Ertugrul Ozkok: If only the photos had come one day earlier

What did you feel about the photographs hidden with such care by the big French media? As a person who wants with all your heart that Turkey become a member of the EU, I ask you, what did you feel? Didn't you feel deeply the hypocrisy of the situation? Didn't you feel like making a few remarks to French actress Emanuelle Beart, who refused to come, though invited, to the Istanbul Film Festival as a boycott of the police action towards Women's Day protestors?Anyway, my inner feelings were ones of how sanctimonious, how hypocritical, the French have acted about this situation. I wish the photographs had come to our attention one day earlier, so that when the Foreign Ministry had its talks (in Luxembourg) with the Membership Council, they could have put the French "Choch" magazine on the table when the subject of the Women's Day protestors in Istanbul came up. I wish, how I wish, that we had had this headline one day earlier. Now I'm waiting curiously. The French press hid these photographs. Let's see what the European press, so interested as it is in democracy, will make of these photos? The newspapers that put the events in Istanbul on their front pages, will they do something similar with the pictures from Paris? We will all see together. Let's see whether democracy and human rights criteria are only applicable to Turkey, or to all of Europe? You'll see though, nothing will happen.Because the Copenhagen criteria are no longer important. Nowadays, it's the Ankara criteria.Some of the darkened consciences of Europe are cleaning themselves on Turkey. Our friends who pass on Turkey, saying there is no democracy, go on to enjoy their holidays in Dubai. Why? Are women treated better there than here? Is democracy more developed there? Is there more respect shown for human rights? This is unfortunately the reality in Europe these days. A continent which has lost itself is trying to find its identity using Turkey. If you ask me, it is the worst portrait to come out of Europe throughout its entire history. ****Another photograph came to my attention the other day. Bulgaria and Romania were signing their full membership agreements for the EU. I'm looking at the notebooks on my desk. Not long ago, maybe 15 years ago, nearly 300 thousand Turks were forced out of BulgariaI wonder if there was even one word of complaint about this last forced exile of the 20th century from Europe? Ok, forget complaint; was there even the slightest recollection of the event? No. Have the people asking questions all the time in Diyarbakir about human rights ever gone to Bursa to ask people there their opinions? No, in order for someone to have human rights, they have to be either Armenian, Kurdish, or Greek. * * *It looks like we're running to the rescue of Europe again. This is the entrance fee to the EU.We have to help them find the identities which they lost.We have to help them clean their consciences. And we have to suffer this continental hypocrisy, this global egoism.What can we do? This is the bill put before us for a 600 year history, and the crime of being Turkish.I wish the photographs had come to us a day earlier. Â