London awaits Turkish coffee .....

yup ... it's supposed to be very flavorful.

......Granted, there's a Turkish population here already of about half a million people, much of it in London, and that community is very much part of the vibrant ethnic mix. I may say in passing that all the Turks I know are delightful. The thing is, though, that immigrants tend to head for cities where they can join people from their own country; London would be an inexorable draw for young Turks wanting out, especially from the impoverished east.

The real objection, though, to Turkey joining the EU is more fundamental than that. Turkey isn't really European at all, so much as Asian. Only about three per cent of its land mass is in Europe, on our side of the Bosphorus; 97 per cent is in Asia. Its accession would expand our common EU borders to Iraq, Iran and Syria. Is that honestly what we want?

The most common response by British ministers to objections to Turkish membership is that it encourages moderate Islam by showing that a non-extremist Muslim nation can be part of the European family. That, plus strategic considerations, is why the US is so much in favour of the idea.

Well, if we want to show that Muslims can indeed be part of Europe, let's expedite the membership of those genuinely European countries with large or majority Muslim populations: Albania, anyone? Kosovo? Bosnia? If we're so keen on outreach to Islam, let's start there.

And moderation, when it comes to Islam, is pretty relative, after all. Turkey isn't going to go for sharia law any time soon but a recent poll conducted by Istanbul's Bahcesehir University suggested that 48 per cent of respondents would not want Christians as neighbours, more than half wouldn't want Jews; four-fifths didn't want homosexuals. Moderate Islam, eh?.......

via: ROP