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Please do not edit archived pages. If you want to react to a statement made in an archived discussion, please make a new header on THIS page. Baristarim 03:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply] Archives: Archive 1 - Archived on March 19, 2005 Archive 2 - Archived on March 25, 2006 Archive 3 - Archived on July 25, 2006 Archive 4 - Archived on October 5, 2006 Archive 5 - Archived on November 22, 2006 The article of 1911 Edition of Encyclopaedia Brittanica about Turkey posted by User:3210 Archive 6 - Archived on November 28, 2006 Archive 7 - Archived on November 28, 2006 Archive 8 - Archived on November 28, 2006 Archive 9 - Archived on November 28, 2006 Archives continued Archive 10 - Archived on December 14, 2006 Archive 11 - Archived on January 13, 2007 Archive 12 - Archived on March 20, 2007 Archive 13 - To be Archived on ...

Note: There have been contoversial issues in the past. Please check the archives on the right to overview the past discussions before making any substantial changes.

My question is basically a question of intrenational law vs. the state's constitution.

Since: the OIC says that its goal is to: "promote solidarity among all islamic member states"

-Turkey officially appoints a foreign minister to the "Conference of Ministers" of the OIC, so it de facto acknowledges itself to be an islamic state,

-the Turkish representative, Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, is a Turkish official, representing the State of Turkey and acting on its behalf at the meetings of the OIC, and not on behalf of a private group (e.g. an Islamic Union of Istanbul, or something like that)

- The OIC is a group of countries, not individuals(by the way, the TRNC is not a full member of the OIC - and obvioulsy with no right to vote - but an observer state, as is the Russian Federation)

In a way, it is clear that Turkey admits, at least de facto if not de jure, that it is an islamic state - maybe not in the sense that (sunni) Islam is the state religion, but certainly not indifferent towards the religion of its citizens, as it would be in a 100% secular state. I agree that Turkey "has a strong tradition of secularism" in a kemalic sense, but that's not quite the same as being a secular state (I don't think that Italy or Spain are members of a Catholic Union).

Again, I think it's just a detail in international law not worth lingering on, but it is funny that Turkey always compains about the E.U. being a "Christian Club", while Turkey itself is a member of an islamic one. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.1.51.216 (talk) 22:04, 12 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

If it's not worth lingering on, why did you post it? In any case, any complaint including the term "Christian Club" most likely refers to a Turkish perception of the EU as being suspicious of Muslim nations. The EU, as I'm sure you know, is not a religious institution. 85.117.44.53 18:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Secularism is one of the building blocks of Turkey. The state has no state religion. England has a state church but they are still secular and democratic so Turkey can be secular and a member of an Islamic organization at the same time. It looks like a dilemma at first impression but actually it is not. Also, you have to analyze Turkey's position in OIC. It is not like "come on Muslim brothers lets unite and destroy the western civilization!". Actually, we are the window of those Islamic states (sadly most of them are not developed) to the Western world. We broke the chains of imperialism (by both getting rid of the British and our own monarch) and we are the first nation to fought and won against the harsh rule of the Islamic law and we formed a modern secular state from the ruins of a collapsed empire. Turkey is not a procedural democracy, it is more than that. I'm saying it both as a free citizen of Turkey and as a student of International Relations. See you, Deliogul 22:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What? Turkey never broke any chains of imperialism! Turkish imperialism ruled the Islamic world for centuries. Britian never successfully ruled Turkey. Britian ended *Turkish* imperialism at the Treaty of Sèvres. And that helped empower the nationalists who kicked Britian back out. Turkish nationalists were obviously secular then, although they are not secular today. I've no idea how the Islamic world sees Turkey today, but a "windows" seems ridiculously unlikely. How many Arabs learn Turkish? How many learn English?

To give a clear answer to the question: Turkey's constitution makes it secular, just like the US. Turkey has one dominant religion which oppresses all others any way it can, also like the US. Turkey has one enormously powerful & dangerous religious political party, again just like the US. Yes, "Islamists" are currently in control of Turkey, but these Islamists are not like the Talliban, they are much more like American Neo-conservatives.

Britian is a bad comparison since Britian is effectively far more secular than either the US or Turkey, even if less officially seclar. JeffBurdges 03:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep your "Operation Iraqi Freedom" dreams to yourself. And by the way, do you really think that learning english has ANTYHING to do with Britian, especially for Arabs? 88.245.72.166 01:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Sometimes I see that people and institutions in Turkey fuse Islam with national identity and the Principle of the indivisibility of the Turkish state, as defined in the Constitution of Turkey. Things that have to do with religion (e.g. Armenian Christians, the question of the ecumenical status of the Patriarch of Constantinople, conversions to Christianity or things like that) are classified as violations of Article 14. How so? Does the indivisibility of the State comprise religious indivisibility - i.e. is Islam a nationally "safe" or preferable religion ? How is this combined with Kemal Attatürk's secular and anti-islamic atiitude ?

Secondly, can anyone tell me if the Article 14 has an enforced status in comparison to the other articles (e.g. those granting the freedom of speach, religion and opinion) of the Constitution? Is that legally possible? In most European constitutions it's almost a dogma that all articles are equal amongst them. How is the term "indivisibility" defined ?

To JeffBurdges, Turkey defeated the so called "invincible" Great Britain (of course politically, because we lost the WWI). Turkish independence was the first crack on the walls of the Western imperialism. On the other hand, Ottoman Empire was imperialist (haha of course it was, look at its name :D ) and nationalists ended the Sultanate so Turkey won another challenge against imperialism. By saying "windows", I didn't want to refer to culture imperialism because the example you gave about the languages is clearly culture imperialism. I tried to show the role of Turkey among undeveloped (maybe rich but politically undeveloped) Muslim states because I guess we are the only one to reach such a degree in democracy among Muslim nations. And your comment about secularism... I can't reach to a statement as fast as you could but it seems like Turkey lost some of its notion and ambition about developing. In 1930's, Turkey was a success story, in 1950's it slowly became the frontier of the Cold War and after 1960's (with the help of military coups and social uprisings), Turkey slowed down a little bit and this situation gives hope to Islamists (fundamentalists etc.) in Turkey. Therefore, it is a tuff political issue and we can't form clear statements about it so easily. Deliogul 19:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Turkey with its 70M population have the 60% science output of 1.5 Billion muslim world, besides its annual science output growth rate is even twice of some EU countries. I could not find any place to put these kind of scientific output information. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.96.179.60 (talk) 13:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Finally :) I just ran into this: [1]. This should put an end to it. It is a major survey done by a major newspaper and research institutes among 50,000 people about the ethnic repartition and identification of Turkey. I will slowly integrate the info in there to concerned articles. It also includes the first serious survey on language repartition since 1965 btw.

So, among adults, 82 percent of the population are Turks, 13 Kurdish+Zaza, the rest Caucasian etc (obviously this was about self-identification, not genetic testing) And no, half the Turkey is not Kurdish or Albanian :)))

As for assimilation:

• 4 percent of the population self-identifies as Turk even though their first language is Kurdish,

• 8.82 percent self-identifies as Kurd even though their first language is Turkish.

+ 1.38 percent has Arabic as first language even though 0.7 percent self-identifies as Arab, and there are more Arabs than Zaza.

There is more info in the survey, but those ones were interesting. Those percentages are included in the general self-identification survey. The info there can be used in many articles about Turkey, it is a pretty good source. It also includes info on Lausanne minorities. I will try to update this article based on that later today. Baristarim 17:33, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As far as the language goes, 85 percent have Turkish as a first language, 12 Kurdish, 1 Zaza, 1.38 Arab, Turkic and Balkan languages 0.25 percent each, Laz 0.12 percent, Armenian and Caucasian languages 0.07 percent each, Greek 0.06 percent.

The info in that survey can also help update articles on these languages and related. It is pretty handy. Baristarim 17:39, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I missed it when this article was on the front page!!! Baristarim 17:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I noted that it's widely believed that 99.0% of Turkish population is Muslim. This percentage is getting upto 99.8% in some other sites. I tried to find a official or unofficial statistics in internet but I couldn't. I believe that this statistics don't reflect the reality. I've checked the talk archive of this article, and saw that there were some other people with same doubt, and asked for a citation. Current citation directs to a missing page. This page supposed to be in the site of an international development agency. It doesn't sound reliable. I added a 'citation needed' in this sentence. Please don't remove it until there's an official source of information. iyigun 20:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I added it, and that was the best one there was available. The link is there but there might be a typo. I have reverted you both here and in Religion in Turkey. I will try to fix the problem though. Baristarim 20:41, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And not quite. A survey by a newspaper in 2001 had found that 97.4 percent were Muslims. However I cannot remember where I had seen it. Will check back in. And why is it not "reliable"? Please try to raise the issues in the talk page before making substantial changes and particularly before adding fact tags. Cheers! Baristarim 20:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User:Bush is vandalising the article. I reverted twice but he keeps vandalising. He should be stopped immediately.--Ugur Olgun 20:20, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What just happenned??!!! Man, some people are really going out of their way to be negative.. And now the article is full protected.. Baristarim 21:20, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh man, I was going to work on updating the demographics section tonight with the help of the survey above... :( Baristarim 21:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If there's no objections, I'll unprotect and set sprotection back again. The vandal is bound to run out of sleeper accounts at some point. El_C 21:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am ok with that. Baristarim 21:28, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And we can always introduce range blocks, or even contact its ISP and file an abuse report. El_C 21:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. Let's just see what will happen. If he is using proxies it could be harder to stop him, but I don't know... Baristarim 21:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]