He used to call the European Union (the European Community as it was called earlier) a Christian club. Those who are aware of the Enlightenment, European revolutions and political history would of course never agree with him. But Turkey’s treatment by right-wing European politicians urges me to ponder deeply if these politicians, reflecting of course their own voters and grassroots supporters, are acting under the influence of their basic Islamophobic instincts, which have a history of about 1,200 years. The recently approved report by the European Parliament is the straw that broke the camel’s back, at least as far as I am concerned as someone who, as an academic with dual citizenship, has always liked to use and sometimes coin terms such as “skillful cultural navigators” and “surfers on the intercultural net.” To my chagrin, the EU’s rightist politicians are endeavoring to prove me and academics like me wrong.The European Parliament report on Turkey is not impartial. On the issue of Cyprus, it is extremely biased, and we can imagine why. They allowed Greek Cypriots to enter the EU, even though they betrayed the bona fide intentions of the EU and rejected the famous United Nations-brokered Annan plan that would have reunited the island. While the Turkish Cypriots overwhelmingly voted in favor of the plan, they have been penalized so far. Moreover, the EU has not kept its promises. The union’s politicians have been abusing Turkey’s domestic politics in the sense that the great majority of Turks would not bother with EU accession given that the country has been developing very fast recently and its foreign policy is now multidimensional. Because of the Turkish people’s distaste for people such as Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, if we did not have democratic problems in the country, many would urge the government to leave the EU and its sick men alone. One cannot trust the US when it comes to coups, and the EU project is still a valuable anchor of a stable Turkish democracy. Our ultranationalists and their friends in military and judicial circles who accuse the government of succumbing to EU demands and “selling the country” should for once look at the issue from this perspective. Maybe the ultranationalists are the only ones that force Turkish people who do not want to be tortured and massacred -- or at least kept eternally poor -- by a junta to believe that the EU accession project is the only realistic hope. Anyway…
One can talk about the Cyprus issue for years, and we can see that is exactly what the two presidents (Mehmet Ali Talat and Dimitris Christofias) on the island have been doing. But suffice it to say, we all know how a Greek military junta toppled Cypriot President Makarios and wanted to unite the island with Greece. In response, the Turkish military legally (as Turkey was one of the country’s guarantors along with Britain and Greece) intervened to stop the bloodshed. The quarrel so far is not about Turkey’s legitimate intervention but its military’s continuing presence on the island to protect the Turkish minority. Who can blame them given the recent bloody history and some Greeks’ continuing dreams of the Megali Idea? If their intention is really to have a peaceful island with two equal communities they could simply have said yes to the Annan plan and the Turkish military would have practically gone. Do you think that the EU politicians cannot see all of these things? Of course they can, but they use the Cypriot issue as a pretext not to honor their pledges with regard to Turkey’s membership.
Is the EU a Christian club? Of course not. Christianity, like all great religions, is about honesty, integrity and keeping promises.
