What To Do About Ankara?

It has been my contention since the inception of this blog that Turkey would not be accepted in the European Union. More and more my gut feelings have been confirmed by the events that have transpired in the past couple of years in Anatolia and the most recent news coming out of Turkey only serves to cement my belief that a major rift perhaps even a tectonic shock wave in foreign affairs is about to erupt between Europa and the Islamic world.

From the BBC:

Uniting Turkey, a large mainly Muslim nation, with the European Union is Europe's biggest peace project since World War II, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ali Babacan says.

But he complains that some EU countries are holding Turkey back out of political ill-will. Turkey has had enough of being Europe's whipping boy.

After nine years of frustrating efforts as an official candidate to join the European Union but still without a guarantee of membership in the end, its leaders now have a tougher message for Europe - play fair, because you need us as much as we need you.

Wow, no wonder Europa doesn't want the Turks within their Eurosphere with that kind of attitude. And Europeans think Americans are arrogant? Honestly, I don't understand what the Turks see in the EU that they should abandon their sovereignty to Brussels? But, if you a secularist perhaps you are feeling a bit alone in the Moslem world. Even in "cosmopolitan" Turkey the Moslem parties have gained so much ground at the expense of the old Ataturk regime that perhaps the secularists see the proverbial writing on the wall.

Has history come full circle in the ancient land called Byzantium? Let us recall it was the Emperor of Constantinople in late 11th Century that appealed to Rome for buffer states to be carved out of Byzantium's eastern provinces that had recently been taken by the Moslems. This would be the start of the now notorious Christian Crusades. However, something else should be noted in that Constantinople also was appealing for its Eastern Orthodox Christians to accept the Pope of Italy as their Archbishop and bring an end to the schism that had separated these two great medieval Christian civilizations beginning in 1055 AD. However, the wealthier and more sophisticated Eastern Christians could never accept a Westerner to be their ultimate guide in ecclesiastical affairs and the Emporers desire for unity was dashed upon the rocks of religious reality when the two sides could not reconcile their doctrinal differences.

Ultimately, the Crusades would not solve Byzantium's problems with Islam and the West only compounded Constantinople's precarious position when the Crusaders sacked this great city when the gates were opened to them in a palace dispute between two Byzantine nobles for control of the throne. Amazingly, the Byzantines were able to retake Constantinople back from the Western Crusaders 70 years later but their empire would be forever lost to the heathen as the momentum and tide of history was on the side of Islam. Constantinople would fall to the Turks in the 15th Century and the glory of Eastern Orthodoxy would make its capitol in Moscow.

Now in the 21st Century a strange twist of fate has exposed another ally of the West to the encroaching Moslem once again only this time it is the secular Turks who will fall to the green crescent. What are the secularists to do? If they move against the Moslem parties then Europe will self righteously reject them. If they do nothing and let "nature" take its course then they will end up like other "non-believers" in other Moslem countries: dead at the hands of a fanatical Moslem mob. Even now, it may be too late for the secularists to do anything decisive as history has passed Ataturk by as the future now belongs to the religious be they Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or even Moslem. Especially if they are Moslem.

Last week Turkey's most ardent supporters of its European hopes were shocked when the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told students in Sarajevo that his country would have "nothing to lose" if Europe kept it out. The EU would be the loser, Mr Erdogan claimed.

Turkey's 45-year-old commitment to integration in Europe has hit serious turbulence. And "enlargement fatigue" among the EU's 27 member states is not the main reason. The issue is Turkey itself.

Turkish hopes are threatened by flagging popular support on both sides.

It has been my contention that the AK Party that is currently in power is using the accession requirements with the EU as a means to strip the old Ataturk mechanisms in Turkey that have prevented the Moslems from consolidating their electoral gains in Ankara and breaking the stranglehold of the secular establishment that has been in power since the early 20th Century. The Moslem political parties ultimately win regardless if Europa accepts Turkey in the EU or not. Why? The EU accession requirements is the acid eating away at the old regime and thus if Europe rejects Turkey this will only serve to ingratiate the Moslem parties as their way is the "only" way to a return to the past glories of Islam. If Turkey should still be accepted for entry into the EU then the Moslem AK Party will continue to rip down the old Ataturk political structures thru the accession requirements. A Moslem fait accompli that can no longer be ignored by both the West and the secular Turks now unfolds before us.

The EU complains that Turkey's democratic reforms have slowed since 2005 when its membership talks began.

Now the European Commission is warning that a high-profile court case could damage Turkey's long-term European ambitions. Turkey's constitutional court is to hear the chief prosecutor's case for closing down the ruling AK Party, over alleged breaches of Turkey's secular ideals.

The EU's patience has been stretched to the limit over the Turkish government's delays in amending its notorious Article 301 law, under which scores of journalists and writers have been prosecuted for the vague offence of "insulting Turkishness".

Which way will Turkey turn? Can the leaders of both Europe and Turkey convince their own peoples of the efficacy of Turkish accession? Or is history repeating itself?

A key Eurobarometer opinion poll shows that 59% of Europeans oppose Turkish membership, with only 28% in favour. The present leaders of Germany and France both say Turkey lacks the European and democratic credentials to take on EU membership.

Among Turks, too, support for EU accession has fallen sharply, from three-quarters of the population three years ago to half or even less today. Mr Babacan says his people have been made to feel "unwanted" in Europe.

UK Minister for Europe Jim Murphy told the Istanbul gathering that bringing Turkey into the European Union would dispel the "myths" about a clash of civilisations, and be the most important strategic decision the EU had ever made. Failure, he said, was unthinkable.

What to do about Ankara? What to do...