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A Belated Birthday Present from our Turkish Friends
Yesterday, I caught up with some friends at IFRI* over lunch and scored an invitation to come hear the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, speak later in the afternoon on the future of Turkish-French relations.
I don't think I've ever seen a foreign minister as confident as Davutoglu. With Europe in a financial crisis and the Arabic-speaking world in a political crisis, Davutoglu clearly sees his own country as flourishing when compared with its neighbors near and far. "The question for Europe," Davutoglu asked, "is: with or without Turkey?"
Davutoglu clearly feels Turkey has as much or more to offer the European Union than the European Union has to offer Turkey at the moment, which is a provocative thesis to introduce to a room full of western Europeans.
Accordingly, one of the distinguished guests in the room pushed back during the question and answer session. He proposed that Turkey was rather more like the American West -- nationalistic and religious -- than Western Europe, which is known for its culture of tolerance and inclusivity. He asked whether Turkey thus still needed Western Europe as much as Western Europe needed Turkey.
As I squirmed in my seat and bit my lip, Davutoglu proceeded to deliver one of the best smack-downs I have ever heard in a public forum. He began by remarking, "I don't know if there are any Americans in the room, but your question is a little Euro-centric."
He then bluntly stated that the American identity is more inclusive than French identity or German identity. He referenced the fact that the American president is the son of a Kenyan man and that the very name "United States of America" references a geographical location whereas the names of European states often reference a specific people or culture. He concluded by saying that when the Germans elect a man or woman of Turkish descent as its president then Europe could begin lecturing Turkey on matters of inclusivity.
I am not doing justice to how epic a smack-down this was. He must have spoken for five minutes, at least, about the virtues of American identity and inclusivity, and it warmed my heart. Although he teased America about how young a nation we are, he surely knew that the day prior was our birthday, and his words made for a wonderful belated birthday present.
Davutoglu had a lot more to say on Israel and Syria that would interest readers of this blog, but the above vignette was the one I most wanted to share.
*If you do not know the crew at l'institut français des relations internationales, you should. My friends Etienne de Durand, Marc Hecker, and Corentin Brustlein are doing some of the very best work in strategic studies in all of Europe. Ifri.org
I cannot see any smack down,
I cannot see any smack down, or real value of any kind....once you say Kenyan President you are just a wacko who spreads lies
I hate to break this to you,
I hate to break this to you, but the U.S. president, who is an American and was born in the United States, is indeed the son of a Kenyan man.
Hasn't President Obama said
Hasn't President Obama said one of his closest allies is the Turkish Prime Minister?
Given the Turkish foreign minister's comments - how well do American know modern Turkey?
This sounds epic. Do you
This sounds epic. Do you know if there will be a transcript online?
Did the Syria discussion
Did the Syria discussion sound like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3AZUgkgLwQ
There isn't anything new(s) here.
Thanks a lot for those kind
Thanks a lot for those kind words, Ex!
@Adam : There won't be any transcript, but I guess a video of at least part of the conference (probably w/o the Q&A) will be uploaded on dailymotion in a not-too-distant future : http://www.dailymotion.com/Ifri-podcast
The best defence is offense,
The best defence is offense, I guess. Everybody will be too shocked to ask difficult questions about Turkey.
Well played Davutoglu.
unreal demonstrates that the
unreal demonstrates that the left can be just as knee-jerk silly as the right.
Anyone reading the Turkish foreign minister's comments, and actually paying attention, cannot but see them as praise for the level of integration in America that allows for even the possibility that someone whose foreign ancestors are merely 1 generation back can be elected President. (One might quibble that the previous Fench President was only a couple of generations from ancestors from Hungary. Especially since he was speaking to a French meeting. But his point was still well taken.)
We have lots of areas where we should do better. But it helps to be reminded occasionally of the things that we do right. Especially by someone who can look from the outside, and thus perhaps look past the details to the big picture.
Good rethoric from Davutoglu
Good rethoric from Davutoglu - playing well on American ears, but the logic is, ahem, wanting. Where is this Turkish head of state of Kurdish extraction?
I'm curious to know what this
I'm curious to know what this stuffy European luminary thinks the "American West" really is. Or, for that matter, what "Western Europe with its culture of tolerance and inclusivity" is.
I don't know where he gets the impression that the West is somehow more religious and nationalistic than other places in the US, which makes me think he probably doesn't know our country very well, or at least hasn't bothered to travel through it much.
Nor do I get his perception that Western Europe, with its burqa bans (France, Holland), mosque bans (Switzerland), ueber-nationalist political parties (one of which, the Front National, won *huge* minorities in the 2002 and 2012 French presidential campaign), and very robust internal surveillance regimes (particularly France and the UK), is somehow viewed as exceptionally tolerant or inclusive.
Having traveled through rural parts of France, I would only say that the people I met in those places had far more in common with people I've met from rural or Western US states in their views (e.g., on Turkey) than they do with the Enarques and Sciences-politains in Paris.
Sounds very
Sounds very Davutoglu-esque.
But Germans will never elect a President of Turkish descent. Because they do not elect their presidents.
Speaking of Germany: We got -
Speaking of Germany:
We got
- an east German President who is a former priest, openly living with his long time girl friend and not divorced from his (long seperated) wife
- a female, east German Chancelor.
- a Vice-Chancellor whose biological parents were Vietnamese
- a gay foreign minister
- an ethnic Turk as head of the green party http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cem_%C3%96zdemir
Seems pretty diverse to me, considering only around 5% of Germany's population is Turkish / of Turkish descent ...
Wake me when Turkey gets an Armenian or Kurdish (sorry - "mountain-turkish" - is that a word?) president ...
Whilst there is of course
Whilst there is of course some truth in what he says and the question was redolent of the sort of knee-jerk anti-americanism that still bubbles under the surface since the Bush administration days, my immediate, typically pedantic reaction was
1) he's actually mostly wrong on the ethnic geographic thing
and
2) that's a bit rich
For the former European states are overwhelmingly named after geographic concepts, often named by the romans
Spain - geographic (the inhabitants were the Celtae, among others), , italy geographic netherlands (low countries) geographic united kingdom of GReat Britain and Northern Ireland ... you get the drift.
Those that could be termed ethnic in origin such as France and errrrmmm....Lombardy, were named after minority invaders anyway.
So I guess he really means Germany which was really again bestowed by the Romans as a catchalll description of anyone from beyond the rhine, the tribes themselves did not consider themselves Germanni, and eventually as a geographic description of the area, and the name stuck.
The Turks however....
As for inclusivity I think it's unfair to single out blacks; Sarkozy was the son of Greek and Hungarian immigrants, Disraeli pipped Obama to it by a good hundred and fifty odd years back when the jews (to paraphrase The Commitments) were the blacks of europe.
Many European heads of states and first ministers have been women, something neither Turkey or the US has managed to emulate.
So as much fun as the smackdown must have been to behold it's probably just as well that there weren't many pedants in the audience!!
I'll grant him Belgium
I'll grant him Belgium though, and at a pinch Scotland.
And I guess as you head east they appear thick and fast, Hungary, pretty much most of the FRYs, Russia et al.
As for the people asking for
As for the people asking for a turkish president of kurdish descent. Turgut Özal is an example. And there are many kurdish politicians in the AKP and CHP (not only BDP). But i know that Turkey still has a lot to change.
I believe this is the video.
I believe this is the video. Exchange is around 00:49
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdbehw-z09o
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