Even if the liability and the objectivity of this kind of survey are always contested, it is evident that the surveys themselves offer some kind of answers to different questions and problems. This is the case with the survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, a US nongovernmental organization that has conducted its polls regularly since 2002 in 47 different countries. This NGO’s main purpose remains unknown, but it is obvious that one of its objectives is to understand the international community’s feelings towards the US and to measure sympathy and trust towards it. What is interesting about this poll is its most recent results concerning Turkey.According to the study published in June 2007, when asked to name different actors of the international system that they favored, Turks responded as follows: 13 percent favored the US; 9 percent, the American people; 2 percent, President George W. Bush; 27 percent, the EU; 17 percent, Russia; 10 percent, Russian President Vladimir Putin; 25 percent, China; 28 percent, Iran; 21 percent, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; 14 percent, Hamas; 11 percent, Chavez’s Venezuela; 5 percent, Osama bin Laden; and 23 percent, the UN. In other words, Turkey favors no one in general. Moreover, those who favored China and the EU were 40 percent and 57 percent of the population, respectively, in 2005. These ratings prove that every year the favorable views towards the “others” decline and distrust against everyone grows stronger.
The current 83 percent of Turks who distrust the US represents the highest level of such sentiment in the list after Pakistan. Nevertheless, 13 percent of Pakistanis have sympathy for the US. For Turkey this rate is only 9 percent, making Turkey the country that dislikes the US the most. Besides some 81 percent of Turkish people have an unfavorable view of American democracy. In France 76 percent of the people express the same view. This is a little odd. As a people with a long history of democracy, the French probably criticize American democracy because of its application. We cannot say that Turkey has internalized democracy enough to dislike others’ practices. Presumably Turks dislike American democracy just because it is “American.” Perhaps they don’t look to the democracy in the US, but to the ways the US uses to bring democracy to other peoples of the world, and they don’t like it.
Turkey’s antipathy towards the US is close to that of Jordanians and Palestinians; its antipathy towards Russia is similar to that of Japan, France, Germany and Poland. The unfavorable view of the EU is also close to the Jordanian rate. According to this we are able to say that Turkey has put together every reaction originating from Middle-Eastern and European identities. With an optimistic perspective we can even say that Turkey is the most global country. What is more important is that there are many conditions that encourage Turkey to be continuously skeptical toward developed countries and especially towards its allies. It would be unfair to say that all this has originated because of Turkey’s domestic political conditions. There is a strong feeling in Turkey that Western powers want to use Turkey for their own global interests without taking into consideration Turkey’s own needs. This feeling stimulates extreme nationalism and isolationism. This is not good for Turks, but this is not good for others either.
That’s why the US, the EU and the UN should think about their responsibilities with regards to these perceptions.
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