By Dogu Ergil
TDN- It seems no columnist will feel free to write on topics other than Turkey-EU relations until after December 17. This one is no exception, especially witnessing a sour discussion on both sides of Turkey’s western border. On the western side there are voices that declare Turkey’s accession will dilute, if not violate the Western Civilization because Turkey is not a part of that civilization. On the eastern side of the border, embittered by this couth argument, there are those who say, “let us avenge this hostile and insolent attitude.” How, by three equally hostile initiatives:
1- Taking part in an anti-western alliance composed of China, Russia and Iran.
2- Remaining aloof to terrorist threats and organized crime involving or targeting Europe.
3- Stop mitigating (or acting as a firewall) between radical Islam that brand anything western as a new-age crusade against Islamic values and lands and a secular way of life.
This debate is utterly uncivilized and damaging to any process targeting the creation of a supra-national civic culture.
Contemporary civilization is a combination of two cultures:
1- Inherited cultures that may be called historical and sociological. They comprise of ethnic, religious and linguistic particularities. In this sense, they are diverse and irreducible to each other.
2- Civic or political culture that is based on human volition and consensus. Deliberative democracy, rule of law and human rights are the products of this culture. This form of culture is open to anyone or any group, who adopt its values, abides by its principles and participates in its practices. “Western civilization” for that matter is an amalgam of many and diverse historical-sociological cultures but one civic culture. While the first reflect the cultural diversity of the Western civilization, civic culture reflects the broad consensus that has created a common political space where the adherents of diverse inherited cultures can exist and interact in peace and harmony. The European Union (EU) is the concrete example of creating political-civic unity out of cultural diversity in a continent, which has been ridden with war, genocide and religious pogroms throughout its history. Indeed, Europe built the civic pillar of its civilization only after World War II, not before. Allow me to give a few examples:
Some European leaders constantly allude to the Judea-Christian roots of Europeanism. If my knowledge of history is not thwarted by my weak memory, European history is full of persecution of Jews in the name of Christianity. Weren’t those Jews and Christians European? When European Spain in the 1500s were exorcising Christianity, and European Germany cleansing its Arian race by expelling Jews from Europe, a non-European Turkey accepted them. One of the harbingers of freethinking and enlightenment, Giordano Bruno, was burned at the stakes, was he not European? What about his executioners? Weren’t they both Christian and European? What about Hitler and his lesser copy, Mussolini? Aren’t nationalism, racism, fascism and communism European creations or creatures?
I am not trying to degrade what Europe was. On the contrary, I intend to applaud what Europe has created over these cultural (ethnic/racial, religious and linguistic) differences that acted as fault lines that in turn led to massive political earthquakes and indignation of humanity in the European continent. Europe divided by racial, ethnic, political/national, religious (and intra-religious) and linguistic differences are now united through a civic-political culture that has been built in the past half century, not before. If so, how can a society that knocks on the door with the resolve of adopting the same civic values and reforming itself along the legal, political and economic standards of Europe be refused with the excuse that it does not belong to the same civilization? Such a claim is utterly against what civilization and the EU is about.
Now a bit of self-criticism: Turkey, since Ottoman times, has been westernizing over the past 150 years. It has been Europeanizing for half a century, alas with faint success. The republic has not kept its promise of upgrading society’s standards to the level of “contemporary civilization.” The backwardness of the country has been the source of great grief for the enlightened sections of society. Now their grief is doubled by the couth internal debate of Europe that betray the philosophy and practice that has given life to the greatest and most ambitious civic and civilizational project in history: the EU. Turks want to conclude their historical journey toward the west by joining this civilizational project. For, as Bernard Lewis has perceptively observed, Turks made a choice between the west and east, i.e. China 1,000 years ago. They moved to the West into Anatolia and the near East and adopted Islam, one of the monotheistic (or Abrahamic) religions of the region. They inherited the social institutions and statecraft of Rome (East Rome, for the name Byzantium is a later invention and the East Romans never called themselves Byzantian).
After conquering Constantinople, they further expanded into the west geographically. Now Turks are at the threshold of yet another major move towards the west. This time it is not geographical, but civilizational. Their choice between the Islamic civilization (not religion, but as guiding principles of public life, law and government) and western civilization has been decisive. A political party that represents the Muslim majority is taken on the mission that Ataturk started as a staunch secularist. If this is not convincing, what is?
However, the road ahead is long, too long. In addition, the task is colossal for the “westernizers” of Turkey who have neglected their homework and flunked the first test in the 20th century because they have failed to understand the importance of civic-political culture that made Europe what it is today.