LET TURKEY IN

Turkey has for centuries been a convenient European metaphor for all that is evil, but in truth there is very little that Turkey stands historically accused of which Europe has also not been guilty. Recently, however, M. Giscard d’Estaing – that great and principled defender of democracy, as the people of the Central African Republic and former empire will be the first to attest – saw fit to resort to the kind of language about Turkey that was straight out of the 17th century. M. Giscard d’Estaing is, in fact, the sick man of Europe.

He resorted to the most flagrantly prejudiced rhetoric in his now notorious interview in Le Monde. He said, for example, that 95 per cent of Turks lived in Asia, by which he meant to conjure up the image of hordes of primitive peasants scratching a living in Anatolia, wholly ignorant of European ways and civilisation, while about a sixth of all Turks live in Istanbul alone. By characterising the country as completely, essentially and eternally alien and hostile to Europe, as well as backward morally and physically, he was in effect saying that it never could, and never should, integrate with the rest of Europe.

This is a dangerous way to think and to speak. If Turkey cannot turn to Europe, in what direction can it turn? Those who crave acceptance but are continually refused it (especially when it is refused as disdainfully as M. Giscard d’Estaing refused it, in his own inimitable fashion) often turn into dangerous enemies. And Turkey is no tin-pot little country to be trifled with.

The victory of the Islamists in the recent elections is actually good news for several reasons. First, it demonstrates that Turkish democracy, though imperfect, is far from a complete sham.