Michael, you make some great points, particularly this:
Erdogan’s behavior shows the wisdom of European leaders who resisted Turkey’s inclusion into the European Union.
Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, a tough-minded secularist and, unlike Erdogan, a genuine nationalist (thus he insisted that public readings of the Koran be in Turkish, not Arabic), would be appalled that this throw-back is now running Turkey.
Meanwhile, The Economist’s Charlemagne blogger takes well-targeted aim at U.S. establishment types — such as Thomas Friedman – trying to hustle the EU into accepting Turkish membership of the Brussels club:
Joining today’s union is not like entering the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). American pundits might like to try the following two thought experiments, based on real-life EU instruments, and imagine how, with Mexico playing the part of Turkey, they would sell either to American voters.
First, imagine a NAFTA single market, with legal powers to ban congressional aid intended to stop a Detroit car factory moving to Mexico. If Congress persisted, NAFTA competition authorities could send the American government to be fined by Mexican, American and Canadian judges at the NAFTA court. The EU already does this.
Second, consider a NAFTA arrest warrant, based on “mutual recognition”, ie, the principle that a Mexican court’s ruling is as valid as one from Ohio. A New Yorker accused of a serious crime (a drunken rape in Cancún, say) could not fight extradition on grounds of poor Mexican police work, but would have to be shipped promptly to Mexico for trial. Because the EU arrest warrant already exists, Europeans have a right to fret about Turkish courts.
Americans who compare their two centuries of union to the six decades of European integration may think they are paying Europe a compliment. But it often comes across as condescension. Yes, it took America a while to form a federal government and issue a common currency, and America did fight a civil war. But European differences, whether of language, religion or history, go back millennia. Europe’s conflicts were not civil wars.
On numerous measures, Europe is more diverse than America. Per-capita wealth in Mississippi, the poorest state, is almost two thirds the national average. But the poorest EU member, Bulgaria, stands at 38% of the union average. Mississippi is also the most religious state: folks there are three times more likely to go to church weekly than in Vermont (the most secular state). Well, three quarters of Maltese and two thirds of Poles go to church once a week: just 3% of Danes do the same. Mississippians are less likely than Californians to think global warming is a “very serious” problem, by 56% to 73%. Try Estonia, where just 42% think climate change is “very serious”, compared to 84% of Greeks.
Some Americans are still unfazed. Come on Euro-Lilliputians, they cry, form a United States of Europe and elect yourself a president. They might like to ponder the kind of European issue big enough to win votes, continent-wide. Depressingly, opposing Turkey is one of the few that might do the trick.
That’s well put – and, coming from The Economist, striking. The writer, after all, subscribes to the idea that it would ultimately be in “Europe’s” interest (whatever Europe might mean) for Turkey to join the EU, and his magazine regularly describes the thuggish Turkish prime minister as only “mildly” Islamist, a qualifier that, in different ways, reflects badly both on Islamism and The Economist.