The European Parliament's Turkey Report

The European Parliament, whose five-year term is about to end, held its final debate on the Turkey Report in its last session and approved the report by majority vote.

The report also notes the reforms and progress made in Turkey during the reporting period, but it appears to have adopted, one-sidedly, one side's perception in the debates that have recently been on Turkey's agenda. Given that the 30 March elections in Turkey, which is in an election process, are the target of all the debates of recent times, was it inevitable that the European Parliament should reflect only one side's views as they are in the debates surrounding this election?

In fact, this was not its last session before the end of its term. If it had wished, it could have left this vote or the final debate on the report to the April sessions after 30 March. In that case the report, even if it were misinformed about the debates in Turkey, could at least have been perceived as more sincere. Yet with this unnecessary timing and with the content of this report, the EP has given the impression of openly taking sides in the 30 March elections.

We said before: unfortunately, in the West there are far more and far readier recipients for negative news or assessments about Turkey. That this has somewhat Orientalist and somewhat Islamophobic reasons is reconfirmed on every occasion. Therefore it is more common for a negative piece of news about Turkey to be accepted as it is, without scrutiny, regardless of whether it is true. This situation also constitutes the most important advantage of the propaganda carried out by the parallel organization.

It can easily find recipients while vilifying its own country. Yet it is certain that under normal circumstances the Gülen structure, with its extreme secrecy and disciplinarianism no different from a Jesuit organization, would be found far more frightening and unacceptable in Europe. But the news that this structure, which is found unacceptable by European norms, spreads through the extensive lobbying activities it carries out on its own behalf can find recipients very easily.

For that reason the report, which criticizes the removal of judiciary members and police officers in the ongoing cases in the very language of the parallelists, does not even bring to mind what kind of measures they might have to take against the possibility of such a structure in any European country. Although this is undoubtedly a good indicator of how well the parallel structure works in its European wing, it must be noted that the Orientalist-Islamophobic influences that generally prevail among members of the European Parliament are the greatest preparers of this success.

Ozan Ceyhun expresses the motivations of these members of Parliament, who will probably not be re-elected, in the following words:

"If these deputies are not running again, they will have a new story to tell their grandchildren, that they were deputies like 'Crusader knights protecting Europe from Turkey.' If they are running for re-election, they will be very happy to be able to present 'hot off the press' a new proof of how they worked 'body and soul' as 'anti-Turkey' at election meetings usually attended by at most twenty or thirty people."

Unfortunately, there are many deputies in the EP under such influences, and the report they approved questions whether Turkey has the will to join the EU. Yet as long as this perspective on Turkey continues, what good is it if that will in Turkey is complete? After all, there is an EU lack of will that does not shy away, when necessary, from forming a unity of discourse with the Fethullahists in its hostility to Turkey.

Meanwhile, let us also note again that the Gülen group has made very good use of the favorable ground for the report coming out this way in the EP. They have shown how all the accumulated assets built over the years with himmet money collected from the people on the pretext of serving Islam and Turkey were mobilized in European circles to create public opinion against Turkey and in lobbying activities, and how in a sense results were obtained. Of course, to have taken such a path of the informer and obtained results is no feat. Informers are always and everywhere respected for a short while, but they are never trusted, never given genuine respect.

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As for such activities carried out with the money they collected from the people as zakat, the final word was spoken by the head of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, Prof. Mehmet Görmez: "Zakat, which is the right of the poor and needy, is given only to the poor. With fatwas obtained through wordplay at the expense of the right of the poor, not even a mosque can be built, no school or dormitory can be opened, and this right certainly cannot be sacrificed to an endless abstract aim in the name of 'service.'"