TURKEY’S EU MEMBERSHIP AND THE MUSLIM WORLD
Sedat Laciner
Journal of Turkish Weekly(JTW)
Thursday , 14 September 2006
Almost all the unsuccessful politicians in many of the EU countries
have recently been talking about the issue of Turkey’s full
membership to the EU. Whatever the agenda is, they blame Turkey
and the Muslims aspiring to enter the EU. The politicians in the EU
are trying to conceal their inabilities and failures by criticizing
Turkey. They are misleading their constituencies by fostering grudge
and hatred against Turkey, which they believe belongs to another
civilization. French Minister Sarkozy is one of the typical examples:
In the words of Katrin Bennhold and Dan Bilefsky from the International
Herald Tribune, "Nicolas Sarkozy, his eyes firmly set on France’s
presidency, might have thought more about French voters than about
geopolitics when he said that Turkey should never become a member of
the European Union."(1) In contrast to a politician having vision,
Sarkozy capitalized on the prejudices of the French against the Turks
and the Muslims. However, with this behavior, he not only eroded the
Turks’ credit towards the EU and the French, but also the Muslims’
towards the world and the West.
As known, Turkey’s full membership to the EU is supported by all
the Muslim countries. Many Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt
and Palestine, have openly expressed their enthusiasm to see Turkey
as a full member of the EU. Even countries like Syria and Iran,
which are seen as "enemy" by the West, have stated that they would be
pleased to be neighbor with the EU with Turkey’s membership, and that
they supported Turkey in the membership process. Even Saudi Arabia,
which is relatively far from Turkey, have declared that Turkey’s EU
membership is strategically important for itself.(2) The support of
the Muslim world for Turkey’s EU membership has a considerable meaning:
The Muslims see Turkey’s membership as a breaking point in the vicious
circle in the relations with the West. Palestine, Chechnya, Iraq,
Bosnia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Afghanistan, Lebanon and other problems have
led to great despair among the Muslims towards the West. The Muslims
mostly don’t believe the West is sincere and fair. The people on
the streets of Muslim countries think that they are always deceived,
their cities are bombarded, their natural resources are usurped, and
their governments are serving to the West. Within this dark picture,
Turkey’s full membership on equal terms to one of the most important
institutions of the Western world, the EU, is seen as a miracle by
the Muslim world. Turkey’s full membership will end the despair and
prove that fair and equal relations with the West are possible.
In addition to these, Turkey is the best proof that secular governance,
democracy and liberal economy do not contradict with Islam. While
the Turks can be more devout than the Iranians in their daily lives,
they are also democrat, secular and liberal. They have the world’s
17th biggest economy even though they are Muslims. Although they don’t
have considerable natural gas and oil resources, they are competing
with the West by training their manpower. Their mentality of Islam is
not based on revenge or hatred but cooperation and tolerance. Turkey
is one of the exceptional Muslim countries where al-Qaeda has no
serious roots. For Turks, Osama bin Laden is a terrorist and al-Qaeda
commits terrorism. They hold the idea that they can go to the heaven
not by killing others but by helping people live. In short, Turkey
represents just the opposite of what al-Qaeda represents. Of course,
Turkey’s model is not perfect.
However, it is the only model at hand. It is the only model to be used
against al-Qaeda apart from using violence and force. Many presidents
in the Muslim world, including the presidents of Algeria, Palestine,
Indonesia and Pakistan, have openly stated that they see Turkey as
a model. Because they want to be like Turkey and consolidation of
Turkish model will also consolidate the hopes of the Muslim countries.
The third reason for the support of the Muslim countries to Turkey’s
EU membership has to do with the current balance of power. The US’
and Israel’s influence, even monopoly, dominate the course of the
problems in the Middle East. The EU doesn’t have sufficient influence
in the region. With Turkey’s membership, the EU will have to play
a more active role in the region and this will erode the unilateral
policies of other powers.
Fourth, Turkey is seen as a natural representative of the Muslim world
in the EU. Although most of the global problems emerge in the Middle
East, there are no legitimate representatives from the Middle East in
global governance. There are no Muslim representatives in the G-8 or
among the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. To
put it short, there are serious representation deficiencies in global
governance. This, in turn, causes lack of proper communication and
misunderstandings between the West and the Muslims. This is the most
significant reason of the clash of civilizations. Turkey’s accession
to the EU will considerably contribute to the elimination of this
deficiency.
In fact, the lack of representation is a problem not only between
the West and the Middle East. There is an imbalance within
Europe as well. There are more than 100 million Muslims living in
Europe. However, none of them are represented within their states nor
the EU institutions. Turkey, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,
Albania, Azerbaijan and Bosnia are still not part of the EU. And nearly
15 million Muslims living in countries such as Germany and England and
holding EU citizenship don’t think that their host countries represent
them. The terrorist attacks in England were carried out by the Muslim
English citizens and this clearly proves how lack of representation
nurtures terror and radicalism. Hence, Turkey’s membership will
contribute to the overcoming of lack of representation in Europe.
In short, Turkey’s full membership to the EU is not an ordinary
enlargement. It also means the setting up a sound bridge between the
West and the East.
>>From Valery Giscard d’Estaing, a former French president and chief
architect of the failed European constitution, to Chancellor Angela of
Germany, several high-profile Europeans have voiced their opposition to
Turkish membership in recent years.(3) Many top European personalities,
including the Pope, have asserted that Turkey is not European, because
it is not a Christian country. According to this view, the sine qua
non value of Europeanness is still Christianity. In this regard,
there must be no resentment to al-Qaeda which sees the world as two
camps, the Muslims and the others. For the only value for them is
their faith as well.
Turkey has been undergoing a rapid democratization process incomparable
to the past. Many reforms have been implemented in a short while. There
is also a rapid economic growth. It is possible to talk of unique
successes in almost every area from the Kurdish problem to human
rights. Turkey is no more the most-sued country in the European Court
of Human Rights. The social harmonization in the country has been
progressing in an admirable way. What is important is that it was
not thanks to the EU that Turkey has achieved this progress. What is
more, as many examples show, Turkey has come to this point despite the
EU. In other words, the decision to exclude Turkey from the EU will
not be the end of the world for Turkey. Moreover, a Turkey enjoying
special relations with the EU but not restricted by its institutions
might be a new China for the EU. However, it is hard to argue the
same thing for the EU and the Middle East. EU’s rejection of Turkey
on the ground that it is a Muslim country and reconstruction of the
EU on the basis of Christian fanaticism will turn the much-expected
miracle into impossibility, and in a sense, will justify how right
the extremities such as al-Qaeda are. In this case, it will be a
mere dream to think that the conflicts will be confined to Beirut,
Baghdad or Ramallah. The entire Europe from London to Berlin will be
under risk because the Middle East and the Muslims are not as far as
Sarkozy has said. The Muslims will continue to live in the middle of
Europe regardless of Turkey’s full membership, and it will be more
difficult to live together without Turkey’s full membership to the
Western family.