During every Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) tour, there is a “controversial topic” presented by either the tour leader or a guest speaker. Nuri, our tour leader, discussed two during this tour: LGBTQ+ rights in Turkiye and the Turks / Kurds controversy.

In 2013, Turkiye ranked very low for LGBTQ+ rights—39^th out of 49 countries. Eleven years later, it dropped further to 47^th. Prior to 2013, there were some glimmers of hope for gays. In 1980, the Green Party, which was one of four political parties, supported gay rights. And in 1994, another political party banned the discrimination of gays, even though the government wasn’t liberal at the time. In 1999, it was the first time a transgender nominee ran for Istanbul city council. Tiny glimmers…

That hope, however, was overshadowed by overwhelming homophobia in the government of Turkiye. In 2009, the European Union denied Turkiye membership because of it.

The common citizen of Turkiye held a different view. In 2003, Turkiye was the first Muslim majority country to have a gay pride march. Only 30 people participated, but it was a start. Participation grew to 15,000 in 2013 and 100,000 in 2015! The parade was canceled after that by the government, which currently doesn’t recognize same sex marriage, even though the typical citizen has no problem with it.

Istanbul has the most tolerant population as opposed to the Kurds in eastern Turkiye who hold a zero-tolerance view of gays and same sex marriage.

That brings me to controversial topic #2: Turks / Kurds controversy. The Kurds are the world’s largest population without a state. There are 80 million Kurds living in and around Turkiye, Syria, and Iraq, and a total of 100 million in the world.

In Turkiye, since 2015, Kurds have not been allowed to speak their own language in schools, and Kurdish books are banned. Nuri nailed it when he said, “The Turkish government and Kurd terrorists are worse than each other.”

Kurds are forced to be like Turks and not allowed to be themselves. Ordinary Kurds are caught in the middle between the Turkish government and Kurd terrorists.

Nuri’s father owned two stores that handled importing fabric from Iran, making products, and then exporting the finished product back to Iran. His father wouldn’t support the Kurd terrorists financially because of their violence and killings. Instead, he supported the poor Kurd families in town. The terrorists didn’t take too kindly to that and burned down his businesses. That was in 1995, and it took Nuri’s father the next six years to build his businesses back up. He died in 2005 due to the stress of it all, and Nuri had to work two part-time jobs after school to support his younger siblings.

If Nuri’s father had supported the terrorists, the Turkish government would have retaliated. He was stuck in the middle.

Coming up next: TURKIYE #17: EXTRAORDINARY EPHESUS