Islamic world meets the West in a European Turkey

In a post-9/11 world that continues to search for answers to the question, “Why do they hate us?” closing the gap in understanding between the perceived “Islamic world” and the “West” is more crucial than ever before.

In this instance, the power to act is not in the hands of the United States, but in the hands of the European Union. It must act swiftly and definitively to accept Turkey as its 26th member state.

As Turkey eagerly awaits its first EU evaluations of reform progress, which it hopes will lead to the start of membership negotiations this December, it is confronted with influential voices of concern about its prospects as a member of the EU.

Everyone has something to say. In an interview with Le Figaro magazine earlier this month, Joseph Ratzinger, a high-ranking Cardinal in the Vatican, said that Turkey is “in permanent contrast to Europe” and that its presence in the EU would be a mistake. He went on to say that that Turkey should seek political union with Arab states and not with European countries.

When he spoke, the Islamic world listened. The statements made by Cardinal Ratzinger encapsulate the attitude that fuels resentment within the Islamic world.

Because each EU member nation has a distinctive culture and history, focusing on differences is wasteful. Yes, Christianity and Islam are different religions, but does religion define the European identity?

For Europeans today, religion plays a less significant role than ever before as fewer people attend church on a weekly basis or openly identify themselves as Christian. Religious fervor has been replaced by a commitment to secularism.

This is seen most recently in France with the banning of the headscarf and other religious symbols in public schools. As one of Islam’s most vehemently secular states, this commitment to secularism is something which Turkey can also lay claim to — its government has also banned headscarves in public buildings such as parliament and universities.

Turkey’s admission into the EU will go beyond the interest of both parties; the world community stands to reap countless benefits from the union. European acceptance would affirm the compatibility of Islam with both the “West” and more broadly, modernity (the very question of Islam’s compatibility with modernity, often raised in the Western press, insults many Muslims).

Newly accepted Turkish Europeans could help moderate the increasingly embittered Muslim minorities of nations EU such as France and Germany through their acknowledgment of the benefits of democracy. The rest of the Islamic world will take note and recognize European friendship and acceptance as genuine. This relationship will be seen as more than a mere strategic partnership to fight terrorism, but as an economic and social integration of Muslims with the rest of the Western world.

The mere symbolism of integration will fuel changing attitudes in the Muslim world. Anti-American and anti-Western sentiment will be curbed in favor of continuing efforts of understanding, and such understanding will allow for change in the Western policies that promote extremist sentiment, finally fighting terrorism at its very core.

If the EU recognizes the magnitude of the opportunity before it, it will begin entry talks with Turkey in December. A European Turkey will be the crucial link in destroying the perceived inherent differences between the East and West.

Noorain Khan is a Martel College junior.

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