- 1st Part -

Newropeans Magazine, France, November 25, 2004: An exhibition currently at the German Historical Museum on the Unter den Linden in Berlin entitled Myths of the Nations has attracted considerable attention with its displays of how people from different nations have formed and reformed the narratives of their experiences both of WWII and the Holocaust over the past sixty years. The purpose of the exhibition is to impress upon the visitor that national memory is really the past continuously re-interpreted through the present.

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Nowhere have the memories of the war faded. On the contrary, they are constantly being renewed in ever-changing variations. (German Historical Museum, Berlin, November 2004)

However, experiencing the layered myths of Berlin at an exhibition would remain incomplete if does not also include a long look in the mirror. The Germans have accepted the responsibility for untangling their past. But there is such terrible history elsewhere - the Gulag, the 'disappeared', Cambodia, Rwanda - that needs to be stripped of congealed myth and denial.

This congealed myth and denial also applies to Turkey and the massacres perpetrated by the Ottoman regime against Armenians in Turkey between 1896 and 1923 - including the Armenian Genocide of 1915. And it becomes even more vivid and germane today as Turkey gears up to enter into negotiations with the EU with a view toward membership of the European Club some time after 2015 - assuming that the negotiations proceed on time and without major hitches.

It is therefore understandable that Turkish candidacy to the EU has opened up discussions regarding Turkish 'appurtenance' to this regional club. My earlier article of 31 August 2004 entitled Dreaming West, Moving East focused on some of the issues - from geography to demography to history to human rights - that are part of the present discourse. A Convention in Brussels organised last month by the European Armenian Federation also focused, inter alia, on Turkish EU membership.

So it seems churlish to re-hash those same points today, save to add that there are serious concerns voiced by Armenians and non-Armenians alike not so much over the issue of candidacy per se as much as over the conditions under which Turkey is being admitted into the EU. In my view, these conditions or criteria are still not being met today.

Happy is he who calls himself a Turk is the slogan that was devised by Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, as he set about forging a fresh 'European' identity for his people. And for most of the past eighty years, those principles have been held sacrosanct by the Turkish authorities that have brooked no criticism and tolerated no dissent or divergence of opinion.

As the latest edition of the Economist magazine writes, Turkey has indefatigably tried to consolidate its European character over the past century. It joined the Council of Europe on 9 August 1949, and later the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on 18 February 1952. As far back as 1963, General Charles de Gaulle and Chancellor Adenauer had already acknowledged Turkey's 'vocation' to join the European Community. A Customs Union Treaty was signed on 1 January 1996, and ever since the EU Council of Ministers' summits of Helsinki (1999) and Copenhagen (2002), a tacit understanding was concluded that negotiations would open between Turkey and the EU in 2005.

But this tacit understanding was also clearly predicated on a number of 'pre-conditions' that Turkey would need to fulfill in the political, legal and socio-economic spheres prior to negotiations. I would argue that some of those fundamental criteria have not been met by Turkey to date. It is quite true that we have witnessed a number of reforms toward democracy under the present Turkish government. State-run military courts are in the process of disappearing, the death penalty has been abolished, the defense of 'attenuating circumstances' in honor killings has been suppressed and the penalization of adultery has been abandoned. Also, as the London-based Minority Rights International qualified in a recent report, there have been noticeable improvements in the case of minorities - notably the Kurds.

However, this veneer belies some serious inconsistencies and abuses of human rights that are either being fudged or side-stepped by the European Commission in its assessment of Turkey's readiness toward negotiations and eventual possible accession. Let me provide simply one example that underlines a culture of repression still prevalent within the Turkish establishment that makes sharp distinctions between reforms on paper and implementation in practice. Three years ago, the Turkish government set up a panel to take a broad look at questions of human rights and identity, and to suggest how matters could be improved on the ground. But the government got more than it expected: the Board's report, out last month, included statements that were considered almost unutterable in Turkey, triggering a sharp backlash.

Dr. Harry Hagopian, Ecumenical, Legal & Political Consultant
Armenian Apostolic Church - London

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