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If you can’t join ‘em …
If you can’t beat ‘em, the saying goes, join ‘em.
In Turkey this week, the opposite seems to be true: If you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em.
Displeasure over the lengthy process to join the European Union has turned Turkish public opinion against membership in the EU, and attitudes have soured toward Europe in general.
So, it is no surprise that Turks have taken great pleasure in their national team’s performance in Euro 2008, a quadrennial soccer tournament unfolding this month.
After succumbing to Portugal, the Turkish side came from behind to defeat host Switzerland and the Czech Republic to advance to a quarterfinal match today against Croatia.
“For Turks, beating Europe at the club level or the national level is a matter of pride,” sports columnist Gurtay Kipcak told me. “You underestimate us? What do you have to say now?”
Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Turkey’s success, and the participation of ethnic Turks on European teams, “proof of inseparability of the Turkish and European people,” according to the Turkish Daily News.
He went on to describe the Turkish team as “the sine qua non, the color, the glow, the success of the European Cup.”
Erdogan has traveled to Vienna for today’s game, along with much of official Ankara.
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