SARKOZY IS WRONG: TURKEY DESERVES EU MEMBERSHIP
by By Mark Dragoumis
Spero News
May 18 2007
Nicolas Sarkozy was dead-wrong about Turkey’s admission to the EU in
the run-up to the French election. EU-inspired reforms in Turkey should
foster neighborliness towards the secularist majority Muslim country.
In four years the Erdogan government has – under Brussels’ supervision
-streamlined the economy achieving steady annual growth of 5 percent or
more and made more progress towards consolidating human rights than had
ever been made in Turkey during her 80 years of ‘secular’ governance
Nicolas Sarkozy deserved to win. Dominating the TV debate with
his rival he proved to be a leader who is courteous and decisive,
knowledgeable and modest, keen on reforming France by consensus if
possible without it if necessary.
Madame Royal, on the other hand, displayed outbursts of misplaced
anger when she had her facts wrong; an irritating vagueness of purpose
peppered with words of compassion for the dispossessed; a willingness
to engage in "dialogue" about the issues on which she had no clear
policy; but also a personal charm, sadly lacking in her ideological
counterparts in Greece.
There was one issue, however, on which Nicolas Sarkozy was wrong.
Seriously wrong.
"Turkey", he said, "can never enter Europe because she is part of
Asia. Who can ever maintain that the EU should have borders with Syria,
Iraq and Iran?" So said a man named after a 3rd-century saint born
in Asia Minor, a believer in a religion founded by a man born way
off Europe in Nazareth, and now a leader of a country belonging to
a continent named after a Middle-Eastern beauty known as Europa –
daughter of King Phoenix whose subjects discovered money and the
alphabetical script.
Closer to our era, Turkey has been a member of the Council of Europe
and, with France’s approval, an associate member of the EC/EU for
nearly half a century. As of October 2005 she has been negotiating to
become a full member of the EU again with the approval of the French
government of which Sarkozy himself was a prominent member. In fact,
there is no European network of importance, from the Champions’
League to the Eurovision song contest, of which Turkey is not a part.
She is also, since 1952, a full member of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization although nowhere near the Atlantic. Her European
credentials, geographically speaking, are somewhat stronger since over
10 million Turks reside in Eastern Thrace with more than half of them
living in Istanbul, the country’s cultural and financial capital.
What Sarkozy really meant – to attract Le Pen’s voters – is that
Turkey is too populous, too poor and too Muslim to ever become a
member of the EU. Now, as a president, one hopes he will soon eat these
pre-electoral words. Those in Greece who rejoiced that "his election
will put an end to… any aspirations Turkey had for joining the EU"
had better prepare themselves for a rude awakening. In the meantime,
the more they continue fighting for NYNE (Not Yet, Not Ever) the more
help they are offering to those Turks who are dead against the West
and its values.
As it happens, both the NYNE fanatics and the Turkish chauvinists
share the view that "Turkey must turn East not West". For the Turkish
military, this means – as they have said openly – that they should
invade Iraq and destroy the semi-autonomous Kurdish province that
gives support to the PKK rebels.
This columnist’s view that Turkey’s "learning curve" is worth pursuing
(for which he has been diagnosed as being "off his rocker" by an irate
reader) is based on facts, contemptuously ignored by those convinced
of their inherent superiority over the Turks as self-defined "European
Christian humanists".
In four years, the Erdogan government has – under Brussels’
supervision – streamlined the economy achieving steady annual growth
of 5 percent or more and made more progress towards consolidating
human rights than had ever been made in Turkey during her 80 years of
"secular" governance. Does it then make sense to say that no matter
how "European" the Turks become they will have never any chance of
joining the EU?
The slogan of those protesting in Istanbul against the election
of a non-Kemalist president of the republic was "no headscarves,
no coups". Four military coups from 1960 to 1997 have convinced
even the secularists that this is no way to run a country. As for
the scarves – worn by 62 percent of Turkish women – one needs to
summon all one’s power of understanding "the Other" not to dismiss
the slogan as outright ludicrous. After all, as somebody commented,
it is what is inside the head that counts not what covers it. There
has even been a suggestion that pious Turkish women should start
wearing wigs instead of scarves. Go figure…
The secularist fanatics have so far failed to realize that what the
Islamo-democrats (modeling themselves on the Christian Democrats in
western Europe) are achieving is not a prelude to the introduction of a
Taliban kind of "sharia" but a sort of "protestant revolution in Islam"
introducing a new Calvinist work ethic, respect of human rights and
freedom to invest. Faced with secularist brutality (official by the
army and unofficial by various assassins of Christians and Armenians),
the Islamo-democrats have turned for protection to the EU, the only
organization whose "soft power" has proved effective in Europe and the
world. Brussels has indeed proved invaluable, so far, in protecting
every Turk from any other Turk who thinks differently. The EU has
even "convinced" Erdogan to forget about the law punishing marital
infidelity that he attempted to introduce.
So what is on the cards now? This columnist will risk a prediction.
Mr. Gul will not seek the presidency after the national elections,
a move in exchange of which Erdogan – who will certainly win them –
will ask the military to acquiesce to the election of a more "neutral"
president, probably a non-scarf-wearing Turkish lady.
As for Erdogan’s proposal that the president be elected directly by
the people, one hopes that this scheme will be scrapped forthwith.
Introducing bi-polarity in Turkey’s form of government is asking
for trouble since even the French have had difficulties with the
"cohabitation" of an elected president with a government of different
color.
To conclude, Sarkozy and the Greek admirers of his views on Turkey
had better start their own learning curve, perhaps keeping in mind
what Christ said about how one should behave towards one’s neighbor…
Mark Dragoumis appears here through the courtesy of Athens News of
Greece. His new book is "The Greek Economy 1940-2004". Other books
by Dragoumis include "Greece on the Couch, Session 1" and "Greece on
the Couch, Session 2".