As we draw closer to October 3, the start-date for the “final” course of negotiations for Turkey’s accession to the European Union, the debate on Turkish membership is intensifying—which, if nothing else, betrays an odd sort of Western European panic (arguably more racist than not), given that these negotiations, as everyone knows (most obviously, the Turks themselves), will last anywhere from one to two decades (give or take a couple of years). Hardly a day goes by without some pontification on “Muslim” Turkey’s attempt to join the predominantly “Christian” EU—as if the Union had an official (super)state religion, or its constitutional model was closer to that of Charlemagne (or Süleyman the Magnificent) than to those of Kant and the Framers of the US constitution. For every practical argument in support of Turkish membership, there seems to be an ideological argument against it. Every confirmation of concrete progress made by Turkey to meet EU standards and demands—which, lately, has almost invariably dictated fundamental Turkish constitutional reform—is countered by criticism that Ankara is failing to fulfill all of the so-called Copenhagen criteria (set by the EU in the Danish capital in 1993 for all future candidate countries). It seems that Turkey’s critics either do not understand how utterly radical the effort to put the country on a permanent path to democratic government and, above all, the rule of law is, or they, in fact—and we believe this to be much closer to the truth—want to see Turkey fail, if only to validate their own prejudices about the “incompatibility” between Turkish society and European “civilization.”
Meanwhile, back in Turkey itself, the country is slowly and painfully—if not nearly as thoroughly or honestly as needed—facing up to a series of profound historical issues. Last Sunday marked the ninetieth anniversary of the Armenian massacres of 1915—an event that was officially celebrated in a number of European capitals. These massacres, which, until recently, were ritualistically (and incredibly) denied by the Turkish state, have now, as The Economist reported earlier this month, become the subject of an “unprecedented debate…in intellectual and political circles and the mainstream Turkish press.” On the other hand, just 10 days ago (April 17), Turkey’s state archives released “research” declaring that 523,000 Turks were killed by Armenians between 1910 and 1922 (thus obviously placing the issue of the mass murder of Armenians within the context of Ottoman civil war rather than genocide). In a similar manner, recent reports on modest improvements in the government’s treatment of Turkey’s large Kurdish minority have been followed by news of intensifying activity by the Turkish army against Kurds. Finally, perennial assurances by Turkey’s government on the importance it puts on a strong and close relationship with Greece are just as persistently belied by the unabating violations of Greek territorial waters and airspace by the Turkish armed forces.
Anyone who considers all these manifest contradictions to be strategic machinations, or the typically cynical ploys of a shamelessly cynical government, is actually misjudging the real conflict within Turkish society over these fundamental moral and social issues—as well as related ones, many of them directly linked to the generally awful fate of minorities in Turkey in the twentieth century. A central reason that so many Turkish right-wing nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists are opposed to their country’s accession to the EU (or, as they call it, to “Turkey’s humiliation” by Europe) is precisely because they understand its consequences: Turkey will never enter Europe until Europe is allowed to enter Turkey. It is hardly ironic—it is indeed utterly predictable and congruent—that Europe’s extreme right and its religious fundamentalists are in utter accord with Turkey’s extreme right and its religious fundamentalists in opposing Turkish entry into the EU: they all understand the dangers of such a democratic and liberating expansion to their respective visions of Europe and the world.
Yet, the Euro-punditocracy and various Europols ceaselessly exploit Turkey’s contemporary contradictions to test Europeans’ perceptions of the country and their attitude toward its membership in the EU. But why? These are the unsurprising “contradictions” of any nation wobbling from arbitrary rule to self-government, and they are easily explicable since they reflect historical and social oppositions, and political antagonisms, that are amenable to analysis and rational debate. greekworks.com has repeatedly supported Turkey’s accession to the European Union, and we continue to do so. The truth is that every passing month reinforces our considered judgment that Turkey is the natural extent of European society (and, lest we forget, history), and that Turkey itself will prove that in the end in the only way possible: by unalterably committing itself to all those covenants and democratic self-restrictions that bind a state to protect the civil and human rights of its citizens, who are, by that fact, free(d) to participate actively in every aspect of civic and public life.
Indeed, the problem is that nobody takes Turkey seriously enough to engage with it openly, without subterfuge. The issue, in other words, as we see it, is not whether one is “for” Turkey, but the kind of Turkey that one is for. We believe in a democratic, self-critical, transparent, conciliatory, secular, and, above all, just Turkey. greekworks.com will soon be publishing The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul by the eminent historian, Speros Vryonis, Jr., to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Septemvriana, the government-organized and -abetted pogrom that decimated the then-thriving Greek community of Istanbul and marked the beginning of the end of Istanbul’s Greeks. When we undertook the publication of this book, we had already editorialized in support of Turkish entry into the EU. Many people will undoubtedly see this as the height (or depths) of incoherence. We have always thought otherwise, and we’ve never believed that there is any contradiction between reconstituting the historical truth and using that truth to help a nation reconcile itself not only with its victims, but with its own history. To put things as simply as we can, while Turkey’s road to EU membership undoubtedly goes through Copenhagen, it also goes through Van and Smyrna and Diyarbekir and all those villages, hamlets, towns, and cities, famous or obscure, where corpses were left to rot in the sun, churches were turned into stables, and speaking one’s mother tongue was prima facie “evidence” of high treason.
In the event, there are Turks—many, many Turks—who believe as we do. greekworks.com knows from first-hand experience that Turkish scholars, writers, and journalists are fighting a relentless battle to recover their nation’s history, and to restore it to their fellow citizens, regardless of the judgments to be drawn from it (two of these scholars, among the most engaged, have already embraced Prof. Vryonis’s book, even before its appearance). In the end, this is why we support Turkey’s entry into the EU. Some of the issues that Turkey will have to address on its way to (re)joining Europe are so deeply embedded in the modern Turkish state’s mythology that it will be impossible to deal with them without provoking almost pathological reactions. Yet, the very fact that the Armenian genocide as such is being debated today in Turkey is both remarkable and highly important. The same is true for Turkey’s treatment of its Kurdish minority. If one is unfamiliar with the decades-long repression of Kurdish identity—which essentially goes back to the very foundation of the Turkish republic and is, therefore, identified with the national testament of Atatürk himself—one cannot begin to understand why even the most modest compromise with the Kurds on minority rights constitutes a previously unthinkable “concession.”
Time is also running out on the military’s defining presence in modern Turkish political life, and the sooner, the better—for Turkey’s citizens, above all. The violation of Greek territorial waters and airspace has for many years constituted a given of Turkey’s military “presence.” It is an idiot’s gambit. Which is why no Greek prime minister has ever been intimidated by it, and why we think that it has now degenerated into a pathetic (and patent) case of genital exhibitionism. The continuation of this policy is hardly proof that the military continues to play a significant role in Turkey’s political landscape today. It is, quite the opposite, an unambiguous sign that the military is desperate to “assert” itself wherever it can (and regardless of how stupidly it does so) because it knows that its days are numbered as an entire nation’s judge, jury, and executioner.
Monumental changes are occurring almost daily in Turkey, mostly because of the European Union, but massive societal change breeds contradiction—at least until the change has been institutionalized, and “naturalized,” and integrated into the everyday reality of a people. In a few days, the French will vote on the so-called European constitution. There is a very good chance that they will reject it, opposed as so many of them are (and, in our opinion, rightly so) to the currently proposed version. The French, of course, are not the only ones in the EU who have serious reservations about the Union’s current form and function, and thus seem, lately, to be of two, contradictory, minds about where it is headed. Such contradictions, however, are an inherent dynamic of what has truly become a European community, and they are a necessary part of constructing the Union’s framework and future architecture. For the last half century, contradiction—or, more accurately, creative destruction—has seemed to be the motivating force behind Europe’s ever-steady union (and unity). In the same way, the EU should recognize and accept the extraordinary and very difficult historical process that today inevitably characterizes Turkey’s efforts to merge its contradictions with those of Europe.