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| Europe |
| Is Turkey ready to join Europe? |
| 2006-04-08 |
| EFL When I visited Turkey last week on an inaugural London-to-Ankara flight, I decided the country was clearly ripe for membership of the European Union. Only a short walk from my hotel I found a Marks & Spencer, a McDonald's, a Body Shop and a Mothercare. I could have been in Milton Keynes. But on the flight home next day, a stewardess gave me a copy of the Daily Telegraph that threatened to change my view. It contained a story from Ankara, the city I had just left, bearing the headline Muslims Accused of Killing "Unclean" Dogs. The report said a Turkish vet caring for stray animals had come across hundreds of dead dogs in a municipal dump. These were said to have been left there by city workers who liked to round up, torture and kill dogs because they believed them "unclean". Grrrrrrr. It's bad enough here, with the dog-fighting pits, the "Oope! Fluffy had more puppies. Well, let's just dump them; they'll find good home," and the occasional deliberate torture. But at least our culture considers these wrong and condemns those who do it. This made me wonder if Turkey really is ready to join Europe. True, its people seemed charming, intelligent and civilised; and its capital city could boast an M&S. But this was no way to treat a dog. Furthermore, the report included the distressing detail that at least two of the dead dogs had been sexually abused. Why would you want sexually to abuse a dog if you considered it "unclean"? Because they're devil-worshipping savages? It made no sense, but it suggested that the founder of modern Turkey, the great Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, had died before Europeanising his country as fully as he would have liked. But I mustn't make too much of this. Since the is Al Guardian, after all. Muslims are by no means alone in not liking to be licked by dogs and Islam is opposed to cruelty to animals of any kind, its faith teaching that animals are part of Allah's creation and so should be treated with respect. Male animals, anyway. |
| Posted by:Jackal |
| #2 "hooking a dynamo to Attaturk's grave...." LOL - excellent! |
| Posted by: Jinens Slilet8504 2006-04-08 14:56 |
| #1 "Is Turkey ready to join Europe?" Ummmm - NO. Though they could get free electricity for the entire country by hooking a dynamo to Attaturk's grave.... |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-04-08 14:45 |