What makes up Europe is still cohabitation, though without a spirit. They have heartfelt wishes. The Papacy wishes that Christianity, French secularists that the human mind and individualism, and some German neo-Nazis that Ariane's disdainfulness, all be transformed into a European spirit. British multiculturalists prefer a spiritless Europe. Because their country has already lost its spirit. There are also those who prefer interests to spirit. These are only wishes after all. Europe has no spirit, but it fears the Turks, instead. (I will not say enmity against Turks.) That fear, though, is not a fear of the Turks living today, but of the Turks, who once had to pull back from the gates of Vienna. The European identity is similar to someone from the Black Sea Region. One who says I am from the Black Sea Region, usually refers to himself as being from anywhere in the Region, despite his Istanbul accent, because for instance, his father might be from Trabzon and he himself might be from Samsun, and he might have been living in Istanbul for the last decade.
The expression, "I am European," is similar to this. Perhaps being born and bred in a Christian family, this person is a descendant of a merciless individualism and a pro-irreligion soul of modernity. He was born into an environment in which a hundred years had passed, with savage wars leading half of the population to their deaths, as well as the hegemony fading, yet, in the last one or two decades he has been searching for his spirit on the edges of the boundlessness of post-modernity. Someone declaring that he is from the Black Sea Region feels himself as belonging to his father's homeland, if he is in search of an identity or a sense of belonging. For instance, he might support Trabzonspor, the soccer team. Even if he has been there a few times in his entire life, he prefers the Bafra Plains where he was born to the Sultan Murat Plateau. He sometimes dreams of escaping from the complexity of Istanbul to the simple life in Trabzon. If someone saying, "I am European," is in search of an identity or a sense of belonging, and this search of his is especially in the upcoming era, in which the borders of nation-states will begin to disappear, then this European would feel that he belongs to his father's identity. Still, it is not a feeling of belonging regarding a re-establishment of Holy Rome or a revival of the Crusaders' spirit. Rather, it is a feeling of belonging that is similar and as nostalgic as of those who feel themselves Ottoman. Nevertheless, going hand in hand with such a feeling of belonging, with Europe's fear of the Turks, would be unpleasant for Turkey on the edge of Europe.
It is an urgent matter to acquire a spirit for Europe or prevent it from going in search of an identity or a sense of belonging, in terms of our well-being in world politics. Perceiving and showing Europe as a Christian club, criticizing European Islamologists based on the assumption that they do not recognize Prophet Mohammed (had they recognized him, they would have been Muslims; hence, they would not have been treated as Europeans by the critics, because the critics cannot fit Islam anywhere into the European) certainly do not serve for that desire. Thus, Turkey's European Union membership is crucial because to this. Again for this reason, Turkey should offer many things other than its young population.
October 25, 2004
