Radical Islam? Try Europe

Submitted by Levent (Turkey), Nov 6, 2005 at 18:38

Look to your own North African, Arab, Pakistani etc communities if you wish to see radical islam, not Turkey. But you are finding this out for yourselves the hard way; in Spain, in Britain, in France etc etc.

Let us deal with reality here and dispense with the real myth:

Myth: we cannot allow Turkey into the EU as it is a trojan horse for islam.

Reality: we cannot allow Turkey into the EU as its population will give it sufficient voting rights that the UK will no longer find itself alone against a Franco-German pact and will thus serve as a trojan horse for NATO (US).

The claim is true secularity is impossible, which may be true. However, the EU is riddled with nations that make not attempt at it whatsoever - when the EU addresses issues such as member states not allowing rape victims, even as young as 12 for examples sake, from getting an abortion we will take its objections more seriously.

The Turkey will join the EU, that is inevitable now. We want European markets and you want the increased geopolitical influence. We do not expect to be spoon fed; the EU budget is simply not big enough to do for a country of Turkey's size what it did for Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland etc. Besides, our economy is growing at 9-10% annually with no EU aid. As for the hysteria about mass migration - your politicians want this, it means they can put off the needed pension reforms. EU average for workers/population is falling to 50% whereas 2/3rds of us our workers. You want an EU rapid response army? With which troops - the UK has less than 10,000 in Iraq and is complaining about how chronically stretched it is.

The dilemma for EU countries is this - do they want increased collective global influence for the EU, for which Turkey would be of immense benefit, or do they want individual influence within the EU, which will be undermined by a new player with more voting rights stepping in.

Either way, all the Latvias and Estonias in the world will not make the EU what it wishes to be.

You can argue of course that Turkey should not be a part of europe at all, as many people argue these days. The reason they argue it these days and not 80 years ago when it would have actually been relevant is that back then such a suggestion would have been seen as ridiculous. The Turkish Republic was born from a war with entirely european powers for ownership of these lands - it is only now that people have forgotten the history of this that they are questioning our place in the world.

Incidentally, the idea that Turkey will give way to Sharia is to comical to engage with any degree of seriousness.

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