West or East

First I should say that it is a very common topic also for the Czech Republic, my homeland. We don´t really like to discuss it because we like to believe we are simply the centre. We also get angry when looking at the map, asking ourselves if Austria appears to be more eastern than us, why are they considered the pure West and we are considered the opposite? We all know the answer is our communist history. (Altough again - shouldn´t half of Germany be considered the East, too?)

This used to get me angry (and it still does) especially in Portugal (or better said among the Portuguese). I am going to be quite bad to them now, although not unfair, but if they are my friends, they know this opinion of mine.
The Portuguese happen to be geographically in the very west. Still, they are said to be the poorest West European country and I can´t forget my French professor´s reaction to my Czech presentation in Porto when I mentioned that our economy actually is stronger than the Portuguese one. She started laughing as if she heard the best joke of the year and commented that it is quite obvious because they are the poorest country of European Union (I guess she didn´t count some countries of the East).
Anyway, what I´m trying to say is that there is this very annoying disturbing thing of the Portuguese. They do realize they are a sort of poor neighbour to all the other West European countries and they just hate it, they feel inferior to them. And what do they do to feel better? They compare themselves to the East, so that they can feel superior to some others. The point is when they do it to my country which they know basically NOTHING about, and moreover their strongest argument is "you know, we have a great history! We had the greatest discoverers and we discovered this and this..!", I just stop listening saying "yep, nice, that was 500 years ago, do you mind?".

If you take Brazil, it´s something different, the Brazilians don´t really seem to care about that kind of shit. West or East of what? Europe? Come on, first you just become a gringa that most Brazilians simply consider rich and then you continue with that label as European, that´s it. (How much nicer the Brazilian way is!)

Finally getting to Turkey. To start, I´d like to mention I feel very sorry for my Turkish friends because of the prejudices foreigners have against them. It´s amazing. The harem, 4 wives, the sultan, the burqa, the camels and then a lot of crap coming with the prejudices against islam (like the women circumcision, cutting your hand or arm when you steal something etc.). After realizing this, I thought we are lucky because there are no such strong stupid prejudices against the Czech Republic. What do they say about us? Beautiful girls, quite easy, ugly guys, a lot of beer, people are kinda cold... Well, but aren´t they at least partly true?

Coming back to the West and East, it´s very interesting the way the Turkish see themselves. They like to believe they are both Europeans and Asians. I guess they are. They do have a juicy mixture of it. It amazes me how "Western" they want to be, or maybe how western they want to be considered, still, they can´t and don´t want to get rid of so many traditions of theirs. The amount of traditions they still keep is unbelievable, it feels like I can spend my whole life learning about them. It even made me think that my own country doesn´t have any compared to Turkey (I felt something similar when tasting Turkish food). The funny thing is that even if they try their best to become Europeans, they keep this deep suspiciousness to everything Western. In their eyes we represent the immorality, no sense for family, traditions, values etc.

So ok, you have just explained us they are more fond of the East, we can understand that, in the end they are muslims, aren´t they? - Oh, how wrong you are! You would think they are automatically friends with Arabs and Persians and whoever of the same belief, hum? No, the impression I got from the Turkish was quite the opposite. They don´t  like the Arabs because they make the muslims look bad and because they care too much about money etc.  And the Persians? Well, in Iran they mix too much politics and religion and that´s not exactly the Turkish style (they are republic and they are hell proud of it).

Now you know the reactions of some of you? Like "Petra, be careful, he´s a Turkish and a muslim!". So it also goes the other way around. It goes like "But Ahmet, be careful, she´s a European, so she can leave you any time, if you married her, she would divorce you the second day and she can cheat on you any time" and bla bla bla. So for them I´m simply a European. A person you should always suspect.

So in the end, where am I from?