Is Europe big enough for Turkey? A recent opinion poll conducted by Financial Times/Harris says no. This public sentiment is particularly worrying at a time when Turkey is fast approaching the July 22 general elections. The Financial Times/Harris poll was conducted online in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the US. According to the results 71 percent of French citizens and 66 percent of Germans oppose Turkey’s full membership of the EU. Such results are not new. The Eurobarometer, another major poll conducted regularly across Europe, has been yielding similar results for the last three years.    

There seems to be an interesting asymmetry between the current enlargement of the EU, which comprises 27 members, and Turkey’s chances of joining the club. As new members are accepted, the enlargement fatigue grows greater and deeper. The EU Constitution remains the most important stumbling block before full-fledged integration takes place within the union itself. The current German presidency could not care less about Turkey’s membership. It wants to solve the constitution issue before it explodes in another popular referendum. Hence Mrs. Merkel’s desire to go to member country governments, not to the people, to get the EU constitution ratified.

Given this state of indecision and ambiguity within Europe, some argue that Turkey’s membership is a small matter. The opposition to Turkey is not so much about Turkey itself but about the confused mind of the Europeans. The argument goes that the Turks should not feel singled out or isolated just because they are Turks.

While there is some truth to this, it would be too naïve to think that Turkey does not have a good chance because of the bad weather in Europe. For a long time Europe has hardly had clear weather and a good sense of predictability. Wars, dictatorships, genocides, bitter competitions, exploitation and a host of other problems have marked the history of modern Europe in the 20th century.

Yet the EU process kept going. While Europe became ever more divided politically, economically and even socially (just think of the divided Germany during the Cold War), it also tried desperately to find ways to keep its sons and daughters together. For some in Europe the EU ideal offers exactly that; i.e., Europe’s ability to remain one.

The problem for us who are outside of Europe is to figure out what this “one” means. Does it mean a Europe where pluralism stops at the doors of non-Europeans? Does it mean a Europe free of immigrants? Just thinking of immigrant workers and the global market economy makes it impossible for Europe to be a singularly “European” continent. It was an erroneous and costly assumption to think that Europe could have immigrants without a face, identity, culture and values.

Take the example of Turkish workers in Germany. When they were invited by the government to help rebuild post-war Germany, they were seen as guest workers, a mere workforce for German factories. There was hardly any debate on integrating these manual workers at the time. Forty years later we have suddenly awakened to the reality of Turks living in Kreuzeberg, Munich, Frankfurt and other German cities as if they just got off the plane yesterday. They have been around for decades and no one had noticed them. Yesterday we did not care if any of these guest workers spoke German or learned about German culture. Now we want them to speak perfect German (many do anyway), know the culture and history better than the natives, and test their level of civility by asking them the most sensitive moral questions, ones which would even disqualify many ordinary Germans as citizens.

The recent polls come as no surprise. We should brace ourselves for more in the years to come. Yet the problem is that a Europe that has turned its back on Turkey without producing any convincing argument is likely to continue to be in a state of confusion about its own identity: a Europe torn between