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Time
overdue for Turkey to enter Europe
By
Jonathan
Power
October 3, 2003
ISTANBUL - So far Turkey has weathered the storm of the
Iraq war. Its prow remains pointed towards Europe but its
sails are still open to catch a helpful wind from America
which, for all its present estrangement from Europe and
its differences with Turkey over the war and its
aftermath, has long been a fervent supporter of Turkish
membership of the European Union. More than ever before,
the Turks, in many ways historically an anchor of the oft
turbulent Islamic world, want to be part of Europe. For
an intellectual minority this has been a long cherished
goal. Now it appears to be becoming a country-wide
aspiration.
If Turkey were just Istanbul, union with Europe would
probably have happened already. Istanbul has been for
centuries among the most metropolitan of all cities. It
has served as the capital of three empires, the only one
to astride two continents, the meeting place of East and
West, Europe and Asia, Christianity and Islam. It was
Napoleon Bonaparte who said, "if the world were a single
state its capital would be Istanbul".
But Turkey is not yet Istanbul, although the city has
swelled from 1 million to ten million in a generation.
Most of Turkey still lives in small towns and villages
and it is the people there that the sophisticates of the
city have had to wait for- not just economically but
politically too. It was the hinterland's long time
support, albeit passive, for the traditional
nationalistic political parties that allowed them the
freedom, playing on the populace's instinctive distrust
of foreign criticism, to delay much needed judicial and
political reform- in the practice of torture, capital
punishment and severe prison regimes, and, not least, in
the brutal treatment dealt out to the minority Kurdish
population.
But Turkey over the last two decades has been
transformed in a way that all but the most optimistic
could never have anticipated. By 1996 the World Economic
Forum was signaling out Turkey as the bright star of the
European east. Even then, seven years ago, it was ahead
of long time EU member Greece as well Poland and Hungary,
two countries set for entry next year, in such indicators
as economic strength, financial prowess, standing in
science and technology and the soundness of governmental
economic leadership, not to mention the advancement of
women.
Despite subsequent economic upheavals- the economy
badly crashed three years ago-Turkey has kept and
improved upon most of its advantages and now, with the
coming to power at the end of last year of the
Islamic-leaning Justice and Development Party, Turkey has
taken another giant step forward. In August the new
government steered through parliament two important
bills. One was to weaken the power of the military whose
leaders have long had the last say in important affairs
of state. The second was an amnesty- although a limited
one- for the Kurdish guerrillas that, until the ceasefire
in 1999, were engaged in a bloody dual with the Turkish
army.
The government appears to have achieved what was
considered unachievable- a parliamentary majority for a
single party and that an Islamic one and to be truly
seized of a modernizing mission that involves pushing the
country rapidly forward to meet contemporary western
European standards. With only an occasional modest nod to
the Islamic hinterland and its own conservative roots-
such as suggesting it favors girls and young women
wearing headscarves in school and university- its
policies are more in the style of enlightened social
democracy. There is simply no evidence that the party has
"a hidden Islamic agenda".
Despite an EU promise to open negotiations for
Turkey's entry into the Union at the end of next year it
is inevitable that Moslem Turkey is going to meet a
degree of opposition that the Christian east Europeans
have largely avoided. Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the
Union's president of its constitutional conference and a
former president of France, has said that if the Moslem
state gains entry "it will be the end of the European
Union".
It will indeed demand a great leap forward of the
mind, giving Europe borders that front on Iraq, Iran,
Syria and the Caucasus, in many ways an awesome prospect.
Yet surely Turkish membership will not be a Trojan horse
for the hobgoblins of Islamic militancy or "oriental
intrigue". On the contrary many Turks, looking back to
the Ottoman Empire which bestowed so much tolerance and
freedom on its constituent parts, instinctively feel at
ease with the notion of a political entity that isn't
homogeneous. Moreover, Turkish Muslim influence should,
if anything, exert a pacifying effect on the twelve
million or so Muslims who live within Europe's present
boundaries and who have been unsettled by the unstable
politics of Algeria, Morocco and Al Qaeda.
At the moment informed opinion talks of Turkish entry
in 2015. That is too slow a timetable. Europe must take
this historic leap sooner rather than later. Turkey would
then be Europe's very useful eastern beacon of democracy
and social well-being, setting a standard that the East
would probably feel pressured to emulate.
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2003 By
JONATHAN POWER
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link to read about - and order - Jonathan Power's book
written for the
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"Like
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