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Issues in the Establishment of Geographic, Cultural and Political Boundaries

Where does Europe begin, and where does it end? Are boundaries purely constructions? And if so, on what facts are these constructions based? An examination of the political, cultural and geographical dimensions of the membership debate.

When the European Economic Community (EEC) and Turkey concluded the Association Agreement on September 12, 1963, none of the EEC members raised an objection on the basis of the 1957 Treaties of Rome, which expressly stated that only European nations could become members. At the time, Walter Hallstein (of the German Christian Democratic Party), then President of the EEC commission, commented simply: "Turkey is a part of Europe."

The Bosphorus Bridge connects the Asian part of Istanbul with the European part.
Photo: AP

By 2006, many Germans no longer agreed with this statement, and meanwhile have come to regard Turkey as "different.” Many ordinary citizens and leading intellectuals now believe that Turkey is separated from Europe by geographic, cultural, historical and political boundaries. However, the question remains: Can we regard these boundaries as valid? Are these boundaries based on objective facts, or are they merely constructs designed to provide support to subjective emotion? The academic and journalistic arguments within the debate on the historical, political and cultural boundaries of Europe vis-à-vis Turkey have not changed substantially in recent years, and the arguments both for and against Turkey remain monolithic in their opposition.

For this reason, it is useful to once again summarise the argument which claims that Turkey, with its identity shaped by Islam, is too "other” or different to comfortably allow incorporation into Europe and the EU.

Historic and political boundaries

Historically and politically, Turkey is indeed a study in contrasts. On the one hand, Turkey is oriented toward the near East, with its Islamic influence. On the other hand, Turkey also has directed its view toward Europe, which for centuries has been shaped by Christianity. Since the start of the 18th century, Turkey increasingly oriented itself towards European values and institutions. Thus Turkey has continued its shift toward Europe, albeit haltingly at times. The revolution under Ataturk in the 1920s set the course toward Europeanisation in its highly dramatic, and even somewhat dictatorial, adoption of European values and norms. The founders of the Turkish nation followed a European paradigm in the founding of the republic upon the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. After the Second World War, certain groups within the Turkish population, particularly among the elites, found it difficult to grasp the profound processes of change at work in Europe. These changes, which prescribed new political and social values, were reflected in the Treaties of Rome.

Turkey's insistence on a rigid conception of the nation state as the sole agent and authority, and its upholding of the primacy of the state over society and the individual, is in large part the reason why thirty-five years would pass before Turkey was elevated from an EU-associated state to a "candidate" nation in December 1999.

Cultural boundaries

The cultural dimension also fails to provide an unequivocal solution to the debate. The ancient Greeks such as Aeschylus and Herodotus regarded the Hellespont (today the Dardanelles) as the boundary between Europe and Asia, contrasting the principles of freedom and democracy (Greece) with Asiatic autocracy (Persia). However, other interpretations must also be accorded weight. Indeed, the ancient myths are themselves open to interpretation. For example, Aeneas, the mythical founder of Rome, was a citizen of Troy, a town in Asia Minor near the Dardanelles, until its downfall. The later Roman Empire included large stretches of the ancient Near East all the way to the former regions of Mesopotamia. Some time earlier, beginning approximately in the seventh century B.C.E., the ancient Greeks had begun to colonise Asia Minor; indeed, this settlement lasted until the twentieth century collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Early Christian communities flourished in Asia Minor, not least as a result of the mission of Paul. For this reason, it is impossible to establish a fixed south-eastern boundary for Europe; indeed, this border has shifted repeatedly across history. The Ottoman Empire, which arose in the core of the Byzantine Empire in western Asia Minor, extended initially to the Balkans, which in turn adopted a far more "Turkish” character than the Mesopotamian region and Egypt. In the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire became a part of the "European” power-political continuum, engaging in trade and traffic with Europe and establishing alliances within the inner-European rivals to power. In the 18th century, the Ottoman Empire was still regarded as a player in the European concert of power. Not until the 19th century was the Empire marginalised as the "sick man on the Bosporus” and used a pawn in the power struggles of the remaining European powers.

In this context, it is also important to note that the Republic of Turkey was also the result of a forcible population resettlement from and to Anatolia. Between the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 and 1924, over two million Christians, the majority Greek and Armenian, were driven out of Anatolia. Many died as a result. Coming from the other direction, approximately 1.2 Turks poured into Anatolia from all corners of the Balkans, which had belonged to the Ottoman Empire. These population movements strengthened the "European” element of the Turkish population, particularly among the elites, who then founded the new state, the Republic of Turkey.

Geographic boundaries

Some journalists and politicians have attempted to locate a solution to the issue via largely objective geographic criteria. Can the discipline of geography provide a definite, objective, and neutral definition of Europe? The response of geographers is no. In a comprehensive essay, Hans-Dietrich Schultz described the history of methods used to define and determine the boundaries of continents, and to locate the boundary between Europe and Asia Minor. Already in the 1890s, leading geographers such as Alfred Hettner could no longer draw a methodologically sustainable geographic boundary by means of morphology, climate and vegetation. As a result, Hettner spoke of the continent of Eurasia, with Europe on its western flank, and Asia as its larger eastern flank. Numerous specialists in the discipline of geography agreed with Hettner's school of thought.

Does Europe need clear boundaries?

The efforts to locate Turkey within or outside of Europe geographically, culturally, and politically have demonstrated that the variety of academic perspectives on the issue can provide no single, conclusive answer to this debate. However, in recent years it has become apparent that the topics of "European history" and "European culture" -- which are often conflated -- have become increasingly popular commodities on the publishing market. The Viennese historian Wolfgang Schmale has also critiqued this development in his recent study (Geschichte Europas, Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: 2000). Among the works illustrative of this trend are the "Making of Europe" series edited by the renowned historian Jacques Le Goff and the highly successful "Illustrated History of Europe," by Frederic Delouche. As in these two works, Europe is increasingly constructed as the outcome of a collective remembrance of its cultural and historical inheritance, a tendency that may well have less to do with the insights of historical scholarship than the wishes and desires of its European audience. As the historian Michael Mitterauer critically noted about Le Goff and similar historians, "Anyone who wishes to stand in service of the architects of Europe would do well to reflect upon how their construction is or should be defined. The very generality of their formulation [author's note: here with respect to the title of the work] would first and foremost suggest that historians once again are serving the dictates of politics. Historians are participating in the project of construction, heedless of outcome.”

Ultimately, scholars from the various disciplines will not be able to draw a definitive boundary for Europe. Both contemporary and historical Europe is multi-faceted and thus amenable to a wide range of interpretations. Within the disciplines of geography, cultural studies and political science, it will continue to remain difficult to fashion unilateral criteria that will provide an obvious solution to the dilemma of whether Turkey should be permitted or denied entry to the house of Europe.

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