My Notebook: Turkey’s still hanging on in the departure lounge
Hardev Kaur
20 Oct 2006
New Straits Times, Malaysia
Oct 19 2006
WHILE the Western world rightly recognised the works of Turkish
novelist Orhan Pamuk and awarded him this year’s Nobel Prize in
Literature, it does not appear as willing to accept his country as
a member of the European Union.
Just as Pamuk was named the winner of the award, another hurdle was
placed in the path of Ankara’s EU membership, raising suspicions that
it is no longer wanted as a member of the European "club".
The French Parliament voted last Thursday, by a wide margin, to make
it a criminal act to deny an Armenian genocide at the hands of Ottoman
Turks, enraging Turkey and further deepening its suspicion of the EU.
Meanwhile, Turkish lawmakers proposed a counter-bill that would
recognise an "Algerian genocide" carried out by colonial French forces
in 1945.
A British Member of Parliament, Denis Macshane, points out that
"it was the decaying elements of the Ottoman Empire that killed the
Armenians, not the modern Turkish republic. If the EU is to demand
apologies for historic misdeeds from its existing members, let alone
potential members, then it may as well dissolve itself".
Today, Turkey is a full and important member of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation (Nato) and has deployed its troops in a number
of areas, the latest being in Lebanon.
"We want your troops. You can die for our cause. But we do not want
you at the table as an EU member." That seems to be the message for
Turkey which has met the Copenhagen Criteria in 2002 for entry.
Even so, it is still in the "departure lounge" and every month a new
hurdle is put in its way, delaying its departure for the EU. There is
increasing belief that Turkey’s entry is not only a technical process
but also a political one in which other "non-Copenhagen Criteria"
play a role.
"Turkey is …too poor … too Muslim, too harsh, too culturally
different, to everything," Samuel Huntington wrote in The Clash of
Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order.
Even the pope seems to be weighing against Turkey’s membership. Jim
Bencivenga writing in the Christian Science Monitor in April last year
quotes Pope Benedict XVI as saying: "The roots that have formed Europe
are those of Christianity. Turkey has always represented a different
continent, in permanent contrast to Europe… It would be an error
to equate the two continents… Turkey is founded on Islam… Thus
the entry of Turkey into the EU would be anti-historical."
But a walk through the streets of Istanbul reveals the dynamism of
"Islam and Christendom, East and West, Asia and Europe". These may be
cliches but they come alive in this ancient city with a modern outlook.
Ali Babajan, Minister of State and EU chief negotiator, told a group
of Eisenhower Fellows in Istanbul recently that "Islam and secularism
operate in Turkey better and better".
He said Ankara’s reforms, undertaken in conformity with the Copenhagen
Criteria, were important not only for Turkey and Europe but also for
the region.
But the debate that it is different, with its large Muslim population,
continues to take centre stage. Turkey is different. "It is one of
the few countries that can do business with Israel and the Arab world
with the same level of acceptance," Babajan explains.
Even so, the doubts about Turkey persist. And if Europe pushes Ankara
away, the world would have lost an opportunity to prove that there
can be co-operation and collaboration between the Muslim and Western
worlds. There are common values in both regions that can and should
be exploited to bring the two worlds closer together especially in
the current environment and the need to fight the common enemy.
Unfortunately, "Europe is doing its level best to tell Turkey it is no
longer wanted as part of the European Union", Macshane, the Labour MP
for Rotherman who was Britain’s Europe Minister between 2002 and 2005,
wrote in the Financial Times.
It also sends a very strong albeit wrong message to the Muslim world,
under siege from numerous quarters, that it is not welcome to sit
at the same table as other Europeans not because it does not qualify
but merely because of the faith of its citizens.
Former Turkish president Turgut Ozal put it more bluntly when he said
that Turkey would not become a member of the European Community,
and the real reason "is that we are Muslim and they are Christian
and they don’t say that".
Pamuk told the Washington Post that "Turkey’s future lies in the
European Union", and that its inclusion would be "a wonderful thing
for Turkey, for Europe and for the world". Will the Western world
listen to the Nobel Laureate and accept his country as a member of
the EU just as they have accepted and honoured him?