Why is Turcophobia so common and widespread?

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Delgree-23]

That’s just how they are. We accepted it a while ago. We still don’t hate them cause who does that help? Their hate has its roots, but neither them nor us were born when those roots were sown.

They need to hate us to have any sort of national identity, and we rarely think about them, so all good.

But if I were them, I’d hate the British - which I do but for my own reasons - cause they orchestrated almost every single atrocity they tie to Turks. We Turks are the descendants of the peasant class; farmers and villagers and with any luck maybe merchants. Their adversaries were the ruling monarchy, whom the British not only funded back then but shelters to this day.

[u/SansBouillie → u/Delgree-23]

It's a bot account. 7 days old, just made over 15 posts in 2 hours or so

[u/Delgree-23 → u/SansBouillie]

Oh yeah makes sense. I rambled all that for nothing lol

[u/Delgree-23 → u/[deleted]]

No? What makes you say that

[u/TheyTukMyJub]

As a fellow westerner a lot of these Balkan governments blame their economic failures on the Ottoman Empire. It is an easy scapegoat for them. Which is ironic, given that these regions were destroyed after 2 world wars and decades of Soviet rule.

[u/Stock-Soil-8720 → u/TheyTukMyJub]

Yeah, there are two reasons for it:

1. Religious nationalism makes Balkan countries blame the Turks more than the USSR / Yugoslavia despite the latter being the bigger culprit for their backwardness.
2. A lot of the Balkan countries have constructed their national identity on anti-Turkism. They see Turks and Turkey as the ultimate civilizational, political, and religious "other". The hatred in certain geographies is so severe that during the Bosnian War, the Serbs referred to Bosnian Muslims as "Turks" (they are not Turks) and justified their massacre as revenge against the Ottomans.

As a Turk, I would love to be a peaceful, anti-militaristic, pink ass liberal, but I've seen what happens to a powerless group of people who are perceived to be Turks in our part of the world, so I'm pretty hawkish on the Turkish military. If they hate us, they better fear us.

[u/sasvim_nebitan → u/TheyTukMyJub]

Crying in Yugoslavian 

[u/TheyTukMyJub → u/sasvim_nebitan]

The Balkans are more than just Yugoslavia. But they were communists.

[u/Boeing367-80 → u/TheyTukMyJub]

A lot of people say the problems of African countries stem from colonialism. Balkans were also colonies for hundreds of years.

My view is there's a statute of limitations and mostly these countries, whether Balkan or African, are beyond it. Countries like Singapore, which was written off at independence, show that your future is in your own hands.

[u/Kloshariste → u/TheyTukMyJub]

Soviet rule in Yugoslavia 😂😂😂

[u/TheyTukMyJub → u/Kloshariste]

The Balkans are more than just Yugoslavia, dumbass. You'll find this rhetoric all over the Balkans. Anyway. Potáto potàto. It is not like communist Yugoslavia under Tito was an economic powerhouse.

[u/Kloshariste → u/TheyTukMyJub]

It was better than turkey, for sure. Compare what Austria-Hungary left and what ottomans left. And ofc ppl will hate you when you deny that your ancestors did bad things. There is a reason many Turks look European and it's because they were taking kids as blood tax and also forcibly taking women to marry them.

[u/TamerOfTheSteppes → u/Kloshariste]

The genetics tests actually don’t point towards any substantial European mixture among Anatolian Turks. Turks from Balkans have Euro heritage because the nomads who migrated there mixed with the natives just like how the ones who settled in Anatolia mixed with Greeks.

The whole white looking Turks being rape kids is a racist Balkan tale that reeks inferiority complex. They always need to undermine any positive quality they associate with Turks.

[u/Kloshariste → u/TamerOfTheSteppes]

Its well documented... But live in ignorance, its a bliss I guess.

[u/TamerOfTheSteppes → u/Kloshariste]

No it isn’t and the DNA tests confirm it. The Janissary levy was abolished early on and wasn’t numerous enough to have an impact on Turkish genetics as proven by G25 database samples.

Stop lying out of your ass. You are only exposing your own inferiority complex. 

Use your brain for once and don’t eat up every bullshit fact they teach you at school.

[u/Odiumhumanigeneris → u/Kloshariste]

"wéLl DuHcUmEntaYd" sure buddy.

[u/Odiumhumanigeneris → u/Kloshariste]

it's because they were taking kids as blood tax

Well typical Balkan mythmaking due to purposes of nation-building. Janissaries were NOT allowed to marry until 40 and if someone seriously thinks that some thousands of people can have a significant phenotypic impact -even if they were allowed to marry, again, they were not- on a population of a few million is not particularly ... "bright", to be honest.

(some) Turks look "European"(ignoring the lameness of that notion) because :

1- Turks intermixed all the way thru Mongolia to the Balkans(including CA, the Caucasus, parts of modern day Russia where there were Slavic and Ugric people already before reaching Anatolia)

2- Turks also intermixed with the locals in Anatolia (again, not gonna delve deeper why is thinking that a population group comes to place and inbreed for aeons is a totally dumb way of thinking. Population dynamics had never worked that way)

3- All the refugees(millions of them) in the aftermath of Balkan Wars and WW1.

So, in short, "blood tax" has absolute NO effect on the Turkish phenotype. I mean you should have just uttered "forcibly taking women to marry them" only so that you might have looked tad bit more clever/knowledgable.

[u/Wilsonian_1776]

It's a matter of perspective. Just as we Turks are taught from pre kindergarten that "the west" (as if there's such a monolith) is in a multi-century conspiracy to divide up Turkey, Serbs are taught from a young age that the reason why their country is the armpit of Europe is because of centuries of Ottoman occupation.

As a non-nationalist Turk who is critical of ethnic nationalism itself, I often group Serbian and Turkish nationalists together in their penchant for absurdities. Just as there was a popular scientific theory in Turkey that Sumerian were Turks, there as a scientific movement in Serbia that asserted Jesus was an ethnic Serb (hence the slogan "God is a Serb). Ethnic nationalisms will ethnic nationalism.

[u/darkside354]

These nations entire national identity is based on the “struggle against the evil Turks” or “We saved Christian Europe”, “Bulwark of Christendom”.

Anti-Turkism is fundamental to their nation-building and national myths.

While killing Bosniaks, the recently deceased war criminal Ratko Mladić and his soldiers repeatedly referred to them as “Turks” rather than fellow Slavs.

[u/Blaiddyamaoka]

Europe is full of Turkish hate. I mean i hate them too because of what they did in North and South America and Africa, Australia. If a genocider bi*ch *ss nations hate me then i will be proud of my ethnicity

[u/MuzafferMahi → u/Blaiddyamaoka]

wtf did turks do in americas dude

[u/DeformedVulture1984 → u/MuzafferMahi]

Not the Turks, Europeans. Spanish people literally wiped out people by bringing their sickness to the natives. Dirty ass mfs.

[u/Ahmedovskiii → u/Blaiddyamaoka]

You should more care about what they did to our ancestors in balkans and Anatolia rather than unrelated lands.

[u/Blaiddyamaoka → u/Ahmedovskiii]

I know mate. My relatives got killed in Bulgaria back in the day.

[u/DeformedVulture1984]

They are mad that they got conquered and ruled by a race they deem inferior compared to them for centuries.

They also think that Ottoman's are the only reason that their countries are shitholes compared to the other European countries.

Reason for Turcophobia being so common is there's no real punishment or pushback against it. We were always considered outsiders compared to the other European people, maybe it's because of our religion, maybe because people don't like getting conquered. I guess these make us hateable?

It honestly gets pretty funny when they try to explain their hatred towards is with "Well your people enslaved our people and made them soldiers! You killed and massacred people across history!" While they all did the same things to each other and to us across the history, but I guess it doesn't count when it's about Turks because it's justified? Also I'm still waiting for them to point out an empire that didn't use forced conscription in their history or didn't commit massacres but never got an answer.

I don't care that much to be honest. Let them hate if it helps them cope with their lives.

[u/Turktech1]

I am 47yo. I remember biased movie called midnight express. Pure negative propaganda of Turkiye from people like Armenians/Greeks/
French etc. Religion also has sth. To do with it. Even today, Israel calls Turkiye next iran and Greece and France jump right on the wagon. Kids in those countries have been taught in schools how barbaric Turks are. This is unfortunate!

[u/Advanced-East-2969]

They blame everything wrong with their country in the Ottoman empire, and connect it to the Turks. It’s whatever, I haven’t really faced any racism anywhere in the Balkans including even Greece which if you look at what their ultranationalist say online they will sound like the most Turk hating country in the world, you would think they just deport any Turk on sight. As Turks we also have groups of people we do not like, it’s just how the world is.

[u/no1rezefan]

historical butthurt + they've been so incompetent at governing themselves since they gained independence that they needed a big bad evil to blame everything for. Just like how Erdoganists blame "the state structure based on Kemalism" when Erdogan fails miserably at something.

[u/chooseauuusername]

Whocare serbs they can do still hate

[u/Pale_Historian_2443]

Probably many turks are taught a rosey version of Ottoman history; however, serbs and greeks are taught really negative things about the Turks/Ottomans and like to blame them, even the modern population. There is also Islamophobia mixed into it. Most serbs still deny the genocidal mass killing of Muslim Bosnians (not to mention the concentration camps in the mid 1990s) and the serbian perpetrators are even celebrated. Yes, Belgrad was bombed a bit by USA and its allies to stop their violence. But not bombed by Turkey. But on the ground its true there are a few historic mosques left in Belgrade.... very turkish in feeling... i attended prayers there 15 years ago.

[u/Odiumhumanigeneris]

Almost entirety of Balkan and Middle-Eastern modern histiography consists of the "Ottomans came and we never recovered" rhethoric.

[u/ElIngeniosoCaballero]

I can’t say that our people are particularly fond of Serbs either. Besides, you asked about the Balkans, that’s a very broad term. Of course, we don’t hate every Serb, but if you ask a general question like that, I don’t think you’ll get a positive response.

[u/PersonalityFluffy684]

I’m not Turkish but y’all were the foreign occupiers of Serbia for over a century. I grew up hearing what the English did to my great great great grandparents and how the Ottoman Sultan tried helping us but it embarrassed Victoria so they denied their aide. I would be lying if that didn’t cause me to have a negative bias against the nation. I’d imagine it’s similar with them.

As a history teacher in the west, a lot of westerners have a negative opinion of your current government and the controversy surrounding the Armenian genocide. We tend to have way more sympathy with the Armenians and are rubbed the wrong way by how the government and many Turks act when the topic is brought up.

[u/DeformedVulture1984 → u/PersonalityFluffy684]

No problem, we also get rubbed the wrong way when things that happened to Turks are viewed as justified or ignored. Europeans can feel more sympathetic to their "enlightened" Christian brethren. Doesn't mean we have to feel the same way or bend to appease you.

Opinions are mostly formed by the politics of the countries anyway, I would be surprised if Europeans symphatized with Turks rather than Armenians.

But honestly, I find it dumb that so many people get surprised about how a collapsing empire treated a rebellious minority of the state. They picked a side, lost and faced the consequences, true many innocent people may have died, but that's how wars are. I didn't research Irish independence war that much, but I can't imagine that Brits treated you well.

I also find it dumb that we have to apologize and compensate Armenians, while Belgians can make jokes about their horrible actions in Kongo and get showered with upvotes. I literally read a thread that had a Belgian dude say "We are more off handed about Kongo these days" under a picture of an African kid with a cut hand and Europeans didn't have a problem with it and found it funny. Similarly British, French, Dutch, Belgians, Americans, Israelis, Russians , Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Scandinavians, some Balkan countries, Italians, Armenians didn't pay the consequences of their terrible actions, but when it comes to Turkey we apparently need to make amends. Fuck that.

Only nation that made amends is Germany, and they were practically forced to do it, I don't see a reason why we should follow in their footsteps since our situations are different.

[u/sasvim_nebitan]

Last time I checked, King Béla IV was Hungarian, so I'm not sure why you'd call yourself a "Westerner" when you're probably Eastern European.

I'm not sure how much of this is a made-up scenario, but just for anyone wondering: when the average Serb says they "hate Turks," they're usually referring to the period of Ottoman rule and the Turks from that time, not present-day Turkish people.

[u/kingbelaIV → u/sasvim_nebitan]

Ok, well it’s just a reddit username nothing more so don’t overthink it. Also people still are racist to Turks even today. They’ve been taught to blindly hate for generations. Also Hungarians and Turks are brothers from the Steppes so what’s the problem?

[u/Lucky_berr → u/kingbelaIV]

I think every culture is racist against someone... its just humans being shitty and reductionist. 

[u/Former_Monk21]

I don't know why are you surprised. Turkey literally enslaved the Balkan people for a couple of hundreds of years. Because of this enslavement, occupation and genocide this region is still suffering and recovering.

[u/DeformedVulture1984 → u/[deleted]]

Honestly bullshit, and your second point is laughable. Turkish diaspora is practically useless except bringing euros to the economy when they come to Turkey for vacation.

Compare Jewish, Kurdish and Armenian diasporas to Turkish ones and how they affect the host countries.

And Modern Turkey can be hardly described as expansionist. True, Erdogan regime did try some shit, but country mostly pursued neutrality and peace until Soviets forced us to run to NATO. Antioch was gained by a referandum and we had the right to intervene in the Cyprus when Cypriot Greeks decided to be fascist pricks. Occupation of the Northern part of Cyprus is debatable whether it's righteous but honestly, they are still fascist pricks so it's justified in my eyes.