Essay on why Kemalism can be seen as the reason for the European Union not to accept Turkey in its institution. Based on sex discrimination and human rights, established in the Treaty of the European Union and the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union.

1. Kemalism: the non-EU standard of Turkey
Essay European Law and Politics
Rianne van Mierlo (1436457mierlo)
ESSAY ON SEX DISCRIMINATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Sex Discrimination, Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)
Human Rights, Treaty of the European Union (TEU)
Statement of integrity:
I hereby declare that I am familiar with the rules of Zuyd University AS concerning
plagiarism and fraud, and that I am aware of the possible consequences should my work
be found not to be my own or in violation of the aforementioned rules. I hereby state
that I used proper referencing – both in the body of the work and in the works cited list
– if I found our information elsewhere and that no information or ideas which are not
my own were used in this work without referring to their source(s).
Date and place
Signature student 1:
Name: Rianne van Mierlo
Student Number: 1436457mierlo
Date: 30 November 2015
Workshop lecturer: Mr. v.d. Akker
Word count: 2.496
Grade: 9.4

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Introduction
“Islam, this absurd theology of an immoral Bedouin, is a rotting corpse which poisons our
lives”, this is a quote by Turkish president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. He was opposed to the old
fashioned, unequal and strict Islamic structure of Turkey. His desire was to create a modern
Turkey, in which all Turks were equal to each other, despite non-Turkish minorities living in
Turkey, and education instead of religion was the path to development. After Turkey became
a republic, president Atatürk created Kemalism, an ideology that changed Turkey and its
relationship with other organizations, such as the European Union. The aspirations of the
European Union and Kemalism clashes and therefore can be concluded that Kemalism is the
reason why Turkey is not accepted into the European Union. This essay provides facts that
Turkey should not be accepted into the EU, based on their respect towards human rights.
The creation and widening process of the European Union
A post-war decision stated that there was need for collaboration, fellowship and a stable
economic environment in Europe. This eventually created the European Coal and Steel
Community in 1950, which developed in the Union as we know it now; an area of freedom,
security and justice without internal frontiers (Europe. EU, 2011). After successfully
implementing the thirteen new Member States since 2004, creating the twenty-eight countries
of the European Union, the demand of also being accepted into the European Union has
grown for several remaining non-EU countries. Currently, five candidate countries1 and two
potential candidate countries2 are on the list of the European Union3 (Europarlement, 2015).
Unfortunately for them, the process of adopting a new member state is complex and potential
member states have to fit in several criteria of the European Union.
In general, the adoption process of a new member state conducts three broad stages; a country
enters the first stage when it considers it applicable to become an official candidate for
membership. When negotiations are opened in the second stage, the country goes through
several screenings and voting processes. All European Union governments must agree on
accepting the candidate country. There are several reasons for rejecting, however, the
Copenhagen Criteria (Ec. Europe. EU, 2011) draws the mandatory guidelines. As stated in
the Copenhagen Criteria, a candidate country must respect the democratic principles and
human rights, should have a well-functioning economy which can compete with the European
market, must be geographically located in Europe and is obliged to adopt Acquis
Communautaire, the law of the European Union. After succeeding the second stage, the
candidate country and the Union will negotiate between adjustments that have to be made,
1 Countries which are officially recognized as candidate countries
2 Countries which are not yet recognized as candidate countries
3 Candidate countries: Albania,The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,Montenegro,Serbia,
Turkey
Potential candidate countries:Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo

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and if all this is accepted and the parties came to a satisfying outcome, the candidate country
is able to join the European Union. (Ec. Europe. EU, 2011).
Turkey’s relationship with the European Union
Before the European Economic Community (EEC) was developed into the European Union,
Turkey’s desire in 1959 was to join the six member states4 and became part of the internal
market that the Community was developing at the time, in order to be able to trade between
Member States.
Instead of being immediately accepted in the EEC, the Community proposed the Ankara
Agreement
(Eur-Lex, 2005), a process that would first off develop the custom union in order to provide
Turkey of full membership in the Community in the near future. In 1987, Turkey proposed
full application for being a member state and negotiations are going on ever since (Avrupa,
May 2014). When Turkey initially wanted to join the Community in 1959, their most
fundamental goals were being part of the internal market and trading goods with other EEC
Countries. Nowadays, the European Union developed itself in a genuine influential body and
contains an internal market, stable economy, collaborative EU-countries and the Union is
working towards a sustainable environment, these areas will all advance Turkey.
However, numerous aspects of Turkey’s organizational structure and current situation do not
add up with the criteria necessary for being adopted in the European Union. With reference to
the Copenhagen Criteria, a candidate country is obliged to respect the democratic principles
and human rights and must be geographically located in Europe. Whether Turkey has a EU-
style democracy and respects the human rights are arguable. Furthermore, Turkey lies over
ninety-seven per cent in Asian territories and is therefore not considered a (fully) European
country.
Gender equality in Turkey
For a great period of time, Turkey was considered an intolerant country towards sex equality
and the
rights of women. After the revolution against the Allies in 1923, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the
first president of Turkey, drastically changed the vision of Turkey by reforming the country
into a modern state. Founded on six principles; populism, reformism, secularism, statism and
nationalism, he created Kemalism, which was implemented in the Constitution in 1937
(Turkije institutuut, 2014). Mustafa Kemal stated, with Kemalism being the first fundamental
law in the constitution of Turkey, that this law cannot be changed, not by himself nor by his
successive presidents.
4
Founding members: Belgium, France,Italy,Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany

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With regard to sex discrimination and equal rights, secularism 5 twisted the religious
perception of Turkey radically. Initially, the ancient Sharia law, which declared that men were
the breadwinners of a household and women were solely obliged to have responsibilities over
the motherhood, was abolished, polygamy was prohibited and Kemal created a clear-cut
separation between church and state. Additionally, it was no longer mandatory for women to
wear headscarves anymore and several other adjustments made it clear that men and women
grown closer to equality (Dogan, March 2012).
Nonetheless, nowadays in 2015, gender equality is still relatively fickle. Although women in
Turkey enjoy full political rights, including the rights of being able to be elected, the position
of women in Turkey is not comparable with the position of men. Despite the fact that the
Turkish criminal and civil law is reformed in 2002, given women equal rights regarding
marriage, divorce and several remaining subsequent property rights, in practice it is shown
that women still suffer from discrimination, violence, lack of education, unequal power
relations and child marriage (Dogan, March 2012). A report of the Association for Education
and Supporting Women Candidates (KA.DER)6 revealed that over a period of the past five
years, the statistics of men and women equality in the business life has changed scarcely.
With regard to work positions in administrative public offices, only twenty-six female mayors
fill in the positions of the 2.924 mayors in Turkey (KA.DER, 2012).
Since 2006 to 2013, Turkey collapsed fifteen places in the ranking of the World Economic
Forum’s Gender Gap Index7, being now rated 120th out of the 136th nations (Hurriyet Daily
News, November 2014). An influential factor is the right-extremist political party AKP, the
Justice and Development Party, which is the ruling political party in Turkey, led by president
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, since 2014. The conservative AKP party beliefs in the ideology of a
modernized sharia law, pleading for an Ottoman culture at the expense of the secular republic
principles. The party supports the beliefs of the Islamic Muslim Brotherhood, a religious
movement that strives for maintaining the Islamic culture without the Western influences and
is considered a terroristic organization by multiple countries (BBC, 2013). As directly quoted
from President Erdogan in an international gathering in Istanbul regarding the issue on
women’s freedoms and rights: “Our religion has defined a position for women: Motherhood”
(November, 2014). Women rights activist groups complained about President Erdogan side
lining them and criticising him for disbanding the Western influences of gender equality in
Turkey. The women organizations belief since they differ on ideology in comparison to the
government, they are being excluded in decision-making processes (The World Post, April
2015). Women activist groups are planning on continuing the battle against sex discrimination
for as long as necessary (Afanasieva, Hogg, 2015).
5 Principle of the separation of government institutions and persons mandated to represent the state
fromreligious institutionsand religious dignitaries
6 Institution located in Istanbul, working in orderto provide equal rights and prevent sex
discrimination against women
7 An index created to measure gender-based gapsin economic, political, educational and health-
based areas and to draw global attention

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The Human Rights situation in Turkey
As written in the paragraph concerning the creation and widening process of the European
Union, a potential member state can solely be accepted in the EU if they meet several
requirements. One of those requirements is respecting the human rights; this paragraph will
zoom in on the past and current situation of Turkey regarding human rights.
When on the 29th of October 1923 Turkey became a republic, president Mustafa Kemal
Atatürk claimed that “knowledge” and “science” were from now on the key words that had to
describe the new Turkish system, Kemalism. The Kemalists wished to change the Islam into
Turkish nationalism; “For those whose mother language is not Turkish, will not be allowed to
build societies, trade associations, labour workers or villages, nor are those persons allowed to
live or work together” (van Exel, 2011). The Turkish population started seeing minorities as
second-class citizens, this affected the remaining societies living in Turkey, like the Kurds,
enormously. Inönu, the Turkish president who was in power from 1938 until 1950 said: “We
will destroy everything and everyone who lives in our country and protest against the Turks
and Turkishness”. After the Kurdish region Dersim was completely destroyed in 1938 and an
estimated number calculated approximately 13.000 deaths, the battle between the Kurds and
the Turks was on. The occupation of Dersim was meant as a warning for the Kurdish society,
but it grew out as a battle that is still going on.
After years of feeling suppressed by the Turkish government, the Kurds started their own
Kurdish militant organization in 1978, the PKK8, with Abdullah Öcalan as their political
leader. Their aim was to diminish the Turkish colonialism9 and to create their own Kurdish
state, Kurdistan. From that year forward the number of deaths raise with the increasing
battles. In August 1984 PKK farmers attacked police stations and multiple violent actions
followed. Since Turkey still had a desire to join the European Union, they accepted several
requirement in 2002, under which the abolition of the death penalty, which rescued the lives
of multiple Kurds (Arun, 2015).
The current situation regarding Turkey and human rights have still not improved. With the
conservative president Erdogan, the battle with the Kurds and the desire for developing a
country without minorities remained. Several circumstances created an even more complex
environment. Because of the unstable situation caused by terroristic organizations, under
which ISIS, the refugees crisis and the different ideologies of the Turkish-Kurds and the
Syrian-Kurds in comparison with the Turks, president Erdogan, together with many AKP
followers, fear a revolutionary war in where the Kurds will fight for their independent nation,
Kurdistan. Despite the relative calm period from 2013 to 2015, in late July 2015 the Turkish
army started bombing the Kurdish region, Suruç in Iraq in order to persuade anti-Kurdish
Turks to keep supporting the AKP. From this moment on, the PKK declared the cease-fire
8 Partiya Karkeren Kurdistane,also known as the Kurdistan WorkersParty
9 The control orgoverning influence of a nation over a dependent country, territory or people

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void and Turkish police stations suffered from an outbreak of attacks by the PKK (Totten,
2015).
Despite the fact that Turkey cannot be accepted in the European Union without fully
respecting the human rights, negotiations on the acceptance of Turkey will be opened again
on the 14th of December 2015. This is caused as a consequence of the refugees’ crisis; the
majority of refugees entering Europe accomplish this via Turkey. Turkey refused to accept the
refugees unless compromises were made. On the 29th of November, the EU and Turkey came
to the agreement that Turkey would accept refugees if the European Union would open its
negotiations for membership of the EU again. The European Union considered this a painful
political sacrifice (Jenkins, October 2015).
Conclusion
The purpose of this paper was to give an idea on the past and current situation in Turkey and
why that their political structure, Kemalism, is the reason why Turkey cannot be accepted in
the European Union.
By emphasizing on sex discrimination, Kemalism changed the position of women in a
positive way. Since Kemalism is focussing on becoming a modernized Turkey with equal
rights for every Turkish individual, the rights for women improved. After implementing
Kemalism in the constitution, women got the right to vote, women were no longer obligated
to wear head scarves anymore and several other positive aspects changed. However, with the
current president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in power, the situation for women aggravated.
Erdogan claims that women have the responsibility over motherhood and since the
empowerment of president Erdogan the amount of discrimination and violence towards
women lack of education, child marriage and unequal power relations hardly changed.
The second main argument for not accepting Turkey in the European Union would be their
respect towards human rights. Human rights are one of the most significant requirements in
order to be welcomed in the EU. Unfortunately, Turkey has shown that they do not live up to
this concern. With the on-going battle between the Turks and the Kurds and the thousands of
deaths caused by both parties, Turkey is not showing any sign of respect. This lack of respect
towards minorities can be traced back to Kemalism. With the implementation of Kemalism in
the constitution, president Atatürk stated that all Turks must be equal and openly nationalist,
regardless of minorities, such as the Kurds, living in Turkey as well. As a result, the Kurds
wanted their own independent state, Kurdistan, and with the prohibition of this creation on
behalf of the Turks, the battle was started.
It can thus be concluded that Kemalism is partially the reason why Turkey is not accepted in
the European Union. What would it mean for the European Union if they would accept
Turkey into the EU without having Turkey changed their situation drastically? It would mean
that the European Union would no longer be a peacekeeping organization that strives for a

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collaborative Europe who maintains the human rights, but it would turn into an agreement in
which almost every country can participate, whether it respects the human rights or not. In
order to accept Turkey in the European Union, it has to change it ideology on minorities.
However, since their view on minorities and nationalism is written in the constitution, what,
according to Atatürk, cannot be changed, the likelihood of changing it can be perceived
improbable.

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