Armenian Women in Istanbul Subject to Racist Attacks
The attacks on elderly Armenian women in Samatya show that racism is alive in Turkey as a latent threat, but also serves as a demonstration that Turkey now has a civil society that immediately stands up against racism, writes Cengiz Çandar.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is fond of reiterating a line by 13th century Turkish Sufi poet Yunus Emre: “I love the Created because of the Creator.” While Yunus Emre’s immortal words express the divine love for God, the central idea of Sufism, Erdogan uses them to describe what a great sense of tolerance his government, his party and himself have for “the Other,” especially ethnic and non-Muslim minorities.
