Boy kicked out of scouts for refusing to swear allegiance to god

[kılıç_mehmet]

No, but from this and other posts it's obvious that you simply don't know much about America. America has no 'official language' although English is most common, including laws ect. But there are areas of America with street name signs in Chinese or Korean, and there are over 35 million people in America who speak Spanish at home (compared to 6-7m Turkish/Kurdish in Germany). America is not very integrated sadly, and even after many generations people still identify with their overseas origin, "Boston Irish", "Italian" etc. Although I guess everything is relative. I know people from maybe 10 or 20 "communities" in America.

Then I'd suggest that latino majority areas change the educational languages in the states they represent the majority in to spanish.
Friend, do not worry. Assimilation is not a matter of one or two generations. Obviously, the Turks in Germany, nearly all speak Turkish. This is due to the fact that both Latinos(mostly Mexicans I assume) and Turks have similar familial structures, close family ties and tend to live in clusters, have strong ethnic ties due to the recency of their immigration.
You cannot expect these people to change their mother language to English in just a single generation. However, these were not the people I was referring to. The majority of the American population was formed by German, Dutch, Irish, English and French settlers. To them, an influx of then Iron-curtain origins came along. Enlighten me, how many people in America speak the aforementioned languages as their primary language at their home? Latinos are close, they do not need to cross an ocean to get there. With the majority of recent immigrants, latinos, being from neighboring countries, I'd say that it's not really surprising that they still maintain many of their customs.
But in time, they too, will vanish.

Many people might refer to themselves as "italian", "irish" or whatever. Ethnic consciousness is formed with two things: language, and association. It all comes down whether these people view themselves as "diaspora" or not. For example, I can give you a few examples of communities that integrate well, but do not truly assimilate into the communities they live in.
Greeks are a fine example. Jews, another one. On the other hand, the "irish" in the US do not flock to join the IRA, but Armenian-Americans flock to fight the Azerbaijani forces in the Karabagh war.
This is what ethnic consciousness is. Not simply saying, "hey I'm irish!".

You are living in one of the more racist countries in Europe, where your ethnicity is at the sharp end of racist right-wing nationalism and yet you are using this fact to advocate your own right-wing nationalism. The mind boggles. Sadly you are not so alone, according to Wikipedia:

Turkey is not in Europe. The Europeans are saying this. Who am I to contradict them? Sadly, we do not live in one of the most racist countries in Europe. There is Greece, Hungary and many other countries that have a racial and ethnic consciousness above ours in present day. In our country, even non-Turks can become presidents and lord over Turks. Non-Turks can parade as though they were Turkish, and claim that Turks that live outside of our borders are none of our concern and we should leave them to their fate.
Non-Turks can spread harmful ideologies like communism, islamism, ummah sympathy and cosmopolitanism, and praise social decay and destruction of traditional moral values. Non-Turks use the present day law to use Turkishness as their shied and their ethnic identity as their spear to strike at the heart of true Turks. Hopefully, one day, this injustice that we experience this day will be over. Hopefully, one day, a Georgian(our current president) will not be able to even think of becoming the head of the state. On that day, we can truly look forward for a bright future.

In Germany on the other hand, I'd say that the same things are occuring. The Germans, who had ethnic and racial consciousness, pride and a sense of purpose and obligation due to this consciousness prior to their defeat in WWII, were turned into this former shadow of their fear and awe inspiring power by the victors of the two World Wars. Their pride was crushed, and they were forced to digest whatever harmful ideologies their conquerors imposed on them. A similar thing was forced on the Japanese.

We were spared, due to the fact that a nationalist movement that led to the foundation of modern day Turkey, who liberated us from the Imperialist powers of WWI.

"In recent years, the Turkish minority has shown an increased tendency to segregation and radical views.[104] According to a representative 2012 survey, 72% of the Turks in Germany believe that Islam is the only true religion, 62% prefer social contacts only to fellow Turks, 46% wish that one day more Muslims live in Germany than Christians, 25% think atheists are inferior human beings, 18% believe Jews are inferior human beings, and 51% believe that homosexuality is a sickness"

And they also believe that Turks and Kurds are supposedly brothers due to their Islamic religion. Nothing could be farther from that. If this poll was actually genuine, Turks would pick up their stuff, and return to their homelands. In truth, Turks in Germany are the primary cash-cows of Islamist organisations and the youth dress up like wiggers, listen to rap music and engage in crime. This is what racial and ethnic consciousness is like? I'd say that this is due to the lack of thereof.

You had also said:

a) What about Turkish women marry German guys? b) What part of being Turkish are the German girls not approving off with regards to raising kids?

Turkish women, who marry Germans are probably quite few, I only know very few examples, but I can tell you this that none of our girls would dare to seperate the children from their father the way the Germans do so. They just pick up and leave with the kids, never bother to tell the father where they are, or ever let the father see the children ever again. Our women are not cruel as they are.
And I do not know what part German girls do not approve of being Turkish, but I guess it's the same as I would not want my children to become Germans, they want the same, good sir. I don't really take much offense in that. It's just natural, and it's bound to happen.

Do they advocate marrying outside of Islam? again, what about Muslim girls marrying atheists, jews, christians, hindus....

I really do not look at this in terms of religious boundaries.
A Turk who is a Christian, and there are Turks around the world who adhere to Christianity(Sakha, Gagauzes and many others) just as there are Turks who adhere to Judaism(Karaim) who are the same to me as a Turk of the moslem religion. Under that context, I see no problems between the marriage of a moslem Turk, and a christian Turk. What I do not advocate is that a Turk ought not to marry someone but a Turk even if he/she is of the same religion as he or she.
Religion for me is a personal matter. Race on the other hand, is not.
Islamists can claim all they want. They even deny our kindred of other religions. But most of all, they see no real problem, and even actively encourage Turks to marry moslems of other religions, abandon Turkish culture, and fully assimilate into the arab culture, while presenting this as "religion" to the ignorant.
For now, they are our foremost enemies, for they are within us.

In short, religion is not affilated with racism, unless the religion is exclusive to that race only, as the case with the Jew.

I'm sorry but you are so mistaken. Ever heard of Franco, Mussolini, Aryan Nation/White power et al, Popular Orthodox Rally (Greek Nationalists),... and there are many many many more examples.

Yes, today's nationalists in Turkey too, do the same. They go on to mosques, attend friday prayers and etc. Ask them about their opinion on Arabs, and see what kind of a nice reply you'll get from them. Similarly, ask the Greek nationalists what they think of the Gagauz Turks. Even the word "Turk" will send a shiver down their spine, with the Gagauzes being adherents of Greek orthodoxy, they too, do not feel any affiliation with the Greeks much less any love for them. In all, religion plays a small role, nothing more than a cultural one maybe-in terms of nationalist ideologies.

very presumptuous, I'm not American.

You'd make an excellent one, I guess. No matter. I really don't know how you can criticize me on the account that "I know nothing about America" because I never lived there, while not being one yourself.

Again, you evidently know virtually nothing about America. What have you been spun about Turkish community in America?

I know people of the Turkish community there. I'd rather call them "diaspora" though, as they also maintain our own interest over there, thankfully.

Maybe you should have taken a hard look at that failure then..perhaps adopting a policy of multicuturalism and inclusion..you know, something like the ideal the US is -supposed- to operate on. hehehehe

Well, multikulti is a stillborn ideology. IT never worked, and never will. Therefore, the US does not operate on that ideology. Who said it did? On the other hand, it maintains the same policy as the world's historical mutli-national empires did. Force the minorities to adopt the culture and language of the majority. The extend to which this was successful varied according to several variables. But I must say that the US is probably the most successful amongst these, as it's based on a totally new continent, one which severs the thread to which those who immigrate there(from overseas), and allows them to assimilate into a common new identity.

People here are equally fond of their own heritage.

I did not say that they hated it. However I would not dare comparing them to the minorities that are found in your country. Our minorities are fiercely maintain their own heritage, and those who have legal rights to it maintain their own schools that teach exclusively in their own language.

Not as monolithic an organization or as common a ground as they would have you believe amigo.

I'd say that it'd be hard for the US to truly exist with at least three majıor religious being active there. Yugoslavia, with it's people being of the same race, have split up in different "nation states" due to the religious differences that existed amongst the people.
Balkanization could easily happen in the US, should religious differences in the population reach a such a ratio as it was the case for Yugoslavia.

No more so than the immigrants who they counted as ancestors before them. Snapshots in time Mehm.

And I guess that General Custer was very well versed in German literature and spoke fluent German.

Oh, like spanish?

Yes.

A great many of us don't..and an ever increasing number of us speak english and spanish, just as one example...and that's largely due to recent waves of immigration.

Which brings me back to my previous point.
However, I'm sure that the US government expects that any immigrants who do not speak English to learn the language, yes?
Recent immigrants(probably from south and central american countries), who do not speak the language can expect not much from the system, they can only become lowly workers, and nothing more, in short, "second class" citizens and maybe not even citizens at all, which is probably the reason why a large portion of those immigrants are illegal aliens, eh?

A great many didn't, which is why american english became the language that it became...an immigrants language.

And I wonder why you have not adopted the language of the majority of the immigrants?
It wasn't the language of the immigrants, it was the language of the overlords of those immigrants. And they forced them to learn it.

All of this prattling on about language, ignoring that a wide number of languages are spoken here, that you don't speak your own ancestors "first langauge", and that it really doesn't matter one jot or tittle. The transition to another language is part of nearly all of our cultural heritage (you know, that mysterious thing that you find so important).

A wide number of languages are spoken in America, of that I'm aware. The large number of red indian tongues, who knows how well they are preserved, or in which condition they are now, and small portions of people who speak french and german...I'd say that they hold no real weight to classify your country as "multicultural" at all...
You have to thank the recent latino immigration into your country for any other spoken language besides english as far as I'm concerned.
It's not the number of languages that are spoken, it's the number of speakers that keep languages alive.

What does ethnicity have to do with nationality?

A great deal, to be honest. The fact that the country I live in is named Turkey, and it's citizens Turks, is due to the people that live here are Turks. Same with Germany, Italy, Poland and the nation states around the world, friend.

This is idiotic. Ethnicity itself is not an impassable boundary , but even if we ignored that you are again conflating ethnicity with nationality.

Nothing is impassable.
However everything has limits within reason. It is not reasonable to think that a Turk can become a Malay or vice versa, even if he's a Malaysian citizen.

right, for bigoted ethnic supremicists..just to be clear.

We do have a name that differentiates us from the rest though. Türkçü/Ülkücü.

Last I checked Turkish (as it applied to nationality) covered alot of ethnicities. Pretty sure you're aware of this...as it irks you to no end.

You checked, but you failed to understand. As a nationality, "Turkish" whatever that means, as this word has no real counterpart in the Turkish language(We call it "Turk"), the term Turk, exists due to the existence of ethnic Turks. And it exists because Turks are the crushing majority in this country. As with other nations, any minorities in nation states are simply disregarded when adressed in official documents. This does not mean that they do not exist.

From the viewpoint of the minorities, they seem to be very keen on disowning this term, and prefer to be called by their own names. You call yoursef American, but they do not call themselves "Turks". For that name is the name of the ethnicity itself. You get confused because it has a different counterpart in the english language, but for us, the term Turk applies for all. Both the ethnicity, and therefore, the nation.

Again, having never lived here I can excuse you for not realizing the wide variety of flags you will be exposed to if you so much as walked through a Walmart parking lot.

Yeah, I too see a wide variety of flags in Ankara. However the flag of the sovereign is the flag of the sovereign. I don't know how many of you pledge your allegience to the flags of your respective ethnicity(like say, an American with German ancestry sings the Deutsche Nationalhymne or an American with Italian ancestry hangs Italian flags all over his house) but I'm fairly certain that these still do not matter. You're still a product of assimilation, and your bonds with your ancestral ethnic groups are minimal, save for very recent immigrants.

Yep, trail of tears and all that, just another example of why ethnic supremicism is garbage. We tried your way, it didn't work so well in our current estimation. We have the dignity to acknowledge a mistake in a way that you clearly do not.

As a matter of fact, we do not advocate assimilation for our ethnic minorities. To be perfectly honest, we want clear distinctions between us and them.. I certainly do not even expect loyalty from them, as I figure that this is too much to ask for from a minority.
Regrettably, leftlist-leaned governments in Turkey and all around the world have forced their minorities to undergo assimilation.
One example would be the ex-Soviet states. They soviet leaders have sought the destruction of indigenous cultures and languages without being ethnic supremacists, and likewise, communist China has tried the same, and is still trying to do the same to the minorities that live in China today.
To give an example from my own country, the leftist İnönü government has pursued a policy of assimilation to assimilate the ethnic identities in Turkey under a single Turkish identity, just as was the case in America, they have tried to "Americanize" our country, but visibly, have failed to do so. Neither Turks, nor non-Turks accepted this policy, neither did the folks in Russia. However, the Soviets have used extensive brutality and force, while pursuing assimilation policies far more seriously than the İnönü government did in it's lifetime, and this is why most ex-Soviet countries have Russian as a official minority language, or co-official language(being on the same level as the other one).
Yulia Timoshenko for example, admitted that she did not know how to speak Ukrainian until a late period in her life, and knew only to speak Russian. Similarly, many friends from Central Asian countries sometimes speak Russian amongst themselves, rather than their mother language, which is akin to me speaking german with my mother. Ethnic identities corrode with the loss of language, friend.
This is why I place so much value on it.

You're sure of it despite being unable to demonstrate that this is the case...and in spite of an american explaining to you that it is not, from experience?

I've already said that I have experience living abroad, in the western world, in a country which has a constitution written by Americans, namely, Germany.

I'm fairly certain that the lot of the American citizens who are not recent immigrants are assimilated into American society, and the US government expects that newly arrived immigrants do the same.
This requires you to leave your identity behind, and adopt the new one.
This obviously doesn't happen over a single generation. But it happens, and must happen if America is to survive.

If it's so unimportant to you and them that they don't care to learn the langauge then sure.

Well, it would be important for me, and say my children. But how about my grandchildren's children? And obviously, they'll be married off with someone who is not of our kin, or in my case, they will be married with someone of my kin, but after I'm gone....Sooner or later, complete assimilation will take place. They will only know that some grandfather of ours was a Turk, but nothing more.

Cats marrying dogs, oh my goodness!

Well, I'd have said something, but I choose not to be vulgar.

Should we be rewarding people for accidents of their birth? I wasn't aware that this was the case.

I'm just saying that assimilation bears rewards in the American system, while protecting your roots does not. Red indians who live in reserves live under derelict conditions. They only wanted to maintain their culture, language, people and customs. And their slice of the cake is this. What more can I say?

Were you planning on moving to the US in the 1800's? Maybe the 50's? The US is also a nation that has been assimilated. It's true that some of the earliest immigrants sort of set the scene, painted the backdrop of what it meant to be American...but those things were what they brought with them. America didn't just arise out of nothing with no cultural heritage behind it's ideals or traditions. What gave you the impression that it did? Neither did an "american ethnicity". What it means to be "american" arose in the same way as what it means to be "turkish". Just happened at different points in time.

Indeed. But with no set ethnic identity behind it, who really knows what it really is?
What it means to be a Turk is to know that your people are a people of great history. To know that you have won these lands by spilling your blood, and the blood of your foes. To know that you are the grandsons of Kılıç Arslan and Selim the Grim. To know that your heroic ancestors have endured the sands of Central Asia, the perils of Anatolia and crashed upon the Walls of Constantinople to make these lands the home of Turks. It's not just a name. Unlike yours, it's not just a name, nor a piece of paper. You cannot understand these, as you are nothing more than a mongrel nation of outcasts, slaves, and seekers of fortune.