October 03, 2005

Talking Turkey

After hours and hours of talks, Turkey and the EU have reached an agreement on the terms of negotiating Turkey's membership. In other words, they have decided what issues will be on the table. And despite the visibility of protesters outside the meetings, one key issue will not be under discussion.

If you have followed my constant harping on Turkey, then you will easily guess which issue it is. It's that little matter of the Armenian Genocide and Turkey's persistent denial of it.

Only the French have had the balls (and how often can anyone actually say that?) to official recognise the genocide. It's no surprise that France's popular antipathy towards Turkey's EU membership is exceeded only by Cyprus and Austria. It would be hard to top those two, given that Turkey invaded and still occupies one-third of the former and was stopped from conquering Europe by the latter.

Even the US favours Turkey's admission. They need ostensibly secular Muslim states on their side.

Forget the malarky that Turkey is a secular state. Try sharing the Gospel openly. Try getting them to recognise the Ecumenical Patriarch, even though everyone else has for centuries. Try getting them to take all of the surveillance bugs out of the Phanar. Try getting them to give back all the church buildings they have stolen. Try getting them to stop bulldozing away the Armenian heritage of eastern Anatolia.

No, the US is concerned with where it can place a few warplanes.

The UK Government is more concerned about multi-culturalism. When Austria's foreign minister voiced opposition, UK foreign minister Jack Straw warned of a "theological-political divide, which could open up even further down the boundary between so-called Christian-heritage states and those of Islamic heritage".

That's right, Islamic heritage is real. Christian heritage is suspect, if not altogether imaginary. Everyone seems to have forgotten that Europe's Christian heritage far pre-dates Turkey's Islamic heritage. In fact, Turkey's Christian heritage far pre-dates its Islamic heritage, even if Turkey, in collusion with the US and UK, tries to obliterate it.

Posted by david at October 3, 2005 10:40 PM
Comments

How sad. As much as I dislike it, I get just absolutely furious when thinking of these things.

Posted by: Jim N. at October 4, 2005 12:46 PM

Well said

Posted by: Justin M aka David at October 5, 2005 04:04 PM

Turkey, like Dubai (thank heaven not likely to join the EU!) gets a lot of mileage out of its status as a holiday destination. It's amazing how many people can't see beyond the beaches and booze to the actual society. If I hear one more person say that Turkey is a "free country" because they went there and wore a bikini or saw a belly dancer I will thcweam and thcweam and thcweam till I make myself sick.

Posted by: Marguerite at October 7, 2005 02:12 PM

If I add this comment it may knock out the spam comment without having to rebuild.

Posted by: Dave at October 13, 2005 11:45 AM