Talking Turkey

A long time ago Turkey was known as the "sick man of Europe." Its Empire
was crumbling and Turkey was convulsed by a civil war in which the "young
Turks" were successful in taking over the country. After WWI Kemal Attaturk
played a decisive role in modernizing Turkey and turning its gaze westward.
For many years, the Turks had seen the Europeans overtaking them,
particularly with their superior technology, and so came to regard the west
as a model for their own future development. It is important to remember
that the Turks, although Muslim, regarded the Arabs as lesser, colonized
people, and accepted Attaturk's decision to secularize the Turkish State as
a necessary adaptation to be able to compete with the west. Their motto was
"if you can't beat them join them." Hence today the fruition of this policy
has become the accession talks for Turkey to join the EU.
The majority of European states have agreed to these talks, although not yet
to the full membership in the EU that Turkey craves. But, there are still
two schools of thought within the EU, that Turkey is a modernized,
pro-Western, NATO member that deserves to be part of the EU, or that Turkey
is a backward Muslim country of 80 million people, and that if it joins the
EU this will result in a flood of poor Muslims into Europe, and not only
Turks, but many Syrians, Iraqis and others who can readily cross the Turkish
border, that would then be the EU border.
The Austrians nearly put a spanner in the works last week when they suddenly
balked and proposed that Turkey should be considered for some lesser
association with the EU and not full membership. The Austrians still
remember that 300 years ago the Turks nearly captured Vienna, and now they
did not want to help Turkey conquer Vienna by peaceful means. But, with
Britain as the head of the EU, powerful forces were brought to bear on
little Austria and they backed down.
While many liberals think that it will be a good sign to the Muslim world if
the EU agrees to Turkish membership, nevertheless two thirds of EU citizenry
in a recent poll oppose Turkey joining because they fear the onslaught of a
Muslim tsunami. However, they also feared a similar wave of poor Poles when
Poland recently joined the EU, and it didn't happen. In Germany there are
those who resent the presence of many Turkish "guest" workers, but the Turks
themselves, many of them now citizens, support the accession.
Israel is in a fairly neutral position with regard to Turkish membership of
the EU. On the one hand, Israel fears the Islamization of Europe, but on
the other hand Turkey is a good ally of Israel in relation to the Arabs.
Further, Turkish membership in the EU would be a good omen for Israel's
future better relations with Europe, possibly even membership. It is
ironical that Israel's ties with Muslim Turkey are a lot better than its
ties with liberal Europe.