Turkey And The European Union

Let's keep it this way!

Firstly I would like to say that I don't agree with the EU and I don't like the fact that we are in it, but we are for now and we all need to live with it until we leave, get booted or what have you. But what does bother me is the possibility of Turkey joining some lovely sunny day in the very real near future.

In a speech at the Turkish parliament, Mr Cameron said he wanted to "pave the road" for Turkey to join the EU, saying the country was "vital for our economy, vital for our security and vital for our diplomacy".

He went on to say Turkey could become a "great European power", helping build links with the Middle East.

Does this not bother you can you imagine the consequences of such a suicidal move. For a reason unknown to me a vast majority our people voted for a party who for all intense purposes are trying to end our way of life not just with the Turkey issue but with many sensitive topics which I shall not enter into in this essay.

How can David Cameron go to Turkey and basically promise to promote and support the entry of Turkey into the European Union, on what grounds would that be good for us? And do we the vast majority of our nation want an estimated arrival of 1.000.000 Turks on our shores who would legally be allowed to come.

It's like this Turkey is not a European country for starters, it's a nation in western Asia with a small territory in southeast Europe which has been under Turkish occupation for several hundred years. Turkey does not have our traditions, culture or a way of life that is in all honesty compatible with our own.

Another important point is that Turkey is a Muslim nation with around 80 million people or so. And  at the moment all the nations that are in the EU are Christian not that it really bothers me because I am not Christian, for me that is also an imported religion from the east and is as foreign to us really as Islam and an Islamic Europe, which is what we are heading for if you look at the Demography of it all but none the less given a choice I would choose a Christian Europe over a Muslim one.

So if we put this in real terms and what it means for us today it would mean that If Turkey was to become a full member state, 80 million or so Muslim would be able to travel without restraint across Europe, seeking your jobs for half the pay, does that ring any bells Hmm Poles. I mean even a child can imagine the effects this would have on our society, culture, and way of life.  In the long run, 50 years after Turkey gets into the EU I honestly think Europe would look like a different place, a place we ourselves could not even recognise. Which brings me to another point Turkey I think would be a gateway for more illegal immigrants coming in Europe through the back door by that I mean Turkeys eastern border, I am no expert but I can't imagine its too difficult to creep across that border, even if caught for a small donation I am sure one would turn a blind.

The powers that be keep telling us that Turkey is one of the leading contenders for the post of "best" Muslim country, nonetheless it still decades behind the European altitudes and standards when it comes secularism, open-mindedness and all manner of rights. Despite the little progresses it has made in the past few years which the powers that be like to remind of us from time to time, the facts are Turkey by Turkey I mean its general populous are generally hostile to the idea of religious tolerance, our ideas of acceptable freedoms and freedom of speech, and us as people all said and done. I mean look in the recent past, Turkey raised objections to the former Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen from becoming the NATO Secretary-General which incidentally he now is. The Turks main argument was that he wasn’t fit for the job because he did not give an apology for caricatures of Muhammad which appeared in a Danish tabloid in 2005, which is a bit two-faced considering that the Turks have not recognised, well for that matter even ever considered apologising for the Armenian Massacres during and just after World War 1. In more recent times, Turkey has been severely abusing its ethnic Kurdish people for years. Again Christians, Turkish or other are not treated the same as the majority Muslims in Turkey to this day especially when it comes to practicing their religion. The few churches that remain in the region today are places of historical "importance" or are parts of more modern building which have no religious attachment.

If we remove the religious or cultural concerns Turkey’s entrance into the EU would probably also fuel some sort of financial-economical and political disparity.  Turkey´s long political disagreements with European Greece and Cyprus would probably become more active because of the very reason these nations would have to try to work together and this would add more stress on an already fragile EU, this would greatly threaten the already straining stability of the EU, which I suppose would be a good thing in the long run. Furthermore, Turkey would have the smallest economy in the EU and this would be a ball and chain for us to carry, and this chain would be felt by us much harder that the ones we had previously and the present day for example Poland, Lithuania and Romania.

So personally I feel admitting Turkey to the EU would be an extremely bizarre, rash and self-destructive move for the EU and Europe as a whole.

I spoke with a Turkish person I know and he said this to me, "I don't really care for joining the EU. I take home every month more than the present EU wage standard when I am home in Turkey, I am quite satisfied with the way things are in Turkey right now and don't see why we need to change, I enjoy travelling and am partial to visiting Europe, but that's the beauty of a vacation you get to see other cultures, eat their food and meet their people but when you leave it all stays there why should we Turks  have to change to suit you, I like being Turkish and am proud of that. But in the long and short term I don’t see any real benefit for us by joining the EU anytime soon.

So in closing if Turkey does someday enter the EU that means the EU has rejected or ignored the natural, cultural and geographical constraints on EU membership, and we should all ask ourselves perhaps it's time to offer membership to let's say Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the USA, and half of Latin America all of which are much more compatible to our way of life, attitude, and beliefs than Turkey will ever be.