*I met many MHP fanatics when I was in Túrkiye in 1999. My stay coincided with the General Election and they kept urging me to apply for a vote. That year MHP had their best ever result at a GE. These MHP supporters were some of the nicest Turks I’ve come across, fearlessly patriotic, lots of fond memories. I don’t recall them bad-mouthing non-Turks.
*A year later, I also met a few Grey Wolves members, and they too were nice people, came to my workplace and said I should call them if I ever had problems with Kurdish extortioners. I didn’t need to as I was never bothered by Kurdish gangs. Grey Wolves are a dangerous outfit, but they also avert danger. You just have to be a Turk to realise this.
*There’s good and bad to be found wherever you look. I used to socialise with Gulenists circa 2003-2005. I met some of the most genuinely pious , well-meaning Turkish Muslims via my association with them. Fast-forward to 2015 and Gulenist sympathisers carried out a CIA-backed coup in Túrkiye, because Gulenism became infiltrated by bad guys with ulterior motives.
Just thinking to myself…… ‘Mano’ would typically end his barrage of comments with things like “TurkiyeG@ys” and “Islamo-terrorist scum” yet it was his fellow countryman that got him banned. Now that’s irony.