Quote:
|
Originally Posted by fanoff
when we conquered ISTANBUL(and it will always be Istanbul not the fucking BYzantine name).
|
It was not just a conquest, but a butchery, Byzantine soldiers were executed, civilian men were enslaved, children were slaughtered, women were gang-raped. A great military day for the Turks. But it was not enough, they had to even erase the name of the city to complete its destruction.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by fanoff
they showed that their minds are still in the back
|
My mind is stuck in the past? Not at all. I
acknowledge the past, which is totally different, instead of like you pretending that it never happened.
The mention of the previous name of Istanbul should not make you angry in any way, it's history, it happened. Here in France many cities have three names (or more), one Celtic, one Roman and one French. Nobody will be angered by the mention of any of those names, quite the contrary, the inhabitants are proud of the long history of their cities and acknowledge all of it. The city of Marseille for example is often referred to as Phocée, from its Greek name Phocaea (Marseille was originally a Greek colony), and the inhabitants of Marseille don't hesitate to call themselves Phocéens, they embrace their entire history, from the Greek colony of Phocaea, to the Roman town of Massilia, to the French city of Marseille.
But if you mention Constantinople to the Turks, you get an angry response, like the past history of Istanbul is a shame and should be erased, like the city was actually founded by the Turks, like St -Sophia (i'm sorry, i don't know the official Turk name as i'm sure calling it by its original name is also considered offensive) was actually built by the Turks, like anything that ever happened before the Turkish conquest has no value whatsoever. You should be proud of the long history of that city instead of being offended by the mere mention of its pre-Turkish past. How do you cope with the ancient ruins of Greek cities on the Turkish Western coast, have you also renamed them with Turkish names so you could pretend you're the ones who actually built them?
It's a general characteristic of Turkey to have trouble dealing with the past, coping with history, the general attitude is to pretend that many things never happened even if it's right there in your face. The Armenian genocide? It never happened. Kurdistan? It doesn't exist. And of course the illegal occupation of northern Cyprus is a myth, Cyprus has always been a Turkish land (even though in reality most Turks currently living in Cyprus were brought there a few decades ago) and for Turkey the Greeks that have been living in Cyprus for over 2000 years do not exist, Turkey won't even recognize the existence of the Cypriot state which is right there next to them and they invaded 30 years ago. So we are now in the ludicrous situation to have Turkey that want to become an EU member, but won't recognize that one of the current EU members even exist!
So no, i'm not stuck in the past, like i said, i acknowledge it, which is a much healthier attitude than pretending that it never happened. It's time for Turkey to realize that history is not a menu à la carte where you can pick and choose what happened and what didn't happened.