Lerner on Turkey

Barbara Lerner writing at NRO makes a worthwhile point: that Turkey, being a relatively healthy nation-state, should not want to be a member of the EU, which, of course, is devoted to the destruction of nation-states. However, in the course of advising Turkey to reject any invitation to join the EU, she says that the EU should nevertheless invite Turkey to join.

I’m amazed and confounded that Lerner would say this. Does she not understand that the inclusion of Turkey’s 70 million Muslims in the internally borderless EU would be the nail in the coffin of Europe, the white Christian West, and ultimately America itself?

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Maureen C. writes:

This article is a laughable exercise in the intricacies of liberal fuzzy logic. To wit, the author’s central liberal argument is that Turkey shouldn’t join the EU because it is not in Turkey’s (!) best interest to join a spineless bunch of Christian states which can’t muster the moxie to defend themselves against Muslim incursions anymore—and poor Turkey, fusses Lerner, might become infected by that rot.

The article is representative of the very political spinelessness it pretends to deplore: Instead of decrying the fact that having thousands of Turks flood the EU will deliver the finishing blow to European civilization, the author flaccidly implores the Turks to save themselves!

In other words, the author focuses on worrying about the Other’s fate as opposed to worrying about her own civilization’s fate. Let Lerner wake up and worry about Europe’s fate. Who cares what happens to the Turks? Let the Turks worry about it.

Prior to posting this entry, LA wrote to Barbara Lerner:

Barbara, of course you are correct that no relatively healthy nation-state should want to be part of the EU. That point is worth making.

But I am confounded that you say that Europe should admit Turkey to the EU. This would be the nail in the coffin of Europe, the white Christian West, and ultimately America.

Miss Lerner replied:

I care, too, about the survival of Western culture—it’s my culture too. Christianity is not my religion but I, too, see the decline of Christian faith in Europe as an ominous development, not just for Europe but for America and the world.

But I see the EU as a political club, not a cultural or religious club. To the extent that it tries to usurp the latter two functions, I see the EU as replacing genuine cultures and religions with shallow, decadent and inferior ones, grounded mainly in narcissism and marked with the characteristic narcissist’s contempt for history and tradition. The basic stance here isn’t just “Apres moi, le deluge,” but “Before me, nothing of comparable—let alone greater—value.”

Turkey is not paradise and its people are not saints. It is not now, nor has it ever been, a perfect democracy, but when you look at the 84 year history of the modern Turkish Republic and compare it to the history of European nations over that same span of time—1923 to now—Turkey looks pretty good, and most European nations—not just Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain, but countries like France and Belgium too—look a damn site worse. On that basis, I think Turkey more than merits inclusion in what I called “Europe’s premier political club.” But in reality, it’s a crummy club—not really a democracy at all, as far as I can see, but a stifling, elitist bureaucracy, ruled by a smug, spineless class of preening ostriches.

I, too want to save what is best in Europe, but I don’t think Europe’s salvation will come from the EU, with or without Turkey, and I’m afraid that Turkey’s admission will only make Turkey worse, without making Europe any better. As for race, I don’t attach the same significance to it that you do but, for whatever it’s worth, I think both Turks and Europeans are part of the white race. Hope this helps make my position seem a little less alien and confounding.

LA replied:

You say the EU is just a political club, not a religious or a cultural club. But even if the EU is not a cultural or religious club, it certainly has an agenda to transform the culture and religion of Europe. It is doing so by eliminating Europe’s nations and by welcoming Islam into Europe. You haven’t heard of Eurabia? You haven’t heard of the EU program to Islamize Europe? The EU has eliminated the internal borders of Europe, and wants to include Turkey in Europe, which would mean that 70 million Muslim Turks would be able to live anywhere in Europe, which would mean the cultural destruction of Europe.

You say you dislike the EU. Why then are you supporting the EU’s plan to open Europe’s borders to Turkey?

LA adds:

Barbara Lerner had suggested that I post our above exchange. I said sure, but asked her for a reply to my last e-mail, which I’m still hoping to receive from her. I remain amazed that Miss Lerner, who I thought had a realistic grasp of cultural differences, and who in her articles at NRO and FrontPage Magazine (which I’ve often praised) has argued that the U.S. needs to take much stronger measures to defend ourselves against our Islamic enemies, would see no problem in the instant inclusion of 70 million Turkish Muslims in Europe. I see two possible explanations: either she has no concept of the historical and doctrinal realities of Islam and of the clash of civilizations, and thus does not see Islam per se as representing a problem for Europe and the West at all; or else she thinks of Turkey as somehow non-Islamic, failing to see that outside a secularized and Westernized elite in Istanbul, it remains an Islamic country, and, indeed, that in recent years it has moved in the direction of re-Islamizing itself..

Maureen C. writes:

Lerner writes: “[Turkey] is not now, nor has it ever been, a perfect democracy, but when you look at the 84 year history of the modern Turkish Republic and compare it to the history of European nations over that same span of time [1923 to now], Turkey looks pretty good.”

What is she talking about? Has she ever bothered to live in Turkey before making this sweeping comparison with European states? What is 80 years of alleged democracy in Turkey compared to a millenium of despotism? Turkey has many more millions of believers than are in the relatively cosmopolitan, thin top layer of the city of Istanbul. Already, the Ataturk legacy is withering—and his body and tomb are headed for a kinder version of the Shah of Iran’s fate: Instead of kicking him out of the country, they’ll merely bury him. But the heavy antidemocratic, theocratic morass of Islam is going to reclaim its own.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 11, 2007 09:55 PM | Send