WSJ Editorial: The European assertion of moral superiority to Turkey on history is hard to swallow
Of all the pretexts to keep Turkey out of the European Union, perhaps the most cynical has been to link its candidacy to the massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
It would indeed be a welcome sign of maturity if Turkey were to face up to this dark part of its history. But to make it a precondition for modern Turkey's EU membership, as the European Parliament demanded last week, smacks of double standard. No similar demands have ever been made of other member countries before joining the EU.
That's not because European closets are short of skeletons. Let's take Austria, which put up last-minute hurdles to starting Turkey's accession talks today. EU foreign ministers were meeting last night in an effort to sway Vienna to drop its opposition. Those efforts were still unsuccessful by the time we went to press.
Nobody demanded that Austria come clean about its Nazi past when it joined the EU. Until the present day, many Austrians prefer to see their country as Hitler's first victim rather than as their fellow-countryman's all-too-willing collaborator. As a matter of fact, the Austrians don't come off well in regard to the 1915 Armenian massacres, either. The German Reich and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were allied with the Ottoman Empire and -- through their ambassadors, military attachés and missionaries -- fully aware of Turkey's actions against the Armenian minority. Although the two German-speaking powers were senior partners in this alliance, they didn't intervene.
The German parliament issued a declaration in June calling on Turkey to own up to its past. But lawmakers were at least honest enough to include criticism of Germany's own "inglorious role" in these events, criticizing the German Reich for not trying to stop the massacres. Austria hasn't done anything similar. We don't mean to pick on the Austrians. Belgium, for instance, refuses to own up to King Leopold II's crimes in the Congo a century ago. Last year, the government called a BBC documentary on the Belgian king's bloody personal fiefdom a "tendentious diatribe."
We could go on and on. But the point is that many European nations try to whitewash their past. If the Europeans don't want to let Turkey join the club, they should have the courage to be honest about their real motives. Their assertion of moral superiority on history is hard to swallow.
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It would indeed be a welcome sign of maturity if Turkey were to face up to this dark part of its history. But to make it a precondition for modern Turkey's EU membership, as the European Parliament demanded last week, smacks of double standard. No similar demands have ever been made of other member countries before joining the EU.
That's not because European closets are short of skeletons. Let's take Austria, which put up last-minute hurdles to starting Turkey's accession talks today. EU foreign ministers were meeting last night in an effort to sway Vienna to drop its opposition. Those efforts were still unsuccessful by the time we went to press.
Nobody demanded that Austria come clean about its Nazi past when it joined the EU. Until the present day, many Austrians prefer to see their country as Hitler's first victim rather than as their fellow-countryman's all-too-willing collaborator. As a matter of fact, the Austrians don't come off well in regard to the 1915 Armenian massacres, either. The German Reich and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were allied with the Ottoman Empire and -- through their ambassadors, military attachés and missionaries -- fully aware of Turkey's actions against the Armenian minority. Although the two German-speaking powers were senior partners in this alliance, they didn't intervene.
The German parliament issued a declaration in June calling on Turkey to own up to its past. But lawmakers were at least honest enough to include criticism of Germany's own "inglorious role" in these events, criticizing the German Reich for not trying to stop the massacres. Austria hasn't done anything similar. We don't mean to pick on the Austrians. Belgium, for instance, refuses to own up to King Leopold II's crimes in the Congo a century ago. Last year, the government called a BBC documentary on the Belgian king's bloody personal fiefdom a "tendentious diatribe."
We could go on and on. But the point is that many European nations try to whitewash their past. If the Europeans don't want to let Turkey join the club, they should have the courage to be honest about their real motives. Their assertion of moral superiority on history is hard to swallow.