Irvine511 said:
why is your food so good?
do you consider yourself Asian or European? something different?
do you think the rest of the Muslim world should follow your example?
just how accurate is "midnight express"?
oh the food has to a lot with the spice culture that we sort of inherited from the ottomans. i am abroad right now, and i am going crazy not being able to eat some of those stuff!
the other question is a hard one. because even right now, we are trying to answer that question, as a nation. my take on this is that we are sort of left in the middle. the country is, culturally at least, the inheritor of the ottoman empire, and they were all over the place you know. we have been in substantial interaction with europeans for centuries, and the west has affected us as much as the east has. but especially after the the republic was established, the direction has always been towards the west - secularism, democracy, free markets. in such a mixed culture, it is hard to reconcile some of these, but we are doing our best.
as for being an 'example' for the muslim world.. i believe, ideally, they should. we are trying very to protect the ideals that were set forth for us, 82 years ago, and i do strongly believe in those ideals. but as far practicality goes, i dont think what happened to our country, a revolution on a major scale does not seem to be coming in most of these countries. i dont expect them to become a carbon copy of our system, but i believe others in the muslim world must push forth the ideals we are trying to champion in the ME, take those core beliefs, and change the fate of their countries, their people and their children.
and for the midnight express.. i dont think so. i believe it is more or less rooted in the kind of perception the west, in this case mr stone, has of the orient, than any solid facts. it is a very deliberate attempt to defame a country, and i must say it has succeeded.. admirably. seriously, millions of tourists come here every year and they have been coming for a while, they are treated extremely well here, because as a country turkey has the reputation, if i may say, to be very hospitable towards their guests.
also, a couple words on our prisons.. i think the living conditions in some of our prisons are WAY too good compared to the US, which is kinda of against the whole idea of being in prison, and the other ones are leaning towards a isolationist concept. (right now some prisons are more like military barracks, it just doesnt work, prisoners are too comfortable)