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Comment by oytis | Hacker News Reader

It's not a given - e.g. AFAIK most turks in Germany support Erdogan

In both countries, the educated population likes the religious leader less than the uneducated population. In Germany, most Turkish immigrants are from rather basic backgrounds and most Iranian immigrants are from intellectual backgrounds. It makes a huge difference. In both countries of origin, the population is split much more evenly than what you see abroad. AFAIK, about 50% support the religious strongman in both countries.

I don't live in Germany (nor am I a German national), but I have special cultural interest in the history of Turks immigrating to Germany. I agree: On the whole, overwhelming Turks that immigrate/d to Germany are not highly educated. They come to work in manual labor jobs, not as engineers or medical doctors.

> AFAIK, about 50% support the religious strongman in both countries.

Do you have any credible source for this?

For Turkey, election results. For Iran, no hard numbers, just fuzzy memory about articles I've read. What is clear is that the regime has supporters and not just those who benefit directly / materially.

Of course. It has actually staunched supporters. One cannot kill innocents in the streets by just the promise of money. So there’s religious ideology involved. However the percentage matters a lot here and even 10% of 90 million is a large number.

*typo edit

update: Here’s some relatively independent polling from inside Iran which does not corroborate the 50/50 divide. And remember this was taken before the 2026 massacre: https://gamaan.org/2025/08/20/analytical-report-on-iranians-...

A lot of the Persian diaspora is actually descendents of people who left in the 80s. There are certainly people who left 20 years ago or less but they're mostly secular as well.

If somebody tells you that they are Persian (I have met a few), you know their opinion right away: they prefer to associate with millennia of Persian history, not the modern (religious) state of Iran.

    > they're mostly secular as well

Can you help me to understand your meaning of "secular" here? My counterpoint that will explain: Many Persian Jews left during/after the revolution and moved to Los Angeles. Many of those families are practicing Jews. I would not describe people like this as "secular"; I would call them "religious". Do I misunderstand your point?

Note that the quote referred to people who left more recently and thus lived most if not all of their lives after the Islamic revolution. Quite often they'll drink beer or have their pizzas with ham just fine, women would not wear a hijab, and so on.

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