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By Prof. Andre Gerolymatos Is Turkey part of Europe? The reply from the European Union so far is no or at least not yet. The Turks for their part, each time they are rejected have raised cries of injustice and even accused the Europeans of maintaining a "Christian Club". There may be some justification for this as well as the fears of an influx of Anatolian peasants flooding the European workforce. However, there are two basic truths that affect Turkey's relations with the Europe. One is history and the other is the simple fact that Turkey does not meet the criteria established by the EU. Continuing Turkish intransigence over Cyprus simply underlines this reality. The European Union requires potential members to have a stable economy, respect and enforcement of human rights, as well as a democratic and pluralistic political system. In addition, future members cannot be occupying the territory of another country. So far the Turkish government has not met these conditions. In the previous century European - Turkish relations were indeed not on an equal footing. In 1814 at the Congress of Vienna the "Great Powers" met to re-organize the world after the demise of Napoleon. All the heads of state and monarchs participated at this threshold of European history except the Ottoman sultan. The Great Powers did not forget the Ottoman Empire and dealt with issues that affected the Turks, but they could not bring themselves to invite the sultan at the negotiating table. As a result, European boundaries were re-distributed and the integrity of the Ottoman Empire was assured and presented to the sultan as a fait accompli. Europe then was a "Christian Club" and the Ottoman corruption and frequent massacres of the empire's subjects were just too much for the Europeans to stomach. To a great extent little has changed between the Europeans and the Ottomans, even after Ataturk reinvented the empire as a secular republic in the 20th century. For all intents and purposes, the Turks are still waiting to be invited to the house of Europe. After the Second World War Turkey, Greece and Iran formed the northern tier of the Western perimeter against the encroaching Soviet Union. Despite the inequities of the Turkish regimes and their inability to establish a democracy comprehensible to the West, the United States looked the other way as did most of the NATO allies. After all Turkey was a vital link in the NATO armor and human rights and frequent military dictatorships were a small price to pay for security. The Americans lavished their newfound allies with billions of dollars worth of weapons systems and closed their eyes when the Turkish government used these weapons to invade Cyprus and conduct a deadly campaign against the Kurds, Turkish liberals or any one who opposed the quasi military dictatorships that dominated the republic. The polite term for dealing with reactionary regimes is engagement. The concept, in other words, is a diplomatic mechanism to deal with dictators and other unsavory institutions at arms length. Engagement, perhaps best typifies the almost schizophrenic relations the West has maintained with Turkey. In this case engagement means doing business with the Turkish government, supplying arms and even trying to sell them the occasional nuclear reactor. But this does not entitle the Turks to a place in the European club. Another way of explaining this during the cold war was that our reactionaries were better than their reactionaries. Regrettably the Americans and Europeans failed to use the billions of military aid as a lever to guide Turkey towards a liberal and democratic political system and transform that country into a respectable regime. Instead, they vociferously complain when the Turkish government uses the entire panoply of a police state against dissidents and those who oppose the army's version of what the Turkish republic should be. The conundrum facing the Turks and their western allies is that in addition to the liberals who press for human rights, there are the fundamentalists Muslims whose aim is an Islamic state and abolish human rights, at least as we understand them in the West. The Islamic factor in Turkey is growing dramatically mostly in response to conditions of abject poverty with little access to any basic social services. In addition to the Army running the government overtly or covertly, various political regimes have been exposed to maintaining links with the Mafia and some have been under the influence of the ultra-nationalists and the military. This state of affairs is further compounded by evidence of death squads, brutal treatment of prisoners and the fact that southeastern Turkey remains under martial law. The military, which are the actual rulers, are almost intellectually bankrupt. Their response to the growing power of the fundamentalists and rampant corruption is to wave the flag and rattle their sabers. In the absence of real reform, nationalist rhetoric seems to satisfy the generals, but does little for the Turkish people. Divided Cyprus, perhaps offers, a stark contrast between the Turkey of the postcards and the reality of military rule. On one side of the Green line is a country of luxurious hotels, nightclubs, condominiums and all the trappings of European life. The occupied zone offers images of derelict houses, half-finished concrete structures, tanks, barbed wire and most of all poverty; a testament of military urban planning. Yet, these are the habits that the West inadvertently encouraged in Turkey. Despite evidence of Turkey's abysmal human rights record and even after Turkey attacked and occupied Cyprus the Americans and the Europeans preferred the diplomatic and polite term of "engagement" rather than encourage the Turkish military to implement reforms at home and disengage from Cyprus - a European country. The Turks are paying the price for ignoring the criteria set out by the EU and for their saber rattling in the eastern Mediterranean. The West, on the other hand, may be forced in the near future to deal with a Turkey under the control of the fundamentalists. The alternative is to stop coddling the Turkish military and help Turkey break with its authoritarian past. Andre Gerolymatos holds the Hellenic Studies Chair at Simon Fraser University and is the author of The Balkan Wars: Conquest, Revolution from the Ottoman Era to the Twentieth Century, published by Basic Press. |
