A belated congratulations to the European Union, which extended membership to ten countries (including Poland, ancestral home to half of my family) last week, in a bid to expand its ranks from fifteen to twenty-five nations and effectively double in size, population, and economic power. Among the invitees was Cyprus. Despite the collapse of talks meant to reunite the island after almost thirty years of Turkish occupation, the Greek Cypriots will be allowed to join the EU in 2004 on their own, in effect achieving the political enosis or unification with Greece that Turkey had so melodramatically feared and sought to prevent with its ill-conceived invasion in 1974. The second irony here is that by torpedoing any possible power-sharing plan in Cyprus out of hand, the "Turkish Cypiots" - many of whom are mainland Turks, imported at the behest of Ankara to maintain the fiction of a functioning state on their third of the island - have also ruined for now their best chance to get a Turkish foot into the door of the European Union, in light of the fact that Turkey did not receive an invitation to join the EU this time around, on account of its questionable human rights record. And I say good riddance. Until Turkey gets its act together, owns up to past misdeeds against the Armenians and ongoing atrocities against the Kurds, and starts behaving as though democracy was a fundamental value and not mere window-dressing to woo EU ministers and assuage Americans' concerns that our best ally in the Middle East is a military dictatorship, it has no place in a European state. Cries of anti-Islamist sentiments being behind the Turkish snub are baseless. Europe already has a sizeable Muslim population, which will continue to grow with or without Turkey's membership. Moreover, Turkey is hardly an "Islamic" nation - in fact, its absolute repression of any form of religious expression among its citizenry is part of the reason why Turkey currently fails to live up to the EU's criteria on human rights. Now I'm no partisan, despite the fact that my wife's family hails in part from Asia Minor, which was Greek since before the Jews had even been promised a Promised Land, up until Turkish nationalism drove them out in 1922 (though Greek nationalism was also to blame, it's true). If Turkey can shape up and learn to respect its people - all of its people - I don't see why the Turks shouldn't be one day invited into the European Union. There have been encouraging signs here and there, but a true sea change has yet to come.

But a sea change is exactly what has happened with the EU's historic decision to expand to almost twice its present size. As one would expect, the American reaction to this news has been muted, and that's if there's any reaction at all. Americans typically react to any European development with disdain, as we're trapped in the mindset that the Europe of 2002 is somehow still the Europe we had to save from itself twice, during World War One and World War Two. To us, Europe is socialized medicine, Germans in black turtlenecks named Dieter, bleeding-heart wusses who instinctively criticize everything the United States government does for the benefit of the rest of the world. Europe is irrelevant, EU or no EU, as far as most of America is concerned. Boy, are we in for a surprise. For the first time in history, Europe has united under a banner of peace, not war. Say what you will about faceless Eurocrats shuffling paper in Brussels - this is no small feat, that Germans settle their disputes with French and English and Dutch and Belgians (and vice versa!) in meetings and negotiations, and not on the field of battle, and who truly knows what the consequences will be in the long-term? Here's to finding out!