The European Union Still Eludes a Turkey Culturally Apart
French President Nicolas Sarkozy once made headlines with the remark, "If Turkey were Europe, we would know it." In July, European Commission president JosÈ Manuel Barroso gave voice to similar European sentiments in a Greek newspaper interview: "Let's be honest," he said, "Turkey is not ready to become an EU member and the EU is not ready to accept Turkey as a member. Neither tomorrow, nor the next day." Despite the overwhelmingly positive European response to Erdogan's recent triumph at the polls, and calls to revamp Turkey's political and economic reforms by European leaders, one fact remains clear: Turkey's membership in the EU is as elusive as ever.
Would a Muslim nation of 72 million joining the EU serve to create a dichotomy of two distinct civilizations? Turkey's membership hinges upon introducing an array of political reforms in the areas of civil rights, free speech, and gender equality, as well as changes in its acceptance of general European values. Starkly different in a number of social and political arenas, Turkey stands worlds apart from Europe.
Freedom of Speech and Press
As a country aspiring to become part of the EU, Turkey is obliged to observe laws spelled out by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. But as Josh Calder, an analyst at Social Technologies, a Washington, D.C.-based forecasting firm, points out, "Turkey and Western Europe exist in different eras," when it comes to civil liberties.
Indeed, if the defining line between a civilized and uncivilized nation is the degree to which it accords freedom of speech to its citizens, then Turkey fares poorly. Since shortly before the establishment of modern day Turkey in 1923, one journalist has been assassinated on average every 1.5 years. According to a report released earlier this year by the New-York based Committee to Protect Journalists, in the past 15 years alone, 18 journalists have been murdered in Turkey for merely voicing an opinion contradicting the status quo. Furthermore, up until the 1990s, only China had more "prisoners of thought" than Turkey.
Although there are no reliable government-issued statistics on the number of unfolding prosecutions for speech-related offenses, the most recent quarterly report of Istanbul-based media monitoring news service Bianet reveals that 132 individuals and seven media organs had trial hearings from May to June in 2007. Twelve of these pending cases involve charges brought under the infamous Turkish penal code article 301, making it a crime to insult "Turkishness."
The penal code was thrust into the international spotlight with the January murder of Armenian-Turkish writer Hrant Dink. The case of Dink illustrated with harsh clarity the potentially deadly consequences of speech-related prosecutions.
Women in Politics
Standing before the 1935 meeting of the International Women's Congress, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Republic, dared to declare in Istanbul: "I am convinced that the exercise of social and political rights by women is necessary for mankind's happiness and pride. You can rest assured that Turkish women together with [the] world's women will work towards world peace and security."
Fast forward to 2007, and politics in Ankara is still a man's game. Although Turkish women were granted the right to vote in 1934, well before European countries such as Switzerland, France, and Belgium, efforts to involve women equally in politics have since stalled. The average level of women's representation at the parliamentary level has hovered around 2-4 percent since 1935, and recently shot up to 10 percent with the July elections. According to critics, this small increase in women's participation is a calculated tactic to refute criticisms of the winning party's Islamic agenda. Especially telling of the general attitude toward women in Turkish politics are the recent statements of Devlet Bahceli, head of the secular nationalist party Milliyetci Hareket Partisi (MHP), who instructed his MPs to respect the women parliamentarians, and "avoid major confrontations with them."
By comparison, Europe's Nordic countries boast female representation rates of 40 percent or more, while in Bulgaria and Poland, relative newcomers to the EU, women constitute 22 percent of the parliament. Many European countries, including Spain, Germany, France, and England, have implemented quota systems to ensure women's representation in elected bodies. Calls to implement a similar quota system in Turkey have thus far gone ignored by the government.
Undoubtedly, Turkish women enjoy greater freedoms than those in the vast majority of Muslim countries, including the right to vote, the right to divorce, and the right of abortion. Yet, by current EU standards, Turkey clearly lags behind.
American-Style Religiosity
Then there is the issue many Europeans consider most emblematic of Europe -- aversion to religion. The sharp decline in church attendance is often seen as testament to secularization's grip on the European public sentiment. A 2004 Gallup poll found that just 15 percent of Europeans, compared with 44 percent of Americans, attend a place of worship weekly, and only 21 percent of Europeans say religion is "very important" to them. And, despite last minute campaigning by Poland, Italy, and Ireland, the EU constitution omits any mention of God.
By contrast -- as in the United States -- religiosity is fully embraced in Turkey. In an Angus Reid Global Monitor poll in 2006, 51 percent of Turks -- and a surprising 63 percent of Americans -- defended the importance of religion. Interestingly, in a recent survey of public acceptance of the Darwinian theory of evolution, Turkey also came in last, just behind the United States. According to Mustafa Akyol, a prolific and pious author based in Istanbul, "Turkey is closer to the United States than it is to Europe in many respects -- most notably, the role of religion in public life." He adds that "many Turkish conservatives find the spirit of a 'nation under God' much more appealing than the bluntly secular European ethos." So appealing that Turks in 750 different mosques in the capital city of Ankara, which is suffering from a severe water shortage, prayed for rain this month.
Europeans are fearful of Turkey's Islamic influence on the European social policy and culture. Recent surveys indicate that only 35 percent of Europeans favor Turkey's membership in the EU. Turkish membership would multiply the number of Muslims living in Europe more than five-fold, to an estimated 90 million.
Freedom of press and speech and attitudes toward women and religion in the public domain reflect an overall problem for Turkey: "When it comes to values and general outlook on the world, Turkey and Western Europe are decades apart," says Calder. "This phenomenon, which might be called dyschronicity, is even more acute if you compare certain parts of Europe to Turkey's Anatolian heartland: the time-gap between Sweden and some rural areas of Turkey is something like three or four centuries."
Kemal Ataturk, who died in 1938, conceived Turkey's destiny as a modern European state, but its lagging social and political reforms and cultural disposition continue to cast a dark shadow over the 41-year-old EU-Turkey courtship. Calder takes this line of thought to a harsh conclusion: "The European Union has come to see itself as a community of values. Turkey may be qualified for the Europe of 1950, but Europeans have progressed to other values, and are alarmed by the perceived gap." Turkey's entry into the EU is still an elusive dream.
