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European Witness
ASIA MINOR, THE GRAVEYARD OF GREEK CITIES
Page 5
And a writer in a recent number of "Le Tempt" of Paris says:
"Constantinople is a dying city. The Bosphorus, once thronged with the world’s shipping, is now all but deserted; the offices of foreign business houses are winding up their affairs; the banks will loan money only at the most exorbitant rates. The troubles with the Greeks and Armenians have resulted in the expulsion en masse of those peoples. Even the Turkish population proper is emigrating in the hope of finding brighter commercial prospects."
"As the prosperity of the great city declines, its ancient rivals, Alexandria, Beirut, Saloniki and Piraeus are receiving the benefits of its former trade."
How can it be otherwise!
Efficiency to massacre does not mean ability in industry and commerce, and the fanatical destruction of great industrial masses has always proved a serious blow to the prosperity of the country where the crime has occurred, as witness the persecution of the Huguenots in France. In Turkey it has meant ruin.
[Ellopos' note: A recent article of the Turkish newspaper Hurriet (8 Nov. 2003), writes that "according to international standards, 12.2 million Turks live at or below the borderline of hunger. The Turkish National Institute of Statistics confirms these numbers, adding that these individuals, who comprise 17.8% of the population, live on a family income of one dollar per day or less. Another 19.8% of the population, or 13.5 million people, live on a combined family income of two dollars per day. A more 'financially comfortable' segment, comprising 20% of the population, lives on nine dollars and thirty cents per day, whereas the average daily family income is three dollars and eighty cents".
This seems to confirm Horton to-day, but the reasoning is based on unsafe ground, because economic growth is possible with the import of know-how and the co-operation of the West. Turkey realised the need to 'import spirit', by which she expects only money and nothing else. The real thing, what is of interest when we think about the possibility of civilization and not just prosperity, is to remember that having spirit is not identical with knowing-how. Horton observes that "under the rule of its new masters Constantinople was destined to become the most degraded capital in Europe, and became incapable of contributing anything whatever of value to the history of the human race": they don't care not only about Christ and the New Testament, but neither for Homer, Plato, Hoelderlin or Kierkegaard. They don't want us, they don't care in the least about who we are and what we love, they don't care if we live or die, and, of course, they wouldn't beg for our co-operation, if we didn't have money and know-how. It isn't difficult for a person of good will to understand, that even faith in Allah is better than faith in money. This kind of economic growth is something like an attempt of 'inviting conquerors' - and Europe has to realise that such a conquering of Turkey's will mean, without doubt, her own fall too: you can not have slaves without being a slave yourself, Chrysostom says.
Within the lack of prospect of a real cultural growth of the Turkish people due to Islam and their character, and to the degree that they remain 'faithful' to Islam and maintain the same character, as they did for the past centuries, whatever growth may be achieved by the help of foreign powers, the nature of Turkish muslims increasingly will find 'refuge' to the various forms of nihilism - as is the case also in a West abandoning her faith, one should admit (Horton says this many times - and we live after the second world war).
Yet Europe may change for the better, while Turkey has to grow economically precisely by ignoring real friendship, and this way her disease becomes the very foundation of her being, so that any anomaly, the most horrible, will be strengthened in the course of time. In my opinion, while other peoples are tortured by their islamic faith and they manage to resist to some degree, the blow of Islam for the Turks seems deadly. For any real European policy (realpolitik) concerning the Turks, the first question should be, can they convert to Christianity? If not, there isn't anything Europe can do to help them, and the more close our economic relations will be, the more the Turks and us will be corrupted].
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