Opposition to Turkey’s entry is strongest in France, the champion of “Old Europe,” but not limited there.

French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has warned against “the river of Islam” being allowed into Europe.

Some capitalist politicians are blunt about the reasons for their revulsion at the idea of Turkey becoming the 26th EU member. As French finance minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is laying the groundwork for succeeding President Jacques Chirac in the next elections, has said, “civilized” Europe can’t let the multitudes of underdeveloped Turkey, with a majority rural population, enter the EU and, with a weighty vote given its population, vie for the farm subsidies under the so-called Common Agricultural Policy. After all, these subsidies are meant to help agribusiness in Europe dump food products into the markets of semicolonial countries, just like Turkey, to bolster the profits of capitalist farmers by driving local peasants and others out of business, and siphoning off the wealth working people there produce into the coffers of imperialist banks through debt slavery.

Washington and London, on the other hand, have been campaigning for Turkey’s admittance into the EU to advance their own, and often competing, predatory interests. U.S. imperialism would be glad to weaken the European Union, which has been led by Paris and Berlin in an attempt to form a bloc that can more effectively compete with Washington—the number one military and economic power—over control of the world’s markets and resources. Although a member of the EU, London has clung to its “special relationship” with Washington since World War II—a relationship of dependence that comes from the decline of British imperialism.

Here, it’s appropriate to correct assertions we made related to this point in the editorial in the October 5 Militant. After highlighting Washington and London’s support for Ankara’s entry into the EU, that editorial said, “In doing so, the Anglo-American alliance continues to make headway in solidifying a ‘New Europe’ against their competitors in the French-German bloc in the EU who more and more seem to tolerate overt anti-Muslim prejudice.”

There are several errors in this sentence.

What U.S. secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld first described as “New Europe” is fluid, not a new alliance Washington is after that is getting more and more solid. The U.S. rulers have made it clear they will no longer pursue permanent alliances that impose constraints on the White House, and its alliances will shift from task to task. The differences between the allies Washington assembled in the assaults on Afghanistan and Iraq are a case in point.

In addition, this emerging and shifting “New Europe” is defined by Washington, not by “Anglo-American” goals. The U.S. rulers are making headway against their rivals in Europe by pushing Ankara’s membership in the EU, not against some “French-German bloc,” but against those in Paris and other imperialist governments in Europe who promote and tolerate overt anti-Muslim prejudice to keep out semicolonial Turkey with its nearly 70 million people. Bush administration officials push this line partly by arguing that Islam is “one of the great religions in the world” that has been tarnished by small groups of “terrorists.”

Finally, the October 5 editorial referred to the so-called Bush Doctrine—striking preemptively at “terrorist” groups and the states that “harbor them” to advance the strategic interests of American imperialism—as getting a hearing or “traction internationally,” without explaining which classes support it, and for what reasons. The Bush administration points to support for its “war on terror” by the governments of Turkey, Indonesia, and other majority Muslim countries as proof that what it calls democracy and Islam are compatible. Bourgeois regimes that align themselves with Washington along this course do so to defend their class interests, or even their survival in a number of cases.

These conflicts point to one fact above all. The greatest contradiction in world politics is the internationalization of both capital and labor, on the one hand, and, on the other, the growing conflicts among the most powerfully armed nation-states—including members of the EU that often enter into acrimonious disputes with each other—as a result of their competition for profits. This is a contradiction inherent in the capitalist system, which has become much more explosive in the imperialist epoch. The latest flare-up in the Airbus-Boeing tussle over control of the aircraft market is one illustration of this point.

We might look at the wars that have been fought in recent years and initially think that all these seem to be conflicts between imperialist powers and colonial countries, as in the 1991 Gulf War or the current war in Iraq. If we look a little more carefully, however, if we think about what’s at the heart of the dispute over Turkey, we can also see the mounting social tensions in world politics that lead to growing nationalist demagogy and rightist movements in the imperialist countries. We can see the class polarization that can and has fueled the war party—the nonpartisan bourgeois war party—in all the centers of finance capital. And we can recognize the threat of interimperialist armed conflicts and wars that can set humanity on the path toward a third world conflagration.

Before the capitalists can lead humanity to such a catastrophe, however, working people will get their chance to take state power and replace the rule of the warmakers with a government of workers and farmers, overturn capitalism, and join the worldwide struggle for socialism. The course advocated by the Socialist Workers Party candidates in the 2004 U.S. elections offers a realistic perspective toward this goal. That’s why you should vote socialist and campaign for the working-class alternative in November.
 
 
Related articles:
Commission OKs talks on Turkey joining EU—in 10 years, maybe  
 
 
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