In my new column in Taki's Magazine, I try to put Turkish politics into long-term perspective:
It’s extraordinarily difficult to come up with an analogy to American history that would shed some light on Turkish politics since the beginning of the 20th century.
All right, try this: Imagine that in 1908 the most advanced thinkers of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Greenwich Village take over the US Army. They eventually move the capital to Omaha and rename the country the Midwestern Republic. Yet the four times the country elects somebody a little more Christian than a Unitarian Universalist, the Army stages a coup.
Finally, the Midwesterners stare down the Army. To rub in their long-thwarted dominance, the Midwestern Christian Party then orders all the bars in New York City to close at 10PM, driving New Yorkers into Times Square to protest.
Does that clear everything up?
No, I guess it doesn’t.
But that’s kind of the point.
Read the whole thing there.
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88 comments:
About 2/3 through the piece I was bracing myself for the "Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!" Ghostbusters joke to appear, but it never came. Maybe next year.
That has not always been so. In 1971, the Jewish historian Elie Kedourie published a scoffing paper entitled “Young Turks, Freemasons and Jews,” in which he pointed and sputtered at the British ambassador to Istanbul’s secret 1910 letter to the Viceroy of India on the “Judeo-masonic and Young Turk conspiracy.
I suggest a companion phrase for "point and sputter": point and snicker.
poke and snigger?
If you were to make an analogy with the US, an imagined division along ethnic lines might serve better than postulating a group of "advanced thinkers" in Massachusetts.
This guy doesn't look very Turkish.
Sounds like the analogue for Erdogan in the US is Michael Bloomberg.
Erdogan is an Istanbul native, but his support comes mostly from inland Anatolia. It's a little bit like Romney living in Massachusetts, but that not a great analogy.
About conspiracy theories; it's been said that extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence, so it's my theory that some conspiracy might have brainwashed the Americans to require extraordinary evidence for the most plausible and mundane of claims also.
>I was in Turkey and had to get the answer to an important personal question.
What was the nature of information you were looking for? It could not be too secret if you expected some customer reps to know the answer?
Also "He used to work in Security" means "ex-cop". "General Directorate of Security" being the police organization. As you would say "I went to Security to renew my driving license". PI is a job for retired cops. Is that not so in US also?
I am baffled by US, too. A few tree huggers were pepper sprayed and after 20 days we are still protesting govt with 7000+ injured and 3 deaths. And there were large protests every several years going back ... as much as you care to look. When was the last time Americans were really indignant about anything, Bonus Army? 68? Although I am a Nationalist (ultra by any western standards) I go out to protest police brutality with leftist demonstrators after work from my cushy govt job. You should stop being conservative and should stop whining.
>Erdogan is an Istanbul native
No one is an Istanbul native. His initial support base was Black Sea coasters (karadenizli). And among those Erdogan is also an ethnic Georgian.
>This guy doesn't look very Turkish.
No true Scotsman, you say. Ethnically speaking being Turkish is more like being British, if not American, than being Swedish or Korean.
Sounds like the analogue for Erdogan in the US is Michael Bloomberg.
Yeah, if Bloomberg appealed to Middle America and openly despised the Elite. That is to say, if Bloomberg was the exact opposite of Bloomberg. Otherwise, you're dead on.
I was wondering, is there any sign of the Turkey/Israel alliance weakening since the Islamist legal coup against the Turkish military? My impression is that it appears to still be as strong as ever.
Israeli desire to keep Turkey onside might help explain why Israel appears to support the Sunni war against the Shia in Syria, even though logically the Sunni are surely the greater long-term threat to Israel.
Wow, thank you for that article.
With whatever conspiracies are going on right now in Washington to remake this country further along idiocratic lines, I feel that I should currently be devoted, like Kaus, to unleashing memes or something against it.
And yet, like some nightmare where we are powerless against great evil and can only move in slow motion, I find the strange allure of old Byzantine conspiracies more attractive to my time.
Must. Not. Get. Distracted.
"In the English-speaking world, we find conspiracy theories about Freemasons funny because the Masons, such as Ben Franklin and George Washington, more or less won."
In Protestant countries, Freemasonry's role was to unify people of different creeds and denominations but in Catholic countries, Freemasonry's role was to unify people who hated the Catholic Church and to promote secularism. France would not be the country it is today(for better or worse) without the Freemasons and the Grand Orient.
It sounds like I may want to go join my local Masonic lodge right away.
To me the most cynically amusing aspect of Turkish/Near Eastern history is that the entire mess can be traced back to the perfiodious cheapness of the Brits, who in 1914 drove the Turks out of neutrality by refusing to deliver two battle cruisers for which the Turks had prepaid and compounding this by refusing to refund the Turk's payment. Historical tidbits like this are what cause cascades of human misery down through the decades.
Turkey's modern history illustrates how artificial and oppressive nationalism is. It's only a better ideology than globalism in that nationalists confine their evil to their own borders.
Steve Sailer said...
poke and snigger.
RACISSSSSSSSSSS
"After all, information wants to be free, right?"
That's what I figured.
My husband is Turkish and has been listening to some of Erdogan's speeches and following the news. The name George Soros and big foreign banks come up, with the idea that these protests are intended to destabilize Turkey, destabilize the Turkish currency, raise interest rates and profit from it.
Another thing Erdogan says is that the protests are "the minority trying to dominate over the majority." Thats what Lech Walesa said, too, regarding homosexuals in Poland pushing themselves to the front http://www.newpolandexpress.pl/polish_news_story-5304-lech_walesa_criticises_minorities.php Aggressive minorities dictate to the majority here in the US, too. Almost every issue is like that from the immigration bill to gay marriage to the wars to the welfare spending thats caused the-what-90% illegitimacy rate among blacks, minorities keep it up until they have power and then they make big messes for everyone.
Why does every (any?) country have to behave in a way that fits an American analogy.
I like the sound of that! "The Midwestern Republic"
Turkish women are hot.And far classier and sensible than the ditzy and overrated Lebanese women
This guy doesn't look very Turkish.
Whats a "Turkish" look?
The original Turks who conquered Anatolia looked more like Uzbeks(an already part Caucasoid Turkic group) from whence they originated
Most of the populace (fair skinned Greeks,blonde Kurds and the very European Saxon mercenaries and Galatian settlers) just got Turkicized over 500 years.
Erdogan is an Istanbul native, but his support comes mostly from inland Anatolia. It's a little bit like Romney living in Massachusetts, but that not a great analogy."
Analogies such as these dont work with such radically different countries.But as you said-thats your point
Keep on this, Steve. It's important. Linked and riffed on here:
http://ex-army.blogspot.com/2013/06/busy-busy-byzantines.html
Disappointed how nobody seems to be getting what Sailer is saying. There are clear connotations to America, in that the secular elite is self-esconed and it has a significant scotch-irish element.
It's simply out of touch with most ordinary people.
Of course, in Turkey, unlike in America, the silent majority hasn't been outright replaced by a new people more inclined to do whatever the isolated clique wants them to do.
Still, Erdogan's methods are highly undemocratic, but I think he understands a key lesson: in a democracy, those who control the media control the nation.
This is why Turkey jails more publishers/journalists per capita than any other NATO power by far.
This is also why China maintains control over the media, and not only political power, but is slowly loosening the ties to big business(even if guanxi demands close ties by pure necessity).
If you control the media, you can slowly fashion the country (and in the long run, the politicians) to the vision that you want, the people be damned. In Turkey, the plot twist is that the Army went ahead with what "had to" be done, while in America it has mostly been a bloodless and far more slow-moving and less dramatic arc.
After a century, we can see which model worked best, as the heavy-handedness of the metropolitan clique backfired, while their American counterparts faced no significant opposition.
Perhaps another lesson here is that ruthlessness works, which is why Erdogan (or China, or Russia) for that matter have not been inefected with the self-hating virus that has spread across the West even as they have embraced business models to technology.
I think Steve summed it up a few years ago: ultimately, even if you get the joke, it will be lost on the younger generation unless they get it spelled out for them. And you need the media to do this. If you have no access to the media, even if there is a groundswell of support for your ideas among the people, then the people - and in the long run the nation - perish.
I'm still not convinced that Turkey and its politics, its physics if you will, are so complicated as to be opaque. If an outsider finds the place tricky, maybe it is tricky or maybe he's just defeated by the language, which is totally un-European. The fact that it's now written in a sort-of Latin alphabet is meaningless. I suspect that the fact that it used to be written in another alphabet is however significant. Not that many locals, then or now, could read it. But it does serve to remind us that along with "Turkey" came "Turkish," a conscious reinvention of Ottoman, which had some native Turkish in it but was not the same language. I wonder if the reinvention was either inadequate or, as Geoffrey Lewis argued, a "catastrophic success" - that is, great geographical or sociological swaths of Turkey don't understand it. If Turks themselves are mystified by what goes on in their country, maybe that's one reason.
Ukrainians and Russians (who have, for tragic historical reasons, several hundred Turkish loanwords in their language) find it easier to understand Turkey's history ...
I think to make the analogy work you have to reverse everything - since in 1908 the US was the most progessive and technologically advanced country on earth. Imagine, instead, that in 1908 the smart white anglo-saxon people in the North-East decide that China is the future of humanity and that the Christian religion, too much Latin and classical thinking, and our attachment to individualism is holding the US back from achieving Chinese levels of power and prosperity. After the US loses a disastrous war backing Japan and Vietnam against China and Korea, the US falls apart. China and Korea play a direct role in breaking up the US and establish "protectorates" in California, and Florida. The crazy white anglo-Chinese then stage a coup in the chaos, declare that the original 13 colonies are the real true USA, move the capital from New York City to Harrisburg, PA and immediately ethnic cleanse the territory of any Blacks, Catholics, Italians, Jews, etc. Meanwhile the Southern States export millions of descendants of Northern WASPs back to the little USA. The little USA then declares that American English must be written henceforth using Chinese characters and purged of any "foreign" words, i.e. Latin or French roots. New words are made up on the basis of what they can find in Beowulf or borrowed from China or Japan. The little US Army is controlled by Confucianists who stage coups any time a politician starts getting too cozy with the Christians, who are still the majority of the population especially outside large cities. In WWII the US stays neutral, and China and the Mexican Union of Socialist Republics, the largest country in the world which now includes all of Latin America and Texas,win. A cold war breaks out between China and Mexico and the USA remains a staunch Chinese ally, even though many of the Christians feel sympathy and cultural ties with the Christian minority in the Mexico USR, especially in Texas. Eventually Mexico USR collapses and falls apart, China wins the cold war but Christian anti-Chinese fundamentalism has become a huge threat in countries that used to be part of the USA - Texas, the Great Lakes Republic (which went from Chinese ally to revolutionary Chrisian after the revolution of 1979), Georgia, etc.
alright, you probably get the idea at this point.
My take on all this is that Ataturk like Reza Shah in Iran was a modernizing military man who opposed Islam. Both arose at approximately the same time. Both saw Islam as an influence to be opposed. And both were very good in combat.
Reza emphasized Iran's pre-Islamic glory under the Achaemenids. Turkey had less non-Islamic history but Ataturk like Reza looked to the West for ideas and models. Both worked on a Constitution - based on that of Belgium I seem to remember. But now both countries are going through a period in which Islam is in re-emergence.
The lesson of all this history is that the people and societies of the Middle East should not be assumed to be 'natural' Muslims. The two most advanced nations in that region - Turkey and Iran - were both anti-Muslim less than a century ago. They could be again. All it takes is some spirited opposition by the US to Islam.
The next generation of 'Young Turks' want to have a secular society. For some Turks that means more and better Parliamentary democracy. For others it means the freedom to have a martini in a titty bar.
Albertosaurus
Speaking of Galacia, I wonder if any of those Gael genes are still in Turkey. I think a genome project would be fascinating.
OT Why would you use Druze to measure for a Turkic component in the Khazar? Wouldn't Turks be a better comparison?
"This guy doesn't look very Turkish."
From a long line of slavic slave mothers?.
in 1453, the renamed Istanbul
Actually, it was only officially renamed in the 20s. The Ottoman government wrote Constantinople on the coins (well, actually, Kostantiniyye, translating "city" into Arabic, but leaving Constantine). "Istanbul" is Greek, not Turkish or Arabic, meaning the City (over the centuries the P in polis turned into a B). The Greeks were using it before the conquest. It was a nickname for a millennium before it became official.
The NYT article you linked to was interesting reading, as much for the differences in style from the present day as for its content. (For example, I don't think the Times today would expect its typical reader to know the meaning of "mouchard." I sure didn't)
Also, it's interesting that the Wikipedia entry for Young Turks does not include the term "Freemason."
A while back I read Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler and it objectively discussed the Jewish community's influence and power in the Communist movement in Germany between the wars and that affect on the popularity of the Nazis and the anger it caused. I had never read or heard anything about that even though I love history and read a lot and took many courses in it. The Second World War still cast a shadow over my youth. It struck me and is the main thing I remember from the book to this day. Your writing is the first place I have heard about why and how it works with topics like that. Fascinating.
That was an interesting and informative read, Steve.
The contrast between Jews who deny involvement in historical atrocities and whites who try to compensate for their involvement in historical atrocities is interesting. The former appears to be a fear reaction ("If people think we're implicated, they'll come after us") while the latter is a guilt reaction ("If people see how nice I am now, they'll forgive me for the sins of my father.") My use of plural and singular there is intentional, by the way: guilty white individuals don't really seem to be trying to absolve the guilt of other guilty white people--just themselves. Jews take it more as a tribe though.
I worked on a student film by a Turkish guy getting his Master's in film production. Real nice guy. He had a rather Muslim name (Huseyin) but he had blonde curly hair, very round features, blue eyes, and pale skin. From him I got the impression that Turkey was a complicated place.
Steve, you're wrong, wrong, and wrong. On nearly every count.
First, the major problem of Turkey is the same one that all Muslim countries have: the inability to tolerate social change caused by technology, the inability to create their own technological base, and desire for stasis.
On that basis, Erdogan has far more in common with Robert Redford, who decried technology recently saying there had been "enough" advances and wanting a reversal. And that has been the motif in Turkey, from the smashing of printing presses in the 1880s (when Turkey had its FIRST PRINTING PRESS) to mobs smashing locomotives and dismantling electric power stations.
The Christian West has been very accommodating to technological change while retaining the core of its society, mostly. The Muslim world has consistently failed to do so: no Muslim nation particularly Turkey can produce industrial champions, not even a Hyundai and Kia which challenge Toyota and Ford in the US for car dominance.
You are just completely and utterly wrong on everything you've written on Turkey here.
To continue to explore how wrong you were -- Erdogan challenges the primary notion of Ataturk which is ethnic Turkish nationalism with his deal with the Kurds and the main Kurdish terrorist -- hoping for votes and support in his attempt to make the President very, very powerful, undermine rivals in his party like Gul the current President, and rule like Putin for another twenty years -- this while he battles cancer which reportedly is advanced.
You fail to mention that Erdogan's deal with the Kurds reverses the ban on the Kurdish language, gives the Kurds massive autonomy, and in dealing with the Kurds of Northern Iraq as a near-independent nation pretty much guarantees war and conflict with Maliki and the Shia-Iran allied Iraqi state.
From "no problems with neighbors" Turkey is now embroiled with a war against Assad, and embarked on eventual war with Iraq, for no real reason other than oil deals in Kurdistan, and without significant US backing either (Obama prefers to "lead from behind") -- which is massive turnabout from Turkish policy from 1935 to say, 2003: defacto alliance with the West/America, staying out of conflicts whenever possible, husbanding limited military strength.
As for the Young Turks, the nascent coalition of Jews, Greeks, Armenians, and such calling for multi-national parliamentary democracy soon foundered on the failure of the peoples to get along, and the inability of the Ottoman state to deal with revolts in Arabia, Syria, Iraq, and so on.
Unlike the Japanese, Turks and indeed most Muslims failed to see that moment ... when the Black Fleet sailed into Tokyo Bay, completely dominant.
Ataturk's change into Turkish nationalism and abandonment of a multi-national, Islamic, Ottoman Sultanate came at Meggido (yes that place) where Allenby simply annihilated the Sultan's forces via technology: trucks, planes, motorized artillery.
Ataturk decided to massively Westernize his people for the same reason the Samurai decided to do it -- the old ways made them military losers. Unlike the Samurai who ruthlessly crushed their resisting cousins in the Satsuma Rebellion and elsewhere, when they clung to the old ways, Ataturk was not very successful in changing his people at the bottom.
The Japanese even after WWII found few takers for a rural, non-technology ultra-traditional nationalism, the gay-fascist Mishima found only a few nutcase followers. In Turkey and the Muslim world, in contrast, the vast majority believe in regression to say, 1000 AD. Women in burquas, limited rights, polygamy, social stasis, no ruthlessness in adopting and pushing new technology because it upsets traditional Islamic society.
After all, the Armenian genocide was conducted by the worst of the Muslim world: ultra Islamic peoples, not a mixture of the liberal, multinational reformers of 1908, but the all ethnic Turk, ultra Islamic fundamentalists seeking to preserve the Caliphate and pretensions by copying the more brutal Sultans of the past.
Ataturk's insight was that SOME of the Islamic/Traditional society, the core as he put it, could be retained by changing everything else, and copying the West's ability to constantly churn out new and even better technology.
The Islamists of Erdogan, his party, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banr (the founding Brother), Ayman Al Zawahari, Osama, Sayyid Qutb, etc. all reject this and have far more in common with Robert Redford, the Green Movement, coastal elites like Lucas and Spielberg and Bloomberg and the Kennedys and Romney in that they reject new technology and the attempt to push society towards the constant creation of new technology in favor of stasis and keeping current elites in power unchallenged.
The fight in Turkey is over banning beer, and the corrupt deals between Erdogan and his contractor backers to bulldoze everything down and build new crummy stuff under cheap government loans. It is also about Erdogan's deal with the Kurds and a drift to war with Iraq and the current one with Syria.
And it hasn't been confined just to Istanbul -- even some of his rural backers want technological advance figuring they'll be better off, richer and have more stuff, under that policy. And even his rural backers don't like the corruption, war on their doorstep with Syria, and the prospect of more with Iraq. Nor do they want a permanent Putin either. There have been riots and demonstrations even in Ankara and cities near the Syrian and Iraqi borders.
For others it means the freedom to have a martini in a titty bar.
From what I understand, MacArthur is the only person who ever ensured that the offerings in 'titty bars' were reasonably priced.
"the entire mess can be traced back to the perfiodious cheapness of the Brits, who in 1914 drove the Turks out of neutrality by refusing to deliver two battle cruisers for which the Turks had prepaid"
A Churchill decision IIRC - not one of his better ones.
In the final chapter of his book on The Turkish Front, the late (UK) Field Marshal Carver speculates on what would have happened if Churchill hadn't done that.
The Ottoman Empire and Caliphate would have survived.
It would have possessed all the oil of what are now Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran - not so important in WWI but vital in WW2. They would have been very wealthy indeed. They'd have kept Egypt.
The State of Israel would not have been founded, nor Syria, Lebanon, the Gulf States.
Massively different world.
The key to understanding Turkish/Ottoman/Byzantine/Anatolian history is that Anatolia and the adjacent part of Europe periodically toggle back and forth between being oriented toward the Near East and oriented west toward the Mediterranean, and that the two traits lie together uneasily and the changes in direction don't happen all at once. The Otttoman period was several centuries of looking east that followed a 1500 year Hellenistic/Byzantine period of looking west. Ataturk violently yanked the country westward again, but the Ottoman/Islamic/eastward tendencies have reasserted themselves under Erdogan.
The other thing to remember is that geographically, Anatolia is a Eurasian landmass in miniature--mild climates, agriculture, and maritime trade on the coasts, and steppeland with incredibly harsh winters in the interior.
My Great-Uncle entered World War I as a 29th Division replacement at Gallipoli in the autumn of 1915 and exited, dead, some months later on the 1st of July, 1916 at the Somme. His brother, my Grandfather, left his railroad job here in the US to return to Ireland in order to fight against that same British Army. Strange and sad how the world works sometimes.
He had a rather Muslim name (Huseyin) but he had blonde curly hair, very round features, blue eyes, and pale skin. From him I got the impression that Turkey was a complicated place.
Lots of white slaves carried off to Turkey over the years. One of those things we're supposed not to worry about anymore, not when there are slavery reparations to pay to black Americans.
Why does every (any?) country have to behave in a way that fits an American analogy.
If you want to explain it to an American audience thats a reasonable way to do it.
A Churchill decision IIRC - not one of his better ones. "
DVN:He compounded it with Gallipolli. He did considerable damage to Britains naval supremacy at the time.
His decisions ,often in an alcoholic stupor, during WWII werent always sound and cost precious lives and resources.
His stubbornness in hanging on to the Empire after the war cost him the reelection. And that surely saved his legacy as the colonies such as loyalty of the colonial soldiers from Jewish Palestine and India could no longer be counted on.
For some mysterious the posters here carp on and on about USS Liberty but have nothing to say about Churchill dancing a little jig when learnt of Pearl Harbor.
I never subscribed to the Churchill mythos. I mean this is a guy who very astutely claimed that history would be kind to him because he would write it.
Why exactly should I go for the popular propaganda lionizing him?
In the final chapter of his book on The Turkish Front, the late (UK) Field Marshal Carver speculates on what would have happened if Churchill hadn't done that."
DVN: I loathe these coulda,shoulda,woulda scenarios.Anyway now that we started...
The Ottoman Empire and Caliphate would have survived.
DVN: err no. Turkey was already the sick man of Europe since the 1800s and rebellions fuelled by nationalist sentiment were simmering well before Lawrence came into the picture.
The Young Turks wouldve done away with the Caliphate themselves thus rupturing the tenuous hold over their Muslim subjects.
It would have possessed all the oil of what are now Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran - not so important in WWI but vital in WW2. They would have been very wealthy indeed.
DVN:And if you believe the Ottoman subject nations wouldnt go to war against the Turks to keep their share of oil for themselves with help from all the usual suspects ie colonial powers, you are really a naive fool.
They'd have kept Egypt.
DVN: Again no. The genie of MidEast nationalism fed by pre Islamic and pre Christian identities could not be put back in the bottle.
The State of Israel would not have been founded, nor Syria, Lebanon, the Gulf States.
DVN: So now we come to what this wet dream of yours is all about- no Israel!
And oh of course no Syria,Lebanon and Gulf States. You are objective after all
Massively desirable world.
DVN: There I fixed that for you
Speaking of "deep states", conspiracies, etc.:
"Award-winning journalist Michael Hastings dies"
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/18/hastings-car-accident-journalist/2436549/
Hastings's last story was "Why Democrats Love to Spy on Americans"
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/why-democrats-love-to-spy-on-americans
Hastings died yesterday, June 18th. He was a regular, daily twitterer who would tweet multiple times per day. But his last tweet was on June 12th. There was a sudden stop in Twitter activity after June 12th, nearly a week before his death:
https://twitter.com/mmhastings
Note that Hastings' previous work got Gen. McChrystal fired:
"Michael Hastings’ Chilling Final Story"
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/06/19/michael-hastings-chilling-final-story/
"Hastings’ final story, “Why Democrats Love to Spy on Americans,” was a searing take on the NSA snooping scandal, which Hastings described as “North Korea-esque.” Hastings pulled no punches as he linked the NSA scandal to the Department of Justice’s spying on reporters and the IRS abuse scandal. Hastings built a case that the same Democrats who turned Bush-era anti-terrorism techniques into wedge issues that helped them capture Congress and the White House in 2006 and 2008 were now defending much worse and more widespread spying on American citizens by the Obama administration."
"Hastings died in a fatal single-car crash at 4:25 on Tuesday morning. A witness said his car “suddenly jackknifed” before crossing the median and hitting a tree, causing a ferocious explosion that reportedly threw the engine block of the brand new Mercedes Hastings was driving 30 or 40 yards from the car. Mercedes engine blocks typically weigh between 290 and 540 pounds. It would take tremendous speed or force to throw one nearly half the length of a football field.
“It sounded like a bomb went off in the middle of the night,” another witness told the TV station. “The house shook, my windows were rattling.”
Hastings’ body was burned “beyond recognition,” according to reports."
"Turkey's modern history illustrates how artificial and oppressive nationalism is. It's only a better ideology than globalism in that nationalists confine their evil to their own borders."
Turkey is a special case, rather like Austro-Hungarian empire.
There was a chunk of land called Poland with Poles(even under German/Russian occupation in the 18th and 19th century). There was a chunk of land called France with mostly French folks. There was a chunk of land filled with Italians. Despite the diversity, most of them spoke Italian. There was a chunk of land known as Greece filled mostly with Greeks. There was a Japan with Japanese. Even before they formed into modern nations, the national body was more or less in existence.
But what of the Ottoman Empire? The land that is now Turkey wasn't originally inhabited by Turks but by all sorts of peoples: Greeks, Persians, Romans, Armenians, etc; these were not savage natives but people with deep cultural roots. What distinguished the Ottoman empire was not that it was filled with Ottoman folks but that the Ottomans were the last ones to conquer the territory. But Ottoman rule over the area was rather like Moghul rule over India(maybe Manchu rule over China). Most Indians were not Moghul, and most people in the Ottoman Empire were not Ottomans/Turks. Oddly enough, the Ottomans ruled over many folks who were not Turks while many other Turkic peoples lived under Russian or European rule.
Ottoman civilization was imperial, not national. When the empire fell apart, Ottomans had to create a new nation founded on common ethnicity, but this wasn't easy. While the core of what became Turkey was majority Turkic, it also had lots of other ethnic groups, especially as Ottoman elites had relied on more talented non-Turks--especially Greeks, Armenians, and Jews--to run much of the business. As Ottoman grip weakened and Greeks won independence, there were lots of Greek violence against Turks in Greek territory, and Turks responded with horrible violence against Greeks. Same happened with Armenians during WWII. Armenians sided with Russians to carve out a big chunk of territory for themselves, and Turks reacted with horrible violence. And Brits aided and abetted Arab nationalism, a kind of a misnomer since Arabs lived in tribal communities and had no understanding of 'nationalism'. Turks hoped that German victory in WWII would help them maintain their empire, but Germans lost and Ottomans with them. Austro-Hungarian empire and Ottoman empire were gone for good, and Turks' only defensive strategy was form a modern nation premised on Turkic ethnicity. Thus, Ottomans let go of most of the territory and clung to a relatively small chunk of land that became Turkey. (Turkey is not a small nation but a midget compared to what Ottomans used to rule.) In this way, Turkic nationalism was like Zionism. Also, even though Turks had been around for some time, they too had come invading into the Near East from other parts of the world. Arabs were the first Muslims whereas Turks were originally an Asiatic tribe that later converted to Islam. Thus, Arabs sort of resented the Ottomans as fakers or late-comers who'd usurped the authority from the Arabs, the true/original Muslims.
Even though modern Turkic nationalism was founded on Turkic identity, something like 1/3 remained non-Turkish, with the biggest and most hostile minority group being Kurdish, and this problem lingers to this day.
It's hard to think of a more messed-up and interesting nation.
Personally, I have negative feelings against Turks because my first impression came from MIDNIGHT EXPRESS. I still have this image of a Turk as a fat swarthy guy who beat white folks on the feet.
Nationalism was problematic with Turks cuz of their history.
It came naturally to Poles or Japanese, but much more needed to be done for there to be a Turkey nation.
For some mysterious [reason] the posters here carp on and on about USS Liberty but have nothing to say about Churchill dancing a little jig when learnt of Pearl Harbor.
Was it over when the British bombed Pearl Harbor?
Sometimes I wished I lived in the Star Wars Universe.
Then, Michael Hastings would right now be joining Andrew Breitbart and Obi Wan Kenobi.
If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
BWAHAHAHA!!!
Unfortunately, I don't live in that universe. When journalists that want the truth to be free go silent, they seem to just go silent.
DVN - your Brit political history's a bit off if you think that "stubbornness in hanging on to the Empire" lost Churchill the 1945 election. That election was lost in the years between 1931 and 1939.
(Although his forecast of the horrors of partition, made in 1931, was pretty spot on)
Turkey would have made a pretty useful fist against "rebellions fuelled by nationalist sentiment" in the absence of cash, military training and arms from outside powers. Ibn Saud, for example (and not exactly your idea of a 'nationalist'), would have been crushed. And, while the Turkish behaviour was appalling, how did the rebellions of the Bulgarians and Armenians get on?
Your comments are often interesting, but I'm starting to wonder - if you're that off target on something I know about, are you equally off target on everything else?
I read "Midwestern Republic" and know I had found my true calling in life.
Viva Midwestern Republic!
"For some mysterious [reason] the posters here carp on and on about USS Liberty but have nothing to say about Churchill dancing a little jig when learnt of Pearl Harbor."
"No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. I could not foretell the course of events. I do not pretend to have measured accurately the martial might of Japan, but now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all!
We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end. We might not even have to die as individuals. Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force.
I've been interested in politics and history all my life, and yet I've never heard of the Donme until I first read about them on iSteve a few years ago. This is very important and very little known. Why is the Muslim world divided, why is the Turkish state so secular, and so on. Steve has done a public service in digging this up and publicizing it.
were it for a twist of fate, the greeks almost reconquered Constatinople in '22 - the turks, instead of the Greeks and Armenians, would have been booted..
but even if that did happen, the EU would be trying to fill it up with muslims anyway, as they are doing in spain.
It sounded like a bomb went off in the middle of the night
crazy right wing conspiracy nutters.. racist, etc etc..
the left has this down pat.
Finally, the Midwesterners stare down the Army. To rub in their long-thwarted dominance, the Midwestern Christian Party then orders all the bars in New York City to close at 10PM, driving New Yorkers into Times Square to protest.
So MidWesterners/Middle Americans are the Black Turks and the New Yorkers/Beltway types are the White Turks?
I think we need a volunteer for "Ask a Turk..."
"I think we need a volunteer for "Ask a Turk..."
This could be done with lots of countries. I'm especially curious about Japan, for example. You can't buy HBD-aware, PC-averse commentary in the travel section of Barnes & Noble.
Whiskey: The fight in Turkey is over banning beer, and the corrupt deals between Erdogan and his contractor backers to bulldoze everything down and build new crummy stuff under cheap government loans.
Beer is not being banned, though restrictions are being brought in. As for the "new crummy stuff" I believe that includes what is quite often the first homes a lot of former peasants have ever had.
I don't know much about Turkey but I wouldn't rely too much on "Spengler" aka David Goldman on Erdogan as he's consistently both mendacious and wrong.
For some mysterious the posters here carp on and on about USS Liberty but have nothing to say about Churchill dancing a little jig when learnt of Pearl Harbor
And I'll bet the Brits still have not admitted to this dastardly RAF sneak attack!
Not So Young Turk said: When was the last time Americans were really indignant about anything, Bonus Army? 68?
Hunsdon said: Well, some Americans get upset all the time (OJ verdict, et al.) but most Americans? We're fat and happy sheep. Or fat and unhappy sheep. Thanks for your contributions (they really are appreciated).
Simon in London said: Israeli desire to keep Turkey onside might help explain why Israel appears to support the Sunni war against the Shia in Syria . . . .
Hunsdon said: Also, the Sunni hillbillies who will win the war have no real idea how to run a state.
Whiskey said: Steve, you're wrong, wrong, and wrong. On nearly every count.
Hunsdon said: There's got to be a no true Scotch-Irishman fallacy in here somewhere.
DVN said: For some mysterious the posters here carp on and on about USS Liberty but have nothing to say about Churchill dancing a little jig when learnt of Pearl Harbor.
Hunsdon said: Churchill was a swine, vindicated by history mostly because he wrote that history, but that's a fairly meaningless analogy. Natanyahu dancing a jig when 9/11 went down, that would be a better comparison.
Anonydroid at 4:18 PM said: I've been interested in politics and history all my life, and yet I've never heard of the Donme until I first read about them on iSteve a few years ago.
Hunsdon said: Our host's articles on the Donmeh are exquisitely fascinating to me. They are, perhaps, my favorite series of posts that he has written, and I like most of his posts quite a bit to begin with.
gubbler:
Excellent post! One thing I would like to add is that another thing that makes the Turkish identity unique are the many Turks, perhaps most, who know of European Christian or non Turkic ancestors. I believe the Turkish government has even tried to erase this from history books and the popular memory, to prevent Turks from rediscovering their Greek, Armenian, Albanian, Slavic, Persian or Kurdish roots.
If I remember correctly, the amount of true "Turkic" ancestry in the modern Turkish gene pool(based on tests) is so small, that the average Turk has about the equivalent of one Turkish/Central Asian great grandfather. In other words, Turks are overwhelming descended from Anatolian and Balkan natives who were Turkified over the centuries, rather than descendants of the Turkic tribes.
I love Steve's articles about Turkey and the Donmeh. I happen to be of Greek ancestry and my father was born in Thessaloniki, the same city Attaturk was born in.
The older generation in my family is very distrustful of the Jews, largely due to living among them and interacting with them in Thessaloniki and northern Greece and Turkey since forever.
Thessaloniki isn't as interesting as it used to be. The Nazis destroyed what was left of the Jewish community of the city during the war. Sure, there's a few still around, but I doubt they number more than 50.
As far as Steve's history, he is mostly right based on what little I know. Some Greeks believe the Jews helped the Turks and vice versa. And the Masonic connections make perfect sense to me.
Steve may even be understating the differences between the Young Turks/Donmeh/Balkan Turks, and the Muslim peasants of the Anatolian hinterland they lorded over. It was almost like Europeans ruling over illiterate non-Europeans.
You are such an a pathetic loser Hundson. Give it a rest the only people dancing jigs on 9/11 were Palestinians, and paleocons like you because you "knew" the Israeli's piloted those planes and now all the American sheep would "know" the "truth"
Yea the election in 1945 had nothing to do with India and everything to do with who would implement the Beveridge
Report most thoroughly. DVN is basically just the Indian version of whiskey. Except without the panache and Napoleon complex. No one cared about India in 1945 election. It's considered bad form to let ethnic grievances so obviously color your views of historical personages. WASP that I am I don't carry on about Ghandi or for that matter the Pequots, though the gave my ancestors quite a scare. The Pequots that it is not Ghandi. He mostly just gave my ancestors a laugh when they heard about his creepy sleeping habits. I imagine they guffawed a little at Nehru's jackets to but I don't know for sure.
For some mysterious [reason] the posters here carp on and on about USS Liberty but have nothing to say about Churchill dancing a little jig when learnt of Pearl Harbor.
When has anyone ever mentioned this jig? And Roosevelt and the very "racist" Churchill are uniformly reviled among pro-Whites.
"Most of the populace (fair skinned Greeks,blonde Kurds and the very European Saxon mercenaries and Galatian settlers) just got Turkicized over 500 years."
Slaves. Tribes like the Khazars raided slaves from places like Ukraine and Russia and sold them to Jewish merchants in the Crimea for shipping to the middle-east.
The donmeh are the perfect example of an ethno-sectarian group stealthing up and co-operating as a group to change an environment to better suit themselves like beavers building a dam.
This isn't necessarily bad as depending on the culture being changed the net result might be positive or negative - although i think in Turkey's case the forced nature of the change without majority support is why it is creaking now.
http://nicholasstixuncensored.blogspot.com/2013/06/washington-post-conservative-jennifer.html
Real reason why Jen Rubin had Richwine purged. She wants to hide the reason for Jewish power.
"To me the most cynically amusing aspect of Turkish/Near Eastern history is that the entire mess can be traced back to the perfiodious cheapness of the Brits, who in 1914 drove the Turks out of neutrality by refusing to deliver two battle cruisers for which the Turks had prepaid and compounding this by refusing to refund the Turk's payment. Historical tidbits like this are what cause cascades of human misery down through the decades. "
Yes, a the entire modern history of the Near East can be explained by a single incident in 1914.
You're an idiot.
Yes, a the entire modern history of the Near East can be explained by a single incident in 1914.
"
As I posted above, the poster is silly for speculating that the Ottomans would endure if it had not been for above?
However a single incident can accelerate the course of history. The assasination of the archduke led to redrawing of the map of Central Europe and the Middle East.
Note I used the word "accelerate" and not "change". All the nations were poised for war anyway , all they need was a fuse and it was provided by that Serbian dude. If not him , then other casus belli would be invented
DVN - your Brit political history's a bit off if you think that "stubbornness in hanging on to the Empire" lost Churchill the 1945 election. That election was lost in the years between 1931 and 1939."
DVN: I am talking about his loss to Clement Atlee in 1945. A year before the mutiny in the Indian navy which spread to the rest of the armed forces and only quelled because Sardar Patel in Congress agreed to mediate a truce and standdown of the mutineers in exchange for an orderly transfer where Congress would be given prime cut of meat when it came to political power.
As said Jews in Palestine were getting incredbly restive.Oh Ill cut the euphemisms, yes they were terrorists and giving the Bris no small trouble(one solider per Jew was assigned in Palestine)
(Although his forecast of the horrors of partition, made in 1931, was pretty spot on)
DVN: The problem was the partition occured in the face of British retreat.Had the British stayed on to supervise the partition with troops and their logistical skills,much of the horror would be spared.Instead the British simply handed the Indian leaders a hot grenade and they like fools accepted purely due to ego.
Turkey would have made a pretty useful fist against "rebellions fuelled by nationalist sentiment" in the absence of cash, military training and arms from outside powers. Ibn Saud, for example (and not exactly your idea of a 'nationalist'), would have been crushed. And, while the Turkish behaviour was appalling, how did the rebellions of the Bulgarians and Armenians get on?
DVN:Druze,Kurds,Jews,Pal Arabs,Egyptian nationalists,Iraqis,Armenians,Sunni and Shia Arabs not to mention myriads of other ethnic groups may have been ineffectual by themselves in fighting the formidable Turks but most of these communties had already some semi autonomy by then and were on their way to becoming independent nation states for better or worse( often worse but thats another matter)
And Turks had diminishing will and power to squash rebellions as they had ideas of independent ethno state of their own and while they were loathe to relinquish their power ,the Young Turks were realistic about their prospects of holding on to their dominions.
Not to mention the aformentioned groups inviting European colonial powers in their wars against the Turks
Your comments are often interesting, but I'm starting to wonder - if you're that off target on something I know about, are you equally off target on everything else?
DVN: Thank you Anon, but as you I am talking about a post WWII Churchill . What difference a couple of months makes.
Of course Churchill made a comeback in the 50s and attempted to revive the good old days with the 1956 Suez war against Egypt by co opting Israel and France as allies.
But like FDR and Truman in the 40's, Eisenhower had enough of Churchill's colonial antics and he put an end to it.
DVN said: For some mysterious the posters here carp on and on about USS Liberty but have nothing to say about Churchill dancing a little jig when learnt of Pearl Harbor.
Hunsdon said: Churchill was a swine, vindicated by history mostly because he wrote that history, but that's a fairly meaningless analogy. Natanyahu dancing a jig when 9/11 went down, that would be a better comparison.
DVN: Its not strictly an analogy as the events have little in common as other commentators who took issue with it failed to notice My point was not about the event itself.
But the reaction to the event. Or in the case of Churchill, the reaction to his reaction
The Liberty was bombed in the fog of war. I dont see the upside in Israel deliberately targeting an ally.
It was not Netanyahu's country that burned down the White HOuse in 1812!
Anyway it was Sharon who was PM in 2001. Watching the 300 pound Sharon dance would be a odd sight indeed
I dont doubt Sharon would be thrilled to have Bush on board against Islamist suicide bombers.
But please note paleos were falling over themselves to get Israel on hook somehow for Sept 11. I am not talking about the conspiracy kooks but mainstream paleos who hold U.S support for Israel as one of the gripes of Al Qaeda.
"Beer is not being banned, though restrictions are being brought in."
Whiskey got it wrong? Whiskey has no idea what he is talking about? Whodathunkit?
"I don't know much about Turkey but I wouldn't rely too much on "Spengler" aka David Goldman on Erdogan as he's consistently both mendacious and wrong."
Much like Whiskey is consistently both mendacious and wrong. It's a Scotch-Irish thing.
"For some mysterious the posters here carp on and on about USS Liberty but have nothing to say about Churchill dancing a little jig when learnt of Pearl Harbor."
Probably because they're spending their time instead talking about FDR not-dancing a little jig when learnt of Pearl Harbor. Because polio.
"Steve, you're wrong, wrong, and wrong. On nearly every count."
Followed by Whiskey's usual output of twaddle, multiple paragraphs and multiple posts of twaddle, failing to point out where Steve is wrong about anything.
Newsflash, Whiskey: failing to agree with you and failing to focus on your habitual obsessions does not make Steve "wrong".
Does anyone on this blog bother to read Whiskey's posts anymore, except to look for the obvious errors? The mere sight of the word "whiskey" must cause practiced iSteve readers to immediately scroll down to the next post. Why waste precious seconds when you already know what Whiskey is going to say?
gubbler:
Excellent post! One thing I would like to add is that another thing that makes the Turkish identity unique are the many Turks, perhaps most, who know of European Christian or non Turkic ancestors. I believe the Turkish government has even tried to erase this from history books and the popular memory, to prevent Turks from rediscovering their Greek, Armenian, Albanian, Slavic, Persian or Kurdish roots. "
It gets worse. Turks under Ataturk went to the extant of claiming the Trojans of Illiad as their own and came up with all sorts of convuluted theories as to how their Central Asian were essentially dispersed Trojans. Kind of a Asiatic version of Aenid and therefore their return to the Anatolian peninsula was really a homecoming where the dastardly Greeks(descendents of the Mycenean perscutors) were resided and had to be disposed of.
There is an interesting parallel with Zionists(Israelites) and Palestinians(Philistines/Greeks)
I wonder who inspired who with such historical narrative as justification for conquest of the respective regions.
And if that it could be one of basis of enduring frienship between Turkey and Israel(well until our Erdogan came along anyway)
Ties can between countries may not depend on flesh and blood politics but can be abstract
I remember asking my university history professor in despair why Americans despite the utterly rogue tendencies of Pakistan still prefer them as friends rather than the more upright ,reliable Indian(Whiskey beta/alpha alert!)
He, a wise man of WASP background, told me that Pakistan like U.S were breakaway nations from the mother country and this creates a mutual affinity. And each also shares the mythos of the frontier(Pakistan cherish the Central Asian and Iranian nomadic heritage as opposed to the relatively staid Indians. The prevalence of hunting and equestrian culture in Pakistan compared to relativly bookish India also appeals more to Americans)
Slaves. Tribes like the Khazars raided slaves from places like Ukraine and Russia and sold them to Jewish merchants in the Crimea for shipping to the middle-east."
Just call them Jews ,you know you want to! Anyway Mr Goebbels, Khazars were had vanished way before 1453 so there was no way they could provide these slaves.
Most slaves came from the Cacusus regions,males for the battlefield ,females for the boudoir
And much of the white apperance of the average Turk does not owe to slaves as much as various Europeans and European types(Kurds) getting Turkicized
After all, the Armenian genocide was conducted by the worst of the Muslim world: ultra Islamic peoples, not a mixture of the liberal, multinational reformers of 1908, but the all ethnic Turk, ultra Islamic fundamentalists seeking to preserve the Caliphate and pretensions by copying the more brutal Sultans of the past."
Wrong ,wrong ,wrong. The Armenian genocide was very much a deterioration of an ethnic conflict with Islam playing a very minor role.
I am no fan of Islam and have no issue discussing its utterly revolting past,loathsome present and hopefully non existent future.
But give credit where its due or in this case where it is not due.
Turkish genocide owed as much to Islam as the PKK terrorism did
Yea the election in 1945 had nothing to do with India and everything to do with who would implement the Beveridge
Report most thoroughly. "
DVN:Silly man. Both FDR and Truman made it pretty clear to Churchill, either ditch the empire or no soup for you.
I never claimed that the British populace had any love of India but it for them it was pretty simple
Before WWII India was a money maker
After WWII India was a money loser
Cruel as it was to Churchill, they said thank you for what you have done but good bye
DVN is basically just the Indian version of whiskey. Except without the panache and Napoleon complex. No one cared about India in 1945 election. It's considered bad form to let ethnic grievances so obviously color your views of historical personages.
DVN:I never stated India was the ONLY source of Churchill's loss. The empire was simply no go and if you dont have access to the manpower and resources of India, kiss the empire goodbye.
Since I have nothing but contempt for your opinion and analysis I will take that lamebrained comparision to Whiskey as a compliment
WASP that I am I don't carry on about Ghandi or for that matter the Pequots, though the gave my ancestors quite a scare.
DVN: What makes you think I am fan of Gandhi(not Ghandi-why cant you spell it right?) you assume too much.
The Pequots that it is not Ghandi. He mostly just gave my ancestors a laugh when they heard about his creepy sleeping habits. I imagine they guffawed a little at Nehru's jackets to but I don't know for sure."
DVN: Are you the same idiot who goes on and on about India sucks because Alexander invaded it? You are arent you?
I bet you arent even WASP but an East Indian or Anglo Indian.
Probably a dark skinned one at that- this particular specimen is filled with self hate!
Then as now your historical knowledge and analysis is utter crap.
Repeat after me- google search<> knowledge
Probably because they're spending their time instead talking about FDR not-dancing a little jig when learnt of Pearl Harbor. Because polio."
hahahaha nice! Cruel but nice play on polio-paleo
Turkish genocide owed as much to Islam as the PKK terrorism did"
oops I meant the genocide by Turkish of course
The Bloomberg/Erdogan comparison is based on both being corporatists with an affinity for the nanny state.
Nope I'm a WASP. I know that has to burn you up inside. All that skin bleaching and staying inside to lighten your skin and you are still only good enough to fix excell when it breaks at work. Care to point out one historical mistake I made or just guess my race based on absolutely nothing.
Nope I'm a WASP."
Nnnope you are not. I have dealt with WASPs on and offline. Some sterotypes about them are true. They are intelligent, witty and tactful. All qualities which you clearly lack.
WASPs also have negative stereotypes associaed with them but this type of pathetic trolling is not one of them.
I know that has to burn you up inside. "
I really dont see how that follows. Why would someone else's ethnic identity burn me up?Clearly you have serious unresolved issues to assume such things. 100% you do have some English blood but you dont resemble them in the least.
I have known your type. I remember one clown with an Indian first name and a last name Dahlstrom who was born and moved to America and started claiming he was white. Why? Because Indians were counted as Caucasian by the government and he had a white grandfather or some such nonsense.Though his features were North Indian caucasoid, his skin was practically black.
Most Hindus dont go around claiming to be white and if they do they are the laughing stock of their community.
All that skin bleaching and staying inside to lighten your skin and you are still only good enough to fix excell when it breaks at work."
Actually Indians use fairness creams and sunscreen to become lighter skinned. Not all that different from the Victorian English when women were expected to pale as ghosts and men ruddy complexions.
Of course nowadays WASPs are all about tanning.
And if you have to be snarky and classist about the stereotypes of Indians and the tech sector,atleast get the spelling right,its Excel not excell ,idiot!
Care to point out one historical mistake I made or just guess my race based on absolutely nothing."
I pointed out several in this comment and others. If you are so dense not to see it ,that's not really my problem.
As for your race, it is a strong hunch obviously since this is an anonymous board
By the same token why exactly should I believe you when you claim to be WASP ,genius?
It is obvious from your utterly braindead,crass,nonsensical and incoherent comments seething with rage and complexes that you are not a WASP
Most WASPs are indifferent to India, you are not. Even if they do have a problem with India, they wouldnt express it in such a simian manner.The online equivalent of hurling faeces which is what you do.
To elaborate on your retarded analysis of my profile. Most posters here know what I stand for and I comment on vast range of topics apart from India. They dont always agree with me and are even hostile to many of my views but there is a mutual respect of sorts and recognize my knowledge in some fields.
What exactly do you do here besides trolling whenever I mention India?
Stop getting basic European history wrong and I won't have any need to correct and I can go back to disdaining key board high castes like you in silence. As a reminder "His stubbornness in hanging on to the Empire after the war cost him the reelection," is false.
Look if you think WASPs are into tanning then you are mistaking WASPs for Italians in which case I feel even more sorry for you than I already did.
More than three posters have already called you out on your ignorant belief that India played some role in Churchill's defeat.I can't help it that you continually speak outside your area of expertise which is apparently wait times for foreign leaders trying to see Indira Ghandi. So keep criticizing my spelling boyo. See sport as long as your second cousins keep my Word working I don't need to waste time with spelling.
Babywhines about classcism are really rich coming from a supporter of the caste system. Again please stop project your weird Anglo-Indian fetish on me. As for anonymity well you obviously aren't a Dr. nor are you Dutch so let's just say you are as anaonymous as me. Fortunately for me you've already identified yourself as Indian so I don't have to spend much time concocting some fervid origin for you. Honestly, I don't make any assumptions about you why do you automatically question my identity. Maybe if the Brits had stayed a little longer they could have taught you some sportsmanship to go with that cricket.
op getting basic European history wrong and I won't have any need to correct and I can go back to disdaining key board high castes like you in silence.
DVN:LOL yes, I really need to learn history and geopolitics from someone who thought Nixons presidency was a resounding success.Your knowledge of classical,medieval and modern history whether European,Indian or Middle Eastern is a complete joke.
Repeat again after me
google search<>knowledge
just make it your mantra and you will be fine
As a reminder "His stubbornness in hanging on to the Empire after the war cost him the reelection," is false.
DVN: Truth by assertion is your MO
Look if you think WASPs are into tanning then you are mistaking WASPs for Italians in which case I feel even more sorry for you than I already did.
DVN: You dont get out much do you?Try and get out of mother's basement for a change. The sunlight and fresh air may sting at first but that is part of the process.
More than three posters have already called you out on your ignorant belief that India played some role in Churchill's defeat.I can't help it that you continually speak outside your area of expertise which is apparently wait times for foreign leaders trying to see Indira Ghandi. So keep criticizing my spelling boyo. See sport as long as your second cousins keep my Word working I don't need to waste time with spelling.
DVN: This is one of the stupidest comments I have noted on this board. The 2nd stupidest was also from you.Congratulations
And what is this "boyo" business?So have you given up on pretending to be a WASP since you are so thoroughly exposed and are falling back on being considered an ethnic white?
LOL at this rate of verbal asskicking and its effect on your degrading of your percieved identity, perhaps by the end of the week you will be reduced to "nowamasayyin?"
Babywhines about classcism are really rich coming from a supporter of the caste system. Again please stop project your weird Anglo-Indian fetish on me.
DVN: One does not need a fetish to bang Anglo Indian chicks. They are EASY and the men are lazy drunken cuckolds. This is the stereotype associated with East Indian/Anglo Indian as well as Goans.
If you are married and have children, I would strongly recommend that you get a paternity test done stat!
I never whined about classism in general just your silly attempts at trying to appear snooty noting that this is not WASPs tend to do however who pretend to be WASPs do it all the time Also caste<>class you moron. In the south and other parts of India, it is the ritual Shudhras who are richer and dominant than Brahmins.
As for anonymity well you obviously aren't a Dr. nor are you Dutch so let's just say you are as anaonymous as me. Fortunately for me you've already identified yourself as Indian so I don't have to spend much time concocting some fervid origin for you. Honestly, I don't make any assumptions about you why do you automatically question my identity. Maybe if the Brits had stayed a little longer they could have taught you some sportsmanship to go with that cricket.
DVN: Pretty much every statement in there is incoherent nonsense. You are completely braindead
I answered each and every query of yours before andif you still have to ask again , you are an idiot.
A Persian proverb goes -An intelligent man needs only a hint but a fool wont get it even if you explain the entire damn thing to him
It would not surprise me at all if you assume that I am hinting that I think you are intelligent as I quoted that proverb.
So keep criticizing my spelling boyo. See sport as long as your second cousins keep my Word working I don't need to waste time with spelling."
Really your comments are a goldmine of stupidity. There are so many nuggets worth looking at that I dont bother too much and address your overall(incoherent,illogical and ill infomred) point.
But the one above is 24 carat. So let me see if I understand this, you dont have to correct your spelling because some guy in Mumbai presumably will help you with your Microsoft Word? WTF kind of sense does that make?
So you just stop using your grey matter altogether and are utterly dependent on technology?
Goddamn, no wonder you are so stupid. All of your pathetic zingers are really like a boomerang which missed its target and returned to strike in your groin.
I wouldnt be surprised if you told me next that you dont need to know what 2+2 is because you got some Indian manservant to help you out with that.
Keep at it and very soon you will need someone to breathe(and breed) for you.
Whiskey holds forth at length in defense of his countrymen. Nothing arouses his eire like calumny against the Celts!
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