How would you feel if I posted a comment that the Dutch were really acting like bigots regarding the way they treated the Turkish ambassador and other Turkish representatives.
Not Pieter, but allow me to respond. I would feel that you are wrong. Not something to get upset about, because you do not have the information that we have. The mayor of Rotterdam is trying for months already (even before the failed coup in Turkey) to get the different Turkish minded factions at his table, in an attempt to defuse the tensions between them. Some of the groups are well integrated in the Durch society, others despite being 3rd generation native Dutch only watch Turkish TV via satellite dish and have relative poor language skills and pronunciation. The latter identify more with Turkey than with the Netherlands, despite their schooling and other benefits that life has to offer. On could say that their integration has failed.
That failure is partially a Dutch shortcoming and partly a shortcoming in their upbringing. But part of it is also caused by 'the long arm of Ankara'. Erdogan talks about these native Dutch citizens as Turkish citizens and instructs them through the consulate to e.g. report Gülen (former friend but now ideological adversary) sympathizers so that their family in Turkey can be arrested/fired/worse and passports confiscated.
The different factions are so opposite in their appreciation of the Turkish meddling in their daily lives that they avoid being seen together, because of the potential consequences for family and wellbeing. This occasionally escalates in violence, because they are so passionate.
The last thing that the Mayor of Rotterdam needs is people physically hurting or killing each other in the streets of his city. Doesn't seem like an unreasonable desire. So when a foreign power, deliberately(!) tries to stir up trouble, and disrupt the sensitive balance to a. gain support for a referendum to convert Turkey in an autocracy, and b. provoke a reaction that can be used at home (in Turkey) to play the 'blame the enemy and support your powerful leader' game, that doesn't help, to put it mildly.
Blocking entry had more to do with anti-Turk politics before the election than the official reasons the prime minister gave.
There are no anti-Turk politics. Turkey is a NATO partner and the Netherland is the largest direct investor (21 billion Euro annually) in Turkey. We helped reinforce Turkey’s air defenses against the threat of Syrian rockets by stationing some 200 Dutch troops with our Patriot anti-ballistic missile deployment in Adana from 2013 to 2015 (when the systems were returned for upgrading, and the Spanish took our place).
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_113858.htm and
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_116890.htmTheir secret feelings are they'd like to get rid of Muslim and Turks in their country if they could find others who would work at the same peon wages. Turkish-Dutch citizens are treated like immigrants. They're not considered Dutch by the real Dutch.
Nope. In fact, the Mayor of Rotterdam is a Muslim of Moroccan decent and is considered to be one of the best Mayors in the country.
Erdogan was half right when he called your prime minister a anti-Turk Fascist and a remnant Nazi.
He is not 50% but 100% wrong, and only uses such words (and worse) as a provocation. Our PM responded that he would not lower himself to such levels by even taking such remarks seriously. And that all transpired
after the Turks deliberately tried to escalate things, not before it happened. Similar insults were aimed at Germany earlier.
And the bigoted, anti Muslim Geert, who despite his loss, represents many Dutch.
We have similar extremists as you do in the USA, and Wilders' party was elected (partly as a protest vote) by some 13% (was 10.1% prior election) of the voters.
He will win next time if there's a big riot in the Turkish community or a Muslim terrorist blows something up there. By the way, isn't Trump Dutch? Maybe he learned from the Dutch Geert.
Not if we don't feed the troll attempts. Or, as our PM tends to say, don't react on each and every piece of red meat that is flung into the arena.
I apologize for my last paragraph. But I wanted to show you the kind of anti-American or anti-Trump comments we feel from many non-Americans over here when they post. The comments become insulting. Can you see how I feel?
Understood, but misplaced. When the discussion is based or false information, it gives an opportunity to correct it or explain what's wrong about the interpretation.
Cheers,
Bart
