Filed under: Political Islam — Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief on May 30, 2007 @ 3:25 pm CEST
More stress in Turkey:
Arınç, an influential figure in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said Parliament would elect a religious president during the rounds of voting held to elect the president. The military released a memo and warned the government not to start a discussion on secularism.
Yesterday, the Hürriyet published an interview with AKP presidential hopeful Abdullah Gül. Gül said: “There can’t be such criteria for the presidency.”
Arınç (thank God for copy and paste with those letters), of course, forgot to wear his secular mask there. The AK Party is a party based on Islamism. Its leaders, like Arınç, Gül and Erdogan, often act as if they support Turkey’s secular system, but make no mistake: all would get rid of the secular system immediately if they could (especially Arınç and Erdogan).
One can only hope that Turkey’s voters will not let themselves be deceived by Erdogan et al. These people oppose a lot Atatürk, the founder of Turkey, stood for.
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1 Lady Vorzheva
May 30, 2007 @ 10:44 pm CESTSo, what do you think is going to happen? I am very opposed to Turkey in the EU, I do not think they are European, by history, tradition, culture or geographical reasons. But I know you are.
We have seen the huge demonstrations against them. But what would happen if this people have a lot of support in Turkey? Do you think that Turkey should be allowed to enter the EU in that case?
2 Sadettin
May 31, 2007 @ 8:11 pm CESTLady Vorzheva,
Can you please tell us more about the conditions of being European?
You said history,tradition,culture and geograpy, can you please explain a little more?
3 Lady Vorzheva
May 31, 2007 @ 10:01 pm CESTBasically, Europe is:
-historically: while there has been several ideological intents to bring all Europe united since the Roman Empire (Sacred Roman-Germanic Empire and the Universitas Christiana are the more important), they have never considered Turkey as they were basically the enemies of the rest. Since the Turks conquered Constantinople (the polis of Constantin who was its founder), Turkey has been quite the enemy of Europe. Greece, Italy and Spain had been the most attacked for centuries. Only the bad situation of Ottoman empire forbid it to continue funding Mediterranean pirates from Algeria or trying again to conquer Vienna.
Since 1453 we can very well say its history has been more linked to Asia than to Europe.
-tradition: if we consider tradition as the sum of all the knowledges a country has, we can safely say, Turkey has a very different tradition from the rest of Europe. Europe is based mainly on Judeo-Christian religion and Greek-Roman phylosophy. Turkey is Islamic by tradition, with very few Christian places that are more maintained for tourists than for considering that their own history.
-culture: as a result of both history and tradition, Turkey by now is not European.
-geography: Europe is only the North side of the Mediterranean Sea. From UK to Greece, that is, Bosforus sea, and from Sicily to North Pole. Look at the frontiers of Turkey: it goes till Iraq, and I do not think Iraq has ever been considered as European.
But there is another consideration: if Turkey is not allowed to enter the Union, does this mean it is consider as inferior? NO, it is consider ONLY as NOT EUROPEAN. USA is not European and I do not think can be considered as inferior.