Turkey Should Ignore What Europe Says About Democracy
Turkish Daily News – the country’s biggest and most successful English-language newspaper – published an op-ed written by yours truly. The title of the op-ed is, “Turkey should ignore what Europe says about democracy.”
In it, I essentially take aim at my fellow Europeans who love to tell Turkey what to do, but who do not understand this country one bit. If they would have taken the time to study this country’s culture and history – and dynamics – I could take them somewhat seriously, but, as it is, I believe that the European Union should be ignored. If Turks do what the EU wants them to do, Turkey will become an Islamic state within now time.
As I write in the article (be sure to read the op-ed in its entirety of course):
Until my fellow Europeans decide to study Turkey’s history and culture seriously they should refrain from commenting on that country’s domestic issues. And if they comment on those issues nonetheless, Turks should thank them for their interest, and go on doing what they consider best for their country and their people.
Read it here.
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Lagendijk doesn’t understand Turkey? He has a different perspective from your conservative views. Like you, he has a Turkish girlfriend. Like you, he has been in Turkey a lot. Actually he doesn’t differs much from you, apart from your opinions. There is no single truth. And AKP is more like CDA then the Christian Union party which is more similar to the Saadet party.
That is simply not correct. That is a comparison the AKP and its supporters want people to accept, but the difference is that for the CDA, the Christian religion plays a very minor role. It basically only encouraged them to be in politics, to govern a people. Other than that, nothing.
But the AKP wants to force people to live according to their religious views and laws. That’s not like the CDA, that’s like a mild version of the Taliban.
And Lagendijk does not understand Turkey in so far as… well, I explained it in the article. He has experience with Turks, but he does not understand the country’s dynamics.
Here is what I write about Mr. Lagendijk:
In other words; he does not understand Turkey in so far that he does not understand the dynamics and the threat conservative Muslims – as the Talibanists are called – pose to the freedom of all others.
Either that, of course, or he supports them anyway. Which is even worse.
Lagendijk is married to a Turkish woman.
Rest of this article shows MvG his anti democratic stance.
If radical Islam keeps expanding in the EU as it does now, eople will understand in some decades or even years…
In my opinion, the EU governments need to create a directorate which controls the mosques, imams etc. I’m fed up with unemployed people who receive social support from the government, getting away with preaching radical stuff in European mosques and getting away with it.
Only qualified people who also respect democracy, human rights and secularism should be allowed to teach religion (any religion, that is).
And as long as we dont have enough of them to serve in all mosques, we should have centrally written sermons for the friday prayer texts.
A.A.B., that sounds pretty undemocratic to me. The government centrally controlling a religion is no better than the religion centrally controlling the government.
I’m going to make no secret that my country’s constitution biases my views, but I truly do believe that banning headscarves does not serve to make your country more secular. Seems to me to be a slippy slope from no headscarves down to no religion allowed at all.
I would say the opposite in regards to Turkey if the Islamists were in control making all women cover up wherever they go, follow a step behind their husbands, and not talk to anyone but their husbands, as is common in other countries.
This is coming from someone who believes his own country could learn a few lessons about its government becoming more secular.
It’s all about balance and moderation.
You, my dear friend, have this great trouble understanding what ‘democracy’ is all about in the West. You simply democracy to ‘majority rule.’ Luckily, political thinkers far more intelligent and informed than you can hope to be, understood and understand that such a democracy is dangerous. This is why we, in the West, protect minorities so much in our respective constitutions. In literally no Western country does the majority have the right to become a dictator and to oppress the minority (which is a very real danger of the kind of democracy you wish).
Um. Turkey has this law for years, and strict secularism for decades. Still Turks are privately among the most religious people in the world.
Additionally, you’re using a logical fallacy.
Um. Don’t you think that, at the moment this happens, it’s all a bit too late? Read the other post with the e-mail I received. Perhaps it will make you understand the danger better.
The problem is that when you are dealing with Islamists, there really is no good ‘moderate’ approach. We should have learned that lesson by now. Strangely, when it comes to Islamists living in the West, most people have understood that. But when it comes to Islamists living in a country in which the majority is Muslim, suddenly we do not understand it… at all.
As for your remark about your own constitution; yes, I think that the bias is clear, and I truly believe that Westerners have to quickly learn to stop trying to pretend that principles that work well in their own country, will work well in every other country in the world.
Sadly the universal truths we propagate in the West, aren’t universal at all. We should have learned that lesson hundreds of years ago, but we still have not.
Michael Meritt,
Democracy also needs to defend itself. This means that a democracy should grant liberty of religion, but only to such a degree that religion doesn’t become a threat to democracy. And honestly, many Muslim groups here in Germany are working hard to create totalitarian parallel societies in which their followers are pretty much cut off from that democratic and egalitarian values the majority believes in. Or in other words: Granting these communities collective rights enables them to remove individual rights from the people they brainwash. (NB: I’m saying this as a Muslim theologian who knows quite some mosques and communities from inside…)
Although I wouldn’t want to see any interruption in the cultural dialog between Turkey and the West, I must agree with Michael’s fundamental postulate here. Every culture has its own unique problems and those problems have their own unique solutions. People are free -for the most part- to think and act as they wish, and Westerners who wish to live out their whole lives without ever attempting to seriously study Moslem Cultures and understand what they are all about – are entirely free to do so. But when they then look to these same Moslem Cultures and start insisting on this or that solution, we have a serious problem. What’s really happening is that Westerners are insisting on imposing fundamentally Western solutions on a non-Western country. This is fallacious because if they have not understood the full dimensions of the problem they will surely never be able to come up with a suitable solution to it. Worse yet, such conduct shows a fundamental disrespect for the dignity of the victim culture. It’s as if Westerners are saying "your culture isn’t important enough to deserve my in-depth study so I’ll simply insist that you ‘do it our way’ ".
The question of Moslems living in Western countries and how to grant them their rights while preserving the rights of the majority population is an entirely different problem, in my view, though it also requires an in-depth understanding of the subject culture.
I don’t like this Muslim, or Turkish, exceptionalism.
Western way: If something has legitimate use/application, allow it, but curtail and prosecute abuse.
Turkish way: If something can be abused, ban it, and curtail and prosecute legitimate use (if it attracts attention; turn a blind eye if it doesn’t).
If Turkey, with its 80+ year secular past and 60+ year multi-party experience, can’t bite the bullet, noone can.
"Lagendijk is married to a Turkish woman."
Well, maybe that’s the problem. Does she support the AKP?
Get a clue Europe!
Maybe, just maybe, the reason Turkey is the most stable democracy with a majority Muslim population is because it has so carefully and relentlessly kept religion out of government for the past 85 years.
Ya think?
No, Lagendijk’s spouse is suspicious of the AKP and against it. And Turkey is not a secular country. Religion is mentioned on the passport, state controls religion through diyanet, state builds mosques/imam hatip schools and state denies Alevi’s their religious freedom. Problem is that AKP doesn’t respect minorities and only follow their own agenda. They critisize other parties for corruption, but they are also corrupt in the end. Lagendijk rather haves a secular party who is pro-EU. But they don’t exist.
Turkey resembles more to South-American countries and it’s not the ‘most stable’ country with a lot of military coups, polarization, ethnic separatism and ultra extreme nationalism.
Michael, you say that Turkish people are privately some of the most religious people in the world. Yet, the Turkish courts (and other governments who’ve banned headscarves) would tell these people what to do in their private lives? Surely this is just as bad as an islamist controlled court telling people they have to wear headscarfs?
I think there’s a fundamental difference between stopping a Taliban-ist islamist government from arising and telling people what to do with their private lives.
The constitutionality of the party is an entirely different subject. if the party truly is going against the goals of Turkey’s constitution, it will be found out in due order, yes?
WHAT? Do you actually read my posts or what? Since when does the court tell people what to do in their private lives? They only tell people what to do in public life.
It’s pretty useless to still wear a headscarf, when you are on school most of the time. Everyboy has seen you without a headscarf. So you can better not use it. And the headscarf wasn’t forbidden in Ataturk’s time, but during the military coup. So I think it’s part of your ‘private live’. You cannot wear what you want. Reminds me of Ataturk’s hat law.