Kathimerini, Greece
Sept 24 2005
Misbehaving in the waiting room
The legal case against novelist Orhan Pamuk and the court decision
halting an academic conference dealing with the massacre of Armenians
under the Ottoman Empire (which will go ahead nevertheless),
organized by three Turkish universities, suggest that the Armenian
genocide is more than just a taboo in the neighboring country.
Pamuk’s prosecution and the conference ban are not isolated incidents
that can be attributed to the excessive zeal of specific judges.
Rather, they seem to fit a more systematic pattern. The Turkish
political establishment has a long tradition of using courts to lend
repression a veneer of legitimacy. Freedom of historical research is
one of the victims of this repression.
Interestingly, the freedom of expression violations took place on the
eve of Ankara’s talks with the European Union – and despite growing
skepticism over Turkish ambitions. In a clear sign of Ankara’s warped
mentality, the awkward juncture facing Turkey was not enough to stop
the establishment from provoking democratic sentiment on the
continent.
The question is how can a country like Turkey begin accession
negotiations in 10 days? Ankara went through many different stages
before making its way into the EU’s waiting room. It signed a customs
union agreement with Brussels, it won candidate status, and, at the
summit meeting last December, it finally got a date for the launching
of EU membership talks.
Even if we accept that Turkey’s cultural identity should not be an
obstacle to joining the European home, there are still doubts about
the extent to which it has met the formal conditions for membership.
Has Ankara really passed all the previous stages after fulfilling all
the necessary requirements? Not quite. The truth is that American
pressure made sure Brussels lowered the bar for Turkey when
necessary.
Now Europe has to pay the price. Many Europeans are shocked at the
consequences. The truth is that Ankara never tried to blanket its
human rights violations, its torture practices and its awkward policy
toward its neighbors. Never did Turkey try to hide its willingness to
join the EU on its own terms and not as a country that is seeking to
adapt to the norms and principles of European culture. This is
Europe’s problem, not Turkey’s.