Turkey’s denial for full EU membership a case that has been going on for 30 years is a lesson to other non-European nations like India, Japan, South Korea that loves to go behind the West functioning as their lapdogs and being their loyal strategic partners believing that the EU considers them on par with them. That is not so, it is unlikely to be ever so and it is nothing but wishful thinking. Turkey has been very loyal to the West but Turkey cannot or is not even been considered for full EU membership and that reveals much and exposes the true racism that is EU.

Who differentiated & labeled people by race? Western European colonial invaders. There is no denying that this labelling laid the foundations to the differences tied to race and the differences associated by racism as a result.  It was these Western European colonial invaders who created a legacy of features that defined people, separated them and labelled them by education, legal status, religion and nationality. None of these differences existed before arrival of these Western imperialists. Forcible conversions too started with the Abrahamic faiths – people had little choice. They fell to coercions and adopted the new faith or had to face death unless they converted. This is how Abrahamic faiths expanded and these faiths continue their expansion in more subtle and profound ways.

It was these invaders both Christian & Islamic that brought in the notion of ‘inferiority’ ‘superiority’. Their faiths, their cultures, their ways were and had to be above all others. Supremacy in both cases were tied to religion and based on domination over others thus the colonizers mentality was that they were supreme over the colonized. It was a case of ‘us’ ruling over ‘them’ – Europeans thought themselves the dominant race and the colonized were the subjects, the slaves or subordinates.  Thus, the notion that the Europeans believed themselves to be ‘civilizing’ the rest of the world which Rudyard Kipling termed as the ‘White Man’s Burden’. The Roman Empire was built on slavery.  Racial difference soon became tied to the colour of the skin. Whites believed themselves to be superior on account of their skin colour. The European invaders built their colonies on racial hierarchy going to the extent of devising legal codes with terms that clearly distinguished the division – ex French Code Noir (Black Code), Black Friday, Black Market, Black Wednesday, Black list. Everything bad was generally associated with black and everything good was automatically associated and linked to white. This had been dented into the psyche of both the white and the non-white through education, society etc. It has been a systematic indoctrination process over 500 years.

With time the US & Europeans came to regard racism as a politically evolved ‘natural order’ and ingrained into every system they championed. Who introduced racial segregation laws & restrictions on black voters? Who exercised racial domination like public lynching, racial slurs, brutal and deadly intimidations, racial terms and jokes?

Who introduced the apartheid system in South Africa? Who disallowed people in love to marry simply because one partner was white and the other black? Who established separate residential areas for whites, blacks and mixed races?

ABC of Racist Europe by Daniela Ortiz clearly establishes the racism that exists

https://archive.org/stream/TheAbcOfRacistEurope/ABC_OF_RACIST_EUROPE_ortiz#page/n25/mode/2up

The Ottoman Empire was founded Fon 27 July 1299 by Osman 1 a Turkish chieftan and became one of the largest empires to rule the borders of the Mediterranean Sea covering a population of 14.6m with Constantinople as its capital. The Ottomans were originally not followers of Islam but followed a shamanistic religion. The Turks invaded Europe, won the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 and conquered the Balkans upto borders of Hungary.

Western Europeans feared that the success of the Ottoman Empire would bring about the downfall of Christendom. 3 crusades in 1366, 1396 and 1444 were launched to counter this. Incidentally, Ottoman’s greatest military assets were the Janissaries, paid army of Christian soldiers who were Bulgarian, Greek, Serbian, Bosnian and Albanian. In other words they were mercenaries or sepoys. While the Byzantine Empire began its collapse the Ottoman Empire rose & expanded resulting in the invasion of Thrace (comprises southeastern Bulgaria (Northern Thrace), northeastern Greece (Western Thrace) and the European part of Turkey (Eastern Thrace). Constantinople was captured in 1453 and its name was changed to Istanbul, Athens fell in 1456, but 1529 Ottomans moved up Danube river and besieged Vienna.

The Empire officially ended in 1924 with the abolishing of the caliphate by the Turkish Grand National Assembly.

Turkey

Colonial borders or rather artificial borders drawn by colonial invaders are party to much of the conflict prevalent today. These borders were drawn with a pencil completely ignoring that the line would divide people, families, tribes, cultures etc. Thus, Middle East was divided by British & French through the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement which betrayed British promise to Hussein Ibn Ali emir of Mecca who provided military support against the Ottoman Turks in WW 1 and the hatred of Arabs in Syria for French Rule. The Emir’s son seized Damascus and proclaimed himself king of Syria but was ousted by France who was in control of Syria & newly created Lebanon. Britain gave Emirs son the new state of Iraq comprising cities of Baghdad, Basra, Mosul. Emir’s other son was given TransJordan (desert between Iraq, Palestine, Syria) Iraq & Transjordan became Jordan. The 40m Kurds (with no state) are the biggest losers and the biggest victims from the artificial partitioning. Britain & France left Middle East in the 1940s.

Majority of people of Turkey converted to Islam only during 8^th & 9^th centuries while others chose to remain nomadic.

After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, modern Turkey’s foundation began after becoming a republic on 29 October 1923 with the Treaty of Lausanne which established the present boundaries of Turkey. The Treaty repatriated 1.5m Greeks living in Turkey to Greece and 800,000 Turks living in Greece & Bulgaria to Turkey. In 1924 the Caliphate was abolished.

Turkey’s 1^st President was Mustafa Kemal Ataturk until 1938 when he was succeeded by Ismet Inonu. He forbid polygamy, forbid covering face, Islam ceased to be state religion in 1928 & Latin was substituted for Arabic. Constantinople was renamed Istanbul in 1930. Ataturk nationalist programs aimed at self-sufficiency without foreign capital. Turkey became member of League of Nations in 1932. In exchange for rejecting Soviet demands in 1947 US assistance was given through Truman doctrine a policy of aligning to the West. Turkish troops even fought in the Korean War and Turkey was given full membership of NATO in 1952 with US air & missile bases established in Turkey.

In 1961 constitution was changed the following year Turkey supported US during the Cuban missile crisis. Turkish troops invaded Cyprus in 1974 gaining 30% of its land. Another new constitution was adopted in 1982 giving military influence over civilian matters. US used Turkey to launch air strikes against Iraq in 1991. The Turkish Parliament however, refused US permission to invade Iraq from bases in Turkey though US could fly over Turkey.

Turkey’s desire to remain secular was seen by the manner successive attempts to bring pro-Islamic rulers failed – the Welfare Party was even banned in 1998 and a newly created Virtue Party was also banned in 2001. Erdogan who had been previously banned from running for elections was allowed to do so.

In 1999 Turkey was invited to apply for membership to the EU though Turkey was rejected in 1997. Even by 2002 EU had refused to set a date for negotiations. The excuse given for Turkey’s human rights and democracy record. In reality it was because Turkey was an Islamic nation. Germany, France & Austria voiced concerns of Turkey integrating its 80m Muslims into EU society.

Ergodan became Prime Minister in 2003 & declared Turkey is very much ready to be part of the European Union family.” Two years later formal discussions to admit Turkey to the EU begin. By 2010, EU was stalling with excuse after excuse not to admit Turkey.

In 2014, Ergodan is elected President and two years later fresh negotiations for Turkey’s EU admission commences once again. It was in April 2017 that the European Parliament called for the formal suspension of Turkey’s EU membership.

For 30 years EU countries have been dithering about accepting Turkey to the EU.

There is nothing other than racism behind not accepting Turkey as a full EU member state though Turkey is expected to align with the West in all of its diplomatic affairs.

It just exposes EU bloc of nations in the manner they use and dump non-white Christian nations in world politics.

Shenali D Waduge