Dear Yasemin

Submitted by gürsel devrim iyim (United States), May 14, 2009 at 16:06

Dear Yasemin (well Yasemin is also a Turkish name)

Thank you very much for your e-mail. World is changing and Turkey is changing more rapidly. You know Turkey is just between İslam and western civilisation. Please do not take Turkey for Saudi or İran or any other islamic country. There is no one unique Turkish people. Turkish culture (i mean folk, music, literature "you know Orhan Pamuk" ) is vey humanistic and emotional. Do you know that women and men dance together in Turkish folk; they touch each other. This one fact proves that Turkish culture is absolutaly different than those in Suudi Arabistan or İran or Afganistan. Turkish people lived together with Greek and Armenian for ages. We learnt many things from them and we mixed. Our culture was deeply influenced by Greek culture. (Personally i admire ancient Greek and Rome mythology).

But there are many many violences against women in practice. You are right. But please do not generalise and say Turkish are so... or most of the Turkhish men are .... This view may lead you racism.

One more thing if you ever come to Turkey please contact me. İt is a pleasure for me to meet you and talk.

Stay in peace. Love from Turkey.

Gurdev

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".