Manila Standard Today, Philippines
March 27 2007
Is Turkey European?
By Antonio C. Abaya
The average educated, urbanized middle-class Turk most likely
believes that Turkey is European and should be admitted into the
European Union, even if the average rural dirt farmer in Anatolia
probably couldn’t care less if it is or isn’t.
The average European, rural or urban, most likely believes that
Turkey is not European and should not be admitted into the European
Union, even if some European leaders – principally the United Kingdom
‘s Tony Blair, following the lead of the Americans – want Turkey to be
admitted into the EU.
This is the central issue that dominates the debates within the
European Union as it celebrates its 50th anniversary this month.
If the matter were put to a Europe-wide referendum, the NO vote would
win by a resounding majority.
This is so because there is a growing Islamophobia that has been
gathering steam in Europe, all the way from the British Isles to
generally neutral Switzerland to the teeming cities of Central and
Eastern Europe, even to the usually tolerant Scandinavian countries.
Rightly or wrongly, Islam is associated with terrorism, with a
medieval attitude toward women, with a tendency toward union of
Church and State, with obscurantist religious beliefs and practices
that are clearly out of synch with the generally secular way of life
in nominally Christian Europe. Islamic culture clashes with European
culture on all major interfaces: political values, social values,
religious values.
With its population of more than 70 million, 99.8 percent of whom are
Muslims, Turkey is seen by Europeans as a square peg in a round hole,
a nation that will never integrate successfully into the European way
of life.
If Turkey were to be admitted into the European Union, Europeans see
a mass migration of Turks into Europe in search of a better life.
This fear is well grounded. Turkey’s per capita gross domestic
product is only $8,200, way below that of new EU member Poland
($13,300), and way, way below those of original (and `poorest’) EU
members Portugal ($,19,300) and Greece ($22,200). While the presence
of Polish migrants is tolerated by Western Europeans, since they are
culturally akin, that of Muslim Turks would be resented.
Oppositors point to the millions of Turks who were allowed into
Germany in the 1970s and 1980s as gaestarbeiter or guest workers for
Germany’s wirtschaftwunder or economic miracle, most of whom have
stayed permanently and sired further generations of square pegs.
Similar situations exist in France and Spain, where former colonials
from North and Black Africa, mostly Muslims, populate the ghettoes,
unable to integrate even after decades of residency.
Aside from resistance on the grounds of religious, political and
cultural values, there is also the matter of geography. Where does
one draw the line? Only 3 percent of Turkey ‘s land mass is in
Europe, the remaining 97 percent is in Asia.
If Turkey is to be admitted into the EU, why not Israel,
which – culturally – is more European than Turkey ever will be? And why
not Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, which together with Israel and Turkey
played key roles in the birth and spread of Christianity? And why not
Armenia and Georgia , which are 95 percent and 84 percent,
respectively, Christian? And why not the Philippines, which is 91
percent Christian and can claim to be a granddaughter of European
civilization?
And why not predominantly Muslim Morocco, which has actually applied
(and been rejected) for membership in the EU? Middle-class Moroccans
think they are Europeans just because they speak French and drink
French wines.
In the West, only the British and the American leaders support
Turkish membership in the EU. Both the outgoing French President
Jacques Chirac and the current German kanzler Angela Merkel (who is
the sitting president of the EU) are opposed to it.
The kind interpretation would be that Blair and US President George
W. Bush want to reward the Turks for their steadfast support of North
Atlantic Treaty Organization during the Cold War against the Soviet
Union when Turkey was a scimitar poised against the Soviets’ soft
underbelly.
A cynical interpretation would be that Bush and his lapdog Blair want
to punish the French and the Germans for their refusal to join the
Coalition of the Willing in Iraq, by having their borders threatened
by millions of Muslims from Turkey.
An amusing map of what Europe will be in 2015 has been going around
the Internet since last year and I wrote about it in my article
`Europe in 2015′ (Feb. 12, 2006).
In this map, which reflects Europeans’ fears – only half in jest, I
surmise – of being overwhelmed by their fast-growing Muslim
communities, while their own populations are actually decreasing.
According to this 2015 map, Russia has been overwhelmed by the Muslim
Chechens and has been renamed Greater Chechnya.
Germany has been renamed New Turkey. Bosnia and Herzegovina is now
the Bosnian Sultanate. And Belgium has been reborn as Belgistan.
The Netherlands, former Master of the Moluccas, is now known as
Euro-Indonesia. Italy, together with Sardinia and Sicily, has joined
with Muslim Albania (their major source of illegal immigrants) into
the Albanian Federation.
France, trying to head off the Muslim challenge with a ban on head
scarves, has given up and has become the Islamic Republic of New
Algeria. Spain recovers the ancient glory of the Caliphate of Granada
with its new name: the Moorish Emirate of Iberia.
Most amusing of all, the British Isles are renamed North Pakistan,
while the resort islands of Majorca and Minorca in the Balearics,
favorite haunts of British tourists, are the new and vastly
diminished British Isles.
The author/s forgot to rename Turkey. How about the New Ottoman
Empire? Inshallah.
Abaya_mar27_2007