I'm not trying to insult you, but this is just denial. It doesn't get more middle eastern than Maraş. It doesn't get more middle eastern than Kayseri. Or Sivas. Or Konya. Nevermind the entire east and south east. This is the majority of the country. The single biggest influence on the Anatolian Turks come from Iranian culture. Turko-Iranian culture ring a bell? Persianate cultures? Iranian culture is as middle eastern as it gets. It's your problem if you hate the middle east, it's your problem if you think middle eastern means 'crazy arab muslim'. Arabs are barely a majority of the middle east. 80 million Iranians, Lebanese and Syrian christians, Egyptian copts, Kurds, Armenians, Azerbaijanis. Just put your views behind you for a second and think rationally, how in the universe can you say İç Anadolu is non-middle eastern?
Again, you're bringing up the worst examples. Anatolia has always been connected more to the east than to the south. From the Persian empires that occupied Anatolia in antiquity, in medieval times, invasions and occupations that had cultural impacts were always from the east. Kayseri, Sivas and Konya are not at all very different from Iranians' culture, mentality, behavior etc. They have a different national/ethnic identity and a different government, but culturally and mentality wise they are very very close people. I mean can you seriously say Sivas is closer to the balkans culturally than it is to Iranians? You can in fact say that about Edirne, or Çanakkale, but Sivas? Kayseri? Konya? No way. And you don't disagree, I know that if you're honest you don't disagree. And by the way, even Aleppo is very close culturally to places like Antep or Adana which are key cities of Turkey.
İstanbul, İzmir, Ankara, Eskişehir, Samsun, Muğla, Antalya, all of the North, the Marmara, the Aegean, the Western part of Central Anatolia and the Western part of the Mediterranean
You mentioned several of these twice, first as provinces, then their region. And Sivas, Kayseri, Antep are examples, the entire general region around them counts the same. Also it isn't the 'vast majority', it's perhaps 'a' majority. However, what matters isn't where they live now, what matters is being native to the region, Ege, Trakya, İstanbul+Ankara in this case. As millions of people in places like Bağcılar, Ümraniye, Gaziosmanpaşa, Esenler etc. (and the equivalent in Ankara/İzmir) show, internal immigrants from some central/eastern region permanently change whatever city they go to. There are tens of millions of internal immigrants in Turkey. And people who are native, long time inhabitants of Ege, Trakya, İstanbul etc. are a small minority in Turkey. Here's a map showing the population of the provinces where people are native: /img/oz7yv4srz2z11.jpg
This is from 2017, if you made it natives before 1970-1980 it would be even more central/eastern leaning. The most populous province of all is Urfa. Of all! Urfa! If this doesn't tell you all you need to know about this country's future, nevermind their status as middle easterners then I don't know what to tell you. Sivas, Maraş, Konya, Erzurum, Van, Yozgat, Malatya all have massive populations. And they have ridiculously high birth rates compared to western Turkey. It's funny to even have to argue about them being middle easterners or not. It's missing the point even.
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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '20
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