We are not Europeans but we want a place in Europe

You may like or dislike French President Nicolas Sarkozy, but his outspoken rigidness about Turkish accession into the European Union serves a purpose: France often stands as if it’s the only obstacle to an eventual Turkish membership and hides all other filth around. The trouble is, that idea finds enthusiasts only in kindergarten-level discussions.

Recently, ....Peace Prize winner Martti Ahtisaari’s Independent Commission on Turkey criticized EU leaders for slowing down the accession talks and giving the impression that they do not want Turkey to join the bloc. A heart-broken Ahtisaari said that: "I sometimes have the feeling that we need Turkey more than Turkey needs us."

... Many supporters of Turkish membership overtly or covertly believe that Turkey should be let in for strategic reasons, not because it qualifies. That’s a view one may or may not share. But the strategic value argument can hardly find supporters across the Old Continent.

.....the EU needs Turkey, but the EU needs Iran, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan and Syria too. China? Oooo, yes!

But let’s join, for a moment, Ahtisaari’s optimism and hope that Turkey will please the EU about the now too boring prescriptions on Kurdish and religious minority rights ......Will all that convince the Europeans that the Turks are Europeans like themselves and the Turks that they are Europeans like the Europeans?

.... two-thirds of Turks think EU membership will not happen. This one is consistent with another finding: Only a third of Turks believe they share common values with the West.

And all that finds echoes in the EU: Only 20 percent (in EU-11) think Turkish membership is a good thing. For example, 77 percent of Germans and 68 percent of the French believe that Turkey has such different values that it is not part of the West.

Put all that in different wording:

1. Both the Europeans and Turks agree that the Turkey is not part of the West.

2. Due to/despite that:

a. Most Europeans think Turkey has no place in the EU, but

b. Nearly half of Turks think they deserve a place in the EU.

....

We already know that the sharp contrast between (a) and (b) is due to the Turkish pragmatism in which Turks proudly know they are “the other” but still favor membership because of a collective anticipation of economic/social benefits.

How fair, in this bizarre equation, would it be to blame that unpleasant asymmetry on the personality of one EU leader who will probably not be in power when the EU nations go to the ballot box to vote on Turkish accession? How serious can it be if two-thirds of Turks think they do not share common values with the Europeans but believe their country is not in the EU because of “that eccentric Frenchman”?

Turkish conservatism has reinforced both the “otherness” between Turks and Europeans and the perception of that otherness. ...

.....

My grand-grand-...-fathers lived in almost in the center of Europe for centuries. Until they had to leave because of Ottoman-Russian war in 1877 (93 harbi in Turkish). Otherwise maybe I was still living there. So am I not European?

 Most EU countries (including the UK) consider Turkey to be European.  However, the Turks themselves have the luxury of choosing whatever suits them depending on the advantage - it seems most Turkish TC members prefer to be Asian, especially when talking about evil Europe! (The exception being when they are playing in the European Championships or winning Song Contests!)

said by the AE of iow world. maybe you should get out of the island more often.

Btw. what eu countries are they?

So as my family..

It is almost at the same time they had to come to Anatolia because of the ethnic cleansing in Balkans..

I would really recommend you to read the recent articles of Halil Berktay Balkanlarda etnik temizlik gelenegi (Tradition of ethnic cleansing in Balkans) (1)  

He is arguing that at the time ´ethic cleansing´ was not a shameful act, on the contrary it was good and necessary from various nationalist perspectives in 19 and 20th century.

He is giving quotes from a book about how Greeks or Serbian would wipe the Turks out from Balkans in 1800s.

And he is saying that it was just the beginning..

And he is tying the events into Armenian incident and to today´s Kurdish problem. (You wont like that part but it is interesting read )