.... Nowadays, as Europe struggles with the euro crisis, and EU expansion has slowed down, very few of us still bother to think and talk about these issues. And unfortunately, the positive interest surrounding Turkey's possible future membership has also waned.
This is partly because freedom of thought remains regrettably underdeveloped in Turkey. But the biggest reason is undoubtedly the large influx of Muslim migrants from north Africa and Asia into Europe that, in the eyes of many Europeans, has cast a dark shadow of doubt and fear over the idea of a predominantly Muslim country joining the union.
[A COMMENT] Firstly, Turkey is not geographically a European country. 97% of the country is in Asia - and this 97% shares borders with Iraq, Iran, Georgia, Armenia and Syria.
Secondly, how would adding a comparatively poor, increasingly religious and reactionary Asian nation of 75 million Muslims aid European cohesiveness and unity? At current trends, if Turkey became a member it would quickly become the most populous. What effects might there be for an organisation having as its biggest member a country so different from all the smaller ones?
Finally, if Turkey were serious about wanting to join the EU and meeting the requisite standards for human rights and the rule of law, why is its government become increasingly authoritarian and repressive?
[ANOTHER COMMENT] If you set out to invent an ideology which represented the exact opposite of liberté, égalité and fraternité, you'd probably come up with something exactly like Islam. It could be that what Europeans fear is that Islam is irreconcilable with Western secular liberalism.
Not since the middle ages in Europe has any religious doctrine claimed an adherence of 99% of the population. The fact that Islam does so in Turkey today is a rightly frightening statistic. [Guardian Cif] Read more
