The Herald (Glasgow)
May 11, 2007
Turkey and tolerance
"TURKEY has shown the world how Islam can cohabit with a secular
regime", writes Harry Reid (May 10).
It does indeed, forAtaturk’s attitude to Islam was one of repression
and control – an arrangement which continues to this day.
The presidency of religious affairs still prescribes the content of
weekly sermons – an arrangement which Scotland left behind in the
days of King James VI. The Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and
Armenian Churches are "recognised" but heavily restricted, while
other religious bodies have no official standing at all.
Turkish Christians hope that their country’s entry to the European
Union will improve their lot, and they may perhaps be right. But a
fudge on the principle of liberty of conscience would be disastrous –
which is why the cautious and principled stance of Germany offers
better hope than the ill-informed eagerness of our own government.
John Coutts, 138 Ladysneuk Road, Stirling.
HARRY Reid, in his enthusiasm for Gordon Brown to give a higher
foreign policy priority to Turkey, adduces in its favour that it has
– almost alone in the Middle East – maintained friendly relations
with Israel.
One of the reasons for this friendliness is that it is, in fact, an
unholy alliance in which Israel consistently opposes any attempt to
require Turkey to acknowledge the Armenian holocaust, in return for
which Turkey consistently supports, in the UN and other forums,
Israel’s argument that no other genocide merits public commemoration
or academic study to the same degree as the European Jewish
Holocaust.
William Dalrymple has shown, in his From the Holy Mountain, how
Turkey has a policy of obliterating – literally, with the bulldozer –
evidence of the ancient roots in Turkey of the Armenian people.
Until Turkey accepts and atones for its genocidal crime – as Germany
has done – and ceases the political and cultural persecution of its
Kurdish population, there should be no question of its admittance to
the European Union, however militarily useful its airfields.
J W Morrison, 9 Bryce Road, Currie, Midlothian.