Ottomania — Fabrikzeitung Nr. 305
The events and characters in this show have been fictionalized,
inspired by history
Dad, we got together with Hasan [brother], etc. Berat [brother], my uncle, we are
together thinking about it [what to do] Berat has another idea. He says let‘s give some
of it to Faruk [Kalyoncu] for the other «business/thing» so he can process it
like the previous stuff. Shall we do it? We can dissolve a big amount with this.
Are you at home, son?
Yes, Dad.
That may be so.
Now, this morning [they] carried out an operation. Ali Ağaoğlu, Reza Zerrab,
Erdoğan‘s son, Zafer‘s son, Muammer‘s son, etc – all their homes are being
searched now.
OK. For the other part, because we started a business partnership with Mehmet Gür,
we thought of giving it to him, saying, keep it, as the projects come, you can use that
[cash]. This way, we will be able to dissolve and move the rest somewhere else.
Tell again, Dad. [What are you saying, Dad?]
OK, fine, as long as you do…
I‘m saying that Muammer‘s son, Zafer‘s son, Erdoğan‘s son, Ali Ağaoğlu,
Reza Zerrab, etc – they are searching the houses of 18 people under
a big corruption operation thing.
OK.
Right.
Did Sümeyye arrive?
OK? Now, what I [have to] say is, you [must] take everything
you have in the house out. OK?
She arrived home, she will now come here.
OK, Dad, we will sort this out today, inshallah [with God‘s will]. Anything else?
What can I have on me, Dad? [I have no money of my own.]
There is your money in the safe.
It would be good if you do … if you can dissolve it [all the cash].
Yes, we will dissolve it [all the cash], inshallah.
That‘s what I am saying. Now, I am sending your sister [to you]. OK?
You are sending who?
Did you do the other tasks I gave you?
We‘ll finish them in the evening. We sorted some out. We sorted out the Berat part,
now we will first handle the part with Mehmet Gür and the rest we will do when it
gets dark.
Your sister, I‘m saying.
Eh? OK.
….
Inshallah.
Then… She has that information, OK. Talk with your older brother.
Yes.
What did Sümeyye do?
Let‘s do… Talk with your uncle, too. He should also take out…
Also talk to your [maternal] uncle, he should also…
She took it [money] out, we talked, etc.
What should we do with this [money], Dad? Where should we put it?
Did she sort out both things?
I think so, Dad. She said she emptied both.
In specific places, in some specific places… Do it.
Both things?
(A woman‘s voice is heard in the background saying “Berat.”)
Yes, she said both of them, but you mean this by saying both things, right?
Berat also has some.
Whatever. OK, fine.
That‘s what I am saying. Now, get together, go get your uncle. I don‘t know if uncle
Ziya has some? Also immediately [tell] your brother Burak, too.
OK, Dad. You mean, Sümeyye, I mean take out, Sümeyye
will tell me where to take it [money]?
Yes, fine. Come on, do [it], think about yours [your money] with your uncle.
What time will you arrive?
About 12.
Have a safe journey.
About what to do?
Do not talk on the phone.
Yes, yes, let‘s contact soon, by 10 [o‘clock]. Because the issue is…
Hi, Dad. I am calling to… We did [it] mostly. Hmm, did you call me, Dad?
OK, Dad.
No I didn‘t. You called me.
OK? Keep in touch.
OK, Dad.
I was called from a secret number.
By saying mostly, did you fully dissolve it?
We have not zeroed it yet, Dad. Let me explain. We still have 30 million euros that
we could not dissolve yet. Berat thought of something. There was an additional $25
million that Ahmet Çalık should receive. They say let‘s give this [to him] there.
When the money comes, we do [something], they say. And with the remaining money
we can buy a flat in Şehrizar, he says. What do you say, Dad?
….
Dad?
Is Sümeyye with you?
Yes, she‘s with me. Should I call her?
We were able to give this much for now, it is already hard, it takes too much space.
We are putting some of it in another place. We gave part of it to Tunç, and then…
No, there was another sound, that‘s why I asked.
Did you transfer all to Tunç?
(Sümeyye, can you come?) Where, father?
To Tunç, I said, did you transfer all to Tunç?
They asked, I guess, he said that he could take 10 million euros.
Whatever. Do not talk this like this about it.
OK, then, we‘ll sort it out as such.
Um, I mean, he can transfer $35 million to Çalık and buy a flat in
Şehrizar with the remaining [cash].
Whatever. We‘ll sort it out.
Should we do it like this?
OK, do it.
Do you want it [all the cash] dissolved father,
or do you want some money for yourself?
No, it cannot stay, son. You could transfer that to the other [place],
with Mehmet you could transfer it there…
Yes, we gave it to them. We gave 20 to them.
OK, do it. I‘m not able to come tonight, I will stay in Ankara.
OK, we‘re sorting it out. Don‘t worry.
I wondered if everything‘s fine, so I called.
For God‘s sake. First, you should‘ve transferred [it]. You could then do…
Bulent Gokay
The Making of
a Racist Myth
When General İlker Basbuğ, the highest ranking officer in 2010,
in an interview on a popular TV show, defined some citizens
as «people who don’t really have Turkish blood in their veins»,
he was revealing just the tip of an iceberg. General Basbuğ here
was merely repeating what was established as one of the founda­
tion stones of the new «modern» Turkish identity under the
founding father of Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Following the departure of the last Greek soldiers from Anatolian
soil on 15 September 1922, the ceasefire of 11 October and the
evacuation of eastern Thrace by the Greek army, the Lausanne
peace conference opened. While the conference maintained
suspense over the conclusion of peace, the year 1923 marked the
establishment of the basic institutions, as well as the policies
of new Turkey. During this time, Mustafa Kemal developed his
critique of economic backwardness of his country and its Is­
lamic culture, and introduced his main goal as how to achieve
western standards of political and economic management,
in other words «to make Turkey European».
Atatürk genuinely believed that the new Turkey should cut all
its «Eastern / Muslim» origins adrift and define itself as part
of the «white / Western» civilization. He tried to prove this in
many different ways for the rest of his life. The Turkish dele­
gation at Lausanne sought to convince the British, French and
Italian delegates that the Ankara government had nothing in
common with the «old Eastern / Muslim Turk» represented by
the Ottoman Empire.
Despite the fact that Mustafa Kemal died 77 years ago, his enig­
matic power still exerts a complex and far reaching influence
on Turkish-identity today – even in the face of rising Islamism
under AK Party since 2002. For all the current tensions between
them as separate ideologies, Kemalism and Islamism have
never been totally separate when it comes to the definition of
Turkish national identity. Mustafa Kemal’s name and ideas still
continue to provide a symbol, a readily available concept and
an idealised figure for millions of Turkish men and women. His
life and ideas have been raised to cult status almost to the
point of folly. From the 1920s onwards every new generation
has grown up with a fair dose of indoctrination on Atatürk,
«the father of Turks», and on Atatürkism, a DIY ideology adopt­
ed and practiced by Turkey’s ruling elite.
Turks – a «white» European race
It was first in the 19th century, there were attempts to describe
the Turks as an ethnic group, as part of the white European
Aryan race(s). These were in line with the general «scientific»
context existing in the 19th-century Europe where the concept
of race was a preoccupation for the growing human sciences.
A large number of so-called scientific researchers were in­
volved in developing the concept of Aryan supremacy, which
later fuelled the institutional racism of Hitler’s Germany in the
1930s. To a large extent, Mustafa Kemal’s thinking was influ­
enced by these authors when he initiated his version of Turkishness in the 1920s, with the grand design of providing some
comfort and an extra boost for Turkish national pride and selfesteem which had been sadly undermined during the late 19th
and early 20th centuries. To serve this purpose, history writing
was tailored to produce a tool in the search for a national
identity. From then onwards started an official process of draft­
ing / constructing historical narratives for the younger gene­­ra­tion(s) as well as imposing a new identity from above. The
Turkish Historical Society became the major instrument for
manufacturing a kind of Turkish history to support the Kemal­
ist version of new Turkish identity. As a result, a mixture of
facts and half-baked comments and a considerable number of
simple mistakes were proclaimed as official history, and teams
of researchers were employed to dig out relevant evidence to
develop further the main premises of this official account. In a
state-sponsored systematic effort, missionary scientists were
employed to prove the identicalness of the Turkish race and the
«white» race by verifying that ancient Turks were indeed the
real ancestors of modern European Aryan race(s). In doing so,
a selective reconstruction of historical events took place in
order to suppress the Ottoman past and pursue Kemalism’s spe­
cific political goal of providing a fresh new start under white
European flag. The central theme of this process, constructing
a new Turkish identity, was the rejection of the OttomanIslamic past by glorifying the – invented – pre-Islamic past of
the Turks, and presenting it as the original source of all
white Western history.
Hence, the new Turkey, from the start, identified itself directly
and immediately with the history, culture and perceptions of
the western world, claiming a total break with the Ottoman and
Islamic past. By 1925 an independent Turkish Republic was
firmly established with its new western institutions and militant­
ly secular modernising ideology. A completely new social
order was created under the rule of its small secular military elite.
The events of these early years mark an important watershed
in the development of Turkish state ideology, which is still domi­
nating most aspects of the state institutions and society today.
In 1932, a Turkish Historical Congress was convened in Ankara
with the task of proving the theory that the Turks were indeed
a white Aryan race originating in Central Asia where «Western
civilization» was assumed to have originated. The second
Turkish Historical Congress met in Istanbul in 1937, where fur­
ther desperate steps were taken to prove that the Turks were
an integral part of the group of white European races. The «sci­
entific» origins of Turkish-ness, blood and hereditable ties
were debated openly during these two congresses, and an agree­
ment was reached on essential purity and supremacy of Turkish
blood. Eugene Pittard, the Swiss anthropologist whose work was
perceived and practiced as a racist account of humanity, not
only participated but was announced as the honorary president.
Since then the administrative apparatus has been using «race»
as an evaluative criterion for the citizens of Turkey. But of course,
this was not always the most obvious aspect of Kemalist nationbuilding process. There was also another level where recognition
of a citizenship based on universal rights of the entire popula­
tion was clearly pronounced. However, like many other nation­
alist ideologies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Turk­ish nation-building happened within the context of a particular
hierarchy of races according to which non-Turkish groups were
considered second class / inferior compared with the dominant
group of Turks.
Racial Hierarchy describes the categorization of various races
on the basis of their physical and perceived attributes. Based on
these characteristics the races are ranked at the top or at the
bottom of the Hierarchy. This structure of racial hierarchy helps
to shape the power and the prejudices of each race. At the top
of this hierarchy are whites (European and North American) due
to the deep-rooted and profound historical reasons. White groups
have been the global top dogs for half a millennium, ever since
Chinese civilisation went into decline. With global hegemony,
whites have long commanded respect, as well as triggering fear
and resentment, among other races. The founders of the Turk­
ish Republic accepted this hierarchy of races uncritically and
tried to present Turks as part of the dominant white group.
During the history of the last 90 years, there were numerous
occasions where the Republic’s various minorities, non-Muslim
groups as well as Muslim Kurds and Alawites, were considered
inferior «races» and dealt with prejudice and discrimination
and open hostility. It is worth noting that in this process the terms
«Turkish blood» and «Turkish ethnicity» were being used in­
terchangeably in some official documents.
At the beginning of the republican era, the nation-making
project initiated / imposed by Mustafa Kemal and his close asso­
ciates sought to create an ethnically homogeneous Turkey,
a «pure Turkish Turkey». The population exchanges between
Turkey and Greece as it was signed with the 1923 Lausanne
Treaty should be considered within this context, i.e. clearing
Turkey from non-Turkish elements. The forced Greco-Turkish
population exchange was widely discussed at the heart of eth­
nic population policy. Therefore, it is not surprising that later in
the 1930s in racist German press there was a growing debate
on Atatürk’s policies and reforms, and attempts to interpret them
in connection to the Nazi’s principle of ethnic homogeneity.
The perception of Turkey’s «ethnically homogeneous» success
story appears quite explicitly in the Nazi discourse during the
interwar period. Being against multi-ethnic entities Nazi com­
mentators praised the so-called ethnic cleansing of Anatolia,
from the 1915 Armenian deportations (first major brutal act
of ethnic cleansing of the 20th century) to 1923 Greco-Turkish
population exchange, calling for the adaptation of «Turkish
method» for an effective solution to the minority questions.
Victim Complex
Mustafa Kemal belonged to the generation of officers and ad­
ministrators who had become partially Westernised in the late
19th and early 20th centuries. He was criticising the «Eastern»
in almost exactly in the same terms as any Western orientalist.
Mustafa Kemal and his followers believed that Western aggres­
sion at the end of the First World War was the result of the
«irrational» policies of the «old» Ottoman regime which were
in turn due to the outmoded mentality of the «old Turk». They
therefore wanted to ward off Western aggression by ultimately
becoming part of the powerful Western bloc and adopting West­
ern perceptions, in other words, by cutting all links with the
«old», the Ottoman. This can be seen as a tangle of the victim
complex: the victimised came to share the philosophy of the
oppressor, which was that, among the people, there were «old»
and «new» and that the key matter was the survival of the
«new». Thus, the objective of the oppressed people came to be
that of joining the «new», represented by the West. Kemalist
nationalism, thus, originated in the misunderstandings and prej­
udices with which Europeans had long viewed the «East»,
the Oriental, and «the Ottoman Turk». Like any Western-centric,
Orientalist critic, Mustafa Kemal always looked upon the
Ottoman heritage with disdain, referring to it very seldom, and
then only to condemn that period roundly. The Ottoman past
was considered as representing the «antiquated», «medieval»
and «decrepit». For Mustafa Kemal, the Ottoman period had no
value, no merit, no authority, and therefore he believed that there
was to be no relationship between the new Turkey and the old.
The denial of the past and the irresistible attraction of the West,
which was considered truly civilised, were accompanied by a
desperate attempt to create a «new» Turkish national identity.
The Turkification project as a part of this modernisation proc­ess has been conceptualised upon a racist basis, considering the
origin of the Turks as part of the white Aryan race. When
Mustafa Kemal spoke of the future of his country in terms of a
western perception, he was indeed registering the identity of
the Turkish elite, of which he was a distinguished member. The
western-oriented elite would, and indeed did, use this position
to feel superior to their own people because they were able to
articulate the «Eastern», the «Oriental», the «Muslim Turk»,
to the «West». Yet, in their relationships with the western world,
they always remained as «enlightened natives». In other words,
«modern» Turkey was accepted as a useful outsider and an in­
corporated weak partner for the West, and has stayed as such
until now. However, the self-perceptions of individual members
of the country have remained closely rooted in the identityformation processes of those early days, the days of the 1920s
and 30s.
It is now more than 90 years since the establishment of the Re­
public, and in an ever more complex and impersonal society,
the limitations and contradictions of Turkish national identity
are coming to the fore more and more. As Turkey is moving
deep into the twenty first century, a sense of confusion about eth­
nicity, nationhood, religion, secularity and the country’s role
in the world is very pronounced.
Every Turkish child still grows up memorizing Atatürk’s 1927
address to the youth, which says «the noble blood in your
veins» and «how happy the one who says he is a Turk». All pri­
mary and secondary schools still teach a «Turkish» history
that starts with the Huns of Central Asia, giving an exclusively
ethnic, not civic, sense of a nation. And nationalist demagogues
still speak of «pure Turks» in the country, clearly excluding
the Kurds and all non-Muslims, and, recently sharply against
(Muslim) Arabs, as the number of Syrian refugees increases
fast in the country.
Syrian refugees and rising tide
of Turkish racism
Turkey has given refuge to at least 1.6 million Syrians since
the beginning of the civil war in March 2011, according to UN
figures. The Turkish government was initially praised for its
open-door policy towards Syrian refugees and its humanitarian
work in its camps. However, it was sharply criticised recently
of failing to offer proper services and protection to them. Cur­
rently only about 220,000 of the refugees live in the 22 staterun camps, and the authorities do not supply the rest, the remain­
ing 1.38 million, who live outside the camps without shelter
or food even though a cold winter has arrived. Insults and both
openly and secret racism against the Syrians are all around,
in the newspapers and on social media. They are considered the
criminals of the future. One can see headlines almost daily
such as «the threat of Syrian beggars», and warnings about that
they will take away jobs from the real citizens, the Turks.
In May 2014, when reports came out that Syrians mugged
someone in Ankara, local people stoned one of the buildings
where Syrians lived in and set it alight. Violence escalated,
many were wounded and detained. There is now increasing re­
sentment of Syrians everywhere and they are being openly
attacked and marginalized on a daily basis. There were some
serious lynching attempts against Syrians in the border towns,
Gaziantep, Şanlıurfa and Mardin. Anti-Syrian demonstrations,
previously only in border towns and cities, now reached Is­
tanbul, Ankara and many other western cities where hundreds
of Turkish residents, armed with machetes and sticks, attacked
Syrian refugees, their properties and businesses. Right-wing
nationalist groups, together with some local gangs, are hunting
Syrian refugees in city streets, and when caught, their prey are
badly beaten. Every single day Turkish newspapers are full of
such horrific incidents. The sad fact is that millions of ordinary
Turkish citizens, who are not part of such fascist gangs, are just
watching such incidents without offering any protection to
their Syrian neighbours trying to survive increasingly in ever
more desperate conditions.
The status of Syrian refugees in Turkey is also very curious:
officially they are considered as «guests» not «refugees». This
is because Turkey, being a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention
on Refugees, is bound by a technicality – «geographical limi­
tation» – which states that it can only grant refugee status to asy­
lum seekers from Europe. The lack of refugee status hinders
outside oversight and assistance, and deprives the Syrians of
rights guaranteed under international conventions. Syrian refu­
gees in Turkey do not have the same rights as asylum seekers
from non-European countries either. They cannot register with
the UNHCR to apply for asylum in a third country. Conse­
quently they live in limbo, dependent on pitiful hand-outs given
in overcrowded and under-standard «guest» camps which are
huge immigration prisons, where there is often no running water,
and there is disease.
Therefore, discussions of racism take on added importance with
the recent influx of Syrian refugees in Turkey. Turkish national­
ism, like other nationalisms, has many different forms that have
changed over time and been influenced by internal and external
conditions. According to recent reports, there is an increasingly
high level of harassment and racist attacks against Syrian refu­
gees in Turkey. Racism, however, is not new in Turkey. Those
supremacy-oriented ethnic and racist ideas have always been
an integral part of Turkish nationalism, first emerged as a nasty
undercurrent of the nation-building project in the early 20th
century. Racist tones especially peaked in the 1920s and 30s,
when all European states were adding racist ingredients to their
nationalist ideologies, in particular in Italy and Germany. Simi­
larly, early Turkish nationalism was shaped by a similar racist dis­
course, mainly borrowed from European racist texts of the 1920s
and 30s. This was so explicit and widespread in that period, as
can be seen in Mustafa Kemal's famous 1927 speech addressing
the Turkish Youth: «Oh! Turkish Youth, the strength you need
exists in the pure blood in your veins!»
According to a recent survey, published in September 2014,
«blind patriotism» appears to be dominant among Turkish
Noha Mokhtar
in conversation with Ayça Odabasi
Kumbaraci
Yokusu
Kumbaraci is the main street of Tophane, a neighborhood of
Beyoglu in Istanbul. The street links the touristic and commer­
cial area of Istiklal on the top, to the Bosphorus shore on the
bottom. Kumbaraci is one of the last streets in the area that has
not been entirely gentrified yet and where new coffee shops
and design studios pop up between local delis and traditional
craftsmen’s workshops. Ayça runs a small second hand shop
on the bottom of the street, where she also lives. A talk about
neighbours, Gezi-Park, the president and stolen dogs.
Ayça Odabasi: Again these shoutings outside...There are
so many weird people around here these days. Drug addicts.
I don’t know if it’s the cold weather or what.
Noha Mokhtar: Drug addicts in Tophane?
A: Yeah. I noticed it these season. A lot of drug addicts. Actual­
ly 20 years ago this was a harbor area with all the drug traffic.
Tophane was known for being the main destination for drugs, it
was really dangerous around here. I heard that you would see
a head cut and thrown in the garbage... You know this kind of
mafia drug dealers. I guess every big city has this, here in Is­
tanbul it was Tophane.
N: You heard that from people who live here?
A: Yeah. But I remember even 7 years ago when I first moved
here, the streets were really dark and pickpockets would hide
waiting for you. But now it’s changing of course. Kumbaraci
where I live is the main street between Istiklal and the Bosphorus
down in Tophane. Istiklal has always been a touristic street
and the whole area is gentrifying, but in my street it takes more
time. Kumbaraci is special because it has all these «bakkals»
or delis run by people from East Turkey. All of them are run
by families with five or six brothers and they all hang out to­
gether in these shops. I live right in front of that deli and bakery
and there is always this group of men by my house.
N: True, there are only men hanging out in this street.
A: Yeah, for example the guy of this deli, he was here since
I moved in. I know that he has five brothers and five sisters.
In the last six years I’ve only seen guys watching the shop but
never seen any of his sisters. I just saw his mom gettingsome­
thing from the shop once. This means these women never go out...
Isn’t that weird?
N: The women use the basket they put down with a rope from
their window.
A: True, but the family I am talking about lives a block away,
not in this street. I know because I used to be friend with them.
N: But you are not anymore?
A: No, not anymore. First when I moved here, I thought I want­
ed to get accepted by this community the way I did with my
neighbors in the ghetto where I used to live in Brooklyn. I am
not saying it’s less dangerous there or that less crimes happen,
but here there is no space for women. That’s the main difference
between the Puerto rican area where I lived in New York and
here. It’s not about crime with guns here, it’s mostly macho or
harsh in the everyday life as a woman. In the surface it looks
like a happy street, but actually when you are a woman, special­
ly if you are not covered... I didn’t realize when I first arrived,
because at the beginning they were curious about me and they
were smiling at me. But once they see that you are not the
muslim woman they have in mind, they turn to be impolite with
you. And also I am a special case: I am married to a foreigner.
N: This makes you a special case?
A: Yeah... I mean even regular Turkish friends of mine who
live with their boyfriend are special cases for them, or if you
live with a flatmate. They don’t accept this way of living to­
gether if you are not really a couple. This is one of the neigh­
borhoods, where these social codes are still very strong.
N: So why did you move here?
A: I wanted to live in Taksim, because I was opening a gallery
two blocks away. And we found an entire house, which is so
hard to find. A two-floor house with a belt factory in the base­
ment. We renovated it, we spent a lot of money in it, because
it was completely empty. I couldn’t buy it so I just rent it, but
rents in this city became so expensive, don’t you think?
N: I have no idea. We pay 600 Euros for a three-bedroom flat.
A: That’s not that bad. It’s the minimum what people pay now
in this side of town.
N: You mean what foreign people pay?
A: Not only foreigners, but also newcomers pay around that.
It became really expensive. But I still like Beyoglu, because
most of the buildings here are historical, they can’t be destroyed...
I mean they can, but it s not like in these places where all the
buildings are knocked down to be replaced by new ugly con­
structions like in the Asian side where I grew up... It’s a constant
construction site. It’s unbelievable. It wasn’t like that before,
but now in 30-35 years it became so crowded. You could not
believe the change. It’s insane. We had a garden, trees, people
didn’t have that much cars. None of my neighbors had cars,
maybe only two people in the building. Now everyone has two
cars, everyone wants a garage so they concreted the whole
ground. All the garden areas were transformed into parking lots.
It’s really depressing actually. That’s why I prefer Beyoglu
even if there is no park, at least the buildings are not that tall.
N: Well, there is Gezi Park...
A: Yeah but they wanted to get rid of that park and people pro­
tested because they needed a public space. You know since
Erdoğan came to power 12-13 years ago, he just got rid of all
the public spaces. That was the big problem with him, he was
citizens, even in the most urban parts of western Turkey. «Blind
patriotism» – the act of allegiance to a cause without clear
thought, a completely one-sided loyal commitment – here refers
to reactions that may be described as «Whatever my country
does, I support.» Sixty-nine percent of those surveyed said there
is nothing to be ashamed of in the country's history. All this
explains why the definition of Turkish-ness, Turkish national
identity and nationalism in Turkey continue to be exclusionary,
chauvinist and race-based. Regarding the influx of refugees
from Syria to Turkey, 65 percent of those surveyed agreed that
refugees and other migrants increase the crime rate, while 63
percent said they believe refugees and migrants take away job
opportunities from locals and 49 percent said immigrants s
lowly erode Turkish culture.
Bulent Gokay is Professor of International Relations and Head of School of
Politics, International Relations, Philosophy and the Environment at Keele
University, UK. He published widely on world system, history, politics and
identity issues.
really money greedy. I am not saying all presidents were ever
good, but Erdoğan’s government specially is very moneydriven. He was a very poor guy and now he’s one of the richest
persons in Turkey. Because he stole everything... I am not
sure if this should be written down...
N: I mean everyone knows that.
A: Yeah... First Erdoğan was the mayor of Istanbul, then he
worked his way to prime minister, now he’s the president. Eco­
nomically, Turkey blew so people are thankful to him. It’s
weird, because the economic boom was gonna happen at the
end anyway in a country were everyone is young. Somehow
when European economy went down, Turkish economy went
up... So people were thinking it was thanks to Erdoğan.
N: These small shop owners in Kumbaraci street, they support
him you told me. This seems a paradox if you see the number
of shopping malls he builds...
A: They do specially support Erdoğan in this neighborhood,
because Erodgan’s wife is from Siirt, the same village where they
are from. All people from this street are from Siirt or Bitlis,
two villages in the East of Turkey. Before, Greeks and Armeni­
ans where living here, but now in Tophane almost all the peo­
ple are from Anatolia. So when Erdoğan came to power, people
believed in him, because he was saying things like «You are
poor, I am poor» or «I am a Beyoglu kid»... a bit like Obama
being black. But it was the first time that these people saw a
president who didn’t only care for the elite. Before him, turkey
was a very elitist society. So automatically people identified
with him and even I did. I didn’t care about the religion aspect
back then, I was just looking at what he did for social security
and technology. But then I felt that religion became more and
more aggressive in the last years. Take for example the mosques,
five times a day and the loudspeakers became so loud! It
wasn’t like this before.
N: You mean the volume of the call to prayer has been
increased?
A: Yeah. It became louder and louder and Erdoğan built so
many mosques! He didn’t invest anything in schools, he invested
everything in mosques and now we have an excessive amount
of them... Here for example there are so many mosques I can
count them right here within 200 meters there are six or seven I
can think of.
N: So the religious aspect came later?
A: Of course it showed itself later, in the last two or three years.
At first he was talking about Kurdish rights, constitutional
changes. He acted like he is the one who talks about things, but
these things also happened because it was time to talk about
them. Europe started pressuring about the genocide, things hap­
pen with a course you know. Somebody had to say something,
but I can’t really give him any credit. And the kind of people
who never believed in him, upper-middle class people, like my
parents, they just want to believe in Atatürk and nothing else.
But that’s a case in itself, let’s not talk about this.
N: All the issues and debates in Turkey today are so strongly
related to the history of the country...
A: True. Everything is so deeply rooted. We never had a presi­
dent who was not corrupted, never a single one that was semi-ok.
Erdoğan is constantly lying to everyone, showing different
faces... And he talks a lot... Watch television! It’s unbelievable
he is always on television. He is a television maniac, and he is
always talking like a preacher, always preaching people. That’s
the best method for ignorant people to make them feel guilty.
In this neighborhood, there are people who are illiterate and other
who barely read. If you noticed, none of the delis in this street
sell newspaper. I am really alarmed. Living in the middle of the
city and you can’t buy newspapers. This is scary.
N: I heard that during Gezi, the police forced the protesters to
come down Kumbaraci street, because they knew that the peo­
ple here were supporters of the conservative AK Party...
No, nothing [no problems]. We finished the tasks you gave us, with God‘s help.
I mean, do not keep anything on you, whatever it is,
Samandıra or whatever… Send it to where it needs to be. Where do you keep it?
Is it all zeroed?
OK, Dad, but I think we are currently under surveillance.
Fully, I mean, saying zeroed, how can I put it? I had Samandıra and Maltepe‘s money
[money in his villas in Samandıra and Maltepe], $730,000 USD and TL 300.000.
I‘ll handle this, too. We owe TL 1 million to Faruk Işık [AK Party deputy]; I‘ll give this to
him and tell him to transfer the rest to the academy [unclear].
Do not talk openly.
What have I been telling you from the very beginning!
But is it the bodyguard team? Who is following us, Dad?
Son, you are being tapped.
Shouldn‘t I talk?
But they are also monitoring visually, they say.
Do not talk, OK?
OK, Dad.
That may be true. Now, we did some things
[meaning reassignments of police officers] in İstanbul security.
A: Yeah. The people in this neighborhood worked with the
police. There are a lot of cameras here. Because of the Italian
Embassy, the Italian High School, the French Lycée, the
synagogue, it’s an area that is monitored. So during the Gezi
protests, the municipality turned the street lights off in Kumba­
raci, because they knew that something might happen and
that people in this street would take care of that, you know what
I mean. So in a way, cops gave an assignment to people.
A: Yeah, because at some point all these people will have to leave. Gen­
trification will push them out, they will not afford to stay here
with their small shops. Kumbaraci is the last street of the area
that has not been entirely gentrified yet. This is also why I
stay here, to make it happen.
A: There are always trouble people around here. They stole that
dog. It’s so sad. You know he was always next to that shop
where they sell oranges on the corner of that street. When he was
not sleeping in front of the store, he used to walk around and
kill cats.
N: So do you think that Tophane will become similar to Cihangir,
the adjoining neighborhood that looks like Kreuzberg?
N: Maybe this is the reason why he has been kidnapped?
N: So they just turned the lights off?
A: No it’s not gonna become like Cihangir. It’s gonna be more
like Sultanahmet, chic and touristic. They are opening apparts
and boutique-hotels. Big constructions are planned on the shore,
«Galata Port» shops on the pier. Very cheesy. At this point I
will have to leave too. By the way, do you remember that dog
that I liked a lot, the one that was always sleeping here outside?
A: Yeah so they could act and the cameras would not record it.
I saw from my window how they attacked people. I would call
my friend to ask what to do and they would say «we are fol­
lowing on twitter, you are not supposed to go out». And the bak­
ery guy across of my house... He had all these men waiting
inside of his shop with wooden sticks. Once he pointed to my
house shouting «we are gonna burn this house» to intimidate
me. «I know she is inside getting on her computer.»
N: Even after the Gezi events you insisted living and having
your second-hand shop in this street?
N: The old shepherd?
A: He’s not old. The brown dog, the one that is clumsy... They
kidnapped him one week ago. It was the dog of the guy who
lives upstairs, he’s very sad. He does not come out anymore.
Good Islam
Bad Islam
Kemalist state and Islam
The role of Islam in the Turkish national identity construction
has been more complex than it is often assumed. Nation build­
ing in the Turkish case meant building a nation from a multi
religious, multi ethnic, multi linguistic plural society inherited
from the Ottoman Empire. This plurality had been eliminated
through exclusionary and assimilationist policies targeting peo­
ple of different religious/ethnic/cultural identities. Kemalist
nation building, like all other its contemporaries, was a homog­
enizing process guided by the motto of «one state, one nation,
one language, one culture under the leadership of one man.»
Thus while there had been certain efforts of secularizing the
state and society, there was a simultaneous process of persecution
and expelling of the non-Muslims. It was under the CUP re­
gime (forbearers of the Kemalists) and the Kemalist regime that
Anatolia was transformed into a mono-religious society. When
the republic was formed in 1923, an overwhelming majority of
its citizens were Muslims and the remaining tiny non-Muslim
minority were defined pejoratively by the Justice Minister of the
time as «constitutional Turks» pointing to the fact that they do
not really belong to the nation. Muslim identity was a prerequi­
site for being a member of the nation.
This emphasis on Muslim identity is all the more surprising
given that the majority of the Kemalist cadres including Ata­
türk himself had a disdain against religion. They were motivat­
ed by a modernist/positivist bias against all forms of religion
and clearly desired to eliminate the influence of religion in the
society. In that, they wanted to make a radical break with the
Ottoman state and society which were perceived to be motivat­
ed and guided by religious norms. Thus the new regime was
shaped by a paradoxical contradiction of suppressing religion
while keeping it as one of the central pillars of the national
identity.
An essential strategy to overcome this paradox was the distinc­
tion made between «good Islam» and «bad Islam». The latter
Noha Mokhtar studies Social Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies at
the University of Bern and at Bilgi University, Istanbul.
N: Who stole it?
Salim Cevik
Turkey, under the AK Party rule, claims to go through a funda­
mental change which according to the government authorities
is tantamount to the emergence of «New Turkey». While there
is little agreement on whether this change is for good or bad,
there is little doubt that the country is going through fundamental
changes. Islam appears as the central pillar of this transforma­
tion. For the pro government forces, Islam, which had been sup­
pressed for so many decades by the authoritarian Kemalist
regime in Turkey, now finally gains its deserved role in public
life. For the opponents, the secular exemplary model of the
Islamic World becomes more and more fundamentalist under
the Islamic oriented AK Party. While Islam was targeted by
the state in the previous regime, it now appears to be the central
arm of the state. To the extent that the picture is clear it is mis­
leading. This picture conceals more than it reveals.
A: No. These people are nice, but I know that they have some
problems with other people. I heard some gun shots once in
their place about a month ago. So, maybe it’s some story related
to this, but I can’t really ask, he didn’t want to talk about it.
It must be important. I hope the dog didn’t get tortured. He was
so cute, like a little bear, brown and big. I am gonna get my
own dog, but I am waiting for my cats to die. I can’t get cats
anymore, I have an awful allergy. I want a big puffy dog, but
I want to get a street dog. I will get it when I move from here to
a house with a garden in one year. Otherwise life won’t pass,
I need a garden and a dog.
was represented by the historical religious organizations, broth­
erhoods and religious communities. These religious organi­
zations, representatives of social Islam, were influential at the
grassroots level in shaping and informally organizing the reli­
gious life. They were all severely repressed as all madrasas and
dervish lounges were declared illegal. Good Islam was repre­
sented by a newly formed state institution; Directorate of Reli­
gious Affairs (Diyanet). In order to promote good Islam that
is described as an enlightened version of Islam in which loyalty
to the state and nation plays a central role, the secularist regime
did not hesitate to use state resources and institutions. It was
expected that good Islam would replace the void left through the
repression of bad Islam and its institutions. Good Islam was
assumed to be suitable to the national character and was described
from time to time as «Turkish Islam». It was only the followers
of the good Islam who appropriated the new national values
(Kemalist reforms of the early republican era), whereas those
that stick to the bad Islam were accused for being alien to
the national culture, and being under the spell of the Arabic
and Persian culture.
The creation of Diyanet was an important aspect of the Kemalist
policy on religion. This was a moment of fundamental change
in the history of social Islam as well since the entire clergy was
suddenly transformed to state officials. In fact Islam does not
have an official clergy. It was the Ottoman Empire which creat­
ed the office of Seyh-ul Islam which represented the religious
authority and gave this office a central role in state affairs. This
did not only lead the state to be influenced by the verdicts of
religion, but more so it enabled the state to control and shape
the religious discourse. However, aside from this central office,
social Islam had been free from both the blessing and the con­
trol of the state. Typically, a prayer leader was appointed and
financed by the small community of a particular mosque. With
the creation of Diyanet suddenly all mosques became state
property and all prayer leaders in these mosques became state
officials. Thus despite its rhetoric on secularism, Turkey has
been a state in which religion and state is intertwined to the ex­
tent that all the mosques in the country and all their imams
are controlled and owned by the state. This provides an excellent
apparatus to state in controlling and shaping the religious dis­
course even at the grassroots level.
Moreover this institution enabled the state to monopolize the
religious discourse. Islam like all other religions is multi-vocal
and has been divided by various sects, brotherhoods and legal
schools. With state monopoly over deciding on «true Islam»
Kemalist regime took a step further in its nation building policy
of homogenization, and tried to further homogenize the nomi­
nally Muslim society in its belief systems and practices. Partic­
ularly the Friday sermons which were prepared by the central
committee of Diyanet and then distributed to thousands of
mosques in the entire country were essential in the state effort
to homogenize and monopolize the Muslim opinion and dis­
semination of good Islam.
So despite its modernist and anti-religious inclinations, the Ke­
malist regime couldn’t resist the temptation of instrumentalizing
the influence of religion over the Turkish society through con­
trolling religion and religious institutions. They tried this by re­
placing social religious organizations with state controlled
religious institutions. As we will see below, desire of keeping
religion under state control is a policy still in use under the
AK Party regime. Diyanet continues to be functional for this
policy. However, AK Party took a step further and instead of
replacing social Islam with state Islam, it tried to incorporate
social Islam under state control through patronage networks.
But let’s first briefly look how Diyanet and its Friday sermons
had been instrumentalized.
Diyanet, before and now
Typical topics of the Friday sermons in Kemalist Turkey in­
clude loyalty to the state, the virtues of committing one’s duties
to the state such as military service and tax paying. At times
when a particular threat is observed by the state elites, the Friday
sermons would address them right away. This attempt of in­
doctrination might reach absurd levels. For instance at a time of
economic crises in early 2000s, prayer leaders had to read in
their Friday sermons that believers should keep their savings
in Turkish Liras rather than in foreign exchanges. Even the
religious groups could be the target of Friday sermons when
the state authorities deemed it necessary. Thus in late 90s when
the Islamic oriented Refah Party (the predecessor of the AK
Party) was rising to power, the Friday sermons would start to
point to the dangers of religious radicalism and reactionarism.
While all powerful and staunchly secularist military of the
country was confronting the religious oriented party in late 90s,
the Friday sermons would be full of references to the sacred
role of military in Turkish history and on the virtues of loving
the state and its military.
However once AK Party came to power and started to control
the Diyanet and the Friday sermons, the main theme that obeying
the rulers was a religious virtue continued to be a major theme
of the Friday sermons. AK Party didn’t resist to the temptation
of instrumentalizing the Friday sermons for their political
benefits. Thus particularly at times of political crises and when
public opposition was mobilized, the content of the sermons
would always invite the believers to obey and support their rulers.
Last year, when AK Party was going to municipal elections
amidst a huge corruption scandal, prayer leaders had to tell the
believers in their sermons held the week before the elections
that Turkey was going through turbulent times and if the people
did not support their rulers then they would all suffer. Likewise,
when the labor safety in the country was a hot topic following
a series of tragic work accidents in which hundreds of workers
lost their lives, government came under immense accusation of
not caring for labor safety. This time the Friday sermons would
come in help and tell the believers that human beings cannot
change their fate and whatever tragic things happens one should
not rebel, but suffer faithfully and patiently to the God’s ver­
dict. In one case the sermons went to the extent that paying too
much attention to safety rules and precautions would violate
a believer’s faith in fate and would mean questioning the God’s
verdict. Thus negligence of the safety precautions through
rapid privatization and excessive desire of profit are exculpated
through religious arguments on fate. This appears as a clear in­
strumentalization of religion in swallowing the bitter pill of
neoliberal policies. However, this policy as well is in line with
the secularist military’s assumption that religious feelings
amongst worker class works as an impediment for the growing
of class consciousness, and consequently the class conflict.
State control of Islam widens
At this point it might be important to remember that as an insti­
tution Diyanet had been severely targeted by the Islamic oppo­
sition in the past. With certain insight, it was considered not as
an institution of promoting religious values in the public life
but as an institution that would shape and even impede the func­
tion of Islam in the public life.
However, the more party control over the state is consolidated
the more it resembles its Kemalist predecessors. Religious realm
had not been different in this regard. AK Party continues the
policy of monopolizing and controlling the religious discourse
for the benefit of its rule. However considering that Kemalists
had only limited success in replacing traditional Islamic commu­
nities with Diyanet, AK Party did not try to replace the folk
Islam, the religious communities and brotherhoods, with state or­
ganizations. Instead it tried to incorporate these religious civil
organizations in to the state structure. Thus instead of repressing
their power and influence in the society AK party wanted to
make use of that power. While on the one hand AK Party contin­
ues to benefit from Diyanet and its weekly sermons for creating
support for its economic and social policies, on the other hand it
wants to control the grassroots Islamic communities through
financial aids given to these communities. Thus the party tries to
create a complete monopolization of religious discourse. This
also eliminates the possibility of a major form of opposition; re­
ligiously inspired opposition.
Rent distribution capacity of the state had been particularly
important in incorporating these civil religious groups to the state
apparatus. In this process, many of the traditional Islamic or­
ganizations which were previously repressed for being manifes­
tations of bad Islam developed a symbiotic relationship with
the AK Party. They were economically, morally and politically
supported by the government and in return provided their full
scale support to AK Party.
Limits of state control on social Islam
Last year, most of these religious organizations united under a
platform titled the «Platform of National Will». Even the
naming of the platform is problematic since it implies that those
segments of the society that differ with the platform and its
support to AK Party do not really belong to the nation. Moreover
this attitude is not confined to the naming but both the AK
Party and its supporter organizations freely accused their op­
ponents for being un-Islamic and anti-national. This drive
for monopolization, a common aspect of authoritarianism in the
«old» and «new» Turkey becomes most evident if we look at
AK Party’s policies towards religious groups that do not support
the party policies.
The alliance formed between the former bad Muslims and AK
Party does not mean that AK Party gave up the prior distinction
of good Muslims and bad Muslims. Instead the party enabled
the previous bad Muslims to become loyal subjects, thus be good
Muslims while creating its own version of bad Islam. Thus any
religious organization which for one reason or another refrains
from supporting the AK Party government is severely repressed
and declared as the bad Muslim. Thus during the recent feud
between the AK Party government and the Gulen Movement, the
most powerful religious organization in Turkey, AK Party did
not hesitate to claim the group as heretic and un-Islamic (bad Is­
lam) on the grounds that they are critical of the AK Party gov­
ernment. Moreover the group was accused of being controlled
by the Western countries thus for being un-national and treacher­
ous to the nation. Thus like its Kemalist predecessors, AK Party
demands servitude from all religious groups in order to be de­
fined as good Muslim. Those falling out with the party policies
are declared simultaneously as anti-national and anti-Islamic.
Moreover, it would be misleading to assume that Gulen move­
ment is the only religious group that is declared harmful. While
the feud between AK Party and Gulen movement can be ob­
Hakki Tas
How New
is New?
We may not always have a reason to expect something to im­
prove on its previous performance. However, the irresistible
allure of novelty excites us and pushes to look beyond what we
take for granted. Long before neurobiologists discovered this
effect, politicians, including Turkish ones, employed it in polit­
ical discourse. Although the discourse of «New Turkey» has
gained more currency under the Justice and Development Party
(or AK Party) that has ruled since 2002, this motto has become
the hope and dream of Turkish society for more than a century.
In this regard, one may ask: How new is New Turkey?
A constant state of newness
The term «New Turkey» was widely circulated in the Second
Constitutional Era (1908-1922), when the Young Turks forced
Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II to restore the constitutional
monarchy and the Committee of Union and Progress ascended
in politics. This takeover initially ushered in a new energy
and was received by the Turks as «the birth of a new Turkey».
When referring to the Istanbul government, phrases such as
«[the] highest officials of the New Turkey», «the younger men
of the New Turkey», or «the new Turkey, the young Turkey
of Union and Progress» were frequently cited (New York
Times, 1909; 1909; 1911). Neither World War I nor the Turkish
Independence War (1919-1922) halted the rhetoric of «New
Turkey». Local newspapers in the United States also referred
to «new Turkey which has replaced the «Sick Man of Europe»,
or the Anatolian city Bursa, which, so-to-say, «may become
the capital of New Turkey, if Constantinople is taken away from
her» (The Daily Ardmoreite, 1920; The Morning Tulsa Daily
World,1922).
Another «New Turkey»
When the young Turkish Republic was proclaimed in Ankara on
October 29, 1923, «New Turkey» identified the new republi­
can regime in Ankara instead of the late Ottoman constitutional
monarchy in Istanbul. Admiral Lambert Bristol, who served as
the United States’ High Commissioner to Turkey between 1919
and 1927, celebrated it, stating, «there will be a new Turkey
in Europe which will surprise everyone». In a letter to the editor
of the New York Times, dated April 25, 1926, Armenian Ar­
shag Mahedian responded to this optimism: «It is always «there
will be a new Turkey.» This has been repeated for centuries,
but Turkey has not made any progress.»
In the 1920s, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the use
of the term «New Turkey» became more commonplace. Usually
written with both words capitalized and no article, New Turkey
now signified a clearly separate entity marked by the Turks’ de­
parture from an Ottoman-Islamic past and adherence to a new
secular national culture, e.g. «Pragmatism is the ruling philos­
ophy of New Turkey» (New York Times, 1926), or «A Woman
[Novelist Halide Edip] speaks for the New Turkey» (New York
Times, 1928). Unveiled women and Atatürk’s statue in Ulus,
Ankara, became the symbols of this New Turkey. In January
1930, Turkey instituted its first national beauty contest and then
participated in the international one, something unimaginable
in the Ottoman past. The Turkish daily, Cumhuriyet, announced
that New Turkey liberated women and was displaying its
most beautiful girl on the international stage.
A new country and nation was in the making, as journalist Rose
Lee observed: «New Turkey progresses at high speed. Under
the guidance of Mustapha Kemal the nation is reorganizing its
life along modern lines […] The tranquility of old is gone and
throughout the country there resound the rumblings of progress»
(New York Times, 1926). Certainly, «New Turkey» was not a
label that only foreign observers were using to refer to the Istan­
bul or Ankara governments. New Turkey illustrated a new
fervour in early 1920s Anatolia. Ziya Gökalp, the ideologue of
Turkish nationalism, collected his editorials in the daily Yeni
Türkiye (New Turkey), all written in July 1923 – shortly before
the proclamation of the republic – in a book, titled ‹Yeni
Türkiye’nin Hedefleri› («Goals of New Turkey»). Those goals
mainly covered equality among races, nations, genders, and
social classes.
One can trace the term of New Turkey in the archives of the
Turkish parliament. In a session in June 1929, Minister of For­
eign Affairs Tevfik Rüştü, declared that «New Turkey» had
totally settled her boundaries with all her neighbours. In anoth­
er session, dated in May 1934, Member of Parliament Refik
Şevket Bey states that Ankara refers to «a new central govern­
ment born out the faith of the nation to demonstrate New Tur­
key’s faith, ideal, attitude and civilization.» Interestingly, foreign
governments also used this term in official documents. In the
parliamentary session, dated November 1930, a letter from the
Greek Parliament was read out that addressed, «the National
Parliament of New Turkey». It is interesting to observe, even
years after the proclamation of the Republic, the country is still
referred to as New Turkey.
served nationwide, similar cases can be observed at the micro
level. Thus it became common policy for AK Party municipalities
to harass religious communities in local places if that particular
group did not vote for the AK Party. This went to the extent of
AK Party’s Antalya municipality to shut down two Quran Schools
belonging to a religious community that did not vote for the
AK Party candidate in the municipal elections, for some technical
excuses.
While there seems to have been a recent increase in references
to religion in the public life, AK Party’s relation with religion is
not confined to promoting religious values and supporting reli­
gious groups. Instead the major motive of the party’s policy on
religion is dictated by a desire of controlling and monopolizing
a major site of civil society.
Thus even though AK Party seems to assign religion a central
place in the «New Turkey», it continues on the Kemalist trajectory
of dividing Islam to good Muslims and bad Muslims. It is only
the adherents of good Islam who are legitimate members of the
nation. In the Kemalist rhetoric, loyalty to the state and a faith
in nation was essential for being a good and enlightened Muslim.
In the «New Turkey» of AK Party, Muslims are still divided as
good ones and bad ones and a good Muslim is still the one that
obeys the state and the rulers; but this time state is represented
by the AK Party and its almost messianic leader Erdoğan.
Salim Cevik is a graduate of International Relations Department at Bilkent
University in Turkey. He currently works at Ipek University in Ankara.
His major research interests are Turkish politics, religion and politics and
nationalism literature.
In the parliamentary record, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is clearly
declared the founder of New Turkey. This echoes the manner
in which Atatürk had been described in the international media:
«Mustapha Kemal, Builder of the New Turkey», or «Kemal
Atatürk, maker of new Turkey» (New York Times, 1931; 1939).
Adolf Hitler was quoted as describing Atatürk as «the great
genius who created the new Turkey» (New York Times, 1941).
Newer than ever
Newness was not limited to the early 1920s and 1930s. Dec­
ades later, New Turkey has remained a source of attraction, an
ideal to all. When the centre right Democrat Party was closed
down after the 1960 coup d’état, the New Turkey Party (Yeni
Türkiye Partisi) was founded in 1961 in line with the partyaffiliated newspaper New Turkey. Interestingly, 2002 witnessed
the formation of another short-lived New Turkey Party, yet
with a centre-left leaning this time.
Most recently, it was Tayyip Erdoğan’s AK Party that employed
the discourse of New Turkey. The promise of a liberal demo­
cratic country became an ideal to be aspired to for many includ­
ing the disadvantaged groups of the military-dominated Ke­
malist regime, such as the Kurds, Islamists, and Alevis.
New Turkey as empty signifier
So, one can discern three main phases in this constant state of
newness: Union and Progress Turkey, Kemal Atatürk’s Turkey,
and Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey. They have several features in
common, moreover, which cannot be adequately treated here.
Firstly, in the hands of all those politicians, New Turkey has
been turned into an «empty signifier». Signifiers are any words
or images with referents, and the more specific a signifier is,
the more it can be contested. Conversely, empty signifiers, de­
void of agreed upon meaning, are difficult to contest. In Ernest
Laclau’s terms, politicians striving for political hegemony may
skilfully present their particular demand as universal via empty
signifiers such as «order», «justice», or «peace», desired by all,
but invested with different, sometimes conflicting, meanings.
The ambiguous nature of an empty signifier may bring hetero­
geneous actors and practices together. To varying degrees,
the discourse of New Turkey has encompassed contradictory
premises in all three phases respectively: liberal and fascist,
socialist and capitalist, democratic and authoritarian. Neverthe­
less, in all its ambiguity and inconsistency, it has also been
used as a self-explanatory category: New Turkey must be desired
because it is new and the old must go. In order to mobilize
greater mass appeal or to attract more international recognition
and support, New Turkey has served as a utopia, something
discrete and ambivalent, but an appealing dream for all.
Once the empty signifier has been fixed in line with their de­
mands, political actors sustain their political hegemony and their
adversaries are turned into the enemies of the nation. Any oppo­
nent then appears to be a reactionary or traitor who cannot digest
the progress toward New Turkey. While the 1920 Law of Trea­
son had been used to eliminate the opposition in the early repub­
lican period, President Erdoğan and his circle frequently employ
the same discourse and label any dissenting view as treasonous.
Moreover, the utopia of New Turkey works to justify present
misdeeds under the specific circumstances of «transition». In
the early republican period, many opposition political actors
and social figures were jailed, exiled, or executed in that neverending «transition» period in order to consolidate the Kemalist
Revolution. When responding to major challenges from the 2013
Gezi protests to the December 17 corruption probe, the AK
Party government employed suppression and intervened in judi­
cial processes with the same excuse of «transition». In order
to clear the path toward Turkey’s advanced democracy in the
future, one has to apply harsh measures.
Thus, in a recent effort to justify those non-democratic measures
from curtailing the social media to firing and rotating thou­
sands of judges and police, Etyen Mahcupyan, Advisor to Prime
Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, quite recently declared that the
party had been forced to venture outside the law after the
December 17 corruption probe, since this was an attempt to
overthrow the government.
Finally, Turks have learned that transition never ends. Through­
out its history, Turkey seems to be in a constant state of transi­
tion, but never achieving the ideal it is constantly striving for.
One cannot ignore the political success of Turkish modern­
ization compared to the progress or otherwise of its neighbours.
However, through multiple New Turkeys, the country seems
not to have settled as yet on its political course. Turkey is always
new, forever young, never passing the stage of puberty.
To be more concise, the motto of New Turkey indeed compris­
es both the present and future tenses. In the AK Party leaders’
discourse, for instance, Turkey has already changed under their
rule and there is no room for the practices of the «Old Turkey»,
such as military tutelage or elitism. Yet, when it comes to polit­
ical failure or non-democratic practices, New Turkey turns
Atilla Dorsay
For
Emek
Turkey is a country of contradictions. They abound and are
sometimes impossible to understand for foreigners. A major one
would certainly be the obvious contrast between the rising
interest of modern Turks towards their own culture and history
and the obstination of the government policies to sacrifice
some of the most symbolic values of the historical monuments
or natural beauties of the country for a rising wild and un­
controlled capitalism.
The signs of the first issue are many. The rising interest towards
our own history created the new fashion of exteremely popular
films (Fetih 1453 – The Conquest 1453) and TV series about the
Ottoman history. It turned some wellknown historians (Ilber
Ortayli, Murat Bardakci) into public figures and TV stars. The
local films are more popular than ever and Turkey is the only
country in Europe where the national cinema has surpassed the
50 percent of the whole ticket sales – actually it is over 60
percent now! The Turkish literature is also better than ever and
mainly after the Nobel prize of Orhan Pamuk, the national
books and mainly novels are selling more than the translated
international bestsellers.
On the other side, there is an increasing censorship on cinema
and theatre. The state is encouraging the arts with a clearly po­
litical approach. Public supports, awards and festivals are sub­
ject to daily political matters as well as the brutal changes in
the statutes of traditional institutions.
And mainly, the preservation of the culturally important build­
ings, artistically, aesthetically or historically valuable locations
becomes more and more difficult. A wild hunger for invest­
ment, an endless appetite to turn every acre of the land – either
in big towns or in the middle of wild nature – into something
which brings money, has become a most natural behaviour.
The fact that construction has been chosen as the motor of the
country’s economic future (thus putting the agriculture, the
industry and the general production sectors to the second level)
has made this sector the absolute favourite of the regime and
the contractors are nowadays the new «role model» for the nation,
showing up everywhere: occupying the «dolce vita»-columns
of the press, acting in their own TV advertisements and even in
popular TV series.
Within this two-sided and certainly most unusual and finally sad
development, what happened to «Emek» is examplary. This
georgeous theatre was opened in 1924, one year after the new
Turkish Republic was founded under the leadership of Mustafa
Kemal Atatürk. It was called Melek («Angel»), a name it kept
until the sixties. It was a big theatre, wide and high, with a con­
fortable balcony as well, for over a thousand people. It was
decorated inside with a certain mixture of baroque and rococo
styles, with a hugue velvet red curtain and also comfortable
seats. It has fast become a meeting place for all the cinema lovers
of Istanbul, the Beyoglu-Pera area having always being the
artistic heart of the city. Not only cinema, but also practically
everything which came to Turkey from the West via Istanbul has
first settled in this quarter: theatre, restaurants, music-halls and
«cafe-chantants» or brothels and «maisons-de-rendevous» etc.
Melek, the angel has always remained as a selected art center.
Starting from the war years, it became the main cinema of an
important group: FITAS which was a major importing company
of films from MGM, Fox and Columbia. They also imported
european films and produced some local ones. They had many
cinemas in town, but Melek always remained the queen of
them all. For many generations of turks and also minorities for
which Pera and the nearby Galata areas was a home, this theatre
was the place to get acquainted with the American values via
Hollywood and to step, collectively, into the American Dream.
I myself first went to this theatre starting from the late 40s, as
a teenager, and came to fall in love with a lot of films and stars.
Melek was an almost sacred place for many of us from differ­
ent generations, where we often met in a respectful silence and
watched, in all kinds of feelings and emotions, our gods and
goddesses of cinema and accumulate souvenirs for our future
lives.
The Melek theatre was the extention of its neighbour building
towards the main street, the famous Istıklal Caddesi (Inde­
pendanca Street), the Cercle d’Orient as it was called, going
back itself to the late 19th century and which had welcomed in
the last decades of the Ottoman empire and the first ones of the
new Republic from the 1920s on, within the impressive baroque
styled walls and large rooms, the «crème» of the Istanbul aris­
tocracy and then the bourgeoisie. But later on, all this has been
subject to important changes. From the late fifties on, the
whole state-owned area was given to the so-called Emekli
Sandigi, an institution which took care of the economic situation
of the retired civil servants and for this purpose, they founded
the Emek company which then owned not only Emek, but two
other theaters in the same bloc. While the huge Cercle d’Orient
building (which is miracously preserved and nowadays in res­
tauration) was practically abandoned, Melek has become the
new Emek cinema, while the old Sümer theatre, the Kücük
Emek (Little Emek) and a third one had turned into a stage for
the city theatre.
into a bright ideal that the government is striving for, and voters
should support the AK Party until that very last corner is
turned.
Parmenides said some 2500 years ago «ex nihilo nihil fit», or
in Shakespeare’s King Lear’s words «nothing will come of
nothing». How new, then, is New Turkey? Despite the premises
of a new order, in practice we only observe some repercussions
of the old regime, albeit in different flavours.g
First published on opendemocracy.org on the 17th of december 2014
Hakkı Taş is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Ipek University,
Ankara. Taş has been a visiting researcher at both Yale University and the
American University in Cairo.
new Turkish cinema always mentioned it as a unique chance
they had to follow the world cinema. Emek itself, beautiful as
it was, impressed so much the visitors that many said they
would comeback just to see it again. Which some of them did.
Personally, as one the founders and active members of the festi­
val, I remember faces as various as Elia Kazan, Antonioni, Et­
tore Scola, Francesco Rosi, Bertolucci, Kieslowski, Angelo­
poulos, Emir Kusturica, Istvan Szabo, Jane Campion, Stephen
Frears, John Schlesinger, Robert Wise, Jerry Schatzberg, Car­
los Saura, Bertrand Tavernier, Costa-Gavras, Bernard Blier,
François Ozon and stars as glorius as Sophia Loren, Jeanne
Moreau, Gerard Depardieu, Catherine Deneuve, Fanny Ard­
ant, Sabine Azema, Harvey Keitel, John Malkovich and etc. we
met there. Sometimes we gave them honorary awards – how
can I forget that some took it from my hands: from Antonioni to
Saura... Some gave awards to younger people. And of course,
it has been a natural podiom for the whole Turkish cinema.
The fate of the cinema changed in the 2010s. The will of the gov­
ernment to take from every public building and land the maxi­
mum profit, started new plans. We warned them, we wrote about
how a big cultural crime this would be. Personally, I never be­
lieved that they would dare. Of course everbody –from the
minister to the city major, from the builder company to the
Pera major – was saying that it was out of question to forsake
Emek, that it would be remade within the new shopping mall to
be build. But we were certainly not looking for a replica of it,
inevitably smaller and to be reached at the third or fourth floor
of another mall.
The demolishing works started in the middle of the 2013 Istanbul
film festival. While all the foreign guests were here...Were they
defying us? Or were they simply that stupid? We’ll never
know. So that made pathetic street scenes: the Independance
Street invaded by protestors, a movie people group led by the
veteran Costa-Gavras, all the journalists and photographers
from the world observing and taking pictures letting know, the
next day, how the Turkish government was treating, with an
army of equipped police force, the protestors who were only
trying to save a cultural and historic place.
They couldn’t. We couldn’t save Emek. But we gave them a
lesson. I myself, to keep a promise I made to the public opinion
in my column in the daily newspaper Sabah, in which I had
said, back in the autumn of 2011, that if Emek was demolished
I would quit my job as a journalist and my paper. I did so, with
a last review whose title was «Veda Zamanı – Time to say
Goodbye». And since, I wrote four books. One of them being a
collection of my writings about Emek and it’s called ‹Emek
Yoksa Ben De Yokum›, which means roughly «If Emek is
Gone, I’m Gone Too!» – Which is what happened indeed.
Emek had a new bright epoch to live. The Emek coımpany has
been mainly the importer of the United Artists, with its georgeous
films of the sixties, most of them insistently in an old fashioned
black-and white, but masterpieces such as I Want To Live, Some
Like It Hot, The Apartment, Inherit the Wind, The Manchurian
Candidate, The Defiant Ones, Birdman of Alcatraz, Judgment in
Nurnberg, etc. But there was also glamour: West Side Story,
for instance, which has been shown for three months at the same
theatre, an absolute record of all times for Turkey. Or the first
James Bond films, etc.
But all this was not only disaster and withdrawal. The Emek
protests had echoes all over the world and at least its name
reached the eternity. But moreover, the protests which started
only two months later against the project of building another
shopping mall instead of the main city park in the nearby Taksim
Square, the Gezi (Promenade) Park, have been wider and much
better organized. They attracted more protestors and much more
policemen and they lasted also much longer. But this time,
they won! And the government and its men in the city munici­
pality had to withdraw their plans, with the support of a spe­
cialized court’s decision. And the city plans were changed.
Then the cinema has again changed hands. For a while it
passed to And Film and then to Akün Film which represented
MGM and Columbia. Films with the new 70 mm system at­
tracted young generations: Ryan’s Daughter, 2001 – A Space
Odyssea, Dersu Uzala – without forgetting a new 70 mm.
version of Gone With The Wind! Or again queues of youngsters
for Pink Floyd – The Wall.
This was one of the first cases in Turkey in which a public action
had won against the state authority in a case of ecology and
preservation. In other words, we could not save Emek, but we
did save the park! A consolation, but an important one. Because
it started a new initiative and gave courage to the opposites of
the government’s anti-cultural, anti-ecological and gradually antidemocratical policies.
Starting from the early 80s, Emek has been the main cinema
for the new Istanbul Film Festival. Started as a modest Film
Days, this has become fast a major festival of Europe showing
a constanly getting bigger number of films (nowadays around
220), in one of the longest durations for a festival: 16 days. So
Emek has become a new home for all real movie fans of Istanbul
and many people came from their towns in Turkey to spend
days in Istanbul to watch films.
And this war still goes on... The «Turkish spring» has had a
large support from Emek and its name will live forever in the
memory of many of us. The prestige of the festival and of Emek have many reasons.
The festival has been for decades a cinema school for movie
fans as well as movie people and many bright directors of the
Born in 1939 in Izmir, published 50 books, mostly on cinema, eventually
on Istanbul, travel impressions all over the world, popular music,
Turkish food and recently short novellas and poems. Mr. Dorsay is among
the founders, in 1982, of the Istanbul film festival of which he still is a
counselor.