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It's time to start a balanced debate about Turkish EU membership |
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Written by Markus Jaeger - Deutsche Bank Research
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Friday, 03 October 2008 15:09 |
European integration has always been an elite project which, more often than not, has suffered setbacks precisely when it sought public support. The nature of representative democracy is such that elected officials take decisions on behalf of the electorate. Nonetheless, this does not (and should not) absolve the political elites of their responsibility to conduct a reasoned and balanced public debate about the potential costs and benefits of the perhaps most controversial item on the EU agenda: Turkish EU membership. Specifically, it is high time to subject the arguments most commonly deployed against Turkish EU membership to thorough scrutiny.
First, there is the geographic argument: most of Turkey is located in Asia; therefore, Turkey cannot become an EU member. This is by far the weakest of the arguments against Turkish membership. Europe as a geographic reality is an arbitrary construct. Would the anti-membership lobby really object were Turkey populated by Christians of “European” descent rather than Muslims of “non-European” descent? Surely, Europe is and aspires to be much more than a geographic concept. Can a Europe whose aspiration is to foster economic integration and close political co-operation among like-minded liberal democracies really exclude a country with the same aspirations on the grounds that the larger part of its territory is not located in the geographic construct called Europe?
The geographic argument is closely intertwined with a cultural argument: Turkey is a Muslim country lacking |
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Fighting for Turkey's soul |
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Written by Zeyno Baran - International Herald Tribune
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Tuesday, 10 June 2008 17:15 |
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Reading the Western press, one would think that there is a fight in Turkey between the democratic - yet religious - governing party and the secular - but anti-democratic - opposition. This is not the case. The ultimate battle is for Turkey's soul: Will Turkey become a liberal democracy and remain an important member of the Euro-Atlantic community, or erode into an illiberal one, moving towards the Russia-Iran axis?
Turkey is undergoing a complex political and social transformation. It is unique, and thus it is impossible to understand what is happening in Turkey today by comparing it with any other Muslim or Western country.
Turkey is 99 percent Muslim, yet it was founded in 1923 as a secular republic. The ending of the caliphate and the Islamic Shariah legal system - thus separating religion and the state - was a truly revolutionary move. Most Muslim countries still have Shariah law enshrined in their constitutions. This has been a huge impediment to their democratic evolution because Shariah, encoded in the 8th century, is not compatible with democracy.
For its part, Turkey has evolved as a democratic country because it has kept religion out of politics. The nation's founding fathers charted the country's course toward the West. However, succeeding generations failed to spread the values and ideals of the republic to the masses. The institutions of democracy remained weak and democratic political culture failed to take root.
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Turkey wrestles with Islam's place |
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Written by The Christian Science Monitor
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Tuesday, 18 March 2008 08:01 |
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Imagine trying to ban a fairly elected ruling party, which won in a landslide only last year. Ludicrous. Yet such an attempt is now before Turkey's highest court on the grounds that secular government should not push Islam on society.
It is not out of the realm of possibility that the court will decide to hear this case, which was brought March 14 by Turkey's chief prosecutor. And if it does, it may favor the prosecutor, who charges the Islamic Party of Justice, or AKP, with subverting the country's secular Constitution. Since the 1970s, the court has shuttered four pro-Islamic parties.
The separation of mosque and state is an existential issue for this NATO member that bridges Europe and the Middle East. Although a mostly Muslim country, modern Turkey is built on the secularist model of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who introduced the Roman alphabet and women's suffrage after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.
Turkey stands as proof that democracy and Islam can coexist, and do so... |
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Written by By Noah Feldman - The New York Times
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Friday, 08 February 2008 13:42 |
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The West doesn't know quite what to think of Turkey's Islamic-oriented ruling party: does it envision a liberal, European future for Turkey or an Islamist one? A vote this week on the seemingly minor issue of whether head scarves should be allowed at universities will help us begin to answer that question. The ban on women covering their heads on campus has long been a thorn in the side of the Justice and Development Party. The rule has the perverse effect of keeping devoutly religious women out of higher education. A few years ago, while on a trip to lecture about Islam, I met a daughter of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan not in Istanbul, but at Indiana University, which she was attending at least in part so she could cover her head while getting an education. The ban a relic of the aggressive secularism enforced by modern Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk can be repealed only by a constitutional amendment. Such an amendment was just one of dozens of changes that the Justice and Development Party was expected to propose a few weeks ago as part of a comprehensive overhaul of Turkey's state-centered, ethnically narrow Constitution. |
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Outside View: Turks, Kurds won't fight |
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Written by Georgy Mirsky, Ph.D. UPI
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Thursday, 31 January 2008 16:57 |
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Turkey has invaded northern Iraq, the domain of the Kurdistan Workers Party, several times. Five years ago I was in the area where fighting is now taking place. At that time small Turkish groups used to cross the border to deliver strikes on Kurdish positions.
What has changed since then?
Kurdish separatists are now fighting in the Kurdish areas of Turkey bordering on Iraq. When the Turkish army retaliates, separatists escape into Iraq, where they hide in the mountains, regrouping and rearming for new forays into Turkey. Iraqi Kurdistan is the natural hiding place for Kurdish separatists, and Turkey can do nothing about it.
However, they have killed Turkish soldiers this time, provoking a wave of public indignation in Turkey, and the authorities had to act more resolutely in order not to look like weaklings to their own people. |
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