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Quote by Andrew Mango

“We've seen in Europe after the recent terrorist attacks a certain retrogression in human rights. It depends on how threatened the Turks feel. For example, Turkey became much more tolerant towards Kurdish nationalists when the killing of Turkish soldiers stopped in southeastern Turkey and body bags stopped arriving. Now, since June there's been a revival of Kurdish attacks on Turkish troops - something like 150 people have been killed by terrorists supplied from and operating out of bases in northern Iraq. So Turks are feeling much less tolerant of Kurdish nationalism.”

Quote by Andrew Mango

Author

Andrew Mango

Andrew Mango was a renowned historian known for his studies on the Byzantine Empire. His book 'A History of the Byzantine Empire' is widely regarded as a classic in the field. more

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“Most Turkish Kurds want a quiet life and improved economic conditions. But the Kurdish regions of Turkey are mountainous; they're ill-favored climatically; they're poor; and there's a limit to what the government can do there without wasting a lot of resources. Developing the south east may mean decamping a large part of its population. But the thing that will improve the lot of the Kurds more than anything else will be the stabilization of Iraq in the first place, because then the Turkish southeast stops being a dead end. It can become a bridge, with trade flowing in both directions.”

“As things change in Turkey people find in religious observance a certain framework of safety, of continuity. This is quite a common phenomenon. In a strange way it's part of a democratization of society. Although religious observance seems more common these days, it's not that people who did not go to mosques have started to go to mosques. I don't know anyone in Turkey who's become a born-again Muslim. It's a question of individual choice, and it does not stop the organic secularization of Turkish society, which carries on regardless.”

“Turkey's relations with its immediate neighbors are improving. They were pretty bad for a long time - with Syria they were abominable, and with Iran they were pretty bad. In both cases Turkey sees potential for trade, especially with Iran, where it gets a lot of natural gas. In good times Iran and Turkey find mutually profitable objects of exchange, but with Syria things have been very bad; Syria doesn't have much money and never will.”

“I'm optimistic about Turkey's prospects for reaching the E.U.'s standards of development, governance, and democracy, whether inside or outside the E.U. Provided you have a prosperous, rational society in Turkey that can interact with Europe and the West, I don't really care what kind of institutional arrangement you have. The point to make about Turkey and Europe is that it's a very long, drawn-out process. What's important is that the process not be stopped, that Turkey and Europe evolve in the right direction, on a path of convergence. Convergence is the name of the game.”

“I wasn't looking to be an Indian brass band, but to be a band that reflected my complete identity as an American. The America I was born and raised in intersected with people of all ethnicities and beliefs and that, coupled with my parents' instilling of good values, made me the individual I am now. Within Red Baraat, there are varied musical backgrounds and personalities and that lends itself to many great thoughts and ideas; it's what makes social science, or more precisely, social interaction so interesting to me.”

“I was raised with a single mom and we had a very specific, very particular relationship. She worked with me and my job. I was almost three and we traveled everywhere together and she was really in my life in a really profound way. The most significant relationship of my life. It was beautiful and also an incredible, difficult struggle. I know how creative that life is, and how difficult it is to figure it out.”

“People have not changed. The media and its love for the fashion world behind the scenes has changed, giving people more access to changing tastes and opinions everywhere. There has been a shift in the last few years, with the new exposure of personal styles on blogs and Instagram and websites, so people are more interested now in showing their own fashion sense and expressing their own style without copying an entire look from an ad campaign. Because of that, stores need to move toward more personal edits and styling.”