■"Some Hard-Liners in Turkey See Diversity as Divisive" by Susan Sachs, New York Times, 21 November 2004, p. A8.

■"Just Another Quick-Witted, Egg-Roll-Joke-Making, Insult-Hurling, Chinese-American Rapper: Jin tries to find his place in the hip-hop nation,", by Ta-Nehisi Coates, New York Times Magazine, 21 November 2004, p. 54.

New Core states typically are not far removed from their moment of achieved national identity, meaning that touchstone point in their history when they felt they had achieved their natural state of affairs/territory/self-definition. This identity achievement is typically what allowed them to get comfortable enough with the outside world so as to open up ("we are confident of who we are, therefore we can handle higher social and economic transaction rates with the rest of the world).

The further India gets away from the separatist experiences that led to the births of Pakistan and Bangladesh, the more confident it becomes. And the closer China gets to reconstituting its historical sense of self (now, only Taiwan remains beyond its acknowledged grasp, the more confident it becomes.

One of the key quid pro quos currently being foisted upon Turkey as it seeks membership in, and connectivity to, the European Union is that Europe is demanding the government there allow for more religious freedom within the country. Turkey has long defined itself as both secular but very clearly Turkish/Islamic. To really belong in Turkey, you had to be Turkish and Muslim. Others were toleratedójust barely.

The fear, of course, was all about minorities whose very existence would be used by outside powers to weaken and divide Turkey. That's because this is exactly what happened to the Ottoman Empire, of which Turkey remains as sort of the rump state, like Serbia is to the former Yugoslavia, and as Sunni-land will someday likely become for the former Iraq. Minorities in Turkey, therefore, as considered a matter of national security, a bad act that America occasionally dips into (like with too many Middle Easterners today, the Japanese in WWII, etc.).

But here's the rule-set reset demanded by Europe: stop treating your state as an ethnic identity marker and start treating it as a geographic administrative conceptómeaning the definition of being a Turk needs to expand to basically anyone who lives in Turkey, speaks Turkish, and wants the same rights as anyone of Turkish ethnic descent. In short, the EU is demanding Turkey genericize the concept of being Turkish if it wants to join the EU, because the EU lets in modern states, not immature ethnic nations. If the EU approached it any other way, the dream of a United States of Europe (gee, what a familiar ring) never really takes off, because the USE can only be the USE if its united around the concept of states united, not ethnic ghettos stitched together.

When you get a mature USE, it will most definitely look like a USA, all "profound" economic lifestyle differences aside. You'll see ethnic blending and appropriation that's not seen as stealing, but the highest form of flattery, like a Chinese-American rapper who's just trying to fit into a hip-hop nation of half-breeds and mongrels (God love him).