Madam, - Rev Patrick Comerford, writing about Turkey's application to join the EU makes the following point. "Without Muslim architects, philosophers and mathematicians, Medieval Europe would have left us with a very depleted cultural heritage" (Rite and Reason, October 3rd).
But that was then, and one does not have to be a supporter of Kevin Myers or Mark Steyn to have extreme misgivings about a predominantly Muslim country such as Turkey becoming a member-state of the EU.
Islam as a value system is extremely undemocratic and theocratic by its very essence. Only a strong secular military and political élite wedded to modernity has prevented Turkey becoming an Islamic state not unlike others in the region. This precarious alliance is no guarantor of future stability.
Of course it can be argued that Roman Catholicism has similar theocratic and absolutist instincts. However, the Protestant Reformation and the subsequent development of relativism in Europe has facilitated the emergency of values consistent with human freedom and liberty. There is now what might be termed as a broad European consensus, historically rooted in personal rights and aspirations, particularly for women.
The culture of Islam is anathema to pluralism and any moves towards integrating Turkey as a part of mainstream Europe risks incrementally undermining our secular mores and should only be embarked upon with great care and hesitation. - Yours, etc,
SEAN and ROISIN WHELAN, Nenagh, Co Tipperary.
Madam, - I find it hard to understand the point of the European Parliament's demand that Turkey should "recognise as genocide" the killing of Armenians under Ottoman rule.
The word genocide was coined, and the corresponding actions became an internationally recognised crime, only in the 1940s. If, as Lord Kinross (a friend of Turkey) admitted, "a premeditated internal policy for the final elimination of the Armenian race" was put into effect as soon as the Allies pulled out of the Dardanelles in 1916, then there surely were grave crimes amounting to (but not yet classifiable as) "genocide" that can be laid at the door of the Ottoman authorities.
The Turkish government of today might be urged to blame their predecessors for these as crimes against humanity, or war crimes or whatever other offences were recognised at the time. Apart from its anachronistic insistence on "genocide", the European Parliament seems to disregard the profound break in continuity between the Ottoman imperial state and the republic which Ataturk and others founded after ousting the Sultan and suppressing the Caliphate.
Lastly, I understand that the British government issued a parliamentary blue book during the first World War recounting atrocities inflicted on Armenians. For several years after the war a group of leaders of the ancien régime were detained in Malta. It seems strange that none of these was put on trial for these crimes. Some Turkish commentators believe that the "testimonies" in the blue book had been exaggerated, or even invented, for war-propaganda purposes, and were judged worthless as evidence. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL DRURY, Avenue Louise, Brussels.