Turkish Muslims skeptical about the Pope’s visit
ANKARA, Turkey – Beside a narrow stone road, with the brilliant reds and blues of prayer rugs for sale acting like a canopy, Ugur Basci paused between sips of tea to say that East and West, Islam and Christianity can coexist peacefully, beautifully.
But, he said, such healing is unlikely to begin when Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Muslim Turkey on Tuesday for a four-day visit.
“We Muslims believe in reconciliation; that is clear,” said the 69-year-old merchant and Haji, meaning one who’s made a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. “But this pope, it is clear to us that he does not. He does not respect Islam. He does not respect Turkey.”
The pope’s visit isn’t shaping up so much as a difficult four days as a mission behind enemy lines. A protest group this week took control of the famous Hagia Sophia, an Eastern Orthodox church in Istanbul that was converted into a mosque in 1453 and then into a museum in 1935, to protest the visit, but experts here dismiss Western fears for the pope’s safety.
“Will there be protests? Yes, of course,” said Meliha Benli Altunisik, the chair of international relations at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. “But I cannot take seriously the notion that he is in physical danger. He will rather be ignored.”
The pope began planning this trip before Sept. 12, when in a speech he quoted from a 1391 dialogue on Christianity and Islam between the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian. He quoted the emperor as saying: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
The ancient quotation quickly joined the list of Muslim grievances against the West, along with the U.S.-led attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israeli attack on Lebanon and the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
Turkish dislike for Benedict began even before he became pope. In August 2004, when talking about the country’s application for membership in the European Union, he told the French newspaper Le Figaro: “Europe is a cultural continent, not a geographical one. It is its culture that gives it a common identity. … In this sense, throughout history Turkey has always represented another continent, in permanent contrast with Europe.”
Although 99 percent of the population is Muslim, Turkey has considered itself a secular, democratic state since its modern founding in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
“We’re in a time when nationalism is rising, and when Islam is rising,” said Nazlan Ertan, the executive editor of the New Anatolian newspaper in Ankara. “This pope just happened to insult us on both counts.”