Abstract
Despite many hardships in the months leading up to the European Union (EU) summit in December 2004, when the EU agreed to open accession talks with Turkey, there were happy occasions to report for the Turkish press. One was the wedding of the daughter of the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Thousands of guests, including leaders from both Muslim and Christian countries, attended the social occasion in Istanbul in mid-July. The variety of guests inspired the father of the bride to compare the wedding assembly to the multifaceted reality of his country. ‘The people at this ceremony reflect this country: They are from East and West, with their heads covered and uncovered,’ Erdoğan told NTV, a Turkish news channel. He then went on to describe the wedding as ‘a meeting of civilizations:’ As can be discerned, the wedding became a political event and served political purposes. More specifically, Erdoğan pushed Turkey’s bid for EU membership by promoting Turkey as a bridge between civilizations and as such indispensable to the EU. The wedding was only one of many occasions in which Erdoğan and other members of the Justice and Development Party, AKP (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi), used the term “civilization” to promote Turkish EU membership.
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© 2008 Dietrich Jung and Catharina Raudvere
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Kuzmanovic, D. (2008). Civilization and EU-Turkey Relations. In: Jung, D., Raudvere, C. (eds) Religion, Politics, and Turkey’s EU Accession. Palgrave Studies in Governance, Security, and Development. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230615403_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230615403_3
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