Well, I had a narrow escape! Only two months after I visited Turkey, this nation wide protests flares up. And the protests are about the plan to demolish a park right next to the hotel I stayed, and to build a shopping mall. As a tourist, a shopping mall next to a hotel would be very handy, but a park should not be sacrificed.
Anyway, as a historian specialised in history of the Roman Empire in the Byzantine period, right up to the Turkish conquest of Constantinople/Istanbul, this is a sad moment. Now, the whole of the Roman Empire has erupted in recent years. First Tunisia, then Egypt. Syria, always the most troublesome Roman province has sunk into the nastiest civil war in decades. Almost as bad or even worse than Yugoslavia. Greece, in the meantime, was also in shambles. Now Turkey. The heart of imperial territories has now plunged into chaos.
The Turkish republic began 90 years ago, when Kemal Ataturk abolished the Ottoman Empire and started a secular state called Turkey. Instead of Ottoman imperial system controlling various people with different backgrounds, the new Turkish Republic was a nationalistic and in a way intolerant. They expelled Greeks who were still refusing to become Turks. Under Ottoman rule, they could exist either as Romans or Greeks. Now, be a Turk or go. The protesters are saying that the PM, R. Erdogan is too autocratic and Islamophiliac, but, maybe the Turkish Republic isn't a very tolerant and flexible regime to begin with.
Just a thought...
Anyway, as a historian specialised in history of the Roman Empire in the Byzantine period, right up to the Turkish conquest of Constantinople/Istanbul, this is a sad moment. Now, the whole of the Roman Empire has erupted in recent years. First Tunisia, then Egypt. Syria, always the most troublesome Roman province has sunk into the nastiest civil war in decades. Almost as bad or even worse than Yugoslavia. Greece, in the meantime, was also in shambles. Now Turkey. The heart of imperial territories has now plunged into chaos.
The Turkish republic began 90 years ago, when Kemal Ataturk abolished the Ottoman Empire and started a secular state called Turkey. Instead of Ottoman imperial system controlling various people with different backgrounds, the new Turkish Republic was a nationalistic and in a way intolerant. They expelled Greeks who were still refusing to become Turks. Under Ottoman rule, they could exist either as Romans or Greeks. Now, be a Turk or go. The protesters are saying that the PM, R. Erdogan is too autocratic and Islamophiliac, but, maybe the Turkish Republic isn't a very tolerant and flexible regime to begin with.
Just a thought...
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