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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

Istanbul is in the same league with London, Paris, Rome and probably nothing else.

Not only the endless layers of multi-millennial history, even the current state of the inhabitants is extremely diverse. It's also surprisingly safe.

IMHO the city got ruined in so many ways during the Turkish economic boom the last 5 decades and yet you can tell that the city "still got it". In your runtime analogy, the current state of the modern istanbul is like everything new being like bloated Electron app.

The current mayor is from the secular Turks with western values and he is doing some great things to reduce the bloatware and re-surface the hidden gems through full rewrites.

But sometimes he encounters unexpected behaviour. Just recently, he converted Feshane(old factory where they used to produce Fez style hats during the Ottoman times) into an art gallery but due to some undocumented API the islamist started protesting him for not respecting their values.

Here is the Feshane after the conversion: https://twitter.com/ekrem_imamoglu/status/167157892814888143...

Here is the protest: https://twitter.com/tcbuyuksehir/status/1678147852453683206

Note: Before the conversion, Feshane was used for food markets and such.

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Please don't take HN threads into religious flamewar or any other kind of flamewar. We got a doozy below.

It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We've had to warn you about this multiple times before.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36700345.

Apologies, It felt relevant with the analogy as it was a recent event. It inevitably turns into a flamewar, though I don't have such intentions.

This is an insidious implicit assertion that because the current mayor is a “good” secular Turk and the “bad” Islamists are protesting, I even note you did not describe these people as turks… this is a typical contrast for Turkey, a division of white and black turks, going back to the time when Turkey was more oppressive towards religious practice for the sake of “secularism”…

This style of bowing down to some altar of laic secularism and appealing to a western audience is quite overdone and out of touch with the modern day west, which mostly accepts freedom to practice religion especially in Anglophone countries.

Luckily with globalization and the internet, more and more these woven narratives are being exposed for their baselessness. It’s clear that Turkey as a whole has continued its choice to vote for its leader Erdogan of the AKP. This is a signal of the fact that most Turks still support this alternate approach to the country, compared to the changes going back to Ataturk which was imposed on the native population.

That is to say, I am always finding curious this group of white Turks and secularists who assume themselves to be above the others and irreverent to their beliefs. Perhaps this arrogance is what continues to be their downfall as they cannot accept sharing power with the other, more religiously oriented Turkey.

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, regardless of how provocative another comment is or you feel it is.

It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for, and we've had to warn you about this more than once before.

Edit: it looks like your account is still using HN primarily for ideological battle. In fact, it looks like you've been using HN exclusively for ideological battle. That's seriously not ok. Since you've ignored our previous request to stop doing this, I've banned the account. We don't care what your ideology is, but we do care about not letting accounts abuse HN in this way—whatever they happen to be battling for or against.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

That’s clearly not the case it’s not about ideological battle, the comments are very clearly not only about ideological battle. I’m very disappointed to hear that you came to this conclusion.

You've been posting argumentatively in flamewar threads about race, sex, religion, drugs, crime, nationalism, etc., and basically nothing else. That's an abuse of this site, and we already asked you twice to stop. Not cool.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35760046 (April 2023)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34861659 (Feb 2023)

You are reading too much into it, there is nothing Islamic about an old fez hat factory. There is no such thing as hat factory values. You are just repeating the overused “ white Turks” idiom which no longer has any credibility since if fell off grace after 20 years of absolute Islamist rule - there is no longer a white Turk establishment. Besides, I’m not Turkish born, I’m an immigrant I cannot be a white Turk.

It’s true that Erdogan won in Turkey again, but we are talking about Istanbul here and in Istanbul he is no longer the most popular one.

As for the Fez, it certainly is symbolic of ottoman times, and was famously outlawed by Ataturk in favor of brim caps, in what is called the Hat Revolution [1]. This was part of an assault on older values and also had anti religious elements.

Next, your characterization of Erdogan’s government as 20 years of absolute Islamist rule is a very loose definition. I do not think you can liken all of his rule as absolute and after all Turkey is still a democracy yet. Also he is not “Islamist” except in a loose terminology, as he did not change Turkey’s government system and overturn in favor of Sharia.

You also likened the protesters to an “old api” that interferes with new development… how is one to interpret that except you see the protesters and their values as an old impediment to progress, one which needs to be removed or “updated”? It’s not so long ago there were protests for Taksim square for Gezi park.

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hat_Revolution

I like how you make up stuff on the fly but the protest itself wasn't about "disrespecting the fez" but about holding an art exception there. As I said, the place was used as a food market and has nothing to do with fez production anymore. Apparently there were sculptures of goats and the islamists decided that those are knights and got offended. The less unhinged ones said that this is unacceptable because the place is close the the old town, the more unhinged ones acted as the old factory was a religious site and the invaders desacralised it through putting knight sculptures in it. No one brought up any claims about fez being sacred or religions or anything like that, simply there are bunch of Islamist in Turkey who act as if any writing in Arabic or any artefact from the Ottoman era is sacred. A few yers back they attacked an exhibition in an old mansion. The mansion in question has nothing to do with Islam, it's simply a large house that used to belong to a guy from the royalty but at the end of the list for the throne who himself was into music and painting and has artworks on exhibition in other museums.

No one is obligated to please islamist, if they don't like the exhibition they should simply skip it.

You are doing Istanbul and Rome a disservice by putting them in the same league with London and Paris.

Seconding this, these cities have a rich history but it's hardly a footnote compared to the chronology baked in to the stratigraphy of Rome and even more so, Istanbul. The latter city bridges two continents, and it shows it and feels it in every respect.

plus, cats. In what city can you double your entertainment just by carrying a small laser pointer with you everywhere.

Istanbul is an incredibly complex city with endless things to do. However, it is just that I have never had this feeling of being in an ancient metropolis in any other city other than Istanbul. It may be the huge mosques on the hills combined with the natural beauty of the Bosphorus strait.

> just by carrying a small laser pointer with you everywhere.

Damn, I need to go back if only because I never thought of this. :D

> Istanbul is in the same league with London, Paris, Rome

London and Paris do not belong on that list. Rome is on another level. Paris and London are a few levels below somewhere. Heck I'd say istanbul is a level above rome since the turks added onto constantinople and added a richness and extra layer that rome never got. Not to mention that the eastern roman empire was far more impressive that than the western roman empire.

> and probably nothing else.

No, it is in the same league with many of the ancient cities in the region and elsewhere around the world. Cities tend to be built on top of each other not just today but throughout history.

> the islamist started protesting him for not respecting their values.

Good. Considering turkey isn't a western nation, why should their mayor peddle 'western values' as you stated. Last I checked, turkey is a muslim turkic nation and lets hope they hold onto their values.

Hey, it looks like your account has been taking HN into flamewars everywhere it shows up, like a pyromaniacal Johnny Appleseed* - can you please not do that? It should be obvious from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html why that's not ok here.

* Believe it or not, I mean this affectionately - I've personally been enjoying your posts, I love a good moon landing hoax, and I don't think contrarianism is necessarily flamebait, though the two can be hard to distinguish. But we need you to use HN in the spirit of curious conversation, not derailing and dysregulation.

A certain dose of contrarianism is fine if it's part of a mix of using HN as intended. What's not fine is tossing molotov cocktails and leaving the site to suffer the consequences. If you want to post to HN, we need you to take care of the ecosystem the same way you would using a city park or a public campground.

> I love a good moon landing hoax

Swing and a miss. Though I don't look down on the 'moon landing hoax' folks as many unfairly do, I actually believe the other extreme - we've been sending people to the moon nonstop since the 70s. Seems the likeliest of the 3 main scenarios. But ultimately, I'm was interested in a discussion as it one of the most fascinating topics of the modern era. Hope you aren't too disappointed.

Also, as you already know, I don't start flamebaits, I just participate in them. You should skip over me and climb up the comment tree to the source. Not telling you how to do your job but I believe that would be the most fruitful course of action. What do you think? Besides, I only post a comment or two for the edification of future readers. My intention certainly isn't to set the site on fire.

I'm glad you enjoy some of my comments and I hope you don't see me as the guy throwing molotovs, but the one pointing and shouting 'look! this guy is throwing molotov cocktails over there!'. A flamewar alarm bell if you will.

Actually I think you've been starting a large number of them—or at least significantly worsening.

"Start" is rather a dubious concept to begin with, as everyone always feels like the other person started it and did worse. This is one of the most reliable phenomena on HN (and no doubt with internet forums in general) - you can set your clock by it.

> Actually I think you've been starting a large number of them—or at least significantly worsening.

I can't think of any I started. Even this thread wasn't started by me. And my response wasn't that flamebaity. I was simply giving my honest opinion to actual flamebait.

> "Start" is rather a dubious concept to begin with, as everyone always feels like the other person started it.

I suppose. But in most cases, you can just climb the comment tree to find the root.

Also, I see tons of flamebait here. I ignore most of them. For example, this guy loves to flamebait.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36722869

Yet you haven't censured him. It's only when I respond and bring the flamebait to light, that you would recognize it. Maybe it's time for comments to have a report link where we can report flamebait? Or is flamebait allowed as long as no one takes the bait?

The simple reason is that we don't see everything that gets posted here. Actually we barely see 1% of what gets posted here. So if you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.

Other people breaking the rules doesn't make it ok for you to break them, though. That should go without saying.

Turkey is not a muslim turkic nation at all, Turkey is an ethnically diverse nation where almost all the population claims to be muslims but they all practice at different levels and the devote muslims are a small minority of the population. The country itself is the legacy of the Ottoman empire which was partly in Europe for centuries, thus was influenced by western values for hundreds of years already. Then Atatürk happened, Turkey was formed as a nation with western ideals.

Also, an old hat factory which was used as a market is not something islamic. The mayor wasn't paddling any western values to islamists, the mayor was elected by the popular vote and he is still very popular. He does what the electorate demands and significant portion of the electorate demands art galleries.

I think you need to update your understanding of Turkey, it's very lacking and almost offensively shallow. Are you taking any red pills by any chance? Anyway, don't form your opinions from James Bond movies.

> Turkey is not a muslim turkic nation at all

It's a predominantly islamic turkish speaking nation. You say 'almost all the population claims to be muslim' and say it's not a muslim nation?

> The country itself is the legacy of the Ottoman empire which was partly in Europe for centuries

No. The ottoman empire was a legacy of the turkish nation. It's why the ottoman empire is also called the turkish empire. The nation predates the empire. Just like britain to british empire back to britain.

> The country itself is the legacy of the Ottoman empire which was partly in Europe for centuries, thus was influenced by western values for hundreds of years already.

'Western values' is a post ww2 neo-colonial nonsense invented in the last few decades to justify our continuing invasion of the 3rd world. It hasn't existed for 'hundreds of years' just like 'the west' hasn't existed for hundreds of years. Also, the ottoman empire was a conquering empire that did more exporting of 'values' than importing of it from europe. For hundreds of years, the ottomans had the upper hand. It's only the weaken turkish nation that start adopting european science, technology, etc after their empire was destroyed by 'the west'.

> I think you need to update your understanding of Turkey,

No. I think I have a fairly strong grasp of turkish history. Thanks.

> it's very lacking and almost offensively shallow.

Says the person who thinks being being turkic or muslim is worse than being 'western'. I'm saying turkey should be proud of who they are. You are saying they should be embarrassed by who they are and try to mimic 'superior' westerners. Isn't that the gist?

I've nothing against turkish people or muslims. Though you certainly seem to have something against them.

You really need to stop speaking about stuff you don’t know. Opinions are fine but factual problems like chronology are not forgivable. You will be surprised that the westernization of the society was something that started as a political movement during the Ottoman empire and if you check the numbers, you will see that the empire was long gone before the World War II. That’s why I don’t think that you deserve any serious answer because you are off completely. It’s like you claiming that the French Revolution happened because the French listened too much Rolling Stones.

In case you decided to check out the history of Turkey, you also need to stop thinking about the Turkish society in American cultural war therms if you like to understand what is going on in Turkey.

Or maybe you are Turkish nationalist who believes in the mythology. Then yes, this would be a touchy subject to you because it is hurting your nationalist pride. You should hold nationalist pride parades.

Or even worse, are you believer of the AKP's alternative history where the Ottomans were the pinnacle of science&technology, Abdulhamit was a hero and Ataturk was a British spy? In that case, you should watch less series on the governments TV channels.

> > Turkey is not a muslim turkic nation at all It's a predominantly islamic turkish speaking nation. You say 'almost all the population claims to be muslim' and say it's not a muslim nation?

Until recently, people used to bring up a widely known joke about “Turks being muslim one month of the year”. You knew Ramadan was starting when the daily papers switched from news stories containing sexy pictures to giveaways of holy texts.

It’s less so these days since many people expect to gain political (= economic) favors through superfluous displays of their muslim faith, usually broadcasted through Instagram.

Imagine arguing against a person with a clearly Turkish handle about who knows Turkey better.

Also funny you say "western values" only started existing post-ww2 when Turkish national anthem very explicitly contains digs against it.

You do have a good grasp of Turkish history, but explaining a Kemalist that he's not western is like talking to a wall. You can't talk sense into a poisoned mind that is in hate, denial and shame with his own history and past.

Turkey is one of the few countries in the world that has these pitiable individuals who despise their history and live in their own artificial "reality".

And the only answer they have is even more stupid arguments that directly connect to current day politics.

I'm not a Kemalist. However, after reading your analysis, I have come to my senses and now I am completely open to the notion of "Western values that emerged after WWII and were used as pretext for the invasion of the 3rd world", although they were a significant political topic during the final decades of the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed in WWI(WWI predates WWII by about 30 years). Now that I am enlightened, I can see how Ataturk embraced pro-Western values that emerged after 1945, despite his death in 1938. Who cares about context and chronology these days, right?

PS: By the way, I think I understand why you might be triggered. When you hear "Western values," you likely perceive something entirely different from what it means in Turkey. Just relax, the Western values I am referring to have nothing to do with the culture wars you are engaged in. In the context of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey, Western values pertain to scientific, cultural, and political progress that occurred in Europe during the decline of the Ottoman Empire. They are unrelated to whatever you may be imagining. It does not involve topics such as gay rights or the like, as the Ottomans were already quite tolerant in these matters, rendering them irrelevant in the context of the Ottomans and Turkey.

Or maybe you are not involved in the American culture wars, even then western values don't mean the thing you think it means in Turkey. In Turkey western values mean secular governance, secular judicial system, secular education, women's rights, families where one man is married to one woman and they have the same rights.

Thank you for your effort to explain yourself in spite of my negative comment, but I disagree with your assertion. Science isn't a Western construct; it's a universal human endeavor, informed by contributions from civilizations worldwide, not just the West. The narrative of "Westernization" in Turkey has often been a guise for imposing cultural and ideological shifts, mostly anti-Islam ones, that many – including myself – have found intrusive.

Your claim conflates "Western values" with scientific progress, and that's simply inaccurate. Let's disentangle scientific advancement from cultural hegemony. Science belongs to everyone, regardless of culture or religion. Generalizations like yours perpetuate harmful stereotypes, and we need to move beyond such outdated views.

Life would be so much easier if the anti-Islam rhetoric in Turkey were to be conducted straightforward and not in a hidden fashion with lies. If it was straightforward, the debate would have ended 100 years ago.

Sure, science is not a western construct but in the context of the final stages of the Ottoman Empire science over religion was considered a western value. This is not really a philosophical discussion, it's a practical implication of the decline of the empire and a political position in an attempt to reduce the islamic influence. This is a timeframe when people were burning observatories so that the "pervert scientists don't look under the skirt of the angels".

Atatürk was technically a dictator and a tyrant who executed quite a large number of islamic leaders in an attempt to curb the influence of religion. However, when contemporary Turks talk about being pro-Atatürk they mean the ideology of reducing the islamic influence on daily lives, education, judiciary etc. There are of course some people who would support extermination of religious people but those are just some crazies maybe you can find online and not a widespread position.

As you can see, the "Western values" in the context of Turkey are very specific set of ideals linked with the decline of the empire and formation of the republic and has nothing to do with the understanding of western values in other parts of the worlds or in philosophical sense. It's about practical implications on laws on marriage, inheritance, dress code, teaching the evolution Theory, funding of islamic education institutions etc. This is because Islam is not just something spiritual, it comes with instructions on governance -> the Sharia law.

The Turkish society in a way got disconnected from the core principles of Islam, and ignorance, along with superstitions that do not belong to the religion have taken the place of those core principles.

I understand that it wasn't working anymore, and I agree that a change was much needed but the way it was dealt with and what was put into its place are things I do not condone. To this day, Turkey's problems stem from that enforced, makeshift and conflicting foundation that are incompatible with the society.

Thank you for the kind exchange of ideas.

> Science belongs to everyone, regardless of culture or religion

You might want to reassess where you stand if you truly believe that. All I see is the decline of the scientific organizations (including universities where people are granted PhDs based on their political connections), the explicit desire to separate girls from boys in schools, spending many times more on ministry of religion vs ministry of education, and pro-government scientists making ridiculous claims like “cellphone use at the time of Noah”[0].

[0] https://amp.odatv4.com/guncel/hz.-nuh-ogluyla-cep-telefonuyl...

You're unfortunately mixing up religion with politics. The current government is not the representative of Islam, on the contrary, they are far from it.

> Good. Considering turkey isn't a western nation...

You should read some Turkish history. After the fall of the Ottoman empire, and being divided up amongst various winners of WWI, the modern Turkey led by Ataturk reclaimed their lost territory and established a country based on overtly western principles. The reforms were deep, and sweeping: A new alphabet, to make Turkish more approachable to people used to Latin scripts. Separation of Church (or mosque, more accurately) and State, to the extent that wearing religious garb in public was outlawed. A new calendar (to match the West's). Women's rights (when that was progressive even for the west).

Imagine if George Washington had decided we'd be writing in Cyrillic and banned the display of crucifixes.

There have been growing pains, but dismissing Turkey as "not western" is an extremely politically charged statement.

I thought it was hilarious when George W. Bush used to say things like "We're bringing democracy to the Middle East" when for most of the 20th century Turkey was arguably more democratic (not to mention more secular) than the US.

I mean Israel is there as well?

Maybe he didn’t mean those countries?

Seems obvious?

> A new alphabet, to make Turkish more approachable to people used to Latin scripts.

If china adopts latin script does that make china a member of the West? Of course not. 'The West' is called that for a reason. It's predominantly western ( the west ) european nations and their genetic colonial descendents ( aka colonies that have predominantly european blood, power ). We could adopt chinese as our official language and the US would still be a western nation. Religion, script, separation of church and state has nothing to do with being part of the west.

> There have been growing pains, but dismissing Turkey as "not western" is an extremely politically charged statement.

No. Saying they are western is politically charged statement. Saying Turkey is not a western nation is a statement of fact. You act like 'the west' is some club with membership requirements. It's not. It's a legacy of european colonization and domination of the world. Something Turkey was a victim of, not part of.

The only reason some claim Turkey is part of the West is due to geopolitical posturing. Just like some claiming kazakhstan is part of europe.

Western is used to indicate values and there is a huge battle in Turkey over values. Secularism is one of them for example. The rest of this debate is semantics and national pride which has always struck me as the thing that causes every nation to act stupidly.

i remember in school Turkey was called the sick man of europe...

btw, its Türkiye not Turkey anymore.

> Good. Considering turkey isn't a western nation, why should their mayor peddle 'western values' as you stated.

The mayor was peddling his own values. Why should the biggest radical assholes stop normal people from enjoying life anywhere? Whether islamists or christian evangelists, whether powerful enough to be able to kill people or not, they have no inherent entitlement.

The mayor was voted. Istanbul is mostly a “modern” muslim city. Which is to say that they are “muslims” but have different lifestyles than the other “muslims”.

> Not to mention that the eastern roman empire was far more impressive that than the western roman empire.

What's your argument for this?

Running for a thousand years longer might have something to do with it

Quantity is not always better than quality.

The runtime might have been much shorter without the theodosian walls as well

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