Chinua Achebe

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Duisburg-Essen, language: English, abstract: [...] Although there is quite a number of reasonable arguments for not welcoming Turkey
to the European "family", such as financial as well as political and ethical, the majority of
Turkish people consider prejudices against Turks as the actual reason for their rejection: they
are (culturally) too different and more than the half of the European citizens are against a
Turkish membership in the EU. Instead, a "privileged partnership" is being proposed by
some conservative European governments (or opposing parties such as the German Christian
Democratic party), instead of a full membership. I think "full" needs to be emphasised here
because it means a real and well-meant friendship, a step closer to becoming a family member
one day rather than a mere political (or strategical) ally. Well, family implies that there are
less differences, that one is almost alike. There are many European tenets as well as
traditional views which hinder an honest dialogue since Europe has yet to rid itself of some
of its dangerous ideas ("maleficent" fictions) which set the world ablaze in the 20th century.
Neither Nigeria is honestly acknowledged, nor is (in the minds of many a European critic)
Achebe's writing universal5, nor is Turkey's fourty-year old endeavour to become a full
European member acceptable. There is, intellectually, a problem on the part of Europe to
accept the idea of equality which Achebe has been persistently trying to point out both in his
novels and in his essays (which is the same reason, I think, why Turkey is so hard done by):
feeling of superiority. That is why Achebe's books lack the quality of universal European (or
Western) books and is only applicable to Nigeria and likewise the reason for Turkey being a
second-rate country. Both of these concepts reveal classical European ideas that wil