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Happy New Year!Reader comment on item: Disappearing Christians in the Middle East Submitted by Alexandros (United Kingdom), Jan 4, 2013 at 15:53 First of all, Happy New Year to all! Both replies i received are quite interesting and even though i think that Kepha Hor is quite raw to his comment, he is not that much wrong, even though he misses something. I was in the US for the New Year's and during the flight i read Brzezinsky's last book. Everyone knows that Obama listens to him blindly and from what i have understood Mr Brzezinsky is fully convinced by Mr Davutoglu and has let the "reform" of the Middle East to Turkey. His book has a lot of inconsistencies, but this is another issue. At this point i come to Mr Banerjee's comment, who is obviously a Turk and as a Turk he is struggling to find a nice past and i do not blame him for this, it is hard to find something Turkish to be proud of, I am really sorry to state this, but this is the truth and the worst part is that if you do not face your past you will not be able to inherit a good past to your children either, that is why i am so strict with you. I am really worried when people talk of the Ottoman Empire, i believe it is the first step after starting talking about Nazism. Let me make my self clear. The Western Analysts follow Mr Davutoglu to what he has written as "flourishing" minorities during the Ottoman Empire and respect to the Christian minorities during the Ottoman Empire. Back then the Turks in the Ottoman empire were hardly a majority, the Muslims were a Majority no doubt, but they were not all Turks, even though the Ottomans were not able to earn any money from the Muslims, because they could not tax them. Guess who paid the taxes.......They needed the flourishing christian communities as they needed the Jews from Spain, because they could not tax anyone else, so the truth is that the Christians were working three times as hard to bring the money, in addition the Turks in majority were illiterate and they could not become public servants, the Greeks had the educational tradition and were people of science so they were working as public servants, so the Ottomans did not have any other option again! In addition the Ottomans were stealing the male children from their Christian families, for "educational" purposes as another Turk who comments in this blog has written once and these kind of statements make you cry. The Christians were not exactly allowed to keep their traditions and whenever the Ottomans wished invaded, stole and killed, so this does not mean exactly "respect". But what happened when the Christians were a burden to the Turks? I have written a lot of times these things and even though i do not like to repeat my self, i have to, genocides and Pogroms! As for the rest of your comment proves clearly that Islam is a political system based on Fundamentalism, the nationalism in the way we mean it int he West is not exactly the same for the Muslims and it has to do with religion, i mean how else can someone explain that because the US fought the war in IRAQ the Muslims blamed the Arab Christians! You are also right that in the West being a Christian means nothing more than what it is, that you follow that religion and people do not make discriminations and that is why we do not make religious wars any more, but the solution you are proposing is wrong, the Christians of the Middle East should not beg for what it is rightful theirs and the West should not let them submit, as you propose! Best Regards to All! 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". Reader comments (40) on this item
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