TURKEY: No Marriage, Only an Official Engagement

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Hilmi Toros

ISTANBUL, Oct 5 2005 (IPS) - After four decades of courtship, Muslim Turkey has now obtained an official engagement ring from the EU. But the wedding is far away, and may never come.

Despite optimism and a determined push from the governments, the governed have their doubts, and may not want the marriage at all.

As Turkey’s accession talks began Oct. 4, there were no celebrations in this metropolis of 12 million people, symbolically sprawled across both the European and Asian landmasses. People in EU countries never had a reason to cheer a Turkish entry.

“Europeans don’t say what they mean and don’t mean what they say,” said electrician Veysel Can. “You can’t trust them.” Many other Turks seem to share this view, in sharp contrast with the official view at home and abroad.

Support for joining the European Union that had crossed 75 percent was down to 60 percent on the eve of accession talks, a poll showed. A call-in to the CNN Turk network had 70 percent of viewers against EU membership.

The view most expressed in Turkey is that EU terms mean caving in to all demands, leaving no room for give-and-take.

But both in Europe and Turkey, the question of accession may come down to culture, way of life and, above all, religion. Turkey is 98 percent Muslim and is now governed by an Islamic-rooted party, although the party seems to be pushing for EU membership more than many of its secular predecessors.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that spurning Turkey on grounds of religion could heighten tensions between Christianity and Islam at a critical time.

British foreign secretary Jack Straw has said that leaving Turkey out could cause a “theological-political divide, which could open up even further down the boundary between so-called Christian-heritage states and those of Islamic heritage.”

With Turkey in, the EU border would touch Iraq, Syria and Iran. Critics in Europe say there should be a limit to expansion.

There are also fears of mass migration of Turkish workers into the EU, although supporters of Turkish entry point to the need for a young labour force from Turkey for an aging EU population.

But some EU nations already have sizeable Turkish populations, and that has raised concern that they have yet to be fully integrated even after a generation.

Turks look at the inequalities here. “We have the British and Germans coming, buying land, building houses, and settling in our villages,” says Yusuf Canli in a sunny Mediterranean village in the south. “And why can’t I have my children go there to school and work?”

Turkey has been on a Westward march since the foundation of the Republic in 1923. It separated politics and religion, eventually joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), and embraced the Customs Union with the EU in 1995 in hope of full membership.

“I have nothing against EU,” Gulsun Zeytinoglu, who trains leading Turkish business managers told IPS. “But they want to dictate. Instead, what we need is co-creation. In fact, the problem of identity is now more of a problem for EU than Turkey. They are questioning their identity, thanks to us.”

Christianity and Islam could easily co-exist in Europe, she said. “It is about respect for different religions, traditions. They eat Turkey for Christmas, and we sacrifice sheep and eat lamb. Both should be okay.”

But it does not seem okay. “They will never take us in,” columnist Emin Colasan wrote in Hurriyet newspaper. “They will use and humiliate us; they will play with us, and after 15 or 20 years they will reject us. The start of the negotiations is not at all important. They will spring many more intrigues.”

A more moderate view is that marriage cannot be ruled out because who knows how the two feel about one another when the time comes. If they ever do marry, the ceremony will have to include church bells and calls to prayers by muezzins at mosques.