The Western Condition - St Antony's College - University of Oxford

The Western Condition: Turkey, the US and the EU in the New Middle East
and Austria to see its continued implementation by Turkey before agreeing to any visa relaxation;
an open-ended commitment that the Turkish government understandably objects to. Such
apprehension reflects the socially entrenched stereotypes in these countries about Turkey, which
still depict it as an agrarian society where impoverished masses look for an opportunity to
migrate to Europe. In fact, very few of the immigrants who land in Europe via Turkey are
Turkish citizens. Unlike in the 1960s, when thousands of Turkish ‘guest workers’ arrived in
Europe to assist in post-war reconstruction, Turkish citizens no longer predominantly seek
livelihood outside of Turkey. As such, there is an urgent need for the Turkish government and
civil society organisations to work in collaboration with their European counterparts to challenge
these stereotypes and educate sceptical publics about the large scale socio-economic change that
has occurred in Turkey since the 1960s. 178
The Turkish – European engagement would also benefit from a revision and strengthening of
relations between Turkey and individual member states. Greece is a particularly important case
that stands out in this respect. The socio-economic crisis in that country has deeply challenged
the legitimacy of its political establishment, leading in particular to the rise of a violently
xenophobic neo-fascist movement, known as ‘Golden Dawn’, which has 18 seats in the Greek
parliament and alleged links to the police force. While Golden Dawn is still a minor party in a
relatively peripheral EU country, the fertile ground on which the extreme right has been rising
across the continent represents a more existential challenge to the future of the liberal European
project than the fate of its single currency. At the same time, the movement’s brazen anti-
Muslim and anti-Turkish rhetoric threatens to provoke nationalist sentiments across the Aegean,
putting the relative stability Greece and Turkey have enjoyed since the late 1990s into
jeopardy. 179
Turkey thus has more than just economic interest in seeing its neighbour move out of the
crisis. 180 Having survived its own socio-economic crises just over a decade ago, Turkey is also in
a position to assist Greece in this endeavour and use the current situation as an opportunity to
strengthen bilateral ties. In 2011, Turkey surpassed Germany as Greece’s second largest trade
partner. 181 While economic and cultural relations between the two countries are more extensive
than at any point in the two republics’ histories, they can still be improved. Further adjustments
to the bilateral visa regime that would make it easier for Turkish citizens to visit Greece and a
demonstration of increased commitment by the Turkish government to address the issue of
illegal migration, in which Greece is the primary entry point into Europe, could draw the two
178 See Seçil Paçacı Elitok and Thomas Straubhaar (eds) Turkey, Migration and the EU: Potentials, Challenges and
Opportunities (Hamburg: Hamburg University Press, 2012).
179 ‘Greek 'Führer' vows to ‘take back İzmir' after Istanbul’, Hurriyet Daily News, 15 June 2012.
180 Şahin Alpay, ‘Time for Turkey and Greece to draw closer’, Today’s Zaman, 26 February 2012.
181 ‘Turkey becoming Greece’s No 2 trading partner: Official’, Hurriyet Daily News, 15 October 2012.
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