Processen

Vedr. AKP og Tyrkiet. Damkjær skriver:

I betragtning af, hvad der lige nu er på spil i Tyrkiet, er tavsheden hos de europæiske regeringer nærmest larmende.

Der er mange ting på spil her. Et er civilisationskrigernes misfortolkning af demokrati, som de mener aldrig kan være udtryk for andet end sekularisme - højst kristen fundamentalisme. Man kan grine eller græde over dem, der vil forsvare demokratiet ved at støtte et forbud mod et parti, som halvdelen af vælgerne stemmer på. Men lad det ligge.

Tavsheden er udtryk for at Tyrkiet aldrig har haft en chance for at blive medlem af EU (hvilket jeg er tilfreds med). Hvis dette spiller sig ud, og AKP bliver forbudt, så er det på samme tid grund til og endeligt bevis og undskyldning for at Tyrkiet ikke hører hjemme i EU. Så hvorfor forstyrre en proces, der går den rigtige vej?

Hvis man i øvrigt vil vide lidt mere om AKP, vil jeg henvise til denne artikel af Mona Eltahawy. Hun er altid god. Nøglecitat:

As a secular Muslim who has vowed never to live in Egypt should Islamists ever take power, I never take lightly any attempt to blend religion with politics. So it has been with a more than skeptical eye that I've followed Turkish politics over the past few years.

But the 2004 reforms to Turkey 's Penal Code which were passed by an AK Party-dominated parliament have been nothing short of miraculous. To appreciate how the AK Party has turned upside down Islamist notions on women and their rights to sexual autonomy - and thereby signaled its own distance from Islamism - consider the following, quoted from the European Stability Initiative (ESI) June 2007 report "Sex and Power in Turkey: Feminism, Islam and the Maturing of Turkish Democracy":

- All references to vague patriarchal constructs such as chastity, morality, shame, public customs or decency had been eliminated from the Penal Code.

- The new Penal Code treats sexual crimes as violations of individual women's rights and not as crimes against society, the family or public morality.

- It criminalised rape in marriage, eliminated sentence reductions for honour killings, ended legal discrimination against non-virgin and unmarried women, criminalised sexual harassment in the workplace and treated sexual assault by members of the security forces as aggravated offences.

- Provisions on the sexual abuse of children have been amended to remove the possibility of under-age consent.

As well as highlighting the AK Party's willingness to traverse far beyond any Islamist notions of women's rights, the reforms also signaled the party's ability to listen and to work with Turkish civil society, particularly women's groups which so successfully lobbied and campaigned for the reforms that they have since emerged as influential political players in their country.

Tyrkiets højesteret vil altså forbyde det parti, der har betydet mest for tyrkiske kvinderettigheder nogensinde. Pia Kjærsgaard ved nok ikke noget om det her. Det eneste, hun ved, er at de er tidligere islamister, og derfor bør forbydes. For islam trumfer alt i islamomanikerens sind, også demokrati og ytringsfrihed.