Mehmet Y. Yilmaz: Greece and Turkey: Alike in more ways than one!

And on every trip I take to Greece, my belief that one day Turkey will be able to enter the EU is increased.
 
I always think to myself "If the Greeks are European, then we can be counted as such too." "
 
And in fact, the most recent round of elections in Greece only served to underscore my belief in our resembles to one another once again.
 
Despite huge criticisms against it, Greek PM Karamanlis' administration once again managed to carry off a majority of the votes.

 And Papandreu, who lost in the elections before these ones, once again did not see victory.
 
The resembles of one of these men to Erdogan, and the other to Baykal, also did not escape my notice.
 
And making this all the more interesting is that in Greece, having a surname of either Karamanlis or Papandreu has become an indespendible element of success at the peak of politics.

 
These two families-the Karamanlis and the Papandreus-have been now for three generations inside Greek politics at its highest levels.
 
There is certainly no other European country in which grandchildren and offspring of older politicians would be able to still be making so much of their surnames in political life.

 
No, this is only something which could happen in Turkey or in Greece.
 
Here in Turkey, we see this phenomenon with the children of Menderes and Inonu, who are an indespensible part of Turkish politics simply because of their surnames.
 
You can be sure that if either Suleyman Demirel or Bulent Ecevit had had children, they would be even now at the center of our political system.
 
Ecevit once wrote in a famous poem of his that when Turks left this nation, they would better understand our sibling status when it came to the Greeks.

 
But I don't need to leave the country to see this-all I have to do is look at the political tableau before me!