National historical myths and bias on AE

B) Turkey. Perhaps nowhere else in the world is history more important as a tool for the nation state as here. We must remember that after WW1, Turkey lost not only its status as a multinational empire, but also its Islamic tradition was discarded. Nationalism thus was essential for providing an identity to its people, and history played an important part. Great mythical heroic figures such as Alp-Arslan, Bayazid, Mehmet, Suleyman and of course Ataturk were glorified and made central to the Turkish identity. The Turks were presented as the bravest of people, creating the largest empire in history (the Ottoman Empire, with little regard for actual facts), and treating other state very fairly. This mythic version of their own history has made the Turks very passionate about their own history, as evidenced by the disproportionately large number of Turkish forumers. However, according to the rules of "the game", the creation of a national mythical history also implied the glossing over of such topics as the Armenian genocide, the history of the Kurds and the treatment of Balkan peoples. Imagine the shock of Turkish forumers coming into contact with members from Balkan countries, or Armenians, whose own national histories hads the Turks as their nemesis! All of a sudden, that idyllic version of Turkish history was confronted by diametrically opposed national histories. I've seen quite often comments of Turks completely mystified by the general hostility of other forumers (whose national histories usually presented the Turks as the nemesis and often as the root cause of all the problems in their own country). Thus, we also have a disproportionate amount of flame wars involvign Turks and other nations.

A pathetic slur, I'd expect more from an "Admin".