Fox News, never the most sympathetic of information sources for freethinkers, reported on December 19 that "the European Union opened its borders to more than ten million Serbs, Montenegrins and Macedonians on Saturday after nearly 20 years of demanding visas, a major boost for closer ties with the 27-nation bloc."

So now the Serbs, the Montenegrins and Macedonians can travel freely throughout the countries of the European Union. No wonder the Turks are asking for equal treatment.

The way the Turks have been treated by the EU Member State's policymakers, and by quite a substantial proportion of the European public, is despicable - and humiliating for the Turks. Bland words of encouragement from the European Commission are rendered meaningless by individual and influential acts of defiance, with Merkel 'humming and haahing', Sarkosy putting up his index finger, and the Pope putting his infallible word in for good measure.

Merkel's behaviour is understandable, if not excusable, because she has an electorate living with a Turkish underclass of Gastarbeiter that has colonised her country with fast-food joints. Sarkosy's only excuse, apart from the fact that he is French, is that he has a large and unruly Muslim minority - which happens to owe much of its unruliness to the fact that it is left mouldering on the verges of French society.

Get to know the emerging Turkish mainstream today (the Anatolian peasant community will continue to provide raw material for future generations of emancipated Turks) and you will be very pleasantly surprised by its education and sophistication. These people put a lot of Europe to shame, and the fact that they have to stand in line behind the Serbs, the Montenegrins and Macedonians is ridiculous - even if the Serbs, the Montenegrins and Macedonians have distinctive qualities of their own.

Ironically, one of the things they all share is the memory that their forefathers experienced life under the Ottoman Empire. Many of the best-known books written by European historians, notably those of central and eastern Europe, focus almost exclusively on the perceived iniquities and incompetences of that six-century era.

Today's Turks are neither Ottoman Turks - the Ataturk revolution saw to that, although it did not forestall a growing acceptance of Islam - nor are they Arabs. Yet it is precisely this Islamic element that is so significant, making Turkey a natural bridge between us and the cultures of the Middle and Far East.

We have to bridge this gap, otherwise we will be in big trouble, but we can only do this by adopting a less ethnocentric view of the world. An Arab banker recently made the point when he said that, viewed from his side of the world, "we see Turkey as part of Europe, not the Middle East."

Europe herself once bridged the gap - in the relatively tolerant and fruitful cultures of Spain's Granada and the Sicily of Frederick I (il gran Federigo). Then we threw all that away, thanks to Isabelle, Ferdinand and other Christian bigots. The culture of the Ottoman Empire also had its bigots, but they were completely outnumbered by broadminded and pragmatic individuals who ran their empire intelligently but, ultimately, unsuccessfully. The smears came largely from Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian intellectuals, rather than the ordinary people who lived under the Ottoman yoke. Obviously, the Greeks put their word in for good measure (and are still inclined to do so after the thrashing Ataturk gave them in Smyrna).

The Ottoman Turks were well intentioned, but had devices for converting people to Islam: no taxes, the privilege of riding on horseback, etc. The Catholic Kings, on, the other hand, gave us the Inquisition, auto da fe, torture and the like. The late Ottoman Empire, alternatively cohabiting with and fighting the Habsburgs, deserves greater credit than most historians give it. Contrary to the image offered by Greek, Serb and other Balkan writers, it showed intermittent but often surprisingly enlightened tolerance, if at times indifference, to subordinate races and religions.

American foreign policy has been friendly to Turkey, for reasons of its own, like the ones it now uses to favour a ruthless Kyrgyzstan. Unlocking the door to Turkish accession to the EU depends essentially on resolving the Cyprus issue. The tergiversation and double talk are shameful. We have a moral obligation to the Turks, if we are even a little bit honest, and we have very cogent practical reasons for ensuring their accession to the Union.

From recent dealings with educated Turks, we find them far more lucid and reasonable than many Europeans. Sarkosy's dismissal of Turkey as part of Asia Minor ignores the fact that they are an integral part of recent European history, and even have a foothold in Europe on the west banks of the Dardanelles. Such landlocked thinking is strikingly mediaeval. It even defies conventional wisdom, since Europe is normally regarded as ending at the Urals, a long way further east.

Not only can they offer a bridge to Islam, the Turks can teach us a thing or two. They should have been in line ahead of Bulgaria and Romania…

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