Thursday, January 19, 2006

Turkey's peculiar religious freedom

"Turkey's peculiar attitude to religious freedom, after centuries of a rich patchwork of religious traditions variously tolerated in the Ottoman Empire, perplexes Europeans."

"To understand Turkey's current sensitivities about religious freedom, one has to understand the effects of history in shaping the life of the state and nation. One also has to understand the inherited Islamic psychology and its consequences for those who are not Muslims."

"It is difficult precisely to determine the effects of a complex Islamic culture on individuals and social groups. One has to keep reiterating that minorities are Turkish by modern citizenship but often are made to feel foreign, even if their customs and deeper ethnic identities predate the majority culture by many centuries."
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