Interesting. I wouldn’t have thought it’d be limited to some nationalities, although maybe there’s some truth to it.
I worked with two Turks (both living in the US, but under what circumstances I don’t know; I believe one was nationalized, and the other on a work visa) at the same time in 2016; one was radically supportive of Erdoğan, and believed the coup was real; the other thought he was a dictator and that the coup was a false flag meant to allow him emergency powers and a crack-down.
I say “radically” in the first case because she’d get agitated and angry about any criticism of Erdoğan; the second would discuss it as if he were in a debate. I have no doubt his beliefs were just as passionate, but he’d argue his points, not just declare things.
ANYWAY, that’s the extent of my experience. I lived in Munich for two years and, as an American, was vaguely aware of the immigration tension, but this just after reunification and the West Germans were still coming to terms with the impacts of that. And my friend circle was urban college students, so I swam in the most liberal of waters.
Eh, its like how love of the US/“patriotism” is kinda culturally baked into the US… Turks are very similar. My partner and I only ever had one fight, caused by a friend of mine who brought up Armenia early in our relationship. My partner is more liberal than I am, like almost Fox News strawman liberal, but having left Turkey a couple years prior was still deeply entrenched in “Turkey has never done anything wrong”. Complete genocide denial, which caused a bit of a blowout hearing a very liberal, freedom-to-the-people person say “what were we supposed to do?”. North occupied Cyprus, occupied Syria, Kurdistan are all deeply sensitive topics, even for the most western/liberal Turks. Luckily she chose to educate herself on Armenia, etc. and it’s not a problem anymore, but it was a journey.
The whole history of democracy essentially being gifted to Turks by Ataturk, the creation and assignment of last names, etc. really results in some interesting cultural quirks. Amazing people, great food, but man do they hold onto grudges and history!
Turkiye indoctrinates kids into thinking the Armenian genocide is not real at all. Most of our teachers said that it was made-up by other countries to make us seem evil, and our history books explained it as a forced-immigration that the Ottoman Empire did because Armenians were trying to gain independence by doing insurrections en masse. So I’m not surprised with them not believing that it’s an actual event.
Interesting. I wouldn’t have thought it’d be limited to some nationalities, although maybe there’s some truth to it.
I worked with two Turks (both living in the US, but under what circumstances I don’t know; I believe one was nationalized, and the other on a work visa) at the same time in 2016; one was radically supportive of Erdoğan, and believed the coup was real; the other thought he was a dictator and that the coup was a false flag meant to allow him emergency powers and a crack-down.
I say “radically” in the first case because she’d get agitated and angry about any criticism of Erdoğan; the second would discuss it as if he were in a debate. I have no doubt his beliefs were just as passionate, but he’d argue his points, not just declare things.
ANYWAY, that’s the extent of my experience. I lived in Munich for two years and, as an American, was vaguely aware of the immigration tension, but this just after reunification and the West Germans were still coming to terms with the impacts of that. And my friend circle was urban college students, so I swam in the most liberal of waters.
Eh, its like how love of the US/“patriotism” is kinda culturally baked into the US… Turks are very similar. My partner and I only ever had one fight, caused by a friend of mine who brought up Armenia early in our relationship. My partner is more liberal than I am, like almost Fox News strawman liberal, but having left Turkey a couple years prior was still deeply entrenched in “Turkey has never done anything wrong”. Complete genocide denial, which caused a bit of a blowout hearing a very liberal, freedom-to-the-people person say “what were we supposed to do?”. North occupied Cyprus, occupied Syria, Kurdistan are all deeply sensitive topics, even for the most western/liberal Turks. Luckily she chose to educate herself on Armenia, etc. and it’s not a problem anymore, but it was a journey.
The whole history of democracy essentially being gifted to Turks by Ataturk, the creation and assignment of last names, etc. really results in some interesting cultural quirks. Amazing people, great food, but man do they hold onto grudges and history!
Turkiye indoctrinates kids into thinking the Armenian genocide is not real at all. Most of our teachers said that it was made-up by other countries to make us seem evil, and our history books explained it as a forced-immigration that the Ottoman Empire did because Armenians were trying to gain independence by doing insurrections en masse. So I’m not surprised with them not believing that it’s an actual event.