They hit us in Malatya…

So what sort of Turkey is losing grace, accused and hard put upon? The Turkey that has been advancing toward the European Union; the Turkey that is the secular-democratic representative of the Islamic world in the Alliance of Civilizations project; the Turkey that some want to be dragged into turmoil and polarized prior to the presidential elections because it has now achieved economic and political stability. So the real masterminds of the provocations are those who want to dynamite Turkey’s EU process and who cannot digest the tolerance of the Anatolian people, who understand the core of Islam. There are circles and centers both at home and abroad conforming to these two characterizations. Many sound-minded people have kept repeating that “the groups against Turkey’s EU membership will cooperate and act in complicity to cripple this process in and out of the country.” While there are voices in Europe insisting that Turkey cannot become a full member because of its Muslim identity, and while a new condition for Turkey’s membership - a referendum -- has been introduced, these murders, which will surely play into the hands of people with such a mindset and strengthen their arguments, were committed.

Can these provocations, which will profoundly affect the European public, really be coincidences? Can it also be a coincidence that these people who exaggerate about Christian missionary activities in Turkey to draw the public’s attention again, while they themselves have no interest in preserving or practicing their own religion? Aren’t lies written and circulated through the “whisper newspaper” -- as we say in Turkish -- that Christianization activities in Turkey have intensified, thousands of people have renounced their faith and become Christians in the Black Sea region, and that hundreds of churches have been opened in the basements of big buildings in metropolitan areas? And those who spread these falsehoods also claim that the AK Party has been doing nothing to stop these missionary activities. Weekly news magazine Aksiyon revealed the actual figures in March 2005. According to the police department database, there have been 500 cases of conversion in recent years, and 400 of the people involved were already Christian and just wanted to change the official record in the registration office. Only 100 people over several years! While this is the truth and while the people of this land have lived together for centuries in peace, some people are trying to incite religious hatred in the country. Nobody dares divert the issue from its core by showing the minor hitmen. Those who are profoundly disturbed by Turkey becoming stronger, its possibility of setting sail for new horizons with EU membership and its reassuming, after perhaps centuries, a well-deserved position in the world with regard to establishing peace, serenity and justice, are now striking these hopes below the belt.