Friday 24 December 2010

Turkey, the EU, & Orhan Pamuk

Some of you might be interested in this article by Orhan Pamuk that recently appeared in The Guardian. I'm not sure I agree with much of his analysis, at least of Europe - I don't yet know enough about Turkish politics to comment, although I'm fascinated and want to learn more. It's an interesting and thought-provoking piece, though, and well worth a look.

The article is followed by lots of comments, many of them stupid or ignorant, a few genuinely informative and insightful. They will perhaps give you an intriguing view of some of the attitudes toward Turkey current in Britain. You can also comment yourself - it would be good to see some more comments from Turks on there, and you'll be reaching a readership of thousands! 


2 comments:

  1. well, i read the whole article but the page says comments on this article are now closed. so i'm writing here. there is much to say about it but is there a specific question that you would like to bring about? so that we can comment on it. i like talking politics yet we need to do this without being banned :)

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  2. Oh, I'm sorry comments have closed on the article. They do that sometimes.

    I don't want anyone to get banned (!), but I'm interested as to whether most of you would like to see Turkey join the EU, or not. And, in either case, do you think it is likely to ever happen? And what are the alternatives for Turkey? Does not joining the EU inevitably mean alliances that look eastwards rather than westwards? Coming as I do from a country at the other end of Europe, one that has extremely ambivalent feelings about the EU (and that has generally been supportive of Turkey's EU membership), I'm especially curious.

    Patrick

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