Not surprisingly for Thanksgiving Day, I’ve got Turkey on my mind.
It’s not just me; Turkey could become a major issue in US-European relations. I heard rumors in Berlin that President Obama surprised German Chancellor Angela Merkel by asking her why admitting Turkey into the EU is such a big deal for Germans.
Mustafa Akyol has just published a remarkable article on Turkey in the Huriyet Daily News, an important English language daily newspaper that I check regularly to keep tabs on Turkish events. This is as good a short summary of the state of liberty in Turkey today as you are likely find anywhere; although he’s sympathetic to the Islamist AK Party, Mustafa notes some of the worries that many friends of Turkey currently share about what seems like an increasing hunger to control the press on the part of the country’s prime minister. Mustafa’s piece doesn’t deal with some of the other worries people have about Prime Minister Erdogan, including some over the top comments about Israel and Darfur that he’s made; still, Mustafa explains why in Turkey’s case the rise of an Islamist party has contributed to the strengthening of democracy — so far.
President Obama is right to press Europe on Turkey’s application to the EU. France and Germany seem to be increasingly opposed to a Turkish presence in the 27-member country club. When and if Europe shuts the door in Turkey’s face, or when the Turks conclude that the Europeans are no longer serious about pushing forward with negotiations, Turkey’s progress toward liberal democracy could well come to a halt, and the battle between Islamists and Kemalists that Mustafa describes could become extremely brutal — with neither side committed to democracy and peace with the west.
On this Thanksgiving Day, I remain grateful to Turkey for its many years of being a good neighbor to Europe and a faithful ally of the United States. I am grateful for the democratic openings that Mustafa describes, and for the rise of a Turkish movement to re-examine troubling events in the past and to come to terms with them seriously and fairly. I am hopeful about Turkey’s potential to bridge gaps between East and West, North and South, Europe and the Middle East, and I believe that Turkey has much to teach the world.
It’s a good thing President Obama is urging our European allies — friends again, thanks largely to President Obama’s still strong charisma over here — to take the steps will set Turkey irrevocably on the path to fulfilling its vocation to be a democratic builder in a dangerously divided world.
Peace at home, peace in the world: this was Kemal Ataturk’s summary of his aims. His methods were sometimes less than inspiring, but Ataturk’s slogan makes more sense than ever today. If we are to have that kind of world, Turkey needs to be in the EU.
No way do I want to ruin your happy Turkey day, but… While I’m very much in favor of Turkey joining the EU, I’m pretty sure there is no popular support for that in Europe, so why would the leaders of Europe’s national governments want to push such a step? Moreover, your own recent analysis of Humpty Dumpty and the Berlin Wall means that Europe won’t play any big role on the world stage, and their recent choice of 2 non-entities for the EU top jobs shows that EU leaders agree with you — so why take the trouble to go through with admitting Turkey? The new EU president is, BTW, firmly against it, and at least on this point, he will be wildly popular.