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The Times, UK
Sept 30 2005
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509 -1804495,00.html
Bloody past and racist present stand between Turkey and EU
By Ben Macintyre
Talks on Turkey's membership of the EU begin on Monday, with the
issue dividing both the country and Europe. Today, in the first of
two articles, our correspondent looks at the case against letting it
join the club
ON A tiny island in the middle of Lake Van, on the far eastern edge
of Turkey, a team of architects is working feverishly to restore one
of the most beautiful religious buildings in the world.
Holy Cross Church, on Akdamar Island, was built by the Armenian King
Gagik in AD921 and was once the spiritual focus for more than a
million Armenian Christians.
Today there is no one left to worship in it. The entire Armenian
population here was killed or driven away by Turks and Kurdish
militias during the First World War, in what Armenians claim was the
first genocide of the 20th century - a charge vigorously denied by
the Turkish state.
For 90 years the church was left to rot. Its frescoes disintegrated
as the rainwater seeped in, and its delightful carvings were used for
target practice by local gun-toting shepherds.
In the run-up to EU accession talks next week, however, Turkey has
come under intense pressure to acknowledge its bloody past and
improve its treatment of minorities.
Four months ago the restoration work finally began, and today Muslim
stonemasons are busily rebuilding this church without a congregation.
The scaffolding-clad church is proof that attitudes are changing, but
it is also a poignant symbol of how much work - economic, political,
cultural and historical - still needs to be completed.
The membership negotiations are expected to take ten years or more,
and there is no guarantee that Turkey will ever enter this hitherto
white, Christian club, for the idea faces widespread public hostility
within Europe. For many, this poor, populous and overwhelmingly
Muslim country is simply a different culture, separated from, if not
actually inimical to, Europe.
Nowhere in Turkey feels less European than Lake Van, the starkly blue
inland body of water on the country's volcanic eastern edge. At dusk
the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer, barefoot Kurdish children
herd ragged sheep, and a pair of women, ageless and faceless in the
all-enveloping burka, trudge through the dust to their mud-brick
home.
An hour to the east is Iran; to the south is blood-soaked Iraq, and
to the north, beyond Mount Ararat, lie Armenia and Georgia. Ancient,
biblical and Middle Eastern, this is the land of Noah; but if Turkey
gains admittance to the EU, it will mark Europe's eastern border.
For many Europeans, that is a step too far. `No to Turkey', rallies
in France cried before the EU constitution was roundly rejected this
year. On the shore at Copenhagen, the famous naked mermaid was draped
in an Islamic headscarf with a sign reading `Turkey in the EU?'
Turkey's supporters are quick to point out that Europe is not a race
or a religion, but an idea. Yet the image of Turkey as an alien power
is deeply embedded in European history.
Indeed, the very concept of Europe was to some extent born out of
Christendom's common cause against the great Muslim empire to the
east.
Gladstone, as Prime Minister, expressed the common prejudice against
a corrupt and violent Turkey threatening Europe's very existence:
`From the black day they entered Europe, the one great anti-human
specimen of humanity. Wherever they went a broad line of blood marked
the track behind them.'
As archaic and racist as those ideas seem today, they still have some
currency, most notably in those parts of the former Austro-Hungarian
Empire that remember, with an inherited shudder, the Ottoman
Janissaries at the gates of Vienna.
Turkey's critics need not look far to find evidence of cultural and
political incompatibility with European norms. Turkey's military
continues to play an important (though reduced) role in the country's
politics, while freedom of speech and other human rights lag far
behind the European standard.
Turkey has thrown off the Midnight Express image of official
brutality, but the rights and liberties of individuals are still
often at the mercy of an authoritarian state. Last year police
torture was still widespread, according to the Turkish Human Rights
Foundation.
Turkey has made significant reforms in recent years, but critics,
including many inside the country, worry that such reforms are skin
deep, a pragmatic shift to gain admittance to Europe rather than a
genuine change of heart.
Economically, despite a recent upswing, Turkey remains far behind the
poorest EU members, while many fear that an influx of poor Turkish
workers could flood European labour markets. Education levels are
below those of all European and most Latin American and Asian
countries.
Another fear is that Turkey's addition to the EU would unbalance what
is already a fractious organisation, uncertain of its identity and
anxious about the future.
By 2010 there will be an estimated 80 million Turks. With population
determining voting power, this would give Ankara the same clout as
Berlin, Paris and London.
Meanwhile, the running sore of Cyprus remains; Ankara has yet to
recognise formally the Greek Government of Cyprus, already a member
of the club it now seeks to join.
The Turkish state remains staunchly secular, yet some argue that
bringing millions of Muslims into Europe could provide a springboard
for Islamist fundamentalism.
Turkey, after all, was until 1924 the seat of the Islamic Caliphate
which Osama bin Laden has repeatedly spoken of restoring to its
former power. Even Turkey's most avid supporters agree that Ankara
has much more to do before this vast, teeming land straddling Europe
and Asia can be ushered into the EU.
Turkey has made progress towards addressing the EU political
requirements, but to join the union it would have to adopt
uncountable numbers of laws and regulations, ranging from maritime
safety to sewerage to food hygiene.
Even if Europe could be persuaded to admit Turkey, it is by no means
certain that Turkey will agree to be crushed into the preordained
European shape.
Support for joining the EU is falling in Turkey, from three quarters
a year ago to two thirds now. Many Turks have taken deep offence at
what is seen as foot-dragging by some European countries, and there
is a growing body of nationalist and traditionalist opinion, angered
by the abrupt changes in Turkish society, that would rather pull out
of accession talks altogether than submit to the Brussels
straightjacket.
The sense of former imperial glory is as pronounced in Turkey as it
is Britain; neither country relishes being told what to do by its
former European rivals.
That view is poignantly expressed by Ümit Özdag, a Turkish
Nationalist politician, who insists that EU membership is an
unachievable fantasy because Europe will keep shifting the goalposts.
Yet for many Turks, union membership remains attainable - and
logical. Even in remote Van, there is strong enthusiasm for
membership of a greater Europe, based on national pride as much as
admiration for Europe.
`We are a young country, we are a growing country, but Europe is
becoming old,' declares Celal Basak, my huge Kurdish guide, as we
bounce along a rutted track that passes for a road in Van but would
dismay any European transport commissioner. `Turkey can help Europe
as much as Europe can help Turkey.' Van is predominantly populated by
Kurds, who for decades have suffered discrimination at the hands of
the Turkish state. Kurds such as Mr Basak believe that EU membership
would give his people the autonomy and recognition they have long
craved. `I know Europe will end the troubles for my people,' he
declares with a grin. `One hundred per cent.'
We are heading for the village known, in Turkish, as Koy. Another
former centre of Christian Armenian culture, the Kurds still refer to
it as Six Churches.
Turkey's continued refusal to acknowledge the fate of the Armenians
has crystallised much of the opposition to Turkey's EU membership.
This week the European Parliament declared that Turkey must
acknowledge the `genocide' before it can be admitted.
Slowly Turkey may be inching towards that point. Yet the state stands
by its own version of events, insisting that just as many Turks and
Kurds perished in a civil war sparked by Armenian rebels. That view
is enshrined in Turkish law, though rejected by most historians.
The acclaimed Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk is today facing
prosecution on charges of `belittling Turkishness' for stating that
`30,000 Kurds and 1,000,000 Armenians were killed in Turkey'.
The whiff of wilful historical amnesia also hangs over Six Churches,
a once magnificent monastic complex in the mountains that is now a
ruin. When I ask the village headman, Mehmet Goban, about the fate of
the local Armenians, a chill descends on the warm afternoon. `Kurds
and Armenians always lived happily together here. We do not know why
they left. We don't know what happened to them,' he declares, after a
long, painful pause.
This wild and tribal land seems a world away from the Brussels of
suits and communiqués, where everything is ordered and regulated,
including the horrors of history. Whether Turkey comes to terms with
its past may decide whether it becomes part of Europe; that decision,
in turn, could redefine European identity for the next century.
A thin and beautiful cat picks its way among the lonely stones of Six
Churches. Eastern Anatolia, like neighbouring Persia, is famed for
its cats. Indeed, the symbol of the region is the Van Cat, a
beautiful, lithe creature with a genetic quirk that gives it one blue
eye and one brown.
As the debate over Turkey begins in earnest, this cat may stand as a
symbol not just for Van, but for Turkey itself: with one blue eye
trained westward on Europe, and one brown eye looking to the east.
MEASURING UP
Population 70 million
Population growth rate 1.09 per cent (EU average 0.15 per cent)
Unemployment rate 9.3 per cent (EU average 9 per cent)
Religion Muslim 99.8 per cent (mostly Sunni), other 0.2 per cent
GDP per capita £4,200 (EU average £15,300)
Life expectancy male 69.94 years (EU 75.1), female 74.91 (81.6)
Rank in Human Development Index (2003) 94 (Britain, 15; Germany, 20;
Cyprus, 29)
(Sources: CIA World Factbook, UN, Eurostat)
Sept 30 2005
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509 -1804495,00.html
Bloody past and racist present stand between Turkey and EU
By Ben Macintyre
Talks on Turkey's membership of the EU begin on Monday, with the
issue dividing both the country and Europe. Today, in the first of
two articles, our correspondent looks at the case against letting it
join the club
ON A tiny island in the middle of Lake Van, on the far eastern edge
of Turkey, a team of architects is working feverishly to restore one
of the most beautiful religious buildings in the world.
Holy Cross Church, on Akdamar Island, was built by the Armenian King
Gagik in AD921 and was once the spiritual focus for more than a
million Armenian Christians.
Today there is no one left to worship in it. The entire Armenian
population here was killed or driven away by Turks and Kurdish
militias during the First World War, in what Armenians claim was the
first genocide of the 20th century - a charge vigorously denied by
the Turkish state.
For 90 years the church was left to rot. Its frescoes disintegrated
as the rainwater seeped in, and its delightful carvings were used for
target practice by local gun-toting shepherds.
In the run-up to EU accession talks next week, however, Turkey has
come under intense pressure to acknowledge its bloody past and
improve its treatment of minorities.
Four months ago the restoration work finally began, and today Muslim
stonemasons are busily rebuilding this church without a congregation.
The scaffolding-clad church is proof that attitudes are changing, but
it is also a poignant symbol of how much work - economic, political,
cultural and historical - still needs to be completed.
The membership negotiations are expected to take ten years or more,
and there is no guarantee that Turkey will ever enter this hitherto
white, Christian club, for the idea faces widespread public hostility
within Europe. For many, this poor, populous and overwhelmingly
Muslim country is simply a different culture, separated from, if not
actually inimical to, Europe.
Nowhere in Turkey feels less European than Lake Van, the starkly blue
inland body of water on the country's volcanic eastern edge. At dusk
the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer, barefoot Kurdish children
herd ragged sheep, and a pair of women, ageless and faceless in the
all-enveloping burka, trudge through the dust to their mud-brick
home.
An hour to the east is Iran; to the south is blood-soaked Iraq, and
to the north, beyond Mount Ararat, lie Armenia and Georgia. Ancient,
biblical and Middle Eastern, this is the land of Noah; but if Turkey
gains admittance to the EU, it will mark Europe's eastern border.
For many Europeans, that is a step too far. `No to Turkey', rallies
in France cried before the EU constitution was roundly rejected this
year. On the shore at Copenhagen, the famous naked mermaid was draped
in an Islamic headscarf with a sign reading `Turkey in the EU?'
Turkey's supporters are quick to point out that Europe is not a race
or a religion, but an idea. Yet the image of Turkey as an alien power
is deeply embedded in European history.
Indeed, the very concept of Europe was to some extent born out of
Christendom's common cause against the great Muslim empire to the
east.
Gladstone, as Prime Minister, expressed the common prejudice against
a corrupt and violent Turkey threatening Europe's very existence:
`From the black day they entered Europe, the one great anti-human
specimen of humanity. Wherever they went a broad line of blood marked
the track behind them.'
As archaic and racist as those ideas seem today, they still have some
currency, most notably in those parts of the former Austro-Hungarian
Empire that remember, with an inherited shudder, the Ottoman
Janissaries at the gates of Vienna.
Turkey's critics need not look far to find evidence of cultural and
political incompatibility with European norms. Turkey's military
continues to play an important (though reduced) role in the country's
politics, while freedom of speech and other human rights lag far
behind the European standard.
Turkey has thrown off the Midnight Express image of official
brutality, but the rights and liberties of individuals are still
often at the mercy of an authoritarian state. Last year police
torture was still widespread, according to the Turkish Human Rights
Foundation.
Turkey has made significant reforms in recent years, but critics,
including many inside the country, worry that such reforms are skin
deep, a pragmatic shift to gain admittance to Europe rather than a
genuine change of heart.
Economically, despite a recent upswing, Turkey remains far behind the
poorest EU members, while many fear that an influx of poor Turkish
workers could flood European labour markets. Education levels are
below those of all European and most Latin American and Asian
countries.
Another fear is that Turkey's addition to the EU would unbalance what
is already a fractious organisation, uncertain of its identity and
anxious about the future.
By 2010 there will be an estimated 80 million Turks. With population
determining voting power, this would give Ankara the same clout as
Berlin, Paris and London.
Meanwhile, the running sore of Cyprus remains; Ankara has yet to
recognise formally the Greek Government of Cyprus, already a member
of the club it now seeks to join.
The Turkish state remains staunchly secular, yet some argue that
bringing millions of Muslims into Europe could provide a springboard
for Islamist fundamentalism.
Turkey, after all, was until 1924 the seat of the Islamic Caliphate
which Osama bin Laden has repeatedly spoken of restoring to its
former power. Even Turkey's most avid supporters agree that Ankara
has much more to do before this vast, teeming land straddling Europe
and Asia can be ushered into the EU.
Turkey has made progress towards addressing the EU political
requirements, but to join the union it would have to adopt
uncountable numbers of laws and regulations, ranging from maritime
safety to sewerage to food hygiene.
Even if Europe could be persuaded to admit Turkey, it is by no means
certain that Turkey will agree to be crushed into the preordained
European shape.
Support for joining the EU is falling in Turkey, from three quarters
a year ago to two thirds now. Many Turks have taken deep offence at
what is seen as foot-dragging by some European countries, and there
is a growing body of nationalist and traditionalist opinion, angered
by the abrupt changes in Turkish society, that would rather pull out
of accession talks altogether than submit to the Brussels
straightjacket.
The sense of former imperial glory is as pronounced in Turkey as it
is Britain; neither country relishes being told what to do by its
former European rivals.
That view is poignantly expressed by Ümit Özdag, a Turkish
Nationalist politician, who insists that EU membership is an
unachievable fantasy because Europe will keep shifting the goalposts.
Yet for many Turks, union membership remains attainable - and
logical. Even in remote Van, there is strong enthusiasm for
membership of a greater Europe, based on national pride as much as
admiration for Europe.
`We are a young country, we are a growing country, but Europe is
becoming old,' declares Celal Basak, my huge Kurdish guide, as we
bounce along a rutted track that passes for a road in Van but would
dismay any European transport commissioner. `Turkey can help Europe
as much as Europe can help Turkey.' Van is predominantly populated by
Kurds, who for decades have suffered discrimination at the hands of
the Turkish state. Kurds such as Mr Basak believe that EU membership
would give his people the autonomy and recognition they have long
craved. `I know Europe will end the troubles for my people,' he
declares with a grin. `One hundred per cent.'
We are heading for the village known, in Turkish, as Koy. Another
former centre of Christian Armenian culture, the Kurds still refer to
it as Six Churches.
Turkey's continued refusal to acknowledge the fate of the Armenians
has crystallised much of the opposition to Turkey's EU membership.
This week the European Parliament declared that Turkey must
acknowledge the `genocide' before it can be admitted.
Slowly Turkey may be inching towards that point. Yet the state stands
by its own version of events, insisting that just as many Turks and
Kurds perished in a civil war sparked by Armenian rebels. That view
is enshrined in Turkish law, though rejected by most historians.
The acclaimed Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk is today facing
prosecution on charges of `belittling Turkishness' for stating that
`30,000 Kurds and 1,000,000 Armenians were killed in Turkey'.
The whiff of wilful historical amnesia also hangs over Six Churches,
a once magnificent monastic complex in the mountains that is now a
ruin. When I ask the village headman, Mehmet Goban, about the fate of
the local Armenians, a chill descends on the warm afternoon. `Kurds
and Armenians always lived happily together here. We do not know why
they left. We don't know what happened to them,' he declares, after a
long, painful pause.
This wild and tribal land seems a world away from the Brussels of
suits and communiqués, where everything is ordered and regulated,
including the horrors of history. Whether Turkey comes to terms with
its past may decide whether it becomes part of Europe; that decision,
in turn, could redefine European identity for the next century.
A thin and beautiful cat picks its way among the lonely stones of Six
Churches. Eastern Anatolia, like neighbouring Persia, is famed for
its cats. Indeed, the symbol of the region is the Van Cat, a
beautiful, lithe creature with a genetic quirk that gives it one blue
eye and one brown.
As the debate over Turkey begins in earnest, this cat may stand as a
symbol not just for Van, but for Turkey itself: with one blue eye
trained westward on Europe, and one brown eye looking to the east.
MEASURING UP
Population 70 million
Population growth rate 1.09 per cent (EU average 0.15 per cent)
Unemployment rate 9.3 per cent (EU average 9 per cent)
Religion Muslim 99.8 per cent (mostly Sunni), other 0.2 per cent
GDP per capita £4,200 (EU average £15,300)
Life expectancy male 69.94 years (EU 75.1), female 74.91 (81.6)
Rank in Human Development Index (2003) 94 (Britain, 15; Germany, 20;
Cyprus, 29)
(Sources: CIA World Factbook, UN, Eurostat)