Forumİstanbul - THE ROLE OF TURKEY IN THE EUROPEAN IDENTITY ISSUE

Çok teşekkürler ama izninizle İngilizce konuşacağım. History of Europe was set before renaissance. Before renaissance Europe was to choose as political entity and only the term of Christianity was still in the beginning of first half of 16th century Christianity versus the Ottoman Empire so the real element for the creation of the kind of Europe is mentioned by several historians particularly Shabo, Italian historian. That’s the sprint of catholisizm and creation of Protestantism, which is going to be enforced by the enlightment by the French revolution and the nationalist movements in 19th century. The essential term is secularism. The rise of secularism in Europe and the opposition is versus those, which are not secular then it becomes a political term because Christianity has disappeared as a united partner.

There is one historical element which is important for Turkey to compare is the way Russia has integrated European culture and economic system from reforms of Peter the Great, Deli Pedro as you say, he was not deli you know. But at the same time when you had the tulip era in Turkey and some technical assistance, this is the question of French, it remains quite superficial and after 1730, the reform process has disappeared. So it is very interesting to see that in the 19th century Russia becomes very central European power while the Ottoman Empire is refracting and disappearing.

Second element, I didn’t want to say, I was asked to speak about European identity, I heard earlier speakers mention identities more then what identity. When you talk about frontiers of Europe there is no legal definition of Europe, nowhere. The only place is when Cyprus which was considered an Asian Island by geographers of 19th century applied to Council of Europe and more geographers considered it an African island in 19th century by geographers. When tried to join the Council of Europe there was no discussion then, it was taken into Council of Europe without any problem. When the Caucasian countries Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia applied there was a discussion and the conclusion was there was no real definition of Southern border of Europe in that region that the three countries had to be considered cultural part of Europe. It is an interesting debate, should we consider then Ardahan and Kars were parts of Europe when they were part of Russian Empire and they are part of Asia when they are part of Republic of Turkey?

The second element on European Identity that Prof. Port mentioned is the common value. Those common values are tried in many conventions of Council of Europe with democracy, rule of law, the notion of various freedoms, respect of minorities also respect of human rights, and to a certain extend when I was teaching in the States I was asking about the political criteria of Copenhagen, I would tell the Americans that they would have some difficulty joining the EU because they don’t meet some of the political criteria.

The third element was mentioned both by Nilüfer Göle this morning and by Prof. Portes, we have common projects in the EU, common project is to built an efficient economy which gives the social benefits to all population.

Then I would like to elaborate about different levels of identity, which are introduced to us by Prof. Portes. We have a lot of problems; nation states are loosing part of their reason d’etre with EU. Now with the general principles at the EU level met by economic decision are taken in Brussels in common by 25 member states. So partly the nation states loose some reason d’etre, that’s why there is a loosening of national feeling in the lot of member states, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Czechoslovakia and on the other side an increase in regional feeling which is leading decentralizing powers to the regions like in Spain, Catalonia in the Bask area, then France and the lender is asking for more and more power in Germany and you’ve also seen the conclusion of Yugoslavia. There is a danger here, which appears particularly in Spain for example the rise of smaller nationalism. The second level national I mention loosing some of its appeal and you have to see also that most of the European countries the word nationalism is a negative term so when we come to Turkey and we say that milliyetçilik is something positive people are completely disturbed. Milliyetçilik for us is something, which is negative, which reminds the Second World War and the national movements. Then the European level, there were some discussions to have European citizenship in the constitution which was drafted but the legally nothing was encouraging, the creation of European citizenships are so different from national citizenships. There were some ideas in Central Europe. You have more then 12 million cingene, roman citizen and some people suggested that European citizenship be immediately granted to Roman because they would be able to move in the whole community freely without being attached to any particular country. There are some pros and some cons. Another aspect is increasing role of Diasporas or immigrant communities. For example in Brussels we have more then 60% of the population, which is not Belgium. There are two aspects, the EU citizens gets the same rights as Belgium so they don’t take the Belgium citizenship. The only people who take Belgium citizenship are those who are not EU citizens, the Turks, the Moroccans, the Africans and you have this strange situation where the new generation of politicians now, there are more Turkish ministers or ministers originally from Morocco or Africa then from the member States because citizens of the member states can go into elections and they are not really interested in becoming Belgium. But you see the same situation with all the migrants moving within the EU.

I think the last point is when you ask the young people terms of various EU programs we have they may take part in the projects, in a lot of Western member states young people would say with three levels of identity they have, original, national and European. But in the UK where my son is studying the young British, they forget the European level quite often. Thank you.

Questions - Answers

Bahadır Kaleağası: Alain, AB Komisyonu ne yapıyor?

As I said actually what we tried not to, there is a debate that the Commission adopted yesterday a document on the future of Europe which does mention matter of identity. What we try to promote is more projects of dialogue with civil societies. I think it is very important to have exchanges of journalists, to have exchanges of youth with various programs like ERASMUS which allows people to understand each other and actually when General De Gaulle and Adeneaur spoke about the reconciliation of France and Germany they decided first to do exchanges of youth. And they met without their finance ministers so they decided a very huge program, the figure was very important so they were lots of meetings between French and Germans to such an extend now there are more marriages, weddings between French and Germans then between Northern Germans and Southern Germans. We also done a work in the Council of Europe to approach historians and to make sure that there are not two versions of history which are completely contradictory and to certain extend the work has just started between Turkey and its neighboring countries. That’s very important and the last point is the research particularly in social field and Prof. Sarbin participating in those projects I think this is creating kind of common awareness of what can be done together.

Question-Ümit Özüren: İstanbul Tekstil Konfeksiyon İhracatçı Birlikleri Yönetim Kurulu Üyesiyim. Bütün panelistlere hoşgeldiniz diyorum. Sorum şöyle: NATO’nun Avrupa kimliğini oluşturan modern batı değerlerini savunduğundan yola çıkarak, Türkiye’nin bu değerlere sahip olmadığını iddia eden özellikle, Almanya ve Fransa Hıristiyan demokratlarının Türkiye’nin NATO üyeliğine karşı çıkmamasını samimiyetsizlik olarak değerlendiriyor musunuz? İkinci olarak, artan enerji fiyatları ve globalleşmenin yan etkileri sonucunda ortaya çıkabilecek yeni bir soğuk savaş süreci Türkiye’nin Avrupa kimliğine olan aidiyetini arttırabilir mi?

I just wanted to add about the religious factors. Europe is not US. In US you have religious participation where nearly 50% of the people go to church. In most of the European countries participation in church is below 10% even 5% and there are some countries like France where nearly 30 – 40% of kids are not baptized. So the point is not the fear of Islam as a religion, the point is fear of fanaticism as in general and that’s where there is this concern which I suppose particularly because people who are immigrants, like in France immigrants speak French consider French superior to Arabic, Turkish immigrants I understand with access to television they can stay, I have seen it in Brussels Bulgarian Turks after 5 years in school, they don’t speak a word of French because they live in a Turkish ghetto that watch television in Turkish, they don’t need French.

Bahadır Kaleağası: Evet bu fanatizm konusu zaten biraz imaj konusuna giriyor. Çünkü bir yerden sonra İslam’dan korkmuyorlar, Müslümanlıktan korkmuyorlar ama fanatizmden korkuyorlar. Ama İslam’ı da fanatiklikle bağdaştıran geniş bir kitle var. Orada da bir kördüğüm oluşuyor. Bazen şöyle örnekler vermek gerekiyor: Birazcık anekdotik olarak abartma olsun diye, Aynı mantıkla şunu demek mümkün. Tüm İsveçliler uyuşturucu taciridir. Çünkü Kolombiyalıların uyuşturucu taciri olduğuna dair bir önyargı var. O da doğru değil ama. Kolombiyalılar Hıristiyan. İsveçliler de Hıristiyan. Bunu körükleyen bir çok etken var. Bunların neler olduğu başka bir oturumun konusu olacaktır