The only Christian (Assyrian) deputy in Turkey, George Aslan, attempted to convey a Christmas message in parliament but the deputy speaker of the parliament, Bekir Bozdag, turned off his microphone the moment Aslan started speaking his mother tongue, Aramaic, which is also the… https://t.co/pCk5V9zVl3
— Uzay Bulut (@bulutuzay_) December 19, 2024
Uzay Bulut writes in her X post: “The only Christian (Assyrian) deputy in Turkey, George Aslan, attempted to convey a Christmas message in parliament but the deputy speaker of the parliament, Bekir Bozdag, turned off his microphone the moment Aslan started speaking his mother tongue, Aramaic, which is also the language of Jesus. In response, Aslan said: ‘When verses from the Koran are recited here, the microphone is not turned off. Because they say it’s a holy language. The language I just spoke is Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ. If holiness matters, this is a holy language too. Then the microphone should also be turned off when the Koranic verses are recited.'”
The double standard is open and obvious: the deputy speaker simply didn’t want a Christmas message to be spoken in the Turkish parliament. And of course the Qur’an can be recited, but not a Christian message. In “secular” Turkey, as Erdogan continues its re-Islamization, secularism only goes so far.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Ever since the end of the Third Reich, this is the most racist country that exists on earth. Granted, some countries like South Africa and Zimbabwe give it tough competition, but given the number of dimensions in which their racism operates – race, religion, now language, they beat even the Mugabes and Ramaposas hands down
GE says
I fear that Mr. Aslan’s days are numbered.
Remember Hrant Dink?
The Istanbulian says
All public signage in Israel is in Hebrew and Arabic. Shows you who the real apartheidists are.
Mike says
Much of it is even trilingual: Hebrew, Arabic and English (though English is not on all public signage there).