Posted on 10/24/2018 8:30:11 AM PDT by C19fan
Since Erdogan took over they’re working 8 days a week to fall back to the 7th century.
Islam destroys everything it touches.
We were there in the late 60s...when the Turks loved and respected the USA. The [common] people were lovely.
Today, I’m sure the sentiment is different.
“We were there in the late 60s...when the Turks loved and respected the USA. The [common] people were lovely.”
That was the Turkey envisioned by Kemal Ataturk.
He wanted a modern nation built in the western style on a constitution that took islam out of the school room.
They had Kemals dream for a while but Erdogan has undone it all.
Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, probably other nations, had the beginnings of quite modern societies. You can find pictures of beautiful women wearing nice outfits, lounging in public the way anyone would in NYC or Los Angeles. Then the fundamentalists came surging through and these countries have, at least socially, been drifting back to a Dark Age mentality. Very sad.
Yes it is sad.
I have looked up photos of Iran in the early 70’s. It looked like any western nation. The men and women would have looked at home in NYC, London or Paris.
I agree with Winston Churchill that islam is the cruelest thing ever foisted upon mankind.
Absolutely yes!
We traveled through many small villages/no electricity by ourselves; mud huts with a common well; always, always a villager would ask us to wait and summon [usually a young person] to translate; I knew enough Turkish to get by; and someone would come out to PROUDLY show us a JFK 50¢ piece; and then they would relay sincere expressions of his death. At that time, the USA was respected as a strong ally. Evidence, of the military bases we had there.
We found our Turkish neighbors to be lovely people. In the big markets; villager women would still walk behind their husbands. More western dressed Turkish women, probably educated, did not.
During that late 60s time, there was a lot of violent student rioting in Ankara; they were protesting that they had a university education, but there were no jobs for them use use their education at home. Many were going to Germany to get jobs; and they resented leaving their homeland.
We only see what the politicians say and think, but back in the remote villages, I believe common people think differently; more in the vein of Ataturk’s teaching. FWIW.
Back in the 60’s I loved to visit Beirut; to me, it was a beautiful cosmopolitan city, rivaling anything that Europe has.
Now, it’s a refugee camp. Shame.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.