Now is surely the time to bring Turkey into the EU and to reassure them of our solidarity. Their secular state is a critical source of hope for democracy in the Middle East and a vital ally in the war on terror. Here’s a hopeful but grim report in the Guardian:
This was Istanbul’s September 11. They thought they were safe from the war on terror because they thought all Muslims were brothers. Now they know otherwise, and are unified in their condemnation of the terrorists, who cannot be “true Muslims”. The fact that the terrorists staged this attack in the last days of Ramadan has added to their outrage. But no one is in any doubt why the city has become a terrorist target. How its residents respond to their new status depends very much on how much support they get (or fail to get) from the allies who dragged them into this. As one shopkeeper put it, “Surely, now that we have suffered this, the EU must open its arms to us.” If it doesn’t, or if the US gives the impression, as it has sometimes done in the past, that it is taking Turkey’s “sacrifice” for granted, the sense of betrayal could be huge… As we sit drinking coffee around the corner from the British consulate, gazing calmly at yet another high-sided vehicle that could be carrying 500lbs of cheap explosives, my brother has difficulty keeping up the front. No matter how hard he tries, his memories of the first and nearest bomb keep crowding into his mind. The worst part was seeing the dead in the street and recognising their faces. He tells me about the disembodied hand he saw sticking out of a mound of broken glass. He can’t help wondering if this was the hand that detonated the bomb that killed his neighbourhood. “It’s not just politics,” he says. “They’re attacking our way of life.”
Yes, they are. And the fight back has just begun.
The Dish 