Spiegel: "The Turkish government fears a scheduled visit by Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders, saying it could dent Turkish relations with the Netherlands and Europe. The Turkish government says it fears a scheduled visit by Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders, saying it could dent Turkish relations with the Netherlands and Europe. But many secular and religious Turks say they would welcome a debate with the polemic politician.

"Normally, the army belongs in the barracks. But I will make an exception for Turkey." Wilders wrote. "The Turkish army is the greatest defender of Kemal Ataturk's legacy, the man who compared Islam with a rotting corpse. Without the corrective influence of the army, Turkey would already be a second Iran." This position is incomprehensible and indefensible, said Mustafa Akyol, a columnist and deputy editor of the Turkish Daily News and a practicing Muslim. "Wilders forgets that Ataturk in his time (the 1920 and 30s) turned Turkey's face to the West, but that the West wasn't a very pleasant place at the time. Many of the European fascist and nationalist ideologies of the time, like that of authoritarian one-party states, were thus imported to Turkey and the secular Turks have held onto them until now.''

Note EU-Digest: Mr. Wilders, a one dimensional politician, who usually is completely off the track when it comes to conventional political activities and historical research, this time certainly read up well on Turkish history and Ataturk's legendary vision about Islam and the dangers of Islam or any other religion openly or covertly imposed as a State religion.

Labels: EU, Geert Wilders, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, The Netherlands, Turkey