Aesthetics of Displacement: Turkey and its Minorities on Screen

forthcoming

The aim of this paper is to review the nature of Turkish cultural identity and, in that context, answer the question: Does Europe consider Turkey an opportunity or a threat? The author will put forward a definition of the term 'Europeanness', discuss the character of Turkish cultural identity, and argue the Europeanness of that identity. In doing this, the author will provide some background: to the historical influence of Europe on Turkey; to Turkey's influence, and the influence on it, by virtue of its unique geographic link between East and West; as well as, to the border-lines of European civilisation. From this, the broad similarities between the Turkish culture and the European culture will be discussed. Finally, the importance of Istanbul will be addressed, both as the cultural and artistic heart of Turkey and as the European Capital of Culture in 2010.

2005

Bu rapor, Doc. Dr. A. Tamer Aker (psikiyatr, Kocaeli Universitesi), Yrd. Doc. Dr. A. Betul Celik (siyaset bilimci, Sabanci Universitesi), Dilek Kurban (hukuk doktoru, TESEV), Doc. Dr. Turgay Unalan (nufusbilimci, Hacettepe Universitesi) ve Yrd. Doc. Dr. H. Deniz Yukseker'den (sosyolog, Koc Universitesi) olusan TESEV Ulke Icinde Yerinden Edilme Arastirma ve Izleme Grubu tarafindan hazirlanmistir. Grup, yerinden edilmeyi catisma ortaminin keskinlestirdigi devlet merkezli dusunusun ve cesitli ideolojik kamplasmalarin otesinde, yurttaslik haklarinin yeniden tesisi ve toplumsal rehabilitasyon eksenlerinde ve insani boyutlari baglaminda ele almaktadir.

Occhialì - Rivista sul Mediterraneo islamico, 2022

In recent years, the denied rights of minorities have been in the headlines more and more due to the increasing attention being paid to them. On the one hand, we have a world where states are increasingly becoming multi-ethnic and multi-religious communities. On the other, we have the friction caused by this reality. It is astonishing to see how very often states are blind to the evolution of the population's social composition within their borders and how they fail to guarantee all people within their borders the enjoyment of the same rights, be they related to religion or other basic issues. Reading this volume, one seems to understand that Turkey is no exception to this reality. It emerges from these pages how, since the birth of the republic in 1923, the Anatolian state has had problems recognising that it is a truly multi-ethnic and multireligious state, whereas it was constitutionally born and developed as a single nation's state. Between the pages of this volume, besides the long-standing and famous issue of relations with the Kurdish minority, the stories (and struggles) of the other minorities present in the Anatolian country emerge, all more or less united by a history in which they are not recognised as an ethnic group or population in their own right, and are therefore unable to speak in their language, to educate their children in their traditions and customs, and to practise their religion. Not only the story of the Kurds, therefore, but also the stories of the Greeks of Istanbul, the Armenians, the Circassians, and the Alevi. Stories that, in one way or another, see people struggling against a culture, a bureaucracy and sometimes even

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Poverty and Social Exclusion in the Mediterranean Area, 1998

New Perspectives on Turkey, 2012

Saraçoğlu’s Kurds of Modern Turkey: Migration, Neoliberalism and Exclusion in Turkish Society is a well-written book that provides a new lens for looking at an lingering and disconcerting phenomenon in Turkey; the Kurdish question. Unlike many other approaches that restrict the Kurdish question to a political issue regarding the cultural and political rights of the Kurds, the book successfully attracts attention to the anti-Kurdish sentiment in Western Turkish cities and its underlying conditions. Saraçoğlu employs refined conceptual tools and applies them well within a very coherent theoretical framework to explore the ethnicization of the Kurdish migrants by middle class people in the Western Turkish city of Izmir.

Insight Turkey, 2010

which we mercilessly poison and uproot, is their horrifying tendency to obliterate the boundary between our garden and wilderness. The 'weeds' are often quite nice looking, fragrant and pleasing; we would certainly admire them as adorable specimens of wildlife if we found them while walking through woods or a meadow. Their 'fault' is that they have come, uninvited, to a place which ought to be neatly cut into lawns, rose garden, vegetable plot and flower borders. They spoil the harmony we envisaged, they play havoc with our design.

Ahmet Kerim Gültekin and Çakir Ceyhan Suvari, eds, The Ethno-Cultural Others of Turkey: Contemporary Reflections, 2021

Unlike its predecessor, the multi-ethnic and multi-religious Ottoman Empire, Turkey has long refused to recognize its internal diversity. The Christian population had dramatically declined due to territorial loss, genocide, and a population exchange with Greece; almost all Arab lands had been lost in the Great War. The various Muslim population groups were subjected to a policy of cultural assimilation and Central Asian Turkish roots were invented for them, in an effort to create a homogeneous and ‘racially’ Turkish nation. The Kurds were the ethnic group that longest resisted assimilation; they were also the first among whom a modern national movement emerged, stimulating a cultural revival and mass participation in ethnic politics. This generated a broader interest in the ethnic and religious heterogeneity hidden behind the façade of monolithic Turkishness. Various other groups began asserting their distinct identities, through language, music, folklore and historiography, and a growing number of academic studies on ethnic communities and cultures appeared. Different types of ethnic or religious identity, with different forms of social organization and degrees of societal recognition, came to be distinguished, ranging from the ‘legal’ minorities, whose rights are guaranteed by international agreements, through large groups associated with a distinct territory, to immigrant communities and other dispersed groups.