‘Turkey facing hurdles in its EU journey because of Europe’s identity crisis’

Mustafa Edib Yilmaz

A leading researcher at the Washington, D.C.,-based Middle East Institute (MEI) has said Europe is currently going through a process of redefining its own identity, which plays and will continue to play a decisive role in Turkey’s accession process.

MEI Center for Turkish Studies Executive Director Gönül Tol agreed to speak with Sunday’s Zaman in İstanbul. Tol, who received her doctoral degree in political science from Florida International University, argued that the Enlightenment and its core ideals of human autonomy, progress, importance of reason and secularism formed the cornerstone of a common European identity, which opposed the role of established religion in directing thought and action. This new identity, Tol argues, defined a new role for religion outside the realm of the public sphere.

According to Tol, three centuries after the Enlightenment, Europe is now in the process of redefining its identity in an attempt to find a new place for religion in the European public sphere. She states that European nations’ rediscovery of Islam as a result of post-World War II migration and the dynamics of globalization give a sense of urgency to European attempts to find a new modus vivendi between Enlightenment ideals and the increasingly assertive demands of their Muslim minorities to operate freely in the European public spheres as Muslims.

To Tol, in this century, religion is not only a strong psychological anchor but also an effective claims-making tool, especially for marginalized groups, and that is why Muslim immigrants in Europe have increasingly been expressing themselves through their religious identities rather than their ethnic or class identities. Turkey’s EU process, Tol says, should be understood against this background. “Turkey’s membership in the EU is not a foreign policy decision for the European countries, but it is a domestic issue for them. Europeans are trying to come to terms with the increasingly important role religion plays in the modern world. A redefinition that takes into account this reality is necessary and it is this identity crisis that Europeans are going through that explains the impediments Turkey faces in the membership process.”

Turkey was recognized as an official candidate to the EU in 1999, but started accession negotiations in 2005 at the same time as Croatia -- a Balkan country of an estimated 4.5 million people, most of whom are Roman Catholics -- which was actually recognized as a candidate in 2004. After five years of membership talks, Turkey was only able to open 13 of the 33 chapters in which negotiations must be successfully concluded before a candidate’s bid is presented to a vote at the European Council where unanimous support from all member states is necessary for accession. Croatia, on the other hand, opened all of those 33 chapters and managed to close 25 of them, swiftly approaching the final stage to membership.

Many observers now say that while it is likely that there is only one more year before Croatia becomes an EU member, Turkey may need at least a decade to accomplish the same goal. According to Tol, religion has become the main form of identification among immigrants in Europe, particularly Turkish immigrants, because unlike ethnic identity religion answers their need for a sense of belonging -- socially, temporally and metaphysically. She argues, “No other repositories of cultural meaning have historically offered so much in response to the human need to develop a secure identity, which is quite necessary, especially for a marginalized group.”

Muslim immigrants, Tol explains, are socially, economically and politically marginalized in many European countries. “They are not offered a positive identity by the host country, so they turn inward, making Islam their main identification. They want to exist as Muslims in the public sphere and this demand leads to confrontation with European states and societies which do not know where to locate religion and religious demands. In this process of confrontation, both Muslim immigrant identity and that of Europe are being reshaped. This confrontation offers a wonderful opportunity for European political parties, which capitalize on public concern about growing Muslim populations and their demands.” Tol says the resurgence of the far right and anti-immigrant political parties in a number of European countries, including the Netherlands, France and Austria, points to this process of the politicization of the issue of immigration and Muslim immigrants in Europe.

However, she says her arguments should not be interpreted as similar to Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations argument. On the contrary, Tol argues, she completely disagrees with Huntington’s essentialist argument which treats identities as static entities that never change and considers conflict inevitable. Tol states that identities are organic, in constant interaction with their surroundings and, therefore, subject to change. A conflict between Muslim immigrants and European societies is not inevitable, Tol states, adding that whether there will be conflict or cooperation is determined by a number of factors, including the political culture of the host society, immigration and citizenship laws, the legal status of Islam in host countries and upward mobility among the immigrant group.

When asked to comment on the effect of the intercultural and interfaith dialogue activities of the faith-based Gülen movement on Muslim immigrants’ integration into European societies, Tol said she has not studied the Gülen movement specifically. Therefore, she could not provide an empirical analysis, but “in principle any effort that aims to increase positive social interaction has the potential to help integration and cooperation. Based on my study, social marginalization -- meaning social isolation -- is one of the most important factors in the radicalization of Muslim immigrant groups in Europe. The Gülen movement’s apolitical rhetoric has the potential to provide a positive identity to Muslim immigrants, which is necessary for peaceful coexistence and a legitimate channel of communication with the immigrant group for European states and societies.” The Gülen movement, named after Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, has opened hundreds of educational institutions around the world and attaches particular importance to improving mutual understanding between the adherents of different cultures and religions.

‘Germany has never been multiculturalist’

When asked what she thinks of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s remarks stating that multiculturalism had failed in Germany, Middle East Institute (MEI) Center for Turkish Studies Executive Director Gönül Tol said, “Germany has in fact never been a multiculturalist state/society,” pointing to the low naturalization rates in Germany. Tol argues that Germany’s ethno-national citizenship law prevents Turkish immigrants who have been living in Germany for more than 40 years from getting German citizenship and that this has to do with Germany’s nation-building process. She states that the same exclusionist approach was adopted towards Polish immigrants in the 19th century and it now shapes the Turkish immigrant experience in Germany. Tol’s Ph.D. dissertation is on the rise of Islamism among Turkish immigrants in Germany and the Netherlands. She said that, while conducting her field research, she wore an Islamic headscarf to get a better understanding of what kind of public pressure headscarved women face in Germany. “The headscarf doubles the feeling of alienation that one already feels due to his/her dark features,” she explains.

In response to Merkel’s remarks, the chairman of the Turkish Society in Germany (TGD) also told Sunday’s Zaman in a previous interview that Germany never applied multicultural policies. “If there was a policy of cultural diversity and if it was not working despite all efforts -- then you could talk about its end -- but it was never the case in Germany,” Kolat said at the end of last month.

Published on Today's Zaman, 21 November 2010, Sunday