not a valid comparison

Submitted by Mozere (United Kingdom), Jul 12, 2013 at 04:50

While I agree that Turkey should not be a member of the EU at present its possible membership in future should not be precluded due to geographical and cultural factors.Moroccan example is not an apt comparison because Morocco was only marginally involved in the history of modern Europe where as the Ottomans and the republic of Turkey were actively involved in the making of modern Europe starting with the Franco Ottoman alliance against the Habsburgs which curbed the Austrian hegemony in the Balkans, engagements with the Catholic Spanish navy in the Med greatly helped the Protestant cause in N Europe and France in the face of Habsburg encirclement this was in the 16th century,Turkish involvement within the European politics carried on when in the 2nd half of the 20th century Turkey prevented the USSR expansion into the Balkans and the Med.Therefore without the Turkish involvement modern Europe would have been a very different place.

Culturally Europe since the enlightenment is very much a secular environment and not a "christian club" where peoples from different religions or of non belief already live in harmony.Culture is a changing social phenomenon,Christianity to the Romans was an oriental superstition,today Christian resurgence is only a passing reaction to the Jihadists by people many of whom would not know the road to their local church.Finally I would say that a Christian Serb has more in common culturally with a Turk than a Finn or a Swede from the gloomy forests of the North.

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