9 ms·

Blaming this on 'racism' is a poor argument. Maybe it has something to do with the incompatible cultures and values.

Cenk 10y ago
"incompatible cultures and values" are almost exactly the words these racists have always used to keep Turkey out. Britain, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Slovakia are all compatible, but Turkey is a step too far?
- tim333 10y ago
  In Germany Holocaust denial is illegal and you can get imprisoned for it. In Turkey it is required to deny the Armenian Genocide where the Turks killed a million or so Armenians, an act the word genocide was invented to describe. In Turkey you can get imprisoned for saying it happened. That's a fairly major incompatibility to deal with.
  - ousta 10y ago
    you can deny holocaust in many european countries...
    - Crespyl 10y ago
      Those countries do not have a state-enforced opposition to historical facts.
      - ousta 10y ago
        yes we all know history is hard science. not talking about the genocides here.
    - morgante 10y ago
      But you can't get arrested for saying it happened in any European countries.
      - trco 10y ago
        In France you can get imprisoned for holocaust denial. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial Art 9. – As an amendment to Article 24 of the law of July 29, 1881 on the freedom of the press, article 24 (a) is as follows written: <<Art. 24 (a). - those who have disputed the existence of one or more crimes against humanity such as they are defined by Article 6 of the statute of the international tribunal military annexed in the agreement of London of August 8, 1945 and which were a carried out either by the members of an organization declared criminal pursuant to Article 9 of the aforementioned statute, or by a person found guilty such crimes by a French or international jurisdiction shall be punished by one month to one year's imprisonment or a fine.
        morgante 10y ago
        While I don't agree with that law, it's the opposite of what I was talking about. In Turkey you literally can't admit that a genocide happened.
- jbmorgado 10y ago
  I, for one wouldn't be welcoming a country in EU that is now committing genocide against the Kurds for almost 3 generations. I also wouldn't be welcoming a country that refuses to acknowledge the full independence of another EU member state (Cyprus). If you want to play the racism/xenophobia card and pretend that these are not the big issues we have against Turkey in EU go ahead, but I can't tell you that you are not convincing anyone.
  - Cenk 10y ago
    >I also wouldn't be welcoming a country that refuses to acknowledge the full independence of another EU member state (Cyprus). Really? Because Cyprus would: >Cyprus is in favor of Turkey's Accession to the EU with the hope it will facilitate a viable and just solution of the Cyprus Problem. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Cyprus#Turkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Cyprus#Tu...)
- jerf 10y ago
  The easy post would be to point out that "racists once made that argument" is basically a slightly cloaked ad hominem attack trying to accuse your opponent of racism, without doing it clearly in a way that could be denied. But the more interesting post is to point out that if you allow racists the power to destroy an entire line of argumentation for all purposes forever by using it, you are ceding to them enormous power to control the discourse, even accidentally, by completely determining the bounds of acceptable debate. Racism is bad, but the way we treat it as radioactive waste nowadays has itself become a danger to society. It's merely bad. It is not the One True Sin, it is not the cause of all life's problems, it is not the One Temptation in life that if resisted means we can stop worrying about our moral status, it is not something that permanently twists everything it touches into an eternerally-unredeemable black goo, even ye unto a dozen generations. It's merely a bad thing that hurts people. Giving it the power to be those other things is an error too. So, yes, it is perfectly valid to address the question of "incompatible cultures and values". Of course, it does require one to admit that cultures have values that can differ from one another, which is, admittedly, a door that once you walk through does suddenly make a lot of the prepackaged really "nice" answers in current discourse suddenly obviously too oversimplified to be useful for any purpose, but such is reality.
mschuster91 10y ago
Nah, it was the German govm'ts fear of public backlash due to the fucked-up integration of Turkish immigrants. Public opinion in Germany was not Turkey-welcoming at the time. The current situation is just Erdogan having his revenge on Europe for dropping Turkey.
calibraxis 10y ago
If EU were decent, they'd delist Erdogan's enemy the PKK from the terrorist list. The PKK could teach the EU how to improve European society: (http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/30/opinions/rojava-kurds-syria-democracy/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/30/opinions/rojava-kurds-syri...) Not to mention the PKK would obviously help end ISIS.
- 0xFFC 10y ago
  This is pure nonsense. Are you kidding me ? do you have any idea what you are talking about ? Even Iraqi Kurds trying to ban PKK because they know what's going on in that organization. Even Kurds in turkey are not happy with PKK. They want a reform , but most of them wants stay in turkey, while the "being Turkish citizen definition changed".Look at how popular HDP is in Kurdish areas in Turkey. You have no clue what are you talking about. for further reference , please read/listen to Henri Barkey from Woodrow Wilson which is well respected political scientist.
  - calibraxis 10y ago
    Rather than mislead everyone, why not quote what exactly you disagree with, and offer evidence? - "How could Isis be eliminated? In the region, everyone knows. All it would really take would be to unleash the largely Kurdish forces of the YPG (Democratic Union party) in Syria, and PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ party) guerillas in Iraq and Turkey. These are, currently, the main forces actually fighting Isis on the ground. They have proved extraordinarily militarily effective and oppose every aspect of Isis’s reactionary ideology." (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/18/turkey-cut-islamic-state-supply-lines-erdogan-isis http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/18/turkey-...) - Erdogan went apeshit after HDP deprived him his parliament majority: "The cynicism behind Erdogan’s calculation to launch a full-scale war against the PKK is stunning." (http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/21/erdogans-deadly-ambitions-turkey-elections-president/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/21/erdogans-deadly-ambition...) - “'Kurdish people are fighting for our rights, and Turkey is trying to finish us off,' says 53-year-old Ramazon Sakci as he stands in the garden of his home, which is riddled with bullet holes.” (http://www.thenation.com/article/turkey-is-fighting-a-dirty-war-against-its-own-kurdish-population/ http://www.thenation.com/article/turkey-is-fighting-a-dirty-...)
return0 10y ago
Turkey, unlike most of the middle east in the news, descends from a multicultural, religiously tolerant empire (Ottoman). The culture is not far different from Greek. There is a regression to islamism with erdogan, but i don't think that's a permanent thing now. There is definitely some racism here.
- jakub_h 10y ago
  > "descends from a multicultural, religiously tolerant empire (Ottoman)" Where the terms "multicultural" and "religiously tolerant" apparently mean something quite a bit different from today (just like Athenian democracy from ours, for example).
  - return0 10y ago
    I don't think they are that different. Even romans had multiculturalism. Tolerance was not invented in the modern West.
    - jakub_h 10y ago
      Well, Romans, from what I can tell, had better multiculturalism than Ottomans centuries later. They did not split the society into religion-based classes. So "the West" was quite a bit more progressive centuries earlier in some ways.
- fauigerzigerk 10y ago
  No, I don't think it's racism. It's islamophobia, specifically a hostility towards the conservative trends within Islam that have become so much more dominant than they used to be. And faith based hostility absolutely goes both ways. I know this is a taboo subject, but we should stop acting as if religion was a racial attribute. It's not. Religions are opinions, and people will have to accept that others will take those opinions into account when it comes to forming a political union. The difficult thing is that only individuals can hold opinions but only countries can join the EU. So we are forced by the very nature of this decision to make a summary judgement that ignores individual opinions and therefore will be very unfair to some. This is something I am personally struggling with when it comes to Turkish EU membership.

Cenk 10y ago

"incompatible cultures and values" are almost exactly the words these racists have always used to keep Turkey out. Britain, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Slovakia are all compatible, but Turkey is a step too far?

tim333 10y ago
In Germany Holocaust denial is illegal and you can get imprisoned for it. In Turkey it is required to deny the Armenian Genocide where the Turks killed a million or so Armenians, an act the word genocide was invented to describe. In Turkey you can get imprisoned for saying it happened. That's a fairly major incompatibility to deal with.
- ousta 10y ago
  you can deny holocaust in many european countries...
  - Crespyl 10y ago
    Those countries do not have a state-enforced opposition to historical facts.
    - ousta 10y ago
      yes we all know history is hard science. not talking about the genocides here.
  - morgante 10y ago
    But you can't get arrested for saying it happened in any European countries.
    - trco 10y ago
      In France you can get imprisoned for holocaust denial. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial Art 9. – As an amendment to Article 24 of the law of July 29, 1881 on the freedom of the press, article 24 (a) is as follows written: <<Art. 24 (a). - those who have disputed the existence of one or more crimes against humanity such as they are defined by Article 6 of the statute of the international tribunal military annexed in the agreement of London of August 8, 1945 and which were a carried out either by the members of an organization declared criminal pursuant to Article 9 of the aforementioned statute, or by a person found guilty such crimes by a French or international jurisdiction shall be punished by one month to one year's imprisonment or a fine.
      - morgante 10y ago
        While I don't agree with that law, it's the opposite of what I was talking about. In Turkey you literally can't admit that a genocide happened.
jbmorgado 10y ago
I, for one wouldn't be welcoming a country in EU that is now committing genocide against the Kurds for almost 3 generations. I also wouldn't be welcoming a country that refuses to acknowledge the full independence of another EU member state (Cyprus). If you want to play the racism/xenophobia card and pretend that these are not the big issues we have against Turkey in EU go ahead, but I can't tell you that you are not convincing anyone.
- Cenk 10y ago
  >I also wouldn't be welcoming a country that refuses to acknowledge the full independence of another EU member state (Cyprus). Really? Because Cyprus would: >Cyprus is in favor of Turkey's Accession to the EU with the hope it will facilitate a viable and just solution of the Cyprus Problem. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Cyprus#Turkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Cyprus#Tu...)
jerf 10y ago
The easy post would be to point out that "racists once made that argument" is basically a slightly cloaked ad hominem attack trying to accuse your opponent of racism, without doing it clearly in a way that could be denied. But the more interesting post is to point out that if you allow racists the power to destroy an entire line of argumentation for all purposes forever by using it, you are ceding to them enormous power to control the discourse, even accidentally, by completely determining the bounds of acceptable debate. Racism is bad, but the way we treat it as radioactive waste nowadays has itself become a danger to society. It's merely bad. It is not the One True Sin, it is not the cause of all life's problems, it is not the One Temptation in life that if resisted means we can stop worrying about our moral status, it is not something that permanently twists everything it touches into an eternerally-unredeemable black goo, even ye unto a dozen generations. It's merely a bad thing that hurts people. Giving it the power to be those other things is an error too. So, yes, it is perfectly valid to address the question of "incompatible cultures and values". Of course, it does require one to admit that cultures have values that can differ from one another, which is, admittedly, a door that once you walk through does suddenly make a lot of the prepackaged really "nice" answers in current discourse suddenly obviously too oversimplified to be useful for any purpose, but such is reality.

mschuster91 10y ago

Nah, it was the German govm'ts fear of public backlash due to the fucked-up integration of Turkish immigrants. Public opinion in Germany was not Turkey-welcoming at the time. The current situation is just Erdogan having his revenge on Europe for dropping Turkey.

calibraxis 10y ago

If EU were decent, they'd delist Erdogan's enemy the PKK from the terrorist list. The PKK could teach the EU how to improve European society: (http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/30/opinions/rojava-kurds-syria-democracy/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/30/opinions/rojava-kurds-syri...) Not to mention the PKK would obviously help end ISIS.

0xFFC 10y ago
This is pure nonsense. Are you kidding me ? do you have any idea what you are talking about ? Even Iraqi Kurds trying to ban PKK because they know what's going on in that organization. Even Kurds in turkey are not happy with PKK. They want a reform , but most of them wants stay in turkey, while the "being Turkish citizen definition changed".Look at how popular HDP is in Kurdish areas in Turkey. You have no clue what are you talking about. for further reference , please read/listen to Henri Barkey from Woodrow Wilson which is well respected political scientist.
- calibraxis 10y ago
  Rather than mislead everyone, why not quote what exactly you disagree with, and offer evidence? - "How could Isis be eliminated? In the region, everyone knows. All it would really take would be to unleash the largely Kurdish forces of the YPG (Democratic Union party) in Syria, and PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ party) guerillas in Iraq and Turkey. These are, currently, the main forces actually fighting Isis on the ground. They have proved extraordinarily militarily effective and oppose every aspect of Isis’s reactionary ideology." (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/18/turkey-cut-islamic-state-supply-lines-erdogan-isis http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/18/turkey-...) - Erdogan went apeshit after HDP deprived him his parliament majority: "The cynicism behind Erdogan’s calculation to launch a full-scale war against the PKK is stunning." (http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/21/erdogans-deadly-ambitions-turkey-elections-president/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/21/erdogans-deadly-ambition...) - “'Kurdish people are fighting for our rights, and Turkey is trying to finish us off,' says 53-year-old Ramazon Sakci as he stands in the garden of his home, which is riddled with bullet holes.” (http://www.thenation.com/article/turkey-is-fighting-a-dirty-war-against-its-own-kurdish-population/ http://www.thenation.com/article/turkey-is-fighting-a-dirty-...)

return0 10y ago

Turkey, unlike most of the middle east in the news, descends from a multicultural, religiously tolerant empire (Ottoman). The culture is not far different from Greek. There is a regression to islamism with erdogan, but i don't think that's a permanent thing now. There is definitely some racism here.

jakub_h 10y ago
> "descends from a multicultural, religiously tolerant empire (Ottoman)" Where the terms "multicultural" and "religiously tolerant" apparently mean something quite a bit different from today (just like Athenian democracy from ours, for example).
- return0 10y ago
  I don't think they are that different. Even romans had multiculturalism. Tolerance was not invented in the modern West.
  - jakub_h 10y ago
    Well, Romans, from what I can tell, had better multiculturalism than Ottomans centuries later. They did not split the society into religion-based classes. So "the West" was quite a bit more progressive centuries earlier in some ways.
fauigerzigerk 10y ago
No, I don't think it's racism. It's islamophobia, specifically a hostility towards the conservative trends within Islam that have become so much more dominant than they used to be. And faith based hostility absolutely goes both ways. I know this is a taboo subject, but we should stop acting as if religion was a racial attribute. It's not. Religions are opinions, and people will have to accept that others will take those opinions into account when it comes to forming a political union. The difficult thing is that only individuals can hold opinions but only countries can join the EU. So we are forced by the very nature of this decision to make a summary judgement that ignores individual opinions and therefore will be very unfair to some. This is something I am personally struggling with when it comes to Turkish EU membership.