November 7, 2007
Another twist in Turkey’s tale
Those who say Turkey must never be allowed to join the European Union should meet Mehmet Simsek, the Turkish economy minister. His family and career background may surprise some people. But it is a story that serves as a reminder not to lock modern Turkey in a box of tired old stereotypes.
Simsek was in Brussels this week for a meeting of the European Policy Centre think-tank. After bombarding his lunchtime audience with fiscal and trade data, he turned to the attacks being launched on Turkish targets by the PKK, the Kurdish separatist movement.
"The PKK is not representative of Kurds," he said. "I am a Turkish citizen but my ethnic origin is Kurdish."
Quite so. Simsek was born in 1967 in Batman, a poor province of southeastern Turkey. Kurdish, not Turkish, was his first language - and this in a country where Kurdish identity and the Kurdish language have often struggled to win official recognition from the authorities.
Yet here is Simsek, at the age of 40, running Turkey’s economy. On the way he has picked up an economics degree from Ankara University, collected another degree from the UK’s University of Exeter, worked for the US embassy in Ankara, spent time at the equity analysis department of UBS bank in New York, and then moved up at the ranks at Merrill Lynch in London.
In Turkey’s general election last July, Simsek was elected to parliament for the Justice and Development party, the one that scares so many Europeans because of its Islamic roots.
It’s worth pausing a moment to think about this. An ethnic Kurd, born into poverty, rises first to become an international investment banker and then to take office as a government minister for a party which, though wedded to Turkey’s secular system, clearly has conservative Islamic religious tendencies.
It is an extraordinary tale that tests the limits of the European imagination by confounding its sense of what constitutes progress and backwardness, east and west, tolerance and intolerance. Turkey truly is unique. And that is one good reason not to rush to judgement on where its long process of self-transformation may finish up.
The econimy ministers of Australia, New Zealand or Costa Rica would equally well fit this image. Would that mean that they’d also have to be considered for EU membership ? Morocco is as close to Europeas Turkey but King Hassan’s bid wass flatly rejected because it was not European
Posted by: john somer | November 7th, 2007 at 9:35 pm | Report this commentThat’s a really uplifitng story. Good for Turkey.
However, a single impressive live story should not influence the judgment on EU Membership.
Posted by: rz | November 8th, 2007 at 12:35 pm | Report this commentI wonder how someone draw a line to make true Europe. I feel like if I can convince them with historical and simple geographical info, they will start to fuss about hair or eye color to make sure Turkey is not fitting the criteria. Common guys, just wake up 20 years from now people in most of the Europe will be in nursing home. I wonder who will paying for someone to change their diapers at that time. Economy stupid… That day, it might be too late to convince Turkey to pay the bill thats the reason all this hupla,, its a fine balance of politics keep the Turkey at entry untill that DAY comes.
Posted by: okan | November 8th, 2007 at 9:55 pm | Report this commentokan,
Posted by: john somer | November 9th, 2007 at 12:22 pm | Report this commentwe don’t need the Turks for that, we just need a licence on the Japanese patents on diaper-changing robots they are in the process od deeloping
The question of Turkish EU-Membership is not so much about Geography, as more about the question how large the EU can or should be.
Once we have absorbed the complete Balkan, how much more countries are going to join?
Ukraine?Belarus? and at some Point even Russia?
If we really want to do this we have to totally rethink the way the EU is organized. A political Union of this size is madness. This is only possible with a design for a EU which allows for different amounts of political integration.
Posted by: rz | November 9th, 2007 at 1:21 pm | Report this commentTurkey is a great country , but 20 to 25 % of its population is strict orthodox muslim, they insist in their daily speeches that the whole world must become strict muslim,that whoever is not of their faith is against their God and consecuently ungodly, whith dire repercussions,and at the other hand,Europe is mostly christian ,70%, and the rest is agnostic or atheist with very liberal,open and democratic views of their rights to free speech and freedom from religions, so where do these 2 facts mix? why Europe must take “in” these 10 to 20 million fundamental turkish muslims that do not believe in religious freedoms? where is the logic to take these fundamentalists into Europe ? for what ? to get a constant tension and stress social situation? as some fundamental turk religious leaders have stated, every church in Europe must be converted to their religion,so what’s the logic in having that problem every day in your own home by your guests? God says we must be good to each other , not stupid and take abuse against our own Culture….but i understand that many turks would like to dilute their problem, these 20 % of fundamentalists diluted among Europe are a lot less trouble than concentrated in Turkey, so for the Turks,to get them into Europe to do their religious preachings would be an ideal solution, but for the Europeans?
at the other hand, Russia is christian and from the same stock as europeans, Russians are a lot closer to Europe then Turkey, but the neocons will object to that,and since they already run Europe and boss the christians around, it’s a “no go”, shame !
what’s wrong with a very close economic,trade,commerce and security partnership between Europe and Turkey UNTIL ALL THE POPULATION IN TURKEY ACCEPTS CHRISTIANITY, FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND SPEECH AND THE RIGHT TO OPPOSE ORGANIZED RELIGIONS?
Posted by: blogger | November 9th, 2007 at 6:23 pm | Report this commentIn the french blogsphere, there is a huge buzz about the muslim question in Europe following a recent post of Jean Quatremer, correspondent in Brussels for french newspaper “Liberation” :
Posted by: club-cordelier | November 16th, 2007 at 6:03 pm | Report this commenthttp://bruxelles.blogs.liberation.fr/coulisses/2007/11/sarkozy-et-les-.html?cid=90175930#comments
It’s in french, of course. The point is that Nicolas Sarkozy would have spoken of in a shocking way on Islam to the swedish prime minister the third of september and otherwise to the irish prime minsiter the tenth of October.
The fact is that Mr Fredrik Reinfeldt, swedish prime minister is against the creation of a committee of wise men to consider the Union’s future because he suspects Nicolas Sarkozy will use this committee against the Turkish EU-Membership.
On the other side, Mr Bertie Ahern, irish prime minister has some discussion with Nicolas Sarkozy about the European force to deploy between Chad and Darfour. It will be commanded by an irish general…
Diplomacy, rumour, desinformation ?
If the prime ministers confirm the fact, it can cause a kind of destabilization in european diplomacy… as the Zoe’s Ark case does…