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Istanbul's blue tile paradise

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Re: Istanbul's blue tile paradise

#71

Post by mrtksn »

ax0ar wrote: post #70
goodbyesf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Turkey is not a muslim turkic nation at all It's a predominantly islamic turkish speaking nation. You say 'almost all the population claims to be muslim' and say it's not a muslim nation? > The country itself is the legacy of the Ottoman empire which was partly in Europe for centuries No. The ottoman empire was a legacy of the turkish nation. It's why the ottoman empire is also called the turkish empire. The nation…

You do have a good grasp of Turkish history, but explaining a Kemalist that he's not western is like talking to a wall. You can't talk sense into a poisoned mind that is in hate, denial and shame with his own history and past. Turkey is one of the few countries in the world that has these pitiable individuals who despise their history and live in their own artificial "reality". And the only answer they have is even m…

I'm not a Kemalist. However, after reading your analysis, I have come to my senses and now I am completely open to the notion of "Western values that emerged after WWII and were used as pretext for the invasion of the 3rd world", although they were a significant political topic during the final decades of the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed in WWI(WWI predates WWII by about 30 years). Now that I am enlightened, I can see how Ataturk embraced pro-Western values that emerged after 1945, despite his death in 1938. Who cares about context and chronology these days, right?

PS: By the way, I think I understand why you might be triggered. When you hear "Western values," you likely perceive something entirely different from what it means in Turkey. Just relax, the Western values I am referring to have nothing to do with the culture wars you are engaged in. In the context of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, Western values pertain to scientific, cultural, and political progress that occurred in Europe during the decline of the Ottoman Empire. They are unrelated to whatever you may be imagining. It does not involve topics such as gay rights or the like, as the Ottomans were already quite tolerant in these matters, rendering them irrelevant in the context of the Ottomans and Turkey.

Or maybe you are not involved in the American culture wars, even then western values don't mean the thing you think it means in Turkey. In Turkey western values mean secular governance, secular judicial system, secular education, women's rights, families where one man is married to one woman and they have the same rights.

Re: Istanbul's blue tile paradise

#72

Post by t43562 »

goodbyesf wrote: post #44
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good. Considering turkey isn't a western nation... You should read some Turkish history. After the fall of the Ottoman empire, and being divided up amongst various winners of WWI, the modern Turkey led by Ataturk reclaimed their lost territory and established a country based on overtly western principles. The reforms were deep, and sweeping: A new alphabet, to make Turkish more approachable to people used to Latin…

> A new alphabet, to make Turkish more approachable to people used to Latin scripts. If china adopts latin script does that make china a member of the West? Of course not. 'The West' is called that for a reason. It's predominantly western ( the west ) european nations and their genetic colonial descendents ( aka colonies that have predominantly european blood, power ). We could adopt chinese as our official language…

Western is used to indicate values and there is a huge battle in Turkey over values. Secularism is one of them for example. The rest of this debate is semantics and national pride which has always struck me as the thing that causes every nation to act stupidly.

Re: Istanbul's blue tile paradise

#73

Post by kasabali »

kleton wrote: post #69
nashashmi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tidbit info: Today's Hagia Sophia is version three of the original church. The original was made of wood and burned down. The second version was of stone and collapsed in an earthquake. The third version took 20+ years to build. Another tidbit: Hagia Sophia can be translated to english as Saint Sofia. It is pronounced in Turkish as Aya Sofia. Aya is from an arabic word that means "sign" like sign of god (similar to…

Ayasofya seems more likely to be a Turkish transliteration of Hagia Sofia, given it is pronounced exactly the same.

transliteration of Greek "Αγία", to be more specific.

Re: Istanbul's blue tile paradise

#74

Post by t43562 »

I'm probably going to annoy someone but Turkish Camiler usually seem to be built to a particular pattern of a dome with two pointed thin towers. For some odd reason whenever I pass one I imagine an alien invasion in which it will turn out that the domes are a radar and the very pointy towers will be the space missile defence.

Re: Istanbul's blue tile paradise

#75

Post by ax0ar »

mrtksn wrote: post #71
ax0ar wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do have a good grasp of Turkish history, but explaining a Kemalist that he's not western is like talking to a wall. You can't talk sense into a poisoned mind that is in hate, denial and shame with his own history and past. Turkey is one of the few countries in the world that has these pitiable individuals who despise their history and live in their own artificial "reality". And the only answer they have is even m…

I'm not a Kemalist. However, after reading your analysis, I have come to my senses and now I am completely open to the notion of "Western values that emerged after WWII and were used as pretext for the invasion of the 3rd world", although they were a significant political topic during the final decades of the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed in WWI(WWI predates WWII by about 30 years). Now that I am enlightened, I can…

Thank you for your effort to explain yourself in spite of my negative comment, but I disagree with your assertion. Science isn't a Western construct; it's a universal human endeavor, informed by contributions from civilizations worldwide, not just the West. The narrative of "Westernization" in Turkey has often been a guise for imposing cultural and ideological shifts, mostly anti-Islam ones, that many – including myself – have found intrusive.

Your claim conflates "Western values" with scientific progress, and that's simply inaccurate. Let's disentangle scientific advancement from cultural hegemony. Science belongs to everyone, regardless of culture or religion. Generalizations like yours perpetuate harmful stereotypes, and we need to move beyond such outdated views.

Life would be so much easier if the anti-Islam rhetoric in Turkey were to be conducted straightforward and not in a hidden fashion with lies. If it was straightforward, the debate would have ended 100 years ago.

Re: Istanbul's blue tile paradise

#77

Post by mrtksn »

ax0ar wrote: post #75
mrtksn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a Kemalist. However, after reading your analysis, I have come to my senses and now I am completely open to the notion of "Western values that emerged after WWII and were used as pretext for the invasion of the 3rd world", although they were a significant political topic during the final decades of the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed in WWI(WWI predates WWII by about 30 years). Now that I am enlightened, I can…

Thank you for your effort to explain yourself in spite of my negative comment, but I disagree with your assertion. Science isn't a Western construct; it's a universal human endeavor, informed by contributions from civilizations worldwide, not just the West. The narrative of "Westernization" in Turkey has often been a guise for imposing cultural and ideological shifts, mostly anti-Islam ones, that many – including mys…

Sure, science is not a western construct but in the context of the final stages of the Ottoman Empire science over religion was considered a western value. This is not really a philosophical discussion, it's a practical implication of the decline of the empire and a political position in an attempt to reduce the islamic influence. This is a timeframe when people were burning observatories so that the "pervert scientists don't look under the skirt of the angels".

Atatürk was technically a dictator and a tyrant who executed quite a large number of islamic leaders in an attempt to curb the influence of religion. However, when contemporary Turks talk about being pro-Atatürk they mean the ideology of reducing the islamic influence on daily lives, education, judiciary etc. There are of course some people who would support extermination of religious people but those are just some crazies maybe you can find online and not a widespread position.

As you can see, the "Western values" in the context of Turkey are very specific set of ideals linked with the decline of the empire and formation of the republic and has nothing to do with the understanding of western values in other parts of the worlds or in philosophical sense. It's about practical implications on laws on marriage, inheritance, dress code, teaching the evolution Theory, funding of islamic education institutions etc. This is because Islam is not just something spiritual, it comes with instructions on governance -> the Sharia law.

Re: Istanbul's blue tile paradise

#78

Post by coverband »

goodbyesf wrote: post #43
mrtksn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turkey is not a muslim turkic nation at all, Turkey is an ethnically diverse nation where almost all the population claims to be muslims but they all practice at different levels and the devote muslims are a small minority of the population. The country itself is the legacy of the Ottoman empire which was partly in Europe for centuries, thus was influenced by western values for hundreds of years already. Then Atatürk…

> Turkey is not a muslim turkic nation at all It's a predominantly islamic turkish speaking nation. You say 'almost all the population claims to be muslim' and say it's not a muslim nation? > The country itself is the legacy of the Ottoman empire which was partly in Europe for centuries No. The ottoman empire was a legacy of the turkish nation. It's why the ottoman empire is also called the turkish empire. The nation…

> > Turkey is not a muslim turkic nation at all It's a predominantly islamic turkish speaking nation. You say 'almost all the population claims to be muslim' and say it's not a muslim nation?

Until recently, people used to bring up a widely known joke about “Turks being muslim one month of the year”. You knew Ramadan was starting when the daily papers switched from news stories containing sexy pictures to giveaways of holy texts.

It’s less so these days since many people expect to gain political (= economic) favors through superfluous displays of their muslim faith, usually broadcasted through Instagram.

Re: Istanbul's blue tile paradise

#79

Post by nicolas_t »

treesciencebot wrote: post #24
objektif wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would definitely disagree with this. Apart from Turkish food you will probably only find good American, French and Italian ( may be few more) food in Turkiye. But the good news is you really do not need anything other that Turkish food because it is just amazing.

Especially true for south / far-east Asian cuisines. Unlike many other major western metropolises, Istanbul simply lacks any authentic chinese, indian, vietnamese or japanese places. I wish (as a resident) we had more exposure to those cultures through better / relaxed immigration policies in the past.

I'd argue after having lived in China and Hong Kong for numerous years that very few major western metropolises have proper authentic Chinese (and Chinese food is vast there's a huge amount of differences between regions).

For example, try getting proper cantonese dim sum in Paris or Barcelona. I only know 2 places in Paris that are halfway decent after having searched quite a bit. Or try searching for good Zhejiang food (the Hangzhou or ningbo style) in Europe.

And Chinese food in most of the US is bastardized to make it much sweeter and oily to conform to the taste there making it absolutely terrible and far from authentic.

Re: Istanbul's blue tile paradise

#80

Post by t43562 »

I spent quite a lot of time in Istanbul - mostly in suburbs far from the tourist bits. I have certainly not seen it all - probably a more tourist with more dedication has seen more in less time. I do like living there. It is always nice to have a strong currency in a place with a more variable one so it's not really fair but it has a kind of living which is a balance to my own. As someone said already, kids are treated excellently and so you can go to many more places with them without annoying anyone.

It isn't that green and its very dense but there are great little parks all over the place with very good things for kids to play on. Anyone will say hi and start talking to you even though it is much huger city than London where everyone seems to resent having to share the space.

Every week or two there will be a market in your area with huge canvas sheets stretched across from one block of apartments/buildings to the other and the quantity of wonderful vegetables and fruit is just incredible. You have to bargain. My town in the UK has a market but God preserve anyone who attempts to haggle - it's small and expensive and yet it's the best one for miles around and I'm glad to have it at all.

There are a million reastaurants in every suburb in Istanbul - I think it's more common than most areas to have commercial properties in the ground floor of blocks of flats so that you don't absolutely have to travel just to have some tea and a simit or a few slices of borek.

I like it when you put money in a bucket and lower it from your balcony to the simit seller in the street - who puts your simit and change in for you to pull them up. Sokak Simit is the "bees knees". You must buy it off a street (sokak) vendor as the one from the pastane (bakery shop) tends to be soft and pointless. It's a kind of woven ring of bread covered thickly with sesame seeds and it should be dark coloured and very chewy. Some people use the word "bagel" to describe it in English but it's isn't really anything like them and you don't eat it with stuff inside. A simit with a tomato and some olives and possibly a boiled egg is just fabulous - nutty and chewy and satisfying. You have to wash it down with a glass of golden acik cay (a-chuk ch-eye) (light tea) in my personal opinion.

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