From: serdar@fawlty8.eng.monash.edu.au (Serdar Boztas)
Subject: Re: how european do the turks feel
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 22:07:18 GMT

dk0a@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (DIMITRIOS KOUVATSOS) writes:

>In article <1992Sep8.210754.4220@ctr.columbia.edu>, deniz@atlas.ctr.columbia.edu
> (Deniz Akkus) writes:
>>
>>I personally don't think Turkey should enter the EEC.  I don't think
>>it makes sense for Turkey in the long run.  I know that Greece is a rather
>>convenient excuse for other governments to stall Turkey.  Actually,
>>I have to say that I am rather thankful to Greece for it.

>I am pleasantly surprised that even one of the 1% of the Turks that are
>civilized, as I certainly consider Deniz Akkus to be, is now (not in the
>past, though) against Turkey's entry in the EC. Turkey is definetely not
>European and would only create problems 100 times more serious than whatever
>annoyances Greece (or the other relatively poorer EC countries) has caused -
>and not only in the economic sense.

I would say that Turkey would have more to lose than to gain by joining the EC.
And I doubt that Deniz was thinking in the mostly racist outlines that you
expound below. It is ludicrous to claim that Europeans have a monopoly on 
'civilization' or other positive achievements of humanity. 

>Let Turkey just heed the call of the Qur'an and join its Islamic brethren. As
>Valery Giscard d' Estaing had once said, "the eastern border of Greece is the
>eastern border of Europe - beyond that, it is no Europe".

It must be incomprehensible to you that being against Turkish entry to the EC
need not entail wholesale acceptance of Islam as a way of life.

>Greece is still far behind, but one day it will be definetely catching up to
>the other EC countries, eventually making up the terrible loss and damage that
>5 centuries of Turkish brutality wrought. And Turkey will still be cut off
>from the Western civilization, well into its Asian/Islamic way. How deserved
>for a country that is responsible for the first genocides of the 20th century,
>and still blaming its victims, for so much suffering and destruction.

Oh, I'm so shattered by this! Without giving percentages, one positive aspect
of not being in the EC would be not being associated with 'civilized' specimens
like yourself! 

And, as for Genocides, real and imagined, accepting responsibility or not doesn't
seem to be entirely determined by belonging to the western club. Overall, in the
expansion period of western power, so much suffering has been wrought
on non-western people that the above pretensions really make one sick, one who
has not taken everything taught in high-school history texts at face value, that
is. 

>>
>>Definitely not European Deniz
>>

>I wholeheartedly wish you well among the brutes. You, personaly, are not one
>of them.

I have no need to classify you, Dimitris. But I wouldn't want to associate with
you either. I leave you to wallow in the mire of your prejudices. I refuse to
make any categorical statements about Greek people by extrapolating from
your statements.

>Dimitris Kouvatsos 

And not everything is uniquely good or bad about being European either!

Serdar

-- 
Inhabited by absurd fears,  they only discuss  the puerilities with which 
every fool is familiar, and dare not, by turning a bold hand to the human 
heart, offer its gigantic idiosyncrasies to our views.     Sade, 'Justine'
Serdar Boztas \\ serdar@fawlty1.eng.monash.edu.au \\ +(61)3-565-5722