Is Douglas Murray making up facts?
Douglas Murray, author of the author of the Social Affairs Unit's pamphlet Neoconservatism: Why We Need It, who gave a speech to the Pim Fortuyn memorial trotting out a load of familiar rhetoric about "dhimmitude" which I debunked here, has posted another moronic article to the SAU's blog on the Pope's recent visit to Turkey (which Mad Mel uncritically reproduced). His general gist was that the Pope should simply not have caved in to Muslim pressure to change his position on Turkey joining the European Union, which he had previously opposed.
Among other howlers in the article, such as casting the tiny gaggle of morons who "protested" outside Westminster Cathedral after the Pope's lecture in Regensburg with curses against the Pope, something which is not permitted in Islam, as "some of the cruder representatives of the 'religion of peace'", and recommending a book by Robert Spencer, there is this accusation:
A discussion of the merits or demerits of Turkish entry might be left for another day, but what cannot be left unaddressed is the signal the Pope has now given out.
How is it possible that he changed so much
asked a young Islamist girl called Merve Celikkol, who concluded to the New York Times reporters on the ground that the Pope is "a hypocrite".
The NY times report can be found here (reproduced here), and as you can see by reading the short passage in which Ms Celikkol is mentioned, there is no evidence that she is an "Islamist" at all:
In Ankara, residents expressed doubts about the pope’s sincerity, and it remains to be seen whether the pope’s gesture will have a warming effect in Turkey, or in the broader Muslim world.
“It’s not support, it’s a lie,” said Hakan Ozgunaydin, a 29-year-old co-owner of an upscale shoe and belt shop in downtown Ankara. “I would expect him to say, ‘those bloody Turks,’ when he leaves this country.”
Merve Celikkol, a 21-year-old physics student, was just as blunt, calling the pope a hypocrite: “How is it possible that he changed so much?”
(American readers please note: "bloody" is a British English curse word, allegedly derived from "by our Lady".)
Where does Murray get the idea that Ms Celikkol is an "Islamist"? If she is a physics student, then she would have to remove her hijab before entering college, something which most women attached to "Islamism" wouldn't even consider doing. Many women dropped out of university in Turkey to avoid doing this, and others went abroad to study.
And it's term-time. If she's an Islamist, and a physics student, chances are she was not interviewed in Turkey.
But that's not the point. Murray calls her an Islamist. The article does not say she is, and I can't find any that says she is.
Comments
The whole purpose of the Kemalist project is to Europeanize Turkey. If Turkey is still rejected by the EU, then Kemalism has clearly failed.
What would the European secularists rather have, a Kemalist Turkey within the EU, or a Turkey outside the EU, under Shari'ah law?
Posted by: George Carty
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December 2, 2006 6:05 PM
Why would any Muslim ever support the concept of the EU? It is the Holy Roman Empire reincarnated and run by Christian Capitalists.
Something I have never understood is the lack of opposition towards the EU by Muslim or any other ethnic groups living in Britain.
Posted by: M Risbrook | December 3, 2006 3:29 PM
None of you have it right. The Pope didn't reverse his stance on Turkey's EU entry.
I repeat, neither the Pope nor any Vatican official made any such statement. It was a minor Turkish official who took it upon himself to put words into the pontiff's mouth after the latter had a very brief pulic-relations meeting with the Turkish president......while they crossed paths at the airport.
The Pope is against Turkey's entry into the EU.
Always has been and probably always will be.
What he did call for, though, was reciprocity from the Muslim world when it comes to the rights of religious minorities, particularly Christian minorities living in majority Muslim countries.
No word from either the Turkish or Muslim press about that, however.
What would the European secularists rather have, a Kemalist Turkey within the EU, or a Turkey outside the EU, under Shari'ah law?
The EU no longer wants Turkey.
In fact, they probably hope that turkey will institute Shari'ah law because under such a legal systeme the country will become militarily and economically weaker and thus easier to controle.
We should remember that post-Ottoman Turkey no longer has the Orthodox Christian technocratic elite the Ottomans once enjoyed and which managed much of the empire's affairs.
Without a vibrant and competent Christian community to kite off of a shariàh based Turkey will be a piece of cake to manipulate and to contain.
Think of a Saudi Arabia with no oil and minus the millions of foreign non-Muslim guest workers that prop up its economy.
Posted by: John Palubiski | December 4, 2006 6:36 PM
JP: Turkey is not Saudi Arabia or a similar Gulf state. It's not even an Arab country. It is not Iran either, but has much in common such as a large and relatively well-educated population, large-scale agriculture and proper industry (even if much of it is state-owned and not very efficient). Such Muslim countries tend to export, rather than import, guest workers - the Gulf makes use of a lot of Egyptians as engineers and other skilled workers, besides the western expats, for example.
I suspect that if Turkey was to take a more Islamic direction, it would not really resemble any of the present examples of "Islamic" rule, because its religious culture is different from those found elsewhere. It does not, for example, have the element of reaction to persecution found in Iran; it does not have the ultra-conservative Deobandi culture which proved ripe for Saudi interference, unlike Pakistan; it has had nothing like the conflicts caused by modernism and Muslim Brotherhood ideology, unlike Egypt; it is not dominated by Wahhabism, unlike Saudi Arabia.
As for the Christians you talk about, they presently live in Greece, which has been a democracy for a relatively short time and, in terms of western intellectual culture, is something of an also-ran.
Posted by: Yusuf Smith
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December 4, 2006 11:43 PM
Turkey and Turkish Muslims have the same retrograte attributes as any other islamic country....save Iran.
It has that atmosphere of stagnation and fatalism.
Its secularist veneer was imposed from without because as with every other Muslim country....save Iran...that's been challenged by modernity, the old "caliphate" collapsed from within.
This is a recurring theme in Islamic history, by the way.
Every time the non-muslim elements of a majority Muslim state/sultanate fall below that critical limit necessary to support a "Golden Age", that golden age comes to an abrupt end.
There is a direct connection between the size of a Muslim society's non-muslim minorities and that Muslim society's penchant for excellence, achievement, cultural effervesence.
When that minority is consummed the excellence evaporates.
Posted by: John Palubiski | December 5, 2006 6:49 PM
JP was probably referring, not to the Greek Christians who were ruled by the Turks, but to the Armenian Christians, who were very advanced culturally. There was, formerly, a saying that "one Armenian was as good as 10 Jews" when it came to getting stuff done.
Posted by: Tangerine | December 10, 2006 3:20 PM