Published August 31st, 2007 by Future Atlas
Turkey and the EU
I was quoted in World Politics Review on the issue of the cultural gap between Turkey and the European Union:
- In terms of value systems, “Turkey and Western Europe exist in different eras.”
- “When it comes to values and general outlook on the world, Turkey and Western Europe are decades apart. This phenomenon, which might be called dyschronicity, is even more acute if you compare certain parts of Europe to Turkey’s Anatolian heartland: the time-gap between Sweden and some rural areas of Turkey is something like three or four centuries.”
As an example, author Handan Satiroglu points out that at least 12 people have gone on trial in 2007 for the crime of “insulting Turkishness.”
And Turkey’s arrival in the EU “would multiply the number of Muslims living in Europe more than five-fold, to an estimated 90 million,” a challenge for the most secular of continents.
Turkey may now be prepared to join the Europe of 1950, but Europe has moved on, and it will take enormous change for it to even begin to catch up.