Turkey’s Road to the Future
I recently returned from Turkey, my last stop of several in Europe and the Middle East. Both regions had momentous summers, from the French and Dutch rejections of the EU Constitution, through the terror bombings in London, to Israel’s painful disengagement from Gaza. It was no surprise, then, that two questions arose wherever I went: What is the future of Europe? And what is the future of the Middle East? But it was only in Turkey that the questions converged to a local issue.
Turkey is a vibrant part of both regions geographically, culturally, historically, and diplomatically. Modern Turkey straddles two continents and combines a secular outlook with an Islamic tradition. Its imperial predecessor dominated southeastern Europe for almost five centuries. Turkey recently hosted the first official contact between Pakistan and Israel while simultaneously working on its application for membership in the European Union.
That application rivets attention and generates passion everywhere. The U.S. supports Turkey’s rapid accession, often to the consternation of the Europeans. While the combination of Turkish enthusiasm, American support, and European resignation was enough to allow accession talks to begin on October 3, even Turkey’s most ardent champions concede that the talks are likely to last for at least fifteen to twenty years.
It’s hard to fault Turkey for wanting to be more European than Middle Eastern. Europe is peaceful and prosperous; the Middle East is neither. The carrot of EU membership has been very good for Turkey. In recent years, Turkey has changed many of its laws, and tried to alter entrenched cultural attitudes, to meet European standards. The expected length of the accession talks, however, suggests how much further it has to go. While Germany long ago acknowledged its indelible national guilt as a perpetrator of genocide and Serbia has recently begun to do likewise, Turkey angrily denies its criminal persecution of the Armenians. To make matters worse, Turkey still jails writers for expressing views asserting Turkish culpability—in stark contrast to contemporary European standards of free expression. Turkish respect for other civil liberties similarly falls short of Western norms.
The primary reason for the lengthy accession talks, however, lies not in Turkey but in Europe. Turkey’s candidacy will force Europe to admit that that its tolerant, multicultural self-image is more aspirational than real—a message that voters across the continent have begun to scream so loudly that even the bureaucrats in Brussels can hear it. Turkey’s (growing) population of 75 million would render one in every eight Europeans a Turk—a dramatic redefinition of “European” that few citizens of the EU-25 are prepared to accept. Germany’s Angela Merkel put the matter bluntly: “We are convinced that Turkey’s accession would place too heavy a political, economic, and social burden on the EU and threaten European integration.”
No matter how hard Washington tries, it will be unable to shove Turkey down Europe’s throat because too few Europeans will accept Turks as their equals. American efforts to jerk Turkey westward will force Turks and Europeans to confront their own demons, promote anti-European feelings in Turkey, anti-Turkish sentiment in Europe, and anti-Americanism in both.
Turkey’s true destiny is to become the leader of the Middle East, not the tail of Europe. Turkey’s reemergence in this role is critical if the Middle East is ever to develop liberal democratic traditions. Many of the region’s seemingly intractable problems date back less than a century, to the end of the Ottoman Empire. With the Empire’s fall, Turkey redefined itself as a much smaller nation state and undertook the difficult task of marrying liberal, secular, enlightenment values to a traditional Islamic culture. Its former Arab subjects sank into a morass of anti-Western totalitarianism and fundamentalism. The Arab world needs to learn lessons that only Turkey can teach it.
Turkey must now emulate the EU rather than join it. Today’s EU started humbly in 1951 as a six-nation coal and steel pact. It grew slowly, successively gaining both new members and greater depth. The Middle East’s brightest prospects lie along a similar road. The U.S. and EU must help Turkey pave the way. The U.S. already has bilateral free trade deals with both Israel and Jordan. We should now negotiate a multilateral deal that integrates both of these economies with Turkey’s, and extend immediate invitations to Lebanon, Iraq, the Palestinians, and Egypt—contingent upon their adoption of structural economic and political reforms. The EU should extend generous commercial terms to Turkey quickly, in lieu of protracted discussions about membership.
The EU has made a major contribution to the world by rewarding civilized, liberal behavior with peace and prosperity. The creation of a new institution capable of offering the same deal to the nations of the Middle East is the best way to bring that troubled region into the information age. Turkey’s frustrating, ultimately doomed dalliance with the EU will only keep it from the valued place in the world it wants and deserves—and that the world needs it to assume.
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Comments:
Thank you for this very thoughtful post.
“The creation of a new institution capable of offering the same deal to the nations of the Middle East is the best way to bring that troubled region into the information age.”
The Euro-mediterranean partnership was supposed to be that. It is now ten years old. Failed largely.
I think Turkey will join the EU and it will be a success.
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