NATIONALISTS AND ISLAMIC CONSERVATIVES STOKE THE ANTI-EUROPE PASSIONS
By Amberin Zaman in Camlihemsin
Daily Telegraph, United Kingdom
Sept 2 2005
No country other than Turkey has had to wait 42 years at Europe’s
door. With each new condition the European Union places on Turkey’s
joining the EU, anger has risen and now the country is engulfed by
anti-EU feelings.
“If I were Erdogan [the Turkish prime minister] I would tell them to
go to hell,” said Ender Buberoglu, a farmer in the town of Camlihemsin
in the Black Sea province of Rize, where nationalist passions run
especially high. “I would say, if you don’t want us, we want you
even less.”
Anti-EU feeling has been increasing since December when EU leaders
agreed to open membership negotiations for Turkey on Oct 3, but with
a string of conditions viewed as humiliating by many Turks.
Unprecedented political stability and economic revival under prime
minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s mildly Islamist government has boosted
national confidence. The surge of patriotism can be seen in the number
of Turkish flags hanging in windows across the country.
The swelling army of Euro-sceptics believe that Europe’s “real” agenda
is to weaken and dismember Turkey. Their suspicions are sharpened
by demands within the EU that the Kurds be granted further rights
and that Turkey apologise for the mass slaughter of Armenians by the
Ottomans during and after the First World War.
“Turkey cannot allow itself to be deceived… to be forced to
make irreversible concessions on Cyprus, the Aegean Sea, Armenian
allegations and minority issues,” said Gunduz Aktan, a former Turkish
ambassador, who heads a conservative think-tank in Ankara.
In a sign that the anti-EU camp is gaining ground, a prosecutor in
Istanbul this week charged one of Turkey’s best known authors, Orhan
Pamuk, for “denigrating the Turkish people”.
Pamuk could face up to three years in prison if found guilty for
telling a Swiss newspaper in February that “30,000 Kurds and one
million Armenian were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares
to talk about it”. His comments triggered accusations of treason and
even death threats.
Some Western diplomats speculated that the timing of the case –
just as EU foreign ministers were preparing to discuss Turkey –
was planned by a coalition of anti-EU elements, who want to sabotage
Turkey’s membership.
The same forces are also thought to be quietly stoking the tension
between Turks and Kurds, which spilled over into violence last week
when a Kurdish family was lynched by a crowd in the town of Seferhisar
in western Turkey after they were accused of being terrorists.
Mr Erdogan travelled to Diyarbakir, the largest city in the
predominantly Kurdish south-east last month, where he became the
first Turkish leader to publicly concede that Turkey had mishandled
the Kurds. In a landmark speech that infuriated his nationalist
opponents. Mr Erdogan pledged to address the Kurds’ grievances.
Mr Erdogan’s words were hailed by EU officials as proof that he will
not buckle under nationalist pressure, but he is facing criticism
from conservatives within his own party, who are disgruntled over his
failure to ease restrictions on Islamic education and on the wearing
of the Islamic headscarf.
The Turkish foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, warned in a recent
interview in a recent interview, that a “no” from Europe would be seen
throughout the Islamic world as proof that the EU is a “Christian
Club.” He added: “That is when the clash of civilizations may well
and truly begin.”