First of all I can see there is disagreement between you, that should tell you a lot.
Second.
there are two thins one can look at here.
1 - See religion as the common element between people
2 - See culture as the common element between people
For example in this forum, most members from Pakistan will support and align with turkish members.
when I look at the posts, I can only find religion as the factor behind this.
As far as I know, (I haven't travelled to the depths of Anatolia) Mediterranean turks have nothing in common with Pakistanis both racially and culturally.
If you remove religion from the equation, Mediterranean turks and Greeks are much closer together culturally. Pretty much honour similar family values, have common professions, arts, and every day cultures. Similar to southern italians too.
Why would I as an intelligent educated person bring religion into the equation? Just because someone is christian does not make him automatically my brother in the same way you muslims seem to think.
Even so at the end of the day, Turkish muslims are much different to other muslims. At least the ones I met and saw.
And this is the point that holds Turkey back in its european integration. Muslims like to think that Europeans are a Christian only club.
Not really. The reality is that they are a money only club. Europeans are very far removed from religion. They are concerned that Islam by definition has political extensions. something that fundamentally is against democracy.
you can't have it both ways.
don't forget the "must do" list before we can join EU...
- give back KKTC
- recognice the "genocide"
- have a "better and stable" economy
- show more respect to minorities
- better human rights
- give Kurds their own country
- stop jailing those who oppose the country
- let France and ze Germany have a bigger population than Turkey
etc. the list goes on. it's those STUPID laws the EU with France and Germany in front that keeps a prejudice against us. even the Croatian prime minister went out and said that EU should treat us the same way they treat other countries. even though we have far better economy, growth, wealth, younger population the EU still treats us like we were some enemy!
it's obviously normal for Turks to hate on midget sarkozy and grandma merkele for this.
the only thing i can see that is good for us if we join EU is more Turks can come to Europe (ofcourse you can't let that happen since you have Turkophobia) and we will gain more power in EU than France or Germany since it's the population that decides who's going to get the most chairs.
and i haven't seen such a unfair thing like that ever. France who only accounts for 11% of the farmers in the EU gets 25% of the Farmers fond (or whatever it is). how is that even possible?
better name it **** Union. nothing good comes out of it anyway. Germany spews out it's countrys tax money to save Greece. WTF how can people be happy knowing their money is going to a bankrupt country?