Erdogan turns Ayasofya museum into a place of worship

[Vistulange]

Let us rememer put local "area experts" who asked us to trust them and their judgement:

There shouldn't even be a thread on this.

It's simply the AKP posturing to its base amid a growing economic malaise exacerbated by the global pandemic and growing voter dissatisfaction. Predictably, when pushed on the issue, they backpedaled. Miraculously, the opposition knew better than to try and preach about "UNESCO", "World Heritage", and all that lovey-dovey stuff the average AKP voter gives precisely no shits about, but instead just called the AKP's bluff.

Well... that aged well!

Well, isn't somebody happy they got to tally one more mark on their scoreboard!

I don't recall declaring myself to be an "area expert", nor do I recall asking anybody to "trust me". And, I even said I was wrong, before you found out that I was wrong!

If they actually do end up turning the Hagia Sophia into a mosque, the only thing it will indicate is the extent of economic malaise and political desperation the Turkish leadership has navigated intself into. It's akin to a government trying to bolster its popularity by donning voodoo masks and doing rain dances to impress the most sheepish of its voter base.

Which will be the case right now - and I was, admittedly, wrong on the premise that I didn't think they would actually go through with it. Nevertheless, I'm happy that I'm wrong.

You can only make Hagia Sophia a mosque once, after which it no longer has news value. Seeing the economic malaise and incompetence of the AKP government and Erdoğan, it's only going to cement conservatism in this country as a force of inept governance, distraction, and waste. They're only hastening their departure.

I'm curious, is the lack of reading due to a general uninterest in actual engagement, or is it a desire to have that dopamine rush? I suppose I'll never know.

What I do say is that a great many of you lot are completely out of the loop. You don't know the language, and the people living in this country generally don't know your language, so really, you don't really have any way to learn about Turkey aside from the bite-sized news pieces you get. It's like me trying to make grandiose statements on, say, Russian politics without knowing anything aside from "spasiba".

Yes, I was mistaken. So? Do you, by any chance, expect the folks in the economics departments to pinpoint when economic crises will occur and what stocks to buy? You do realise nobody in the social sciences business claims to be a fortune teller, yes? Because, I mean, if that's your expectation, you might be severely misled. I'm not afraid to admit I was wrong, but you do show a remarkable aspect of your character by, well, engaging in what is essentially gloating, and not much else. No, really, what exactly did you contribute with that post? Yeah, we were off the mark. There are two things to do: Ascertain why we were wrong, and try to improve ourselves.

...you, on the other hand...yeah. Not much to say.

[Sharania]

Well, isn't somebody happy they got to tally one more mark on their scoreboard!

I don't recall declaring myself to be an "area expert", nor do I recall asking anybody to "trust me". And, I even said I was wrong, before you found out that I was wrong!

That's not true. I found that you were wrong before you said so. I just posted this comment when I had free time to do so. Do you have more baseless accusations to throw against me now, to distract from your abysmal performance in the prediction department? Like, that was not the only time you made an erroneous "augury" in this very thread:

Also, can I point out that the title of the thread is thoroughly wrong and entirely click-bait?

The Hagia Sophia has not been turned into a place of worship. Erdoğan talked about the possibility of doing so, for what might be the millionth time. I've stopped counting.

Turns out the title wasn't "thoroughly wrong and entirely click-bait" after all.

What I do say is that a great many of you lot are completely out of the loop. You don't know the language, and the people living in this country generally don't know your language, so really, you don't really have any way to learn about Turkey aside from the bite-sized news pieces you get. It's like me trying to make grandiose statements on, say, Russian politics without knowing anything aside from "spasiba".

Yes, I was mistaken. So? Do you, by any chance, expect the folks in the economics departments to pinpoint when economic crises will occur and what stocks to buy? You do realise nobody in the social sciences business claims to be a fortune teller, yes? Because, I mean, if that's your expectation, you might be severely misled. I'm not afraid to admit I was wrong, but you do show a remarkable aspect of your character by, well, engaging in what is essentially gloating, and not much else. No, really, what exactly did you contribute with that post? Yeah, we were off the mark. There are two things to do: Ascertain why we were wrong, and try to improve ourselves.

...you, on the other hand...yeah. Not much to say.

Oh, but you said enough. More than enough. But nothing about how to "[a]scertain why we were wrong, and try to improve ourselves".

I was just drawing attention to the fact (and this is now a well known fact) that people here should be less trusting and be able to hold accountable those proven unreliable. This will teach you be more careful, while it teaches us to be less naive.

[Heloin]

Well, isn't somebody happy they got to tally one more mark on their scoreboard!

I don't recall declaring myself to be an "area expert", nor do I recall asking anybody to "trust me". And, I even said I was wrong, before you found out that I was wrong!

That's not true. I found that you were wrong before you said so. I just posted this comment when I had free time to do so. Do you have more baseless accusations to throw against me now, to distract from your abysmal performance in the prediction department? Like, that was not the only time you made an erroneous "augury" in this very thread:

Also, can I point out that the title of the thread is thoroughly wrong and entirely click-bait?

The Hagia Sophia has not been turned into a place of worship. Erdoğan talked about the possibility of doing so, for what might be the millionth time. I've stopped counting.

Turns out the title wasn't "thoroughly wrong and entirely click-bait" after all.

What I do say is that a great many of you lot are completely out of the loop. You don't know the language, and the people living in this country generally don't know your language, so really, you don't really have any way to learn about Turkey aside from the bite-sized news pieces you get. It's like me trying to make grandiose statements on, say, Russian politics without knowing anything aside from "spasiba".

Yes, I was mistaken. So? Do you, by any chance, expect the folks in the economics departments to pinpoint when economic crises will occur and what stocks to buy? You do realise nobody in the social sciences business claims to be a fortune teller, yes? Because, I mean, if that's your expectation, you might be severely misled. I'm not afraid to admit I was wrong, but you do show a remarkable aspect of your character by, well, engaging in what is essentially gloating, and not much else. No, really, what exactly did you contribute with that post? Yeah, we were off the mark. There are two things to do: Ascertain why we were wrong, and try to improve ourselves.

...you, on the other hand...yeah. Not much to say.

Oh, but you said enough. More than enough. But nothing about how to "[a]scertain why we were wrong, and try to improve ourselves".

I was just drawing attention to the fact (and this is now a well known fact) that people here should be less trusting and be able to hold accountable those proven unreliable. This will teach you be more careful, while it teaches us to be less naive.

Well nice to know that you're not just gloating about someone else being wrong about something...

Hindsight is 20/20 and all that jazz.

[Hakinda Herseyi Duymak istiyorum]

Supporters of the golden dawn party after the decision to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque. long live the Turkish Greek Brotherhood, racist people will not be able to divide us.

[KingFerdinand1]

Im Disgusted. Donald Trump Should Help Greece Invade Turkey And Constantinople Back Already.

[Farnhamia]

Im Disgusted. Donald Trump Should Help Greece Invade Turkey And Constantinople Back Already.

Fun fact, more people live in the Istanbul metro area than live in all of Greece.

[Gormwood]

Im Disgusted. Donald Trump Should Help Greece Invade Turkey And Constantinople Back Already.

Fun fact, more people live in the Istanbul metro area than live in all of Greece.

Not to mention Erdogan starts saying nice things about Trump and he'll let Turkey get away with almost anything.

[Rojava Free State]

Fun fact, more people live in the Istanbul metro area than live in all of Greece.

Not to mention Erdogan starts saying nice things about Trump and he'll let Turkey get away with almost anything.

Trump already did. He let the Turks massacre the Kurds and in return Trump got to have the oil fields.

[Rojava Free State]

Im Disgusted. Donald Trump Should Help Greece Invade Turkey And Constantinople Back Already.

Bad news. Trump said him and Erdogan have been friends since day one and he doesn't give a fuck about the Greeks or Christianity. He's a con artist with the mind of a 12 year old. He probably thinks Constantinople is George Stephanopolous's brother.

[Gormwood]

Im Disgusted. Donald Trump Should Help Greece Invade Turkey And Constantinople Back Already.

Bad news. Trump said him and Erdogan have been friends since day one and he doesn't give a fuck about the Greeks or Christianity. He's a con artist with the mind of a 12 year old. He probably thinks Constantinople is George Stephanopolous's brother.

Or that movie with Keanu Reeves.

[Hakinda Herseyi Duymak istiyorum]

Fun fact, more people live in the Istanbul metro area than live in all of Greece.

Not to mention Erdogan starts saying nice things about Trump and he'll let Turkey get away with almost anything.

Istanbul was conquered heroically in 1453 and will remain so. it makes me very uncomfortable if the foreign powers are against the internal affairs of the country.Turning Ayasofya into a mosque is the country's internal problem.

[Vistulange]

Im Disgusted. Donald Trump Should Help Greece Invade Turkey And Constantinople Back Already.

Fun fact, more people live in the Istanbul metro area than live in all of Greece.

I've come to believe that there's always an implication of ethnic cleansing upon the hypothetical conquest of Istanbul by Greece. The other alternatives are that these folks believe that they can live in a Turkish-dominated country, or that they don't have any idea about the population of the city nowadays, but instead think it's still 1453 CE.

Not to mention Erdogan starts saying nice things about Trump and he'll let Turkey get away with almost anything.

Trump already did. He let the Turks massacre the Kurds and in return Trump got to have the oil fields.

I mean, you think the AKP is a pan-Turkish movement...

In the first moment that Ayasofya may become a mosque instead of a museum, all Byzantine mosaics will be destroyed just because they're non-Muslim art. The Sultan Mehmet Fatih didn't destroy that piece of art but painting the walls with a new color over. However the next dictators who may come from now forward in Turkey will go beyond the normal limits. When the world falls in darkness every piece of art won't matter, whatever if Ayasofya or a Da-Vinci painting. All mosaics of Ayasofya will be destroyed by a Turkish hammer, I'm sure of that if that is no longer a museum.

Erdogan wants to turn Turkey into a Turkish paradise. In case you all didn't know, that means it would be hell for most other people since Turkish supremacy=genocide and the destruction of other cultures and their histories.

There are millions of turkic people from Anatolia to western China and siberia. Think of turkic people's as being akin to Latinos or slavs or arabs. People with similar languages and culture

Pan turkism which is heavily supported by erdogan and the AKP encourages a feeling of unity between turkic peoples, which is why there were anti Chinese riots in Turkey over the detention of uighurs.

So really, are your opinions relevant?

[The Alma Mater]

Fun fact, more people live in the Istanbul metro area than live in all of Greece.

I've come to believe that there's always an implication of ethnic cleansing upon the hypothetical conquest of Istanbul by Greece. The other alternatives are that these folks believe that they can live in a Turkish-dominated country, or that they don't have any idea about the population of the city nowadays, but instead think it's still 1453 CE.

Trump already did. He let the Turks massacre the Kurds and in return Trump got to have the oil fields.

I mean, you think the AKP is a pan-Turkish movement, so really, are your opinions relevant?

Is it not a pan-Turkish movement ? With detachments in the governments of other countries (Netherlands and Germany), claiming people born, raised and living in other countries are still primarily Turkish etc ?

[Vistulange]

I've come to believe that there's always an implication of ethnic cleansing upon the hypothetical conquest of Istanbul by Greece. The other alternatives are that these folks believe that they can live in a Turkish-dominated country, or that they don't have any idea about the population of the city nowadays, but instead think it's still 1453 CE.

I mean, you think the AKP is a pan-Turkish movement, so really, are your opinions relevant?

Is it not a pan-Turkish movement ? With detachments in the governments of other countries (Netherlands and Germany), claiming people born, raised and living in other countries are still primarily Turkish etc ?

No. It's a bit complicated.

Pan-Turkism is largely an ideology that cropped up during the twilight of the Ottoman Empire, with thinkers such as Ziya Gökalp being its fathers. The Committee of Union and Progress were headed by pan-Turkish folks - the infamous Enver-Talat-Cemal triumvirate - the first of which, Enver, died fighting the Bolsheviks in Azerbaijan in pursuit of that utter pipe dream in the 1920's. Their legacy was carried on by a fiercely far-right group who had Nazi sympathies during the Second World War, thus leading to their purge in 1943 and 1944. That vein of pan-Turkism was particularly hostile to Islam and saw the religion as a detriment to "true Turkish values" (your guesses as to what those "values" are as good as mine). The more Islamic branch won out and in 1969 we see the MHP (yes, the same one we have today), but the whole pan-Turkism thing was put on the backburner due to the Cold War and the Soviets being a thing. By the time the Soviet Union dissolved, the nationalist movement in Turkey had been completely emasculated by the 12 September 1980 coup d'etat, and had become a shadow of its former self.

In contrast, the AKP descends from the moderate wing of the Islamist politics in Turkey, namely that of the Welfare Party. The Welfare Party's policies, while vast and very interesting, essentially were at conflict with the very foundations of the secular democratic Republic. Due to this, the secular state apparatus came down onto them hard in 1997 in the 28 February 1997 memorandum - essentially a threat to intervene if the government did not resign - and the Welfare Party was shuttered. From it was born two movements: The hardliners, who went on to form the Virtue Party, and the moderates formed the Justice and Development Party (AKP). What the AKP did was abandon the whole Islamism shtick altogether: It embraced Western institutions, the Western-led world, neoliberal economic policies, NATO, accession to the European Union, etc. you get the picture. In practice, it was essentially the Turkish equivalent of a Christian Democrat party. I should probably emphasize that the AKP came to power in 2003, and has been in power for roughly 17 years. This idyllic stuff fits roughly somewhere between 2003-2008.

The AKP, it should be noted, doesn't claim that people are Turkish because of some nationalist ethos or by a desire to geographically unite lands, but instead simply by virtue of said folks being Turkish citizens. Turkish citizenship law is primarily jus sanguinis, so if a child is born to two Turkish citizens who have never been to Turkey their entire lives, that child is a Turkish citizen (albeit matrilineal). Looking through the Turkish Citizenship Law right now, it's pretty clear that a person doesn't even have to claim it, no: "...citizenship by birth is effective immediately upon birth". As you can imagine, there's a lot of people who fit that exact situation I just described in much of Europe, which is where the AKP's diaspora politics are oriented towards. On the other hand, the pan-Turkists generally don't give any craps about Europe, and instead focus on Central Asia, notably the former Soviet Republics and more visibly these days, the Uighurs.

[Indo-Malaysia]

Ths Hagia Sophia should be turned back into a parkour arena to assassinate people, to honour Ezio Auditore da Firenze.

[Hakinda Herseyi Duymak istiyorum]

I've come to believe that there's always an implication of ethnic cleansing upon the hypothetical conquest of Istanbul by Greece. The other alternatives are that these folks believe that they can live in a Turkish-dominated country, or that they don't have any idea about the population of the city nowadays, but instead think it's still 1453 CE.

I mean, you think the AKP is a pan-Turkish movement, so really, are your opinions relevant?

Is it not a pan-Turkish movement ? With detachments in the governments of other countries (Netherlands and Germany), claiming people born, raised and living in other countries are still primarily Turkish etc ?

Something like Pan-Ak

[New Rogernomics]

So on to important business, when is Erdogan going to create his next villa town to relax in? Also should Erdogan prioritize taking Greece or Syria to revive the Ottoman Empire? Making this a Mosque again is just a first step.

[The Alma Mater]

So on to important business, when is Erdogan going to create his next villa town to relax in? Also should Erdogan prioritize taking Greece or Syria to revive the Ottoman Empire? Making this a Mosque again is just a first step.

Considering his little experiment with him as Caliph of an Islamic state failed... Greece it is.

[KingFerdinand1]

Not to mention Erdogan starts saying nice things about Trump and he'll let Turkey get away with almost anything.

Istanbul was conquered heroically in 1453 and will remain so. it makes me very uncomfortable if the foreign powers are against the internal affairs of the country.Turning Ayasofya into a mosque is the country's internal problem.

Constantinople Was Stolen By Turks From Central Asia, It And Forever Will Be A Greek City, Rightfully Belong To Greece.

[KingFerdinand1]

The Hagia Sophia Church Was Also Stolen, And Turning It Back Into A Mosque Wuold Be Very Bad.

[Aureumterra]

So when are we going to have another crusade?

[Gormwood]

So on to important business, when is Erdogan going to create his next villa town to relax in? Also should Erdogan prioritize taking Greece or Syria to revive the Ottoman Empire? Making this a Mosque again is just a first step.

Considering his little experiment with him as Caliph of an Islamic state failed... Greece it is.

I thought he was Sultan.

[Farnhamia]

Istanbul was conquered heroically in 1453 and will remain so. it makes me very uncomfortable if the foreign powers are against the internal affairs of the country.Turning Ayasofya into a mosque is the country's internal problem.

Constantinople Was Stolen By Turks From Central Asia, It And Forever Will Be A Greek City, Rightfully Belong To Greece.

The Hagia Sophia Church Was Also Stolen, And Turning It Back Into A Mosque Wuold Be Very Bad.

You got away with your "Trump should help Greece retake Constantinople" post. Don't push your luck.

[Shofercia]

The response to Erdogan turning a museum open to all religions into a place of worship for one religion should be for as many countries as possible to officially change Istanbul's name to Constantinople on their maps. Erdogan's doing this to pander to the extremist vote, and embarrassing Turkey like that will certainly show Erdogan that there's a price to be paid for his shenanigans.

[Diarcesia]

The response to Erdogan turning a museum open to all religions into a place of worship for one religion should be for as many countries as possible to officially change Istanbul's name to Constantinople on their maps. Erdogan's doing this to pander to the extremist vote, and embarrassing Turkey like that will certainly show Erdogan that there's a price to be paid for his shenanigans.

The pagans wouldn't like that. Should be named Byzantium instead.