Tiempo de abrirse al Islam

Así se titula un artículo de opinión del Financial Times, Time to be open to Islam, de un tal Philip Stephens. Se trata, una vez más, el tema de la adhesión de Turquía. El título me llamó especialmente la atención, porque uno de los argumentos del partido pro-turco es que se trata de un país laico, en cuyo caso ¿qué pinta la apertura al Islam? Igualmente, si en Europa no hay ningún país que se declare confesional ¿a qué viene esa recomendación de hoja parroquial en el Financial Times?

No se explica, o quizás sí: el Financial Times está aquejado por el Fatum mahometanum, ese trastorno que ya Leibniz diagnosticó hace mas de dos siglos.

Vamos a hacerle un fisking:

From time to time we must own up to our prejudices. One of mine bubbled to the surface this week when Austria threatened to derail European Union accession talks with Turkey. Since the other 24 members backed opening negotiations, the answer, it seemed to me, was pleasingly simple. Austria should be shown the exit as Brussels opened the door to Turkey.I am told that I was not alone in pondering such a resolution as the ministerial bargaining ran late into Sunday night. If the Vienna government feared cultural contamination from Turkish entry, one senior negotiator mused, it should join Switzerland in splendid isolation on Europe’s margins..

¿Contaminación? No se preocupe, estos señores no tienen por constumbre mezclarse con los nativos

Who would miss it? Austria has scarcely made a memorable contribution to European political life during the decade since it was admitted to the EU. What springs to mind instead is the rise to prominence in its politics of Jorg Haider’s deeply unpleasant and proudly xenophobic Freedom party.

“Muy desagradable? Bueno, sobre gustos no hay nada escrito. Haider fue votado democráticamente (y apartado de la política de la misma manera). Insinuar que el 80% de los austríacos –ese es el porcentaje que se opone a Turquía- son xenofobos haiderianos es una infamia.

If my anger was explicable – Austria, after all, was seeking to renege on an agreement it had signed only last year – it was also inexcusable. National stereotyping has played too lethal a part in European politics to be treated lightly. In future I will banish such ignoble thoughts. The Austrian government should do likewise. Hapsburg history is no justification for the nasty prejudices of those in Vienna who seem to think the Ottoman hordes are threatening to tear down the gates of Christendom.

La historia de los Habsburgo tampoco es argumento suficiente. Fueron los turcos quienes atacaron sistemáticamente a la cristiandad. Lógico es que quienes fueron zona de frontera les tengan cierta prevención.

This time, happily, the Austrians were obliged to retreat. Jack Straw, Britain’s foreign secretary, was right to declare the opening of talks with Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s foreign minister, an historic moment. It begins, just begins, to redeem a promise first made 40 years ago when the then six members of the common market declared, without equivocation, that “Turkey is part of Europe… This is a geographical reality as well as a historical truism.”

Va a ser que no.

Yet before the ink was dry on the negotiating mandate, one or two others joined the Austrians in adding their own “ifs”, “buts” and “maybes”. France’s Jacques Chirac declared there was no certainty that the talks would lead eventually to Turkey’s membership. Elsewhere, there were whispers that Ankara could yet be disqualified on any number of technicalities. This is the sort of say-one-thing-do-another double-speak that has lately given the Union a bad name.

De acuerdo, un error, cuanto mas tarde se le diga, mucho peor.

Of course, there will be problems before Turkey can join. Big ones. The government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken great strides towards the democratic pluralism that the Union rightly demands of its members. But freedom and the rule of law must be more deeply embedded in Turkey’s political culture. The economic hurdles are also formidable. For their part, we cannot expect other European leaders to ride roughshod over their electorates.

Ándale, muchos y grandes problemas.

We can demand, though, that those same leaders recognise their responsibility for those fears. Vacillation, reluctance to explain the benefits of Turkish entry or the cost of its exclusion and sheer cowardice on the part of the politicians go a long way to explain popular disquiet. The time for prevarication has ended.

¿Prevaricación? ¿Beneficios? No los veo. La mayor parte de los pro–turcos hablan de darle una oportunidad y del miedo a que se enfaden… Pero eso aceptar un chantaje; solo entonces aparecen los “beneficios”… ¿y una vez que funcione, no volverán a chantajear?

Because, important though they are in their own terms, the negotiations with Turkey confront Europe with the question it has been avoiding for the past few years. Can it come to terms with Islam; and not just with the Islam on its borders, but with the faith of perhaps 15m of its own citizens.

Pues claro que puede, ¿o es que tienen problemas sus 15 millones de mahometanos para practicar su fe?

Since the demise of the constitutional treaty at the hands of French and Dutch voters earlier this year, senior diplomats and politicians have been agonising about the absence of a clear European purpose. Life was easy when the Union was a rich man’s club dedicated to peace and prosperity in the western corner of the continent. These were ambitions the voters understood. The collapse of communism and the chaos of globalisation have up-ended such certainties.

Now the Union is obliged to lift its eyes to the broader horizon. It has to recognise that the world has changed and, God forbid, explain that fact to its peoples. In short, its politicians must show leadership.

Aquí está usted muy confundido, no necesitamos líderes, ni führers, ni Haiders, los soberanos somos nosotros.

Chris Patten puts the case succinctly in an excellent new book*: “The reconciliation of France and Germany was the necessary and admirable European accomplishment of the 20th century,” he says. “Reconciling the west and the Islamic world, with Europe acting as the hinge between the two, is a big task for the 21st”.

Bat Ye‘or tiene también escrito un excelente libro nuevo, Eurabia, que explica lo que hay detrás de esa propuesta. Por cierto, ¿quién tiene que reconciliarse, los Habsburgo con los turcos o los turcos con los Habsburgo? ¿Quién inició hostilidades? Mire usted, Stephen, “Ni cena recalentada, ni amistad reconciliada”. La reconciliación no es una categoría del ámbito de la política, sino de la religión, de la cristiana en particular. ¿Porqué no se la exige a ellos y deja de exigirnos a nosotros que nos abramos?

Anyone who doubts that need only look at a map or, for that matter, take a walk in one of the continent’s big cities. Europe sits on the edge of Islam. Turkey is the bridge to one part of the Middle East; the littoral states of the southern Mediterranean the gateway to the rest. Europe’s Maghreb neighbours have not been given a promise to join. But, as any Italian, Spanish or French person will tell you, that does not diminish their strategic importance.

¿Pero de qué puente se trata, del que lleva a Iraq, a Iran, a Siria? ¿De verdad es el camino que debe tomar Europa?

The hand-wringing has missed the vital distinction between integration and assimilation. Respect for cultural diversity has not isolated the nation’s Muslim communities. If anything, the reverse is true. Integration requires mutual respect and accommodation. Britishness is not etched in stone.

Bueno, pues acomódese, especialmente cuando coja el metro de Londres.

There are, of course, no easy answers to any of these problems; Turkey’s accession will require huge political energy from both sides. Exporting democracy and prosperity southwards is a project for coming decades, rather than for the next few years. So too is the effort to make Muslims feel at home in Europe’s great cities. But, with apologies to my Austrian friends, it is too late to close the gates. Nor should we wish to.

¿Amigos austríacos? Después de haberles insultado, dudo que lo sean. ¿Tarde para cerrar las puertas? ¿Ni siquiera lo debemos pensar? El suyo es un caso de Fatum mahometanum agudo.

Time to be open to Islam, by Philip Stephens. Usted es muy libre, yo también.
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