Zaman, Turkey
May 6 2005

Which West is the Enemy?

ABDULHAMIT BILICI
05.06.2005 Friday – ISTANBUL 18:07

The fact that European Union (EU) countries have one after another
taken the decision to support the Armenian genocide allegations,
inevitably leads to questioning the relations with Europe in Turkey.
There is no one justification of this questioning:

French leader Jacques Chirac is posing in front of the genocide
monument in Paris with his Armenian counterpart.

Despite the Northern Cypriot’s attitude in favor of a solution, the
EU’s failure to keep her promises to the Turks in the island.

Handling the problems related to our Kurdish and Alevite’s [member of
a religious group in Turkey that reveres the Caliph Ali] on a
“minority” basis

The debates that are far from objective and the conditions that came
one after another that does not have anything to do with Turkey’s EU
membership are some other worrying cases.

Most notably, nobody who has been following the recent developments
can ignore the sometimes hostile and often double standard policies
towards Turkey. However, different views have emerged in Turkey
regarding to interpretation of these cases and how to respond them.
Apart from the marginal and radical anti-westerns in the right and
left, it is hard to say that even the elites at the center have a
healthy and balanced view about Turkey’s relations with Europe in
particular and with the West in general.

Some of the elite who had championed European values or had even
started a fight against national values in the name of Westernization
till recently, head the list of anti-EU and anti-West today. While
the others, who were describing the West as “a monster with one tooth
left” in the past, now believe that the EU membership is the only
solution for political, legal and economic problems of the country.

If you take a closer look at this love-hate pendulum, it reveals that
neither the former European “fans” nor the latter’s attitude is based
on a correct analysis. Since we are deprived of a democracy which is
founded on a broad social consensus, both sides in general need to
use Europe or the West, as a means in their struggle for power.

To legitimize their positions in the structure of the state and the
society which was mostly founded on Islamic and traditional values,
the former group wasclaiming that they try to adopt contemporary
values. The latter on the other hand, were trying to gain their
legitimacy by underlining European values such as democracy and human
rights to overcome their constant exclusion.

Since the real values that make up the West were never analyzed
sincerely, in neither field of politics, the economy, and the
sciences were the expected results gained. Recently, a respected
economic historian wrote on the occasion of the 80th Anniversary of
the founding of the Republic that the difference between the Ottoman
Empire and Europe in terms of economic development is preserved
without much change. Doesn’t the situation regarding our cities,
universities, and democracy today show that we could not have covered
the big gap despite many “mobilizations” on behalf of Westernization.

At the point we have arrived, we are faced with a strange dilemma. On
the one hand, the Turkish nation supports becoming an EU member with
a 70 percent overwhelming majority, on the other it feels angered
towards the hostilities and the often revealing policies of the West
or Europe. Years ago, I read an analysis of Ziya Gokalp, one of the
ideologies of new nation, on this dilemma. This analysis regarding
the relations with Europe in 1922 when Turkey was at war with
European states may still be remarkable. Separating the West into
two, one as political and the other civil, Gokalp notes that our
deception from the West grows out of our confusion over these two
Wests’s. When we read the geniuses, the high-spirited philosophers of
the civilized West we see them as the representatives of the
“correctness, beauty and kindness”. Our mistake was to liken European
politicians, diplomats, and businessmen to these idealized heroes.
Since the first wrote for their nations, their works are full of
compassion and affection. However, European diplomats, politicians,
soldiers are readying themselves for their enemies, namely us, and
their hearth is full of hostility. In this case, we should never
trust or admire the political Europe as we trust and admire civil
Europe.”

Here is the perspective of a late Ottoman intellectual on the issue.
“The wickedness of political Europe” should not make us feel offended
by civilized Europe. Today it is impossible to refer to all European
politicians as the enemy but Turkish politicians and diplomats should
never forget that they are in touch with “political Europe”.