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| Small solid words of childhood The dark grey cloud of Europe By Ece Temelkuran WHAT do Turkish children think of when you speak of Europe? “It means to make up when you fight.” “It means a holiday resort.” “It’s a place that has one and a half months of holiday.” “It’s the furthest country of the world.” But they also say: “The European Union must be a big cloud.” Children are a different tribe from adults. Children translate the world, which has been made complicated by the memorised phrases of adults, back to their own tribe using their own words of water, earth and sun; since children, just like the world, are made from water, earth and light. The way that the tribe of childhood describes things usually amuses adults; but, just as the earth’s tribal peoples prove westerners’ calculations erroneous, so the tribe of childhood audits adult pronouncements. Adult fear, anxiety and helplessness, concealed by complicated, dressed-up word games, are revealed when the juvenile tribe checks those complex deceits against their own small solid words. The more primitive tribe of adults has a way of making jokes about serious matters, in the hope that laughter will cast out all dangerous curses. If a member of the tribe of children is asked at the private Ugur kindergarden in Istanbul what the European Union is, and answers “it must be a cloud”, he can only have got that from seeing the expressions on his parents’ faces when they’re watching television news about the EU. Why else would young Samil imagine it as a large cloud approaching Turkey? Through Samil, both Turkey and the EU learn that his parents, like many parents in Europe, are scared. For the past few years, the traditional drummers who take to the streets to announce the break of Ramadan’s daylong fast at iftar have been trying to act in a more disciplined way. Finally, in a district of the capital, Ankara, the problem was resolved: the Ramadan drum would have to meet EU criteria. The mayor said: “We will set new drumming standards and introduce them to Europe.” This funny anecdote is as quaint for Turks as it is for those Europeans who do not know about Turkey and Ramadan. But it could evoke European fears that date all the way back to Vienna (1). Europeans might fear an imaginary rumbling cloud approaching them just as Turkish children are afraid of the approaching EU cloud. What would officials ticking entry criteria checkboxes in Kafkaesque EU corridors in Brussels think if they knew that Turkish people were putting so much effort into meeting entry criteria, even going so far as to consider how to celebrate Ramadan in accordance with EU standards (whatever they might be)? Consider the children: eight-year-old Can is sorry that “they are not taking us into the EU because we couldn’t follow the rules” and nine-year-old Asena is bitter enough to say that Turkey is “ignorant” according to EU criteria. If the EU has infiltrated Turkey this much before Turkey has entered the EU, then Europeans should be told about it. They should be made aware that Turkey now feels like a large and anxious middle-class family about to move to a rich neighbourhood. Some feel that the family pride will be shattered if they are disparaged in the new neighbourhood. Others impatiently await the obstinate concierge who holds the lists of criteria for entry, ready to count off the conditions. That is why the hardest relationship now is not between the EU and Turkey, but between Turkey and Turkey. This is a family matter. But this big family is now getting bored: while bureaucrats continue to monitor the EU process, the family watches celebrity gossip news instead. Europe and the United States might think that they watch the news about the Armenian conference (2), but they don’t. They mostly watch news about how a model converted to Christianity from Islam because she’s in love with a Greek actor. Even though last year the television series the family loved the most was Greek Groom, a love story between a Turkish girl and a young Greek man, they are now shaken with news of the conversion. Even this biggest of taboos, converting to another religion, may be forgotten in a few days given the reprieve of love. What about the Armenian conference? Well, eggs were tossed at academics’ heads. As seen from Europe, the throwing of eggs may seem like a stance against freedom of thought. But it proves that even conservative Turkish nationalists are learning from Europe - they’re learning how to protest by throwing tomatoes and eggs. It isn’t a Turkish tradition, just as it isn’t customary for Turkish soldiers to say they’re scared. However, a few weeks ago demobbed soldiers told newspapers just how scared they were during action, ranting and railing and calling out their mothers’ names. It’s hard to say whether these confessions will satisfy the EU, which has decided to study the army/civilian dynamic in Turkey. But this large, complicated family really is trying, in its own way, to change before moving to the elite neighbourhood. It has managed to stand on its own feet in a harsh landscape until now, and sometimes it feels close and sometimes very distant from its new neighbours, as it tries to move to the estate it has dreamed about for years. When the great Turkish family flooded the streets to protest against war on Iraq (3), it regarded itself as kin to Europeans flocking to the streets at the same time. Yet when it sees the Europe it imagines will promise a freer, more just and humane life standing like a strict concierge, ready to enforce the estate’s long list of rules and regulations, it gets anxious. A dark grey cloud approaches. The Turkish family wants to move to Europe, which is a project to create a civilisation of conscience, justice and freedom, in an age when the whole world seeks its conscience, and attempts to deal with the ache of humanity. Turkey wants to live in the estate of Europe in a conscientious, free and fair manner, and feels that, on an earth bereft of conscience and full of lust for profit and power, Europe aspires to human values. Not just for its distinguished continent, but for the world. Turkey would like to contribute to this European aspiration. Six-year-old Ceren says he feels that Europe means “peace”; six-year-old Ataberk says that it means “to make up after you’ve had a fight”. The Turkish family wants to believe that the big grey cloud rumbling towards it will at least be full of life-giving rain.
Original text in English (1) Under Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566) the Ottoman empire reached its cultural and artistic height and expanded to its western limit. Its arrival at the gates of Vienna aroused fears in Europe that have not been forgotten. (2) On 23 and 24 September there was a controversial academic conference at Bilgi University in Istanbul, amid nationalist protests, to discuss the first world war massacres of Armenians under what was then Ottoman Turkey. Turkey denies that this amounted to genocide. The conference should have taken place in May at Bogazici University, also in Istanbul; Bogazici cancelled it after the Turkish minister of justice, Cemil Cicek, announced that it would damage the image of the nation. On 23 September a court ruling in Turkey banned the conference, but both the Turkish government and the European commisssion in Brussels condemned the decision. Moving the conference to Bilgi was a ruse to circumvent the ruling, underlining the importance of starting the public debate between liberal and nationalist groups on a hitherto taboo subject. On 22 October the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk said that he stood by his claims that a million Armenians had been killed; as a result he is due to go on trial in December for “insulting and weakening Turkish identity” and risks a three-year prison sentence. (3) There were anti-war protests in 2003 (notably on 29 March and 8 April) coinciding with similar demonstrations in Europe.
English language editorial director: Wendy Kristianasen - all rights reserved © 1997-2005 Le Monde diplomatique.