History UsefulNotes / Turkey

Turkey should not be compared with the rest of the Middle East. It doesn't use Arabic script (Which hasn't been used in Turkey since 1928) or language, the country is ''strictly'' secular (the favourite national flamewar is over wearing headscarves in public) and it's culturally somewhat different. It is Muslim, true, but if a leader says so too loudly he risks military take-over by the "Guardian of Secularism", the army. This has happened multiple times for Islam, Communism, what ever the current ideology the Army doesn't like. Recently, however, this trend has changed; the latest indication of a coup attempt lead to a strong public backlash against the Armed Forces. It seems that the Turkish military is no longer a viable force in politics.

Turkey was also the only Islamic state to have friendly relations with Israel, it had briefly deteriorated quickly in 2010, due to a certain incident involving a certain flotilla bound for a certain strip of territory in the Levant. Israel's president Benjamin Netanyahu eventually apologized for the raid almost three years later, and ties had been brought to normal.

* The Turks are the "bad guys" in ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia'', which portrays the Ottoman Empire as (appropriately enough) TheEmpire and the Arab Revolt as LaResistance. The Turks themselves don't actually appear in the movie very much except as {{Mooks}}, the film's focus being on Lawrence's relationship with the Arabs and with his British superiors. The only non-Mook Turkish character is a TortureTechnician, played by José Ferrer and [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep identified only as "the Turkish Bey"]].

* The Turks are the "bad guys" in ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia'', which portrays the Ottoman Empire as (appropriately enough) TheEmpire and the Arab Revolt as LaResistance. The Turks themselves don't actually appear in the movie very much except as {{Mooks}}. The only non-Mook Turkish character is a TortureTechnician, played by José Ferrer and [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep identified only as "the Turkish Bey"]].

* The Turks are the "bad guys" in ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia'', which portrays the Ottoman Empire as (appropriately enough) TheEmpire and the Arab Revolt as LaResistance. However, the movie also suggests that UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire, which Lawrence is ultimately working for, is NotSoDifferent from the Turkish one.

Turkey, as the Ottoman Empire, was initially neutral during WorldWarOne. Before the conflict, it was being wooed by Imperial Germany, who invested heavily in Turkey, created the Berlin-Baghdad railway (Iraq and most of the Middle East being a part of the Ottoman Empire at that time) and helped modernise the Ottoman army. After the British forcefully requisitioned two warships ordered by the Ottoman Government, Turkey fell further into the orbit of the Central Powers, and officially joined the war after a German FalseFlagOperation. During WorldWarOne, Turkey fought mainly against the British Empire and her colonies/dominions like Australia, New Zealand, India and Canada in the Middle East and on the Gallipoli peninsula. The Gallipoli Campaign is notable for being a pilgrimage site for Australians and New Zealanders due to the involvement of the [[UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} ANZACs]], as popularised in the Creator/MelGibson film ''Gallipoli''. Similarly, the war in the Middle East became famous for the actions of T. E. Lawrence (of LawrenceOfArabia fame), who incited the Great Arab Revolt which saw the Arabic territories of the Ottoman Empire revolt against their Turkish masters. Unfortunately, this ended as a FullCircleRevolution for the Arabs, who were promised a unified, independent Arab State but were instead placed under the control of the British and French empires. Turkey also put up a very weak fight against the Russians, owing to their Supreme Commander - Enver Pasha - being a ModernMajorGeneral with delusions of conquering Central Asia. Like Napoleon before him and Hitler after him, Enver Pasha made the sad mistake of trying to invade in ''winter''. The Russo-Turkish conflict was one of the few theatres of the First World War where the Russian Army did well against an opponent. Fortunately for them, the Turks were saved by the collapse of the Tsarist regime and RedOctober. Less fortunately for them, the Central Powers still ended up losing, and the Ottoman Empire soon lost all its territory outwith Anatolia and Thrace.

* Mehmed II. At the tender age of 21, he succeeded in conquering Constantinople, a city that had been previously sieged fifteen times and with only one success. The fall of Constantinople destroyed Byzantium and established the Ottomans as the spiritual successors to the Roman Empire. Mehmet II used the Byzantine administration model as a blueprint for the Ottoman State, and this model stayed in place long after his death. He also unified Anatolia under the Ottomans and brought the empire into Europe, advancing as far as Belgrade.

Turkey has a notable cultural industry, especially in the music area - the Holly Valance song "Kiss Kiss" was originally sung in Turkish (strangely enough, the original singer is male, while a significant number of the various covers have been sung by women.) Plus belly dancers, which people tend to focus on. The oil wrestling is male-only, so it's usually ignored ([[BigBeautifulMan of course]], [[{{Fanservice}} it largely]] [[BigBeautifulMan depends on]] [[LGBTFanbase the demographic]]).

Turkey has a notable cultural industry, especially in the music area - the Holly Valance song "Kiss Kiss" was originally sung in Turkish (strangely enough, the original singer is male, while a significant number of the various covers have been sung by women.) Plus belly dancers, which people tend to focus on. The oil wrestling is male-only, so people ignore it.

Due to the complex issue of Turkish nationalism and the activities of Kurdish terrorist group PKK, Kurds and the Kurdish language used to be a FlameBait issue in Turkey. Since 2002, however, the bans on Kurdish radio and television shows were lifted and the option to have a private Kurdish education was introduced, and in 2009, the government began restoring the names of Kurdish towns and villages. Giving in to pressure from the EU and the U.S., the government has even repaired and returned a handful out of the hundreds of churches that after WorldWarOne were either converted into mosques, museums, or just left to deteriorate into ruins, back to the (now) small Christian population in the country, mostly just for show. Provisions against speaking publicly about the Armenian Genocide and an independent Kurdistan were mostly introduced by a military junta that took control in the 1980s, and since then, the Turkish Government has made efforts to improve freedom of speech in the country, due largely to international pressure. Progress in some areas is being made faster than in others; as the 2007 murder of Turkish-Armenian reporter Hrant Dink displayed, speaking out too loudly about taboo topics in Turkey is still a very risky proposition. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Turkey continues to have the world's highest number of jailed journalists, [[http://www.cpj.org/blog/2013/12/turkey--worlds-top-press-jailer-once-more.php topping the list in 2012 and 2013]] and beating out the likes of North Korea, Iran and China.

* Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The founding father of modern Turkey. An extremely capable military officer in the army during WWI who went on to create the Republic of Turkey and serve as its first President. His ideology, called Kemalism, is a key element of the Turkish constitution. Do not insult him or risk InternetBackdraft. Do not insult him in Turkey or risk prosecution.

Following the defeat of the Central Powers, Anatolia was occupied by the Entente. The resulting Treaty of Sèvres partitioned Turkey, ceding western Anatolia and most of Thrace to the Greeks and eastern Anatolia to the Armenians, while placing vast swathes of Asian Turkey under European influence. This led to the Turkish War of Independence, which raged through the early 1920s, and resulted in the Turkish nationalists - led by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) - establishing the modern Republic of Turkey in 1923, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome having repulsed the combined forces of Greece, France, Italy and Great Britain]] (though to be fair, the last three didn't really have their hearts in the war). They gained most of Armenia's land after some seedy deals between them and the Soviet government, who wanted them to go communist (which didn't end up happening), effectively ending centuries of an Armenian presence in the region. Turkey became the first secular state in the Middle East and would remain so for quite some time.

To try and appear more qualified to join the EU Turkey has adopted a "zero problems" policy with its direct neighbors, though it hasn't quite panned out so far. They signed a protocol in 2009 with neighboring Armenia which would open their borders (closed since the Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990's) and attempt to bury the hatchet between the two states. However, the protocols fell into limbo after Armenia unsurprisingly refused to link the protocols with dropping the genocide issue and conceding Karabakh to Azerbaijan, [[ThePlan which was likely the whole point of the protocols]] as now Turkey can say that anything related to genocide recognition or recognizing UsefulNotes/{{Nagorno-Karabakh}}'s independence [[StatusQuoIsGod puts its normalization with Armenia in jeopardy]]. In late 2013 Turkey pulled the Protocols out of limbo and tried to negotiate with Armenia again, hoping to patch things up ahead of the centennial of the Armenian genocide; sure to be a PR nightmare for the country. Meanwhile, it has had shaky relations with just about every other country that borders it except Azerbaijan. However, its relations with the Arab world have been getting increasingly peachy. Arabs--whose view of the Turks wasn't half as bad as those of Turkey's Christian neighbors--have come to see the Turkish model as an excellent path to democracy, for various reasons: Islamist Arabs point to the ruling AK Party's moderate line, while authoritarian Arabs like the aforementioned role for the military. Either way, commercial and cultural links (the latter of which include some very successful {{soap opera}}s, dubbed into Arabic in the Syrian dialect and ''the'' thing to watch if you're a remotely fashionable Arab) with Turkey have grown strong since the early 2000s. Indeed, the Islamist parties that were swept into power in the [[MiddleEastUprising2011 Arab Revolutions]] have modeled themselves upon the AK Party,[[note]]The Moroccan and Libyan ones have the same name (Justice and Development), the Tunisian one (Ennahda, "The Renaissance") has a similar platform thanks to leader Rachid Ghannouchi's exchanges with Turkish thinkers, and the Egyptian one (Freedom and Justice) is vaguely reminiscent[[/note]] and the Turkish government has won tremendous brownie points from the Arab street thanks to its relatively quick denunciation of the Syrian regime and willingness to host Syrian refugees and rebels.

[[caption-width-right:350:The European bit is top left.]]

Turkey ('''Turkish:''' Türkiye), officially known as the Republic of Turkey ('''Turkish:''' Türkiye Cumhuriyeti) one of a few countries spanning multiple continents. {{NATO}} member and applicant to UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion.

Turkey ('''Turkish:''' Türkiye), officially known as the Republic of Turkey ('''Turkey:''' Türkiye Cumhuriyeti) one of a few countries spanning multiple continents. {{NATO}} member and applicant to UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion.

Turkey, one of a few countries spanning multiple continents. {{NATO}} member and applicant to UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion.

To try and appear more qualified to join the EU Turkey has adopted a "zero problems" policy with its direct neighbors, though it hasn't quite panned out so far. They signed a protocol in 2009 with neighboring Armenia which would open their borders (closed since the Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990's) and attempt to bury the hatchet between the two states. However, the protocols fell into limbo after Armenia unsurprisingly refused to link the protocols with dropping the genocide issue and conceding Karabakh to Azerbaijan, [[ThePlan which was likely the whole point of the protocols]] as now Turkey can say that anything related to genocide recognition or recognizing UsefulNotes/{{Nagorno-Karabakh}}'s independence [[StatusQuoIsGod puts its normalization with Armenia in jeopardy]]. In late 2013 Turkey pulled the Protocols out of limbo again and tried to negotiate with Armenia again, hoping to patch things up ahead of the centennial of the Armenian genocide; sure to be a PR nightmare for the country. Meanwhile, it has had shaky relations with just about every other country that borders it except Azerbaijan. However, its relations with the Arab world have been getting increasingly peachy. Arabs--whose view of the Turks wasn't half as bad as those of Turkey's Christian neighbors--have come to see the Turkish model as an excellent path to democracy, for various reasons: Islamist Arabs point to the ruling AK Party's moderate line, while authoritarian Arabs like the aforementioned role for the military. Either way, commercial and cultural links (the latter of which include some very successful {{soap opera}}s, dubbed into Arabic in the Syrian dialect and ''the'' thing to watch if you're a remotely fashionable Arab) with Turkey have grown strong since the early 2000s. Indeed, the Islamist parties that were swept into power in the [[MiddleEastUprising2011 Arab Revolutions]] have modeled themselves upon the AK Party,[[note]]The Moroccan and Libyan ones have the same name (Justice and Development), the Tunisian one (Ennahda, "The Renaissance") has a similar platform thanks to leader Rachid Ghannouchi's exchanges with Turkish thinkers, and the Egyptian one (Freedom and Justice) is vaguely reminiscent[[/note]] and the Turkish government has won tremendous brownie points from the Arab street thanks to its relatively quick denunciation of the Syrian regime and willingness to host Syrian refugees and rebels.

To try and appear more qualified to join the EU Turkey has adopted a "zero problems" policy with its direct neighbors, though it hasn't quite panned out so far. They signed a protocol with neighboring Armenia which would open their borders (closed since the Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990's) and attempt to bury the hatchet between the two states. However, the protocols fell into limbo after Armenia unsurprisingly refused to link the protocols with dropping the genocide issue and conceding Karabakh to Azerbaijan, [[ThePlan which was likely the whole point of the protocols]] as now Turkey can say that anything related to genocide recognition or recognizing UsefulNotes/{{Nagorno-Karabakh}}'s independence [[StatusQuoIsGod puts its normalization with Armenia in jeopardy]]. Meanwhile, it has had shaky relations with just about every other country that borders it except Azerbaijan. However, its relations with the Arab world have been getting increasingly peachy. Arabs--whose view of the Turks wasn't half as bad as those of Turkey's Christian neighbors--have come to see the Turkish model as an excellent path to democracy, for various reasons: Islamist Arabs point to the ruling AK Party's moderate line, while authoritarian Arabs like the aforementioned role for the military. Either way, commercial and cultural links (the latter of which include some very successful {{soap opera}}s, dubbed into Arabic in the Syrian dialect and ''the'' thing to watch if you're a remotely fashionable Arab) with Turkey have grown strong since the early 2000s. Indeed, the Islamist parties that were swept into power in the [[MiddleEastUprising2011 Arab Revolutions]] have modeled themselves upon the AK Party,[[note]]The Moroccan and Libyan ones have the same name (Justice and Development), the Tunisian one (Ennahda, "The Renaissance") has a similar platform thanks to leader Rachid Ghannouchi's exchanges with Turkish thinkers, and the Egyptian one (Freedom and Justice) is vaguely reminiscent[[/note]] and the Turkish government has won tremendous brownie points from the Arab street thanks to its relatively quick denunciation of the Syrian regime and willingness to host Syrian refugees and rebels.

Due to the complex issue of Turkish nationalism and the activities of Kurdish terrorist group PKK, Kurds and the Kurdish language used to be a FlameBait issue in Turkey. Since 2002, however, the bans on Kurdish radio and television shows were lifted and the option to have a private Kurdish education was introduced, and in 2009, the government began restoring the names of Kurdish towns and villages. Giving in to pressure from the EU and the U.S., the government has even repaired and returned a handful out of the hundreds of churches that after WorldWarOne were either converted into mosques, museums, or just left to deteriorate into ruins, back to the (now) small Christian population in the country, mostly just for show. Provisions against speaking publicly about the Armenian Genocide and an independent Kurdistan were mostly introduced by a military junta that took control in the 1980s, and since then, the Turkish Government has made efforts to improve freedom of speech in the country, due largely to international pressure. Progress in some areas is being made faster than in others; as the 2007 murder of Turkish-Armenian reporter Hrant Dink displayed, speaking out too loudly about taboo topics in Turkey is still a very risky proposition. Turkey continues to have the world's highest number of jailed journalists, [[http://www.cpj.org/blog/2013/12/turkey--worlds-top-press-jailer-once-more.php topping the list in 2012 and 2013]] and beating out the likes of North Korea, Iran and China.

Turkey has some other issues relating to human rights and freedom of speech. They [[WouldBeRudeToSayGenocide deny the Armenian Genocide]] as well as [[NeverMyFault similar genocides]] suffered by the Greeks and Assyrians as the Ottoman Empire was crumbling, even though they were committed by the government the present republic deposed [[note]] The reasons for this include the fears that Turkey would be forced to pay reparations of both money and land to the descendants of the victims, and the fact that more than a few of their national heroes such as the Young Turks were involved in the genocide, which taints their national pride. Most citizens of Turkey just have absolutely no idea there was ever a genocide, thanks to their government. But a slowly growing number of citizens who do know about it ''want'' the genocide to be recognized, and the Kurds in the country are generally apologetic over the issue now that they've taken the place of the Christians as Turkey's most oppressed minority.[[/note]]. They also tend to be uptight about the word "Kurd" and the idea of a separate identity for their eastern, Kurdish-speaking provinces. This is all apparently "insulting Turkishness", the idea of a unified Turkish nation-state. This concept of 'insulting Turkishness' is one of the reasons sites like Website/YouTube are [[BannedInChina banned in Turkey]], allegedly because of insults to Ataturk as you can be prosecuted for insulting Ataturk in Turkey, or saying anything else that allegedly insults Turkishness.

Due to the complex issue of Turkish nationalism and the activities of Kurdish terrorist group PKK, Kurds and the Kurdish language used to be a FlameBait issue in Turkey. Since 2002, however, the bans on Kurdish radio and television shows were lifted and the option to have a private Kurdish education was introduced, and in 2009, the government began restoring the names of Kurdish towns and villages. Giving in to pressure from the EU and the U.S., the government has even repaired and returned a handful out of the hundreds of churches that after WorldWarOne were either converted into mosques, museums, or just left to deteriorate into ruins, back to the (now) small Christian population in the country, mostly just for show. Provisions against speaking publicly about the Armenian Genocide and an independent Kurdistan were mostly introduced by a military junta that took control in the 1980s, and since then, the Turkish Government has made efforts to improve freedom of speech in the country, due largely to international pressure. Progress in some areas is being made faster than in others; as the 2007 murder of Turkish-Armenian reporter Hrant Dink displayed, speaking out too loudly about taboo topics in Turkey is still a very risky proposition. Turkey continues to have the world's highest number of jailed journalists, [[http://www.cpj.org/reports/2013/12/second-worst-year-on-record-for-jailed-journalists.php#more topping the list in 2012 and 2013]] and beating out the likes of North Korea, Iran and China.

Due to the complex issue of Turkish nationalism and the activities of Kurdish terrorist group PKK, Kurds and the Kurdish language used to be a FlameBait issue in Turkey. Since 2002, however, the bans on Kurdish radio and television shows were lifted and the option to have a private Kurdish education was introduced, and in 2009, the government began restoring the names of Kurdish towns and villages. Giving in to pressure from the EU and the U.S., the government has even repaired and returned a handful out of the hundreds of churches that after WorldWarOne were either converted into mosques, museums, or just left to deteriorate into ruins, back to the (now) small Christian population in the country, mostly just for show. Provisions against speaking publicly about the Armenian Genocide and an independent Kurdistan were mostly introduced by a military junta that took control in the 1980s, and since then, the Turkish Government has made efforts to improve freedom of speech in the country, due largely to international pressure. Progress in some areas is being made faster than in others; as the 2007 murder of Turkish-Armenian reporter Hrant Dink displayed, speaking out too loudly about taboo topics in Turkey is still a very risky proposition. Turkey continues to have the world's highest number of jailed journalists, [[http://www.cpj.org/reports/2013/12/second-worst-year-on-record-for-jailed-journalists.php#more topping the list in 2012 and 2013]].

Due to the complex issue of Turkish nationalism and the activities of Kurdish terrorist group PKK, Kurds and the Kurdish language used to be a FlameBait issue in Turkey. Since 2002, however, the bans on Kurdish radio and television shows were lifted and the option to have a private Kurdish education was introduced, and in 2009, the government began restoring the names of Kurdish towns and villages. Giving in to pressure from the EU and the U.S., the government has even repaired and returned a handful out of the hundreds of churches that after WorldWarOne were either converted into mosques, museums, or just left to deteriorate into ruins, back to the (now) small Christian population in the country, mostly just for show. Provisions against speaking publicly about the Armenian Genocide and an independent Kurdistan were mostly introduced by a military junta that took control in the 1980s, and since then, the Turkish Government has made efforts to improve freedom of speech in the country, due largely to international pressure. Progress in some areas is being made faster than in others; as the 2007 murder of Armenian reporter Hrant Dink displayed, speaking out too loudly about taboo topics in Turkey is still a very risky proposition.

Following the defeat of the Central Powers, Anatolia was occupied by the Entente. The resulting Treaty of Sèvres partitioned Turkey, ceding western Anatolia and most of Thrace to the Greeks and eastern Anatolia to the Armenians, while placing vast swathes of Asian Turkey under European influence. This led to the Turkish War of Independence, which raged through the early 1920s, and resulted in the Turkish nationalists - led by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) - establishing the modern Republic of Turkey in 1923, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome having repulsed the combined forces of Greece, France, Italy and Great Britain]] (though to be fair, the last three didn't really have their hearts in the war). Turkey became the first secular state in the Middle East and would remain so for quite some time.

* Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. An extremely capable military officer in the army during WWI who went on to found the modern Republic of Turkey and serve as its first President. His ideology, called Kemalism, is a key element of the Turkish constitution. Do not insult him or risk InternetBackdraft. Do not insult him in Turkey or risk prosecution.

Turkey, one of a few countries spanning multiple continents. {{NATO}} member and EuropeanUnion applicant.

Lately, Turkey has been longing to become a part of the EuropeanUnion, but it's long history as [[TheBully the regional bully]] has made this difficult for them. Greece is opposed to it due to the Cyprus Dispute. Bulgaria in particular has been against it due to past wrongs committed during the dark days of the end of the Ottoman Empire, and Germany feels that Turkey ought to fess up to their crimes like ''they'' had to after WorldWarTwo, as does France. On the other hand, opposition to Turkish membership has been motivated by far less noble goals. Some European leaders - particularly the former French President Nicholas Sarkozy - fear that Turkey entering the EU would result in [[UnfortunateImplications an influx of Muslims]], due to EU immigration regulations. Proponents of Turkish membership point out its strong economic status (the EU originally being a purely economic union), especially when compared to the latest members, Bulgaria and Romania.

* Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia - The MoeAnthropomorphism of Turkey is the proud, strong and energetic Sadik Adnan, and is shown to be at best VitriolicBestBuds or at worst ArchEnemies with Greece.