BY FERAI TINC
HURRIYET- The recent murder of Dutch film director Theo Van Gogh marked a turning point for Europe. Racism in the Netherlands is growing everyday, hiding behind the mask of the ‘integration.’ Everybody is talking about everything, including Muslims’ difficulties adapting to Europe and educational problems, but xenophobia is never openly expressed. Amsterdam official Bulent Okyay said that 36,000 Turks live in the city. Some 60% of the population are Dutch citizens, but only 10% of them ‘feel Dutch’ because there is a relationship of host and guest. What I saw at a recent symposium organized by the METU Center for European Studies showed that Europe is in the midst a very critical process. Paul Scheffer of Amsterdam University said that he considered Turkey’s European Union membership very important from this point of view. If Turkey is shut out, this would mean telling Muslims living in Europe, ‘You can’t become European.’ Scheffer also thinks that there are problems within the Islamic world, believing that it should accept responsibility for violence committed in its name as well as fulfill its duties against discrimination, and that Turkey can help with this.
When I visited the Netherlands a decade ago, I visited a Turkish school in Rotterdam. The government was teaching Turkish children in our language. This was fine but I asked myself, ‘Why are there only Turkish children? Where are the Dutch children?’ Those children grew up very disconnected from each other. They learn, and their culture is strengthened, but they lack the status of being Dutch. Amsterdam University’s Jos de Beus warned, ‘Multiculturalism has collapsed in the Netherlands. It’s in a panic crisis. The situation is the same in Germany. To ensure a strong democracy, subcultures should be weak. The stronger they are, the weaker democracy is. Can we talk about a European dream equal to the American one? No, we should establish a new European dream.’ There’s a difference between Europe’s words and its experiences. The European dream is being re-evaluated due to Turkey’s membership aspirations. Each day more incidents show even more clearly that this dream can’t be fulfilled without Turkey at the table.