By PHK
Every so often, Turkey commands the world’s media stage as it does right now during the Pope’s four day visit. Yet as far as I can discern, among the American MSM, only the Wall Street Journal has a bureau chief in Istanbul so it’s no surprise that our understanding of this important, moderate, democratic, and primarily Sunni Muslim country is usually as superficial and ill-informed as is the information we receive sporadic.
The two most insightful scene-setter MSM analyses I have seen in the U.S. thus far are the WSJ’s Istanbul Bureau Chief Hugh Pope’s Oped in the November 28 WSJ entitled “The West’s Eastern Front” and Newshour correspondent Margaret Warner’s November 27 scene-setter “Turkish Opinion of U.S. War Taints Relations.” Unfortunately, Hugh Pope’s Oped is buried behind the WSJ subscriber only screen, but Margaret Warner’s is available in text and video through the Newshour internet site. My advice: read the Newshour text and watch the video and if you can get to Hugh Pope’s WSJ article so much the better.
Also check out the New Anatolian: It’s an English language paper edited by Turks in Turkey with offices in Ankara and Istanbul. Its articles appear on the paper’s website as well as in print and the paper publishes a number of internationally savvy and interesting Turkish columnists. It’s well worth reading their reports and views of the pope’s visit.
Seems to me that our less than illustrious president and his so-called media experts could take a lesson in what looks to me to be a skillfully planned and carefully executed public diplomacy visit on the part of the Vatican - with a little nudging by the Turkish government - to include important Turkish sites like Ataturk’s Tomb in Ankara and the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. As a consequence, this trip could well result in a major shift in Turkish public opinion towards the pope – and in the positive direction.
Turkey and Religion
Another article with particularly relevant background on Turkey and religion is William Chislett’s special to the New Anatolian entitled “Freedom of religion: a conundrum.” This is the second of a three part series on Turkey. The others were on Turkey and the EU and the Turkish economy. They were written by a former London Times (reporting from Spain) and Financial Times (reporting from Mexico) correspondent now at Spain’s Elcano Royal Institute. Chislett was also a visiting scholar at Bilkent University in 2003 and lectured at Bogazici University in 2005 and has written two books on Turkey for Euromoney Publications. This article on religion was published in the New Anatolian’s September 16-17, 2006 edition: my husband and I happened across the newspaper and the article at a roadside kiosk in southwestern Turkey not far from the Greco-Roman ruins at Afrodisias. 
Ignorance is not bliss
Most of the time the U.S. media just ignores this predominantly Muslim country of over 70 million people – over half under the age of 25 - at the juncture between Europe and Asia. On rare occasions it zeros in on the controversies that erupt between the Turkish secularist state, its western intelligentsia and anti-western Islamists. These disputes, however, are not easily or accurately described in Manichean, or black and white terms so beloved by Americans and our MSM. Not only do they require a basic familiarity with this complex country and its history – they cannot be characterized in 100 words or less – let alone in a 20 second sound bite.
The pope’s visit to Turkey is historic. Its purpose is far more than symbolic. It is also conciliatory: to mend fences not only between Roman Catholicism and the chiefly Muslim Turks, but equally to improve the papacy’s relations and begin to repair the nearly 1,000 year old schism with Eastern Orthodox Christianity through a meeting with the pope’s closest Eastern Orthodox counterpart, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, who resides in Istanbul.
In fact, the Roman Catholic Church’s relationships with both the Eastern Christians and the Muslims have been troubled for centuries. But this pope’s far more recent ill-thought out comments about Turkish EU membership as well as Islam had inflamed anti-clerical and anti-western feelings throughout Turkey.
Now, however, the pope is saying all the right things and if he continues to do so over the next three days, then his visit there could well have far reaching positive implications.
Given this past history, however, it’s no wonder that the Turkish government has wrapped the Pope in an even tighter security blanket than W’s when he visited there in 2004 and that demonstrations have been banned.
Making amends
On this trip, the Pope is not only calling for dialogue between Eastern and Western Christianity, but also for dialogue between Christianity and Islam. He has offered a far more positive view of Muslims than previously, and according to the Turkish Government, reversed his earlier negative position on Turkish membership in the EU during his, albeit brief, conversation with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan. These are neither insignificant gestures nor simply symbolic.
Whether the pope can convince Western Europe – and in particular the French – that Turkey should not be blackballed from Europe’s most exclusive club is another story. Or how the EU Commission will deal with the immediate stumbling blocks over Cyprus is not in the papacy’s competency either.
But a change in tone by the head of the Roman Catholic Church towards Turkey’s place in Europe as well as moderate Islam is significant. It seems to me that no good – and far too much bad - has come from the exacerbation of the differences between Christianity and Islam by all of the protagonists in this unnecessary and dangerous dispute in a world that grows smaller and more interrelated by the minute.
Thus, Pope Benedict deserves a lot of credit for taking a first step in calling for change; and the Turkish government deserves much credit for its willingness to host him and allowing him to do so on Turkish soil.
Photo credits: map of Turkey - Perry-Castaneda map collection; Blue Mosque, Istanbul - PHKushlis 9/2006; Afrodisias - PHKushlis 9/2006.