Challenges to Turkey’s European course
Dr. George Voskopoulos
January 25, 2007
The recent assassination of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink has made an impact to those who would like to see a democratic, secular and pro-European Turkey joining the European Union.
Hrant Dink was a moderate man who dared to challenge wrongdoings of the past in his effort to build bridges across peoples. He was prosecuted on violating Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, a code implementing outdated practices. The very same “logic” brought to the court the distinguished Nobel Prize winner, Orhan Pamouk, a great democrat and intellectual.
Nowadays, Turkey is facing serious dilemmas as far as its image to the outside world is concerned. It can be a model of a moderate Muslim society sending positive mes-sages to those who have wrongly demonized Islam and risk an intra-religious conflict. But this has to be a conscious choice on the part of the democratic majority of the Turkish people.
Nationalism is one of the most serious setbacks in Turkey’s European course and its relations to its neighbors and this is something Turkish academics and intellectuals will have to realize. It is their duty to infiltrate new values to younger generations and allow them to formulate positive evaluation judgments vis-à-vis otherness.
Of course the assassination of Hrant Dink may also be considered a blow to Prime Minister T. Erdogan, his political ambitions and his political agenda. I do not consider T. Erdogan a threat to Turkish values but a modest man trying to bring the country closer to European political and humanitarian standards. He himself regarded the as-sassination of Hrant Dink as a blow to Turkey itself.
However, the assassination was above all a blow to Turkish democracy and Turkey’s ambition to join the European Union. It illustrates the urgent need on the part of Turk-ish society to modernize and view the world under different, less-nationalistic lenses. The challenges and the risks are great and should overlay outdated views and atti-tudes.
Today Turkey has the opportunity to show the world that it can be a positive partner in the European family. This requires a lot of changes but the long-term gains are bound to be innumerable both for Western Europeans and Turks themselves.
Hrant Dink was a moderate man who dared to challenge wrongdoings of the past in his effort to build bridges across peoples. He was prosecuted on violating Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, a code implementing outdated practices. The very same “logic” brought to the court the distinguished Nobel Prize winner, Orhan Pamouk, a great democrat and intellectual.
Nowadays, Turkey is facing serious dilemmas as far as its image to the outside world is concerned. It can be a model of a moderate Muslim society sending positive mes-sages to those who have wrongly demonized Islam and risk an intra-religious conflict. But this has to be a conscious choice on the part of the democratic majority of the Turkish people.
Nationalism is one of the most serious setbacks in Turkey’s European course and its relations to its neighbors and this is something Turkish academics and intellectuals will have to realize. It is their duty to infiltrate new values to younger generations and allow them to formulate positive evaluation judgments vis-à-vis otherness.
Of course the assassination of Hrant Dink may also be considered a blow to Prime Minister T. Erdogan, his political ambitions and his political agenda. I do not consider T. Erdogan a threat to Turkish values but a modest man trying to bring the country closer to European political and humanitarian standards. He himself regarded the as-sassination of Hrant Dink as a blow to Turkey itself.
However, the assassination was above all a blow to Turkish democracy and Turkey’s ambition to join the European Union. It illustrates the urgent need on the part of Turk-ish society to modernize and view the world under different, less-nationalistic lenses. The challenges and the risks are great and should overlay outdated views and atti-tudes.
Today Turkey has the opportunity to show the world that it can be a positive partner in the European family. This requires a lot of changes but the long-term gains are bound to be innumerable both for Western Europeans and Turks themselves.
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