Thoughts on insulting Turkishishness?

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Let me preface this question by saying how much I love Turkey. I am not a Turk but if there were any other country I would want to live other than my own it would be Turkey. Because I am not a Turk, however, I do not know how Turks think. Instead of presuming to know what you think I would rather ask you. So, here is an exerpt out of a recent article. Please give me your feedback. Do you think Article 301 is a good or bad thing?

"Yesterday Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera that the government would soon amend the debated article. "If it was in my hands, Article 301 would already have been changed," he said. Last December, Gul had admitted that the rash of cases opened under Article 301 had hurt Turkey's image as much as the 1978 film "Midnight Express," featuring a U.S. drug smuggler subjected to torture in a Turkish prison."

Your thoughts?

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That article in the Turkish penal code is actually a REACTION to Kurdish racism -quite a political effort to smoothen possible reactions of Turkish nationalists.

Although lots of Turkish people object the very existence of THAT article, there are enough number of Turkish who'd feel offended when their nationality or race are insulted. So THAT article has a public support in many areas of Turkey.

As for Abdullah Gul's statement... The Islamist government has been swinging back and forth (from the very start) in order to satisfy their voters and also to attain democratic coherence... -> which is a difficult task indeed becuase Islamist voters do not necessarilly advocate 'liberal democracy'

So when you get to read the statements of Islamist government (be it the PM or the Minister of Foreign Affairs) yu must pay attention to which audience the statement is made.
Others

I would say article 301 is not nearly as bad for the image of Turkey as it would be if they invaded Northern Iraq. Just look what it did to the image of the US in the rest of the world's eye.
insulting Turkishness belong to the anti Muslim campaign...and the campaign still going on with stopping Turkey to join the EU..Turkey been used for decades as a front line to stop the Communism and now the Communism is gone Turkey is not needed anymore..but stay as a big country to be insulted and disregarded. I do love Turkey and I'm not a Turk.
301 is against freedom of speech...But I don't think Abdullah is honest.I think he said this for support of Europe..Actually I don't think he cares about that..
Insulting a nation might be a crime like it is in France and Italy, but insulting turkishness is madness. Should we arrest Borat too???

EDIT: I wonder if frenchness or americanity exist under protection of law :PPP
turkey wishes respect & participation in world community bringing,for the most part,secular democracy,art,architecture,rel... tradition,but ought to extirpate last vestiges of ottoman stupidity which ,in recent times,allows pockets of slavery traffic of slavic women,,,,,apologize to armenian people for massacres(2 million people) c. 1915.turks in spain showed wisdom in allowing spanish christians and jews to worship,conduct trade & commerce,and flourish it did until the catholic monarchs gathered armies to finally toss the turks out,,,,,,the city of granada in 13th & 14th century had a mile of paved streets,street lighting,museums,art galleries,uniformed police,,,,,all that was lacking were dvd players,at that rate.perhaps the muslim,christian,and jewish scholars and scientists might have developed steam,coal energy by 1600s,electricity by 1700s.the conquering turk armies of islam undercut their best efforts to advance their own culture by conquering others,there are worse things that can happen to a country than being insulted.might suggest to describe article 301..and a book or online history of turkey,,,,,,slaughters & massacres abound,in 1660s the cossacks killed about 100 k jews,,intances such as these made the reformation of israel inevitable,,,massacres & genocide need to be addressed by a humane central authority,prevented from happening again.the evidence of reconciliation is that descendants or compatriots of victims and perpetrators light a candle in memory,and get on with their lives
Turks are proud to be Turks unlike many other European nations. They are reasonably sensitive on issues regarding
their history and identity.
It麓s highly legitimate to protect your idenditiy by law but how do you lay that out? To what extent, how and on what cirsumstances? It麓s down to the judges at the moment to decide what insults turkishness and what doesn麓t.
Unfortunately some Turkish judges rule emotionally and the likes of those are to be found in almost all categories of law.
However, there are times when a Turk has all the reason on earth to feel insulted, especially when some so called Turkish intellectuals choose to ridicule turkishness.
It wouldn麓t bother me so much,if the personal opinion of an individual isn麓t turkish friendly. It definitely would bother me if that person spoke for a land or a group of other people.
The present law should be revised so that the judges are given better guidelines.

Turkey as a land has to lay some emphasize on the identity of his citizens, especially when quite a few imortant countries on earth are turning over the idea of punishing any Turk, who has a diffenrent opinion about his own history.
It麓s not fair to be looked down upon for something you have never commited and at the same time to be pushed into a corner for sticking up for your history and identitty.
Mr. Gul said that the law should be changed and not discarded and I agree.