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| Volume X, Spring 2003, Number 1 |
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| EXCERPT: Islam's Missing Link to the West |
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| Mustafa Malik |
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Mr. Malik, a Washington-based journalist, researched this article as a journalism fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
The Turks are secular Muslims,"
said Recep Tayyip Erdogan. For
centuries they have "lived in
peace with different cultures." His Justice and Development party, known by its Turkish initials AKP, stood for justice for all Turkish citizens regardless of their creeds or cultures. Erdogan said he appreciated U.S. support for Turkey's membership in the European Union, which was a "just cause." In the EU the Turks would promote a "meeting of civilizations" based on "social justice" and "human dignity."
The Turkish leader was speaking at a Washington think tank on December 9, 2002, prior to his meetings at the White House. President Bush had invited him to discuss U.S. plans to invade Iraq, and Paul Wolfowitz, the hawkish U.S. deputy secretary of defense, was following him around.
I reminded Erdogan that Europe had historically shown a "poor sense of justice" in its relations to Jews and Muslims, who had been subjected to the Inquisition, forced conversion to Christianity, pogroms, the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing. How did he expect Muslim Turks to be treated in the EU? He said he hoped Europeans would now prove that they were a "mature and confident civilization" by treating Muslims better. Turkish Muslims would bring Europe a pluralist tradition, which they inherited from their Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman system was a "model for just treatment of minorities."
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