TURKEY’S DARK INTENTIONS
Christopher Hitchens
The Australian
April 22 2009
THE most underreported story of the month must surely be the
announcement by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner that he
no longer supports the accession of Turkey as a full member of the
European Union.
His reasoning was very simple and intelligible, and it has significant
implications for the Barack Obama "make nice" school of diplomacy.
At a NATO summit in Strasbourg, France, in the first week of April,
it had been considered a formality that the alliance would vote to
confirm Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former prime minister of Denmark,
as its new secretary-general. But very suddenly, the Turkish delegation
threatened to veto the appointment. The grounds of Turkey’s opposition
were highly significant.
Most important, they had to do with the publication of some cartoons in
a Danish newspaper in 2005 lampooning the Prophet Mohammed. In spite
of an organised campaign of violence and boycott against his country,
and in spite of a demand by a delegation of ambassadors from supposedly
"Islamic" states, Rasmussen consistently maintained that Danish law
did not allow him to interfere with the Danish press.
Years later, resentment at this position led Turkey – which is under
its own constitution not an "Islamic" country – to use the occasion
of a NATO meeting to try again to interfere with the internal affairs
of a member state.
The second ground of Turkey’s objection is also worth noting: a
television station on Danish soil broadcasts, in the Kurdish language,
to Kurds in Turkey and elsewhere. The government in Ankara, which
evidently believes that all European governments are as untrammelled
as itself, brusquely insists that Denmark do what Turkey would do
and simply shut the transmitter down.
Once again unclear on the concepts of the open society and the rule of
law – if the station is sympathetic to terrorism, as Ankara alleges,
there are procedures to be followed – the Turkish authorities attempt
a fiat that simply demands that others do as they say.
The implications of all this, as Kouchner stated in an interview,
are extremely serious. "I was very shocked by the pressure that was
brought on us," he said.
"Turkey’s evolution in, let’s say, a more religious direction,
towards a less robust secularism, worries me."
This is to put it in the mildest possible way. It’s not just a
matter of a Turkish political party undermining Turkey’s own historic
secularism. It is a question of Turkey trying to impose its Islamist
and chauvinist policies on another European state, and indeed on the
whole NATO alliance.
And if this is how it behaves before it has been admitted to the EU,
has it not invited us all to guess how it would behave when it had
a veto power in those councils?
For contrast, one might mention the example of re-united federal
Germany, easily the strongest economic power in the EU, which
painstakingly adjusted itself to its neighbours – to the extent of
giving up even the deutsche mark for the euro – and adopted the slogan
"not a Germanised Europe but a Europeanised Germany".
With Turkey, it seems the reverse is the case. Its troops already
occupy one-third of the territory of an EU member (Cyprus), and now
it exploits its NATO membership to try to bully one of the smaller
nations with which it is supposed to be conjoined in a common defence.
For good measure, it continues to be ambiguous about its recognition
of the existence of another non-Turkish people – the Kurds – within
its frontiers.
President Obama’s emollient gifts were on display at the NATO summit,
where he eventually persuaded the Turks to withhold their veto on
the appointment of Rasmussen. Accounts differ as to the price of this
deal, but a number of plum jobs and positions now appear to have been
awarded to Turkish nominees.
Much more important, however, the foreign minister of France has
reversed his previous position and has now said: "It’s not for the
Americans to decide who comes into Europe or not. We are in charge
in our own house."
Put it like this: Obama’s "quiet diplomacy" has temporarily conciliated
the Turks while perhaps permanently alienating the French and has made
it more, rather than less, likely that the American goal of Turkish EU
membership will now never be reached. And this is the administration
that staked so much on the idea of renewing our credit on the other
side of the Atlantic.
This evidently can’t be done with sweetness alone.
On the question of Turkey’s accession, I used to be able to make
either case. Admitting the Turks could lead to the modernisation of
the country, whereas exclusion could breed resentment and instability
and even a renewal of pseudo-Ataturkist military rule. On the other
hand, admission would put the frontiers of Europe up against Iran and
Iraq and the volatile Caucasus, so that instead of being a "bridge"
between East and West (to use the unvarying cliche), Turkey would
become a tunnel.
The Strasbourg crisis clarifies the entire picture and should make
us grateful to have been warned in such a timely fashion. Turkey
wants all the privileges of NATO and EU membership but also wishes
to continue occupying Cyprus, denying Kurdish rights and lying about
the Armenian genocide.
On top of this, it now desires to act as a proxy for Islamisation and
dares to waste the time of a defensive alliance in trying to censor
the press of another member state.
Kouchner was quite right to speak out as he did, and the Turkish
authorities will now be able to blame the failure of their membership
scheme not on the unsleeping plots of their enemies, but on the
belated awakening of their former friends.