I guess ignorance is in fact bliss

Submitted by Lazman (United States), Feb 1, 2010 at 13:45

Marc, your comment "Turkey must never ever enter Europe. Constantinople was not their city to name Istanbul, they raided and sacked the city." is very emotional at best. Based on your irrational rationale of what happened 600 years ago it should be even more valid for what the Germans did 60-70 years ago to Europe. So what's Germany doing in EU as a key member?

And I thought it was only a middle eastern genetic trait that passed on centuries-old history as generational hatred ...

Your other statement "The Turks actually say the minarets are Islams bayonets, Muslims their Warriors, the Mosque their Barracks" is sheer nonsense. It is not the 70 million Turks who said that but one, Erdogan, yes one who today happens to be the PM of Turkey but one who does not represent most Turks since 53% did not even vote for his party, AKP, at the last election.

In 1998 (long before becoming PM) he publicly read a poem including those lines and was sentenced to four months in prison for inciting religious hatred by a then staunchly secular Turkish government. It may be considered too harsh of a punishment but it was one man, Erdogan, not the 70 million Turks who made those silly comments.

Your comment is like attributing one of many stupid Bush comments such as "I believe God wants me to be president" or "God told me to strike at al-Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East" to over 300 million US citizens.

A rational and logical argument against Turkey joining EU can in fact be two-fold. One: Turkey would have the second most EU MPs in Strasbourg, thus having a major say in EU affairs, and two: the influx of millions of Turks in EU that will impact the unemployment and demographics of Europe.

But the above comments made by you and some others on this blog demonstrate the classic case of 'Islamophobia' meaning 'an irrational fear of Islam'. Don't forget there are millions of highly secular and vocal Turkish Muslims who clearly have a rational fear of Islamization of their country under the current government. Learn and know the difference.

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