‘Turkishness’ zeal under fire
"Happy is he who says: "I am a Turk."’
Turkey’s motto is on display in schools, hospitals and military barracks. Schoolchildren recite it like the Pledge of Allegiance. It covers hillsides in southeast Turkey, where the military is fighting Kurdish separatists.
This relentlessly patriotic message, coined by Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, is backed up by law: a ban on insulting "Turkishness." But it has become a serious drag on Turkey’s efforts to get its democracy into shape for joining the European Union. The EU says it’s a restriction on free speech that disqualifies Turkey for membership.
On Friday, Parliament’s justice panel began debating a government proposal to soften Article 301 of Turkey’s penal code, which has been used to prosecute Nobel literature laureate Orhan Pamuk and other intellectuals.
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Parliament is expected to approve the amendment as early as this month. But critics say it’s a half-measure by a government caught between liberal opponents of the law and nationalists who see it as a cave-in to European interference.
