkey always compains about the E.U. being a "Christian Club", while Turkey itself is a member of an islamic one. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.1.51.216 (talk) 22:04, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

If it's not worth lingering on, why did you post it? In any case, any complaint including the term "Christian Club" most likely refers to a Turkish perception of the EU as being suspicious of Muslim nations. The EU, as I'm sure you know, is not a religious institution. 85.117.44.53 18:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


Secularism is one of the building blocks of Turkey. The state has no state religion. England has a state church but they are still secular and democratic so Turkey can be secular and a member of an Islamic organization at the same time. It looks like a dilemma at first impression but actually it is not. Also, you have to analyze Turkey's position in OIC. It is not like "come on Muslim brothers lets unite and destroy the western civilization!". Actually, we are the window of those Islamic states (sadly most of them are not developed) to the Western world. We broke the chains of imperialism (by both getting rid of the British and our own monarch) and we are the first nation to fought and won against the harsh rule of the Islamic law and we formed a modern secular state from the ruins of a collapsed empire. Turkey is not a procedural democracy, it is more than that. I'm saying it both as a free citizen of Turkey and as a student of International Relations. See you, Deliogul 22:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
What? Turkey never broke any chains of imperialism! Turkish imperialism ruled the Islamic world for centuries. Britian never successfully ruled Turkey. Britian ended *Turkish* imperialism at the Treaty of Sèvres. And that helped empower the nationalists who kicked Britian back out. Turkish nationalists were obviously secular then, although they are not secular today. I've no idea how the Islamic world sees Turkey today, but a "windows" seems ridiculously unlikely. How many Arabs learn Turkish? How many learn English?
To give a clear answer to the question: Turkey's constitution makes it secular, just like the US. Turkey has one dominant religion which oppresses all others any way it can, also like the US. Turkey has one enormously powerful & dangerous religious political party, again just like the US. Yes, "Islamists" are currently in control of Turkey, but these Islamists are not like the Talliban, they are much more like American Neo-conservatives.
Britian is a bad comparison since Britian is effectively far more secular than either the US or Turkey, even if less officially seclar. JeffBurdges 03:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Keep your "Operation Iraqi Freedom" dreams to yourself. And by the way, do you really think that learning english has ANTYHING to do with Britian, especially for Arabs? 88.245.72.166 01:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC).

Sometimes I see that people and institutions in Turkey fuse Islam with national identity and the Principle of the indivisibility of the Turkish state, as defined in the Constitution of Turkey. Things that have to do with religion (e.g. Armenian Christians, the question of the ecumenical status of the Patriarch of Constantinople, conversions to Christianity or things like that) are classified as violations of Article 14. How so? Does the indivisibility of the State comprise religious indivisibility - i.e. is Islam a nationally "safe" or preferable religion ? How is this combined with Kemal Attatürk's secular and anti-islamic atiitude ?

Secondly, can anyone tell me if the Article 14 has an enforced status in comparison to the other articles (e.g. those granting the freedom of speach, religion and opinion) of the Constitution? Is that legally possible? In most European constitutions it's almost a dogma that all articles are equal amongst them. How is the term "indivisibility" defined ?

To JeffBurdges, Turkey defeated the so called "invincible" Great Britain (of course politically, because we lost the WWI). Turkish independence was the first crack on the walls of the Western imperialism. On the other hand, Ottoman Empire was imperialist (haha of course it was, look at its name :D ) and nationalists ended the Sultanate so Turkey won another challenge against imperialism. By saying "windows", I didn't want to refer to culture imperialism because the example you gave about the languages is clearly culture imperialism. I tried to show the role of Turkey among undeveloped (maybe rich but politically undeveloped) Muslim states because I guess we are the only one to reach such a degree in democracy among Muslim nations. And your comment about secularism... I can't reach to a statement as fast as you could but it seems like Turkey lost some of its notion and ambition about developing. In 1930's, Turkey was a success story, in 1950's it slowly became the frontier of the Cold War and after 1960's (with the help of military coups and social uprisings), Turkey slowed down a little bit and this situation gives hope to Islamists (fundamentalists etc.) in Turkey. Therefore, it is a tuff political issue and we can't form clear statements about it so easily. Deliogul 19:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scientific output of Turkey

Turkey with its 70M population have the 60% science output of 1.5 Billion muslim world, besides its annual science output growth rate is even twice of some EU countries. I could not find any place to put these kind of scientific output information. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.96.179.60 (talk) 13:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] The survey that we had been waiting for

Finally :) I just ran into this: [1]. This should put an end to it. It is a major survey done by a major newspaper and research institutes among 50,000 people about the ethnic repartition and identification of Turkey. I will slowly integrate the info in there to concerned articles. It also includes the first serious survey on language repartition since 1965 btw.

So, among adults, 82 percent of the population are Turks, 13 Kurdish+Zaza, the rest Caucasian etc (obviously this was about self-identification, not genetic testing) And no, half the Turkey is not Kurdish or Albanian :)))

As for assimilation:

  • 4 percent of the population self-identifies as Turk even though their first language is Kurdish,
  • 8.82 percent self-identifies as Kurd even though their first language is Turkish.

+ 1.38 percent has Arabic as first language even though 0.7 percent self-identifies as Arab, and there are more Arabs than Zaza.

There is more info in the survey, but those ones were interesting. Those percentages are included in the general self-identification survey. The info there can be used in many articles about Turkey, it is a pretty good source. It also includes info on Lausanne minorities. I will try to update this article based on that later today. Baristarim 17:33, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as the language goes, 85 percent have Turkish as a first language, 12 Kurdish, 1 Zaza, 1.38 Arab, Turkic and Balkan languages 0.25 percent each, Laz 0.12 percent, Armenian and Caucasian languages 0.07 percent each, Greek 0.06 percent.

The info in that survey can also help update articles on these languages and related. It is pretty handy. Baristarim 17:39, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I missed it when this article was on the front page!!! Baristarim 17:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

There is another article at [2] - It is a survey done by the European Union about languages spoken.. That survey lists 93 percent Turkish as first language, 7 percent others.. Baristarim 00:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religion statistics

I noted that it's widely believed that 99.0% of Turkish population is Muslim. This percentage is getting upto 99.8% in some other sites. I tried to find a official or unofficial statistics in internet but I couldn't. I believe that this statistics don't reflect the reality. I've checked the talk archive of this article, and saw that there were some other people with same doubt, and asked for a citation. Current citation directs to a missing page. This page supposed to be in the site of an international development agency. It doesn't sound reliable. I added a 'citation needed' in this sentence. Please don't remove it until there's an official source of information. iyigun 20:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I added it, and that was the best one there was available. The link is there but there might be a typo. I have reverted you both here and in Religion in Turkey. I will try to fix the problem though. Baristarim 20:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
And not quite. A survey by a newspaper in 2001 had found that 97.4 percent were Muslims. However I cannot remember where I had seen it. Will check back in. And why is it not "reliable"? Please try to raise the issues in the talk page before making substantial changes and particularly before adding fact tags. Cheers! Baristarim 20:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
It is not reliable because they label people as Muslims right after they were born hehe :) I'm not the best Muslim around but my ID says that I'm one... This is the problem. See you, Deliogul 22:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I know :)) For one reason whenever I hear something like "99" or, even worse, "99.8" percent it just doesn't sound right.. There was a debate in another page sometime ago about Cultural Muslim.. Baristarim 23:11, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Maybe we can use your percentage (97.4%) in the article but we have to mention that this is the legal status of people and doesn't have to be correct in real life. Deliogul 09:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
It's not reliable because they don't give any source to the information in their site. Do you really believe that an agency which defines itself as "international development agency" can determine such statistics? If you find such statistics in "www.die.gov.tr" or from a respectful international organization which deals with statistics this would be reliable. Btw, the link in the citation doesn't work. Please either remove the citation or correct the link. iyigun 19:10, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
As a second topic, if we're not able to confirm the statistics, we should write that this is not confirmed. In my opinion it could be written like "although it's not confirmed, it's widely accepted that..." I don't think wikipedia is the correct place to express such wishes or claims. iyigun 19:10, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I think this Muslim identity issue is more than claims in Turkey's case. Also, this 99% thing is not "widely accepted", it is "widely imposed"... See you, Deliogul 19:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

On a side note, that info was sourced (and the sources are the best thing we have, unfortunately), I am still trying to figure out why the link is not working.. In any case, even though we know that the 99 percent figure is mostly imposed since nearly everyone is marked with a religious marker as soon as they are born, it is not for us to judge to what degree until the day there are major surveys about religion in Turkey.. I wonder why the link is not working, it was from a UN agency as well.. Baristarim 19:29, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Baristarim, don't you think that we should at least mention in the article that "99%" does not reflect reality because of this reason or that reason? You also know that this religion marker you're talking about is the reason of this high value in the statistics and there has never been a major survey. Can't we just tell it to other people also? If it's written here as 99% and reference a site, someone reading this may think it's actually reality. iyigun 17:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandals back again

User:Bush is vandalising the article. I reverted twice but he keeps vandalising. He should be stopped immediately.--Ugur Olgun 20:20, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

What just happenned??!!! Man, some people are really going out of their way to be negative.. And now the article is full protected.. Baristarim 21:20, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh man, I was going to work on updating the demographics section tonight with the help of the survey above... :( Baristarim 21:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
If there's no objections, I'll unprotect and set sprotection back again. The vandal is bound to run out of sleeper accounts at some point. El_C 21:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I am ok with that. Baristarim 21:28, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
And we can always introduce range blocks, or even contact its ISP and file an abuse report. El_C 21:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
They've tried range blocks did not work. Artaxiad 03:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Sure. Let's just see what will happen. If he is using proxies it could be harder to stop him, but I don't know... Baristarim 21:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
He doesn't use proxies. Artaxiad 03:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
That guy has got too much time in his hands to waste :) Baristarim 01:09, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Don't we all? (Despite being very busy at the same time, maybe) Did we not block the page before against new users? Did s/he have all of those user names ready? Man, people think a lot ahead. :) denizTC 06:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Those sleeper accounts (and the ones at Armenia) involve really well-sought-out names, though! I find that somewhat amusing. ;) El_C 03:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IP filtering..

I think we need IP filtering.. We shouldn't allow any IP to edit this page from Armenia. They do change more than us.. WHO LIVES IN TURKEY?? THEY OR WE??? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.233.97.30 (talk • contribs).

Well, in any case I will second what Atilim said in one of his edit summaries and ask the anon what relation that addition has to do with this article. I mean, I read it and it can be of use in another article (I don't know the subject though), but it doesn't seem to have much to do with this page, let alone the need to have it all the way up in the beginning... Baristarim 23:35, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
He just wants attention no one wants that in the Armenia page because its BS to them, so he is trolling here. Artaxiad 23:43, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
If you guys will be IP filtering, 63.43.36.* should be enough for now. Arin whois for the IP along with abuse-emails and phones.denizTC 01:33, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles can be edited by anyone. We don't exclude editors based on where they live or don't live. Turkish editors and readers do not own this article. IP filtering, blocking certain IPs from editing specific articles, is also technically impossible. AecisBrievenbus 12:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
We don't own this article. It belongs to the universal knowledge. Yurttaşlar, Please be calm while expressing your ideas. Deliogul 12:19, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Are you talking about my comment? I don't know about technical impossibilities, it does not seem impossible to me, it might just not be implemented in the wiki source code yet for some reason, though I have doubts about that; as far as I know there are bunch of IP's blocked (I know that some Yemeni Ip's are blocked at least). We exclude editors based on what they do. There are rules in every society and one needs to follow the rules. We are provided these Internet services under some rules, we should not abuse them. Anyway, if I was going to take some action, then I would just do that.
Now, giving information about vandal might keep the vandal away, hopefully. Once we write rv v , so claim that someone is vandal, this is not going that far, I think. Anyway, like Nasreddin Hoca said, What about the thief who succeeded to make some admin protect the article, now we can't improve it easily.
Also, if this vandal is really Ararat arev, he is already excluded'. Apparently now s/he hacked into people's accounts, so this is not simple vandalism, as having disturbed bunch of people, related, unrelated, attacking their personal accounts, etc.; but this is probably an easy to do action (as hacking accounts of users' with easy password, probably many people can do it), it is not like hacking and unblocking himself/herself. denizTC 15:02, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm talking about 88.233.97.30. I was sure that you can understand that. 88.233.97.30 has to understand that you don't have to live in a place to know something about it. Take care, Deliogul 17:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Delioglu, I didnt tell that filter all world except Turkey. I said it is better to filter Armenia. This is very well known technic used to prevent attacks: "Filter some region of world which is the origin of attacks." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.233.97.30 (talk • contribs).
88.233.97.30, please understand that what you said was wrong (except maybe the first sentence). We should not care about countries of origins of editors. Let's try to improve all of the articles all of us. If you want to reply, please leave a comment at User Talk:Denizz. denizTC 21:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
1. This goes against what Wikipedia stands for. Period. Origin of the editor doesn't matter. I have just as much right to add information to United Kingdom as a British citizen, and an Armenian has just as much right to edit Turkey as a Turkish citizen. If someone disrupts or vandalises this article, it needs to be dealt with on an individual basis. It is irrelevant to that disruption where the editor lives.
2. It is not possible to block IPs and accounts from editing individual articles. See Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive 5#Can a user be banned from editing a single page? for more information. AecisBrievenbus 21:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

What happened to the pictures? Baristarim 18:14, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

As You can see,deleted due to Copyright problems. There is a gap in our watchlist. Please check a way for watch to deletion nominated images.Must.T C 18:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Broken link

Ocobot identified one broken link in this article: http://www.unfpa.org.tr/turkey/countryinfo.htm. I'd replace it with http://www.unfpa.org.tr/countryinfo.htm but I cannot as the article is protected against editing by normal registered users. Please take care of this. Thank you. — Ocolon 08:38, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

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