Why are "some people" still insisting on that Turkey is in the Middle East?

Question

Well, i dont see anything wrong or bad about being in the M. E. but, why are they using it as an insult, generally?

I m urging those (some certain babies especially) who claim Turkey belongs to the M.E., to ask Y/A to move this section into M.E. If Y/A wont do it, dont mention Turkey as a ME state again...

Answer 1

Greek Barbie gave the best answer, i couldnt have said it better myself.

Answer 2

Because almost all the maps online depict Turkey being in the Middle East.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=...

Geographically only 3% of Turkey belongs to Europe. I personally consider Turkey Middle Eastern, not only geographically,  but culturally as well. Although Turkey does have some traits that seperate it from both Europe and the Middle East. Generally speaking, Turkey and Turkish culture has far more in common with the Middle East than Europe.

Edit: haha when did i say that Greek and Finnish culture were the same? And no, there is not one European culture, but there is a backbone of it, and Greece shares that backbone. Turkey doesnt because Turkish culture & way of life has far more in common with the Middle East than Europe.

Answer 3

Turkey is a distinct geographical location called Asia Minor (Anatolia) and acts as barrier between the ME and Europe. Culturally we share more in common with the Middle East than we do with Europe due to our historic  and religious connection (Ottoman empire), but we still have are distinct cultural characteristics that distinguishes us from both Europe and ME.

I'm Turkish and I don't see it as an insult to be honest. It's because all the ME countries look up to us since we are much better off than them. The reason it's used as an insult is because the current depiction of the ME in the West as being backwards etc.

Answer 4

Because they have the memory skills of a goldfish. Take a look at the answer the same user has given here: http://nz.answers.yahoo.com/question/ind...

Turkey is not in the Middle East, culturally or geographically. Yet, culturally and geographically, it is very close to the Middle East. I wouldn't mind being Middle Eastern, if we were to retain African and Middle Eastern bits of our empire. Then these people can wholeheartedly call us African or Middle Eastern.

Answer 5

The reason is historical ignorance.

They don't know that the Ottoman State was founded near Bursa, spread to the Western Anatolia and Thrace, and then to the Balkans to become an Empire. Only after that, it spread to Middle East and Africa, making it a multicontinental Empire.

The Ottoman Empire was influenced by the Middle East, especially Islam because of religion and Persia for language and literature, but the Ottoman Empire never lost its Turkic roots and Anatolian identity.

Whoever sees modern Turks as Middle Eastern is in a dreamworld and keeps on making wishes.

And I believe the doll troll isnot who it says it is. It could be someone we know, trying to drive a wedge between the users of the Turkey and Greece sections.

Answer 6

This question has been debated by the Turkish people, scholars in history and political science, and just about everyone else who has an interest in the Middle East or Turkey.  For example, many university political science departments place Turkey in Middle Eastern studies; however some history departments place it in European Studies. Also, when you look at country level data for the world, sometimes Turkey is in the Middle East and sometimes it is in Europe.  IT’s the same with Egypt.  Sometimes Egypt is in the Middle East (Culturally it is a Middle Eastern Country), but sometimes it is placed in Africa (because it sits on the African Continent)

Historically and politically it gets confusing.  While the Ottoman Empire did control the territory of many European countries, it also controlled many Middle Eastern countries, such as Egypt.  The upper class during Ottoman times would import items from Europe and adopt a more European style of dress, but that doesn’t make the empire part of Europe.  Yes, they did aborb many Eastern European countries and many people around the Black Sea, can consider themselves "Turks".  However, if one goes back further, the European argument weakens.  A previous empire, the Seljuk Turks, was involved in one of the specific Crusades.  European Christians fought against Muslims Turks in a place that was outside of Europe (the term Middle East wasn’t created yet).  Moreover, the migration of Turks into Anatolia  were from the East. (this is a few centuries ago). The migration was not from Europe, but from the East.  True, for a while Turkey was ruled by Rome for a while, but most of the inhabitants were not Roman, but Turks who moved from the East or other migrants .



In contemporary times, for both "old Europe" and Turkey, religion; cultural practices that stem from religion (both Christianity and Islam); the mindset in the south, south east, and east; the lack of development in some areas; issues with the military and some concepts with justice/criminal justice and taxation; and the fact that a good part of the land mass' inhabitants don’t want to be considered European are why Turkish is not a European country for many scholars.  And Y/A is far from being an authority on the placement of Turkey.

While a small percentage of the country is on the European continent and some of the government’s structures are starting to become more in line with the European Union, there is a significant portion of the country that is not European.  It is not politically, culturally, structurally, and its family ties are Middle Eastern.  Ankara and parts of Istanbul are European... but a large part isn’t.

Answer 7

I am half Greek and half Italian and I consider TURKEY European. Unfortunately it is some people's fear that the majority of the country is Muslim, espeically this new screwed up government in Turkey scare people in Europe.