Turkey & The EU
J Grant Swank, Jr of Mich.net argues that Turkey should never be allowed into the EU, in any form, because they require the punishment of anyone that says anything negative about Islam as a requirement of their joining. (Full post here)
I come from the land of never say never as you will likely have to eat your words later, but in this case J Grant may have a point. I personally have NOT followed the Turkey v EU story closely so I will only comment on the large issues and avoid any discussion of details. With that said, if it takes a severe compromise / decrease to the freedoms of current EU citizens to bring Turkey in, then the EU should keep Turkey out.
Beneficial relationships, and the increase of the quality of life /freedom to the new member, should never require the freedoms of current members to be restricted, regardless of the situation. As a example of that lets look at freeing of the slaves and giving women the right to vote in the US . It did NOT require any loss of freedom to US citizens at the time to give slaves the right to vote or for women to gain the right to vote. The rights that US citizens had continued unchanged, those freedoms were just extended to new groups. That is how it is suppose to work. If slaves, or women, had required that current voters (white males and then all males respectively) could speak not lobby speak against the views of the new voters (slaves or women respectively) then the deal would be unfair as it would have required the restricting the rights of the current members to benefit the new ones.
The right way to handle it is to give ALL members the same rights and that is the way that voting rights as occurred in the US. No one lost rights to extend the right to vote to new groups. New groups were just given the rights that already existed. The same can be said of equality in schools (Brown v Board), and many other issues. No one should have to lose rights to include new members to the group is my point in this. I am a firm believer that the disenfranchised should be given rights, and that basic human freedoms should be extended to all. Also believe that government should not bargain away the freedoms of their citizens for international influence and power. For the EU to extend it’s power should not require the lose of freedoms for its citizens, I say the same about the US as well. From what I am seeing the freedoms of citizens of other EU nations would be reduced based what Turkey wants for inclusion in the EU. That is a bad deal for the EU, and for it’s citizens.
Turkey has been a long time friend to the US, they are a “friendly” nation in most cases, but in the end the US has not had to compromise the freedoms of it’s citizens to maintain the friendship. Yes, I know the US has compromised some international policies to help maintain the relationship with Turkey, but that has not reduced the rights of US citizens. The minute that Turkey says that the US press (even if I disagree with them most of the time) should be limited to benefit the relationship then the relationship with Turkey has to go. Do not pass go, do not collect $200 dollars, pitch them.
Weather it is the EU or the US, it is far to common for nations to give up rights and freedoms for the benefit of short term international gain or bargaining power on issues. Freedoms are valuable things and they should be given away willy nilly. That is one of the scariest trends politically world wide at the moment – the giving up of freedoms for “security”. Security does not come by limiting, restricting freedoms.
— UPDATE — 11:00 AM Cao is hosting at trackback Wednesday so we decided to include this one. Link to Cao’s Site here
Turkey is progressing fast from a non democratic, not respectful of human rights and poor country to an modern democracy, respectful of those rights and to an average income country, like others in Eastern Europe. We shall take into account that concerning to these aspects it is far better now than Russia, for instance.
Besides that, Turkey is, with Greece, the motherland of Europe. The first civilization of Europe, the minoan, was made of people descending from Anatolia, now called the Asian part of Turkey. And Turkey has a several millenia history of belonging to or hosting some of the most bright of European civilizations, like the Greek, the Roman, the Byzantine and the Ottoman itself, since it 40%-50% of its population (16 out of 35 million people in the 19th century) lived in Europe.
Concerning to religion, Bosnia and Albania are also secular countries with muslim majorities, and there are large muslim minorities in other countries of the Balkans. Turkey has been secular for nearly 80 years now, not less than other European countries, maybe more in some cases.
During the time of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey interacted a lot with the rest of Europe, for the best and worst reasons, including the siegeing of Vienna and the 1st World War, but Europe is a continent where history is full of wars, including religious wars between several factions of Christians and, of course a War that drove Europe to hell only 60 years go. What would have happened if Germany had been denied an European identity and respect after the 2nd WW? A 2nd Hitler? For sure, Turkey doesn’t deserve less integration than Germany of the late 40s.
So, Turkey is European and if the democratic and respect for human rights criteria are fully accomplished in the very near future, it has as much right for adhesion as Croatia or Romania, or any other eastern country.
Constantinople or Istanbul, as you wish, has given a lot to Europe and deserves a great place in this new enlarged Europe. Long live Constantinople!
Comment by
nuno pestana — 2/28/2006 @ 7:03 pm