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1. ARTICLE OF THE MONTH: TURKS AT THE GATES OF BRUSSELS
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After heated argument in Brussels, the date for talks on Turkey's EU accession has been set for 3 October. It's the latest development in a debate that has occupied Europe since the beginning of the nineteenth century, says Niels Kadritzke, co-editor of "Le Monde diplomatique" (Berlin).

Europe, Kadritzke explains, has had a historical role in making the Turkish state what it is today. After WWII, the treaty of Sèvres was to have carved up Asia Minor amongst the Allies. Had the treaty been implemented, there would be no question of whether Turkey was part of Europe: "Asia Minor and the Balkans would have formed a huge tract of land, whose Christian and Muslim roots would have changed nothing of its European character".

Instead, the Greek occupiers were repulsed by the Kemalist national liberation forces. In the new Turkish nation, democratic structures fell by the wayside as the regime attempted to inculcate an indifferent Muslim population with national consciousness. In October 2004, at a conference held by the Green group of the European Parliament, Orhan Pamuk was asked why he "hated" Turkey. The outspokenness of his reply was unprecedented: "Well, there are people whose love for their mother country manifests itself in their use of torture. My love for my country manifests itself in my criticism of my state."

Kemalists still see European federalism as equivalent to separatism, which explains why the liberal Islamic AKP has made more progress in delivering the reforms required by the EU. Kadritzke forecasts that Turkey's accession will depend on how democratically political tensions are negotiated over the next decade, and how far Europe recognizes its historical responsibility in steering this process.

Niels Kadritzke
TURKS AT THE GATES OF BRUSSELS

This article can be read in English and German at:
www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-24-kadritzke-en.html
www.eurozine.com/article/2005-05-05-kadritzke-de.html

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2. ADDITIONS TO THE FOCAL POINT "EUROPEAN HISTORIES"
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On 8 May 2005, Eurozine published the Focal Point "European histories", on the "gulfs of memory" that separate eastern and western commemoration of WWII. The Focal Point continues to grow, with four more notable articles:

Adam Phillips
THE FORGETTING MUSEUM

When it seems self-evident that commemoration averts the recurrence of atrocities, it takes a psychoanalyst to point out that making people remember assumes that their responses to their memories can be calculated. Adam Phillips, prolific writer on contemporary social habits, whose latest book is "Going Sane" (2005), argues that "an obsession with memory blinds us to the abuses of memory, and to the uses of forgetting". Literary critic Frank Kermode has coined the term "Phillipsian", a style that "leads you to think that you have picked up an idea by the head, only to find that you are holding it by the tail" ("The Guardian").

This article can be read in English at:
>>www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-24-phillips-en.html

Volker Hage
BURIED FEELINGS

Volker Hage, literary editor of "Der Spiegel", responds to the argument put forward by W.G. Sebald, in "The Natural History of Destruction" (German version: "Luftkrieg und Literatur"), that the Allied bombing of German cities was hushed up in postwar German literature and society. Looking outside the modern German prose canon, Hage uncovers instances where the experiences of "the children of the bombing" come to light, and suggests an alternative theory of narrative and psychological limits.

This article can be read in English and Russian at:
>>www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-07-hage-en.html
>>www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-01-hage-ru.html

Christian Semler
IS THE TIDE OF GERMAN MEMORY TURNING?

The debate in Germany on National Socialism, initially imposed on a reluctant German public by the Allies, was brought by the radical '68 generation into the mainstream. But have the '68ers retained the critical outlook that provoked confrontation with their Nazi parents, and has it been handed down to the next generation? Christian Semler, former APO lawyer and journalist at the Berlin "Tageszeitung", describes how a growing number of voices have been calling for a "normalizing discourse" that subsumes the memory of National Socialism under the general memory of crimes against humanity committed in the twentieth century.

This article can be read in English at:
>>www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-23-semler-en.html

Klaus Naumann
DISPLACEMENT AS AN ISSUE OF GERMAN SELF-UNDERSTANDING

The continuation of the German "Reich" in the postwar West German state placed the issues of contested borders and displacement at the core of German self-understanding. Naumann, fellow of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research, argues that the pre-unification Federal Republic cultivated an ambivalent identity situated between "interim status", "newly established", and "successor to the Reich". There was no need to lift the taboo on the issue of displacement, since it was written into the form of statehood.

This article can be read in German at:
>>www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-22-naumann-de.html

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3. NEW ARTICLES
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Ulrike Felt
A NEW CULTURE OF SCIENCE? OR: THE YEARNING FOR GREAT MEN AND BIG EVENTS
As Germany celebrates the Einstein year, Ulrike Felt points out the ironies in attempts to popularize science.

This article is available in English and German at:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-28-felt-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-08-felt-de.html

Tomas Kavaliauskas
THE DEMIURGE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
The demiurge of Europe is in thrall to the erratic forces of realpolitik. A platonic look at the future of the EU.

This article is available in English at:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-22-kavaliauskas-en.html

George Ross
EVERY PENSIONER IS THEIR OWN NEXT OF KIN: THE NEO-CONSERVATIVE PLANS OF THE BUSH GOVERNMENT
On the plans of President Bush to make the future pension accounts a component of his project of an "ownership society".

This article is available in German at:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-17-gresh-de.html

Jason Potter
LETTER FROM HOME
On the way Americans see themselves -- with feelings of solitude, dissatisfaction, and confusion.

This article is available in English and Latvian at:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-20-potter-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-20-potter-lv.html

Alain Gresh
LEBANON'S DEMOCRACY WITHOUT DEMOCRATS
Little remains of the revolutionary mood of the "cedar revolution" that followed the murder of Rafik Hariri in March. Meanwhile, fears grow that sectarianism is just what US foreign policy desires.

This article is available in German at:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-17-gresh-de.html

Anthony Robinson
THE YUKOS AFFAIR
The Kremlin's renationalization of the Russian oil industry following the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky does not augur well for western Europe.

This article is available in English and German at:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-16-robinson-en.html
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-16-robinson-de.html

Philippe Rekacewicz
WATER AS TRADABLE ASSET
Private interests are over-represented in associations for global water management, which are effectively lobby groups for the construction and water industries.

This article is available in German at:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-16-rekacewicz-de.html

Eurozine News Item
CELEBRATING EINSTEIN
This year, Germany is celebrating the centenary of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. The journal "Gegenworte" reflects on the "eventization" of science.

This article is available in English at:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-08-newsitem-en.html

Jürgen Trabant
LOSING EINSTEIN, CELEBRATING EINSTEIN
Jürgen Trabant draws attention to the fact that one of the tragic moments of intellectual history is connected to the person of Einstein: the passage of "mind" from one country to another.

This article is available in German at:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-08-trabant-de.html

Hazel Rosenstrauch
BUILDING BLOCKS FOR A THEORY OF JEWISH ATONEMENT
Are the celebrations around Einstein in Germany a possibility to integrate this great mind and public intellecutal into German identity and to construct an acceptable past?

This article is available in German at:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-08-rosenstrauch-de.html

Jean-Christophe Servant
WHITE ELEPHANTS IN THE GREY ZONE: CHINA'S UNSCRUPULOUS AFFAIRS IN AFRICA
Jean-Christophe Servant on relations between China and Africa since the conference in Bandung.

This article is available in German at:
>>http://www.eurozine.com/article/2005-06-06-servant-de.html