TIME
Oct 2 2005
Continental Divide
Some Europeans aren’t convinced Turkey belongs in the E.U. Their
opposition is helping Turkish nationalists keep Europe at bay
By ANDREW PURVIS
AP PHOTO / MURAD SEZER
PROTEST: A Turkish girl chants slogans as she makes a nationalist
gesture during an anti-EU rally in Ankara.
Kemal kerincsiz has a formidable intelligence. At Istanbul’s top law
school, he graduated with the best grades ever; now he is applying
his smarts to a different cause. He is fighting to stop his
motherland from joining the European Union. Kerinçsiz’s strategy is
simple: to try to block the reforms that the E.U. is imposing by
rallying Turkish nationalists to his cause. Late last month, by
seeking a last-minute injunction, he almost succeeded in shutting
down a conference on the mass killings of Armenians in 1915, one of
the most brutal episodes in Turkish history, and one which has never
been officially acknowledged by a Turkish government. The conference
went ahead following the personal intervention of the Prime Minister,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan – and sparked protests widely interpreted in
Western media as evidence of Turkey’s un-European behavior. But
un-European is something Kerinçsiz is proud to be. “History taught us
that we cannot trust these Europeans,” the lawyer, 42, told Time.
“Look at what happened in 1920: they divided up the Ottoman Empire,
even though they had pledged not to do that. People call us paranoid,
but we’re not.”
The mistrust is mutual. Since the E.U. officially invited Turkey to
start talks last December, European misgivings have deepened. Last
week, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel tried to insist on a
last-minute change to the terms of the negotiations to allow for less
than full E.U. membership. Much now hangs in the balance. Erdogan’s
political survival depends on talks going smoothly; if they fail or
encounter unexpected resistance, nationalists will gain at his
expense prior to elections in 2007. A new nationalist government
would be less friendly to Europe. And many believe that turning
Turkey away would send a dangerous signal to the Islamic world. “We
cannot afford to get this wrong,” British Foreign Secretary Jack
Straw said last month. The alternative of finding ways to bridge West
and East “is too terrible to contemplate.”
But there are real concerns in Western Europe over the wisdom of
welcoming into the E.U. a mostly Muslim nation of 70 million people.
A recent opinion poll by the Washington-based Pew Research Center
found that nearly two-thirds of French and Germans are opposed to
Turkey joining the E.U. The unease in Europe plays into the hands of
Kerinçsiz and other opponents of membership by making it harder to
sell unpopular reforms. “The rise of nationalism in Turkey has a lot
to do with Turkey’s internal dynamics, but it is being compounded by
the E.U.’s attitude,” says Hakan Altinay, head of the Open Society
Institute in Turkey. “We are being exposed to the pettiest side of
the E.U.”
Kerinçsiz belongs to an influential and increasingly vocal segment of
Turkish society, one that encompasses members of the military and the
judiciary, and which is vehemently opposed to E.U. membership and the
changes to Turkish law and customs that it would require. The aim of
these groups is not only to derail talks but also to discredit
Erdogan, accession’s most enthusiastic proponent. Many see his
concessions as a betrayal of Turkish national interests. “Tayyip
bey,” says Kerinçsiz dismissively, “has dug his own grave.” In the
runup to the E.U. talks, Turkey’s two main right-wing and nationalist
parties – which together form the main opposition to Erdogan’s
government – mobilized, bringing tens of thousands of sympathizers
onto the streets of several cities, including Ankara. These protests
grabbed attention in Turkey, but it was the case brought by a state
prosecutor against the world-renowned novelist Orhan Pamuk in August
that generated outrage beyond the country’s borders. The charge
against Pamuk – that he insulted Turkey’s good name by discussing the
mass killings of Armenians and Turkey’s Kurdish conflict in an
interview with a Swiss newspaper – carries a possible three-year
sentence. (In practice, Pamuk is unlikely to go to jail and the
publicity surrounding the case has embarrassed the government.) “No
country can shoot itself in the foot,” said Foreign Minister Abdullah
Gul, ruefully, “like Turkey can.” The charges were brought by a
prosecutor aligned with nationalist causes. “These people will find a
reason, any time and anywhere, to be against this journey [toward
E.U. membership],” says Güler Sabanci, head of leading conglomerate
the Sabanci Group and one of Turkey’s best-known business leaders.
Opponents of accession are still in the minority in Turkey.
In polls, between 60-70% of Turks believe Turkey would be better off
in the E.U. But that number is dwindling, down at least 10% from just
one year ago, according to the German Marshall Fund. Moreover, 30% of
Turks now believe that their country will never join the club.
The E.U. has not made the process of accession easy, demanding a
range of reforms, some of which are deeply unpopular in Turkey – and
not just with nationalists. These include loosening restrictions on
the use of the Kurdish language, and on Kurdish media, even as a new
Kurdish insurgency is gaining momentum in the southeast.
Demands that Turkey recognize Greek-controlled Cyprus and changes
aimed at bringing Turkey’s penal code in line with Europe’s are also
controversial, seen by many as undermining the integrity of the
Turkish state. In a recent poll, 51% of Turks said that they now saw
the E.U.-inspired reforms as a repeat of the widely reviled 1920
Treaty of Sèvres, which led to the Ottoman Empire being dismantled by
foreign powers. “Turks are fed up,” says Haluk Cetin, a 30-year-old
nationalist activist and manufacturer of ice-cream-making equipment.
“Rising terrorism, economic hardship and now all this pressure from
the E.U. Turks are patient people, but once they reach boiling point,
anything could happen.”
Erdogan understands that his government is at risk from nationalists,
but he also has his own political constituents to cater to, many of
them in the prosperous conservative Muslim heartland of Anatolia.
They too are restive for change, having failed to see Erdogan deliver
on campaign promises like the lifting of a ban on head scarves in
universities and public offices. For them E.U. membership is a
potential guarantee against military rule and restrictive laws aimed
at curbing religious expression. Last week Erdogan heeded that base
and Turkey’s other pro-E.U. voices. He circumvented a local court
ruling, and hence enabled the conference on the Armenian massacres of
1915 to go ahead – the first meeting of its kind ever to be held in
Turkey. “There’s no turning back for [Erdogan] now,” says Altinay,
who attended the conference. “He’s burned his bridges.”
That’s the kind of toughness E.U. leaders want to see. As do many
Turks. “Turkey is committed to the E.U. path, not only for the sake
of becoming a full member, but essentially for itself,” says Sabanci,
adding, “The Turkey that will enter the European Union is not the
Turkey we have today.” But there’s still a yawning gap between that
putative future Turkey and today’s reality. The conference was the
first public discussion of a topic that has been taboo in Turkey for
more than 80 years. Participants included an 80-year-old former
minister, whose description of what happened to his home town of
Tokat – its Armenian population reduced in a decade from 8,800 to 700
– left many attendees in tears. “There was a real sense of moral
responsibility in the air,” says Altinay. “I’ve never experienced
anything quite as emotional as this.” Then he left the hall – and was
promptly showered with eggs and tomatoes by flag-waving protesters.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress