The Greek foreign minister has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today explaining Greece's support for Turkey. "To deny Turkey a European future on the grounds of religion is to deny the existing diversity in Europe. Welcoming a country that shares our democratic values, irrespective of ethnicity or religion, will send a positive signal to the Muslim world, and strengthen global security." Very good and a hopeful sign.

Wow. Seems that everyone's getting real nervous about the islamicization of the Balkans....

A NAFTA-like trade agreement between Turkey and the U.S. could work--and I hope we get the one with Chile worked out soon.



Southerner

There are some serious problems with Turkey beyond matters of religion (which I think is justification enough for Europe to reject them). Turkey has an awful human rights record (try to setting up a church in Istanbul) and its democracy is anything but stable. Germany also has some other concerns: EU membership would give Turkish citizens the right to immigrate across Europe at will, and Germany feels she has enough Turks. Whether you want to class this as "racialism" is up to you, but it is a legitimate concern for Germans who feel their culture is being inundated.

Unfortunately, France and Germany drive the Euro train and they aren't exactly known for welcoming diversity.

Does the gate swing both ways? If Europe is

to accept Moslem Turkey, is Turkey to accept

(more or less) Christian Europe?



Bet not.



Anyhow, Turkey's is a sham democracy. This

will become more evident pretty soon.

Harry --



Whether the current Turkish government is overly Islamic is an open question. So far, they've been behaving themselves, they've made clear that they want to maintain good relations with the US and that they want to be admitted into Europe. The army, to date, has been openly supportive. There is a chance this is all a charade, but I don't see any particular reason to be pessimistic.



I'm also not sure to what extent a country that prides itself on having an unelected judiciary maintain a wall of separation between church and state is justified in feeling superior to a country that assigns that task to its army. There is a difference in degree, to be sure, but not one of kind.

My skepticism about Turkey, aside from its medieval

policies and continuing genocides, has to do with

society.



Sure, it has a democratic-looking polity, as does Pakistan. But do most of the citizens of either country

subscribe to democratic views? I'd say not.



The USSR had a nifty constitution, frequent elections. That did not make it a popular self-government.

Concerning Turkey and religion, I was hugely amused

to learn (in Roskill's life of Maurice Hankey) that in 1919, the incumbent Archbishop of Canterbury wanted

as war spoils to turn Hagia Sophia into a Christian

church again.



And Orrin says England had lost confidence by then!



I wouldn't be surprised if the current archbishop were to

turn St. Paul's into a mosque, and I will be surprised if

he doesn't at least create a mihrab in the southeast

wall.

Harry:



That would be well cool.

Turning Hagia Sophia into a church again?



However, as usual, my attempts at satire were outpaced

by events before I even hit the keyboard. Professor

Bunyip reports that an Australian church (Catholic

evidently) has abandoned the old liturgy for "Arab dances to Arab songs" whatever that may be.



Father Shea, if you could distract him from counting the loot, would be shocked.

In the interest of fairness, maybe I ought to point out

that there are Catholic songs and prayers in Arabic. In

fact, there are at least two entire liturgies in Arabic,

Malekite and Maronite.



However, using either with a non-Arabic-speaking congregation would be uncanonical. And I'd bet the

Arab song used at the Australian church was not from

one of the six ancient western Asian Catholic rites.