Turkey and The West: Changing Political and Cultural Identities 9780755612536, 9780755615384

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Preface and Acknowledgements Turkey's Westernization project is a well-traversed topic. The present volume differs from the previous work on three planes. It subscribes to the assumption that the West's influence on Turkey has not been direct but that it has always gone through a filtering process; it thus explores the favourable and unfavourable impact the images of the West held by critical groups in Turkey have had on the development of Turkish political culture; and, as the above implies, it looks at the political rather than the economic or cultural dimensions of Turkey's integration with the West. The chapters that follow were originally presented as papers at an international symposium at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Ebenhausen, Germany, on 11-13 November 1990. They were subsequently extensively revised and updated by the contributors and editors. Translations, unless otherwise stated, have been made by chapter authors. Heinz-Jurgen Axt, Karl Binswanger, Rainer Buren, Oement H. Dodd, Paul Dumont, Suraiya Faroqhi, William Hale, Helga Junkers, Petra Kappert, Klaus Kreiser, Andrew Mango, Stephanos Pezmazoglu, Christian Rumpf, Thomas Schwarz, Udo Steinbach and Semih Vaner also participated at the symposium as invited speakers. The editors acknowledge with pleasure their invaluable contributions. They are also grateful to the Volkswagen Foundation for its grant, which made the convening of the symposium possible, to the officers of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, including Yvonne Badal and Sabine Jordan, for helping to arrange and host the symposium in the most efficient and hospitable manner, to Anna Enayat of l.B. Tauris, Publishers, who from the very beginning has been the guiding spirit behind the publication of the present volume, and to the contributors to the volume who had been very co-operative at every stage of the project. Finally, the Editors thank Mrs Sibel Ramazanoglu and Miss Mukaddes Bayez1toglu who

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together cheerfully and competently typed several versions of the typescript.

Metin Heper, AY§e Oneil., Heinz Kramer Ankara, Istanbul and Ebenhausen March 19ncii and Deniz Go~, 'MacroPolitics of De-Regulation and Micro-Politics of Banks', in Metin Heper, ed.,

Strong State and Economic Interest Groups: The Post-1980 Turkish Experience

129 130

(Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1991) and Heper, The State, Political Party and Society in post-1983 Turkey'. Nokta (15 April 19')()). See, inter alia, ismail Seyhan's analysis entitled 'Bureaucratic liberalism', Gunel (15 December 1987).

Bureaucrats: Persistent Elitists

65

than attempt to reconcile the technocratic requisites with political exigencies, they adopt a resigned attitude of 'We would not be responsible for any other policy or measure'. For instance, at a meeting of the High Board of Planning attended by the relevant ministers and the cream of the economic bureaucracy, Ali Tigrel. at the time Head of the SPO, left the presentation of a report to one of his subordinates when Giine§ Taner, the then Minister of State responsible for the economy, said that the report was not generous enough on the economy. Tigrel later said that he could make head nor tail of the criticism directed at the 'realistic' appraisal of the economy he was making. At the same meeting. RO§dil Saraco~u. Head of the Central Bank. left the room when a similar clash took place between him and Taner.131 Another such confrontation. which was widely publicized. was between Bulent Semiler and Kaya Erdem, the then Deputy Prime Minister responsible for economic affairs. Their conflict (about the appropriateness of credits extended by the bank headed by Semiler) reached such proportions that in the end Erdem stated. 'Either he is removed from his post or I resign'. In the end. Semiler was forced to leave. In his letter of resignation. he made a dramatic statement: 'My past performance is well known. Thank God. I am leaving my post with a clean record and with honour. Before everything else, I am a Cypriot-Turk ... The Turkish state is sacred for me. Thus there is no need to thank me for my past performance. •132 When the post-1980 bureaucrats are compared with their pre1980 counterparts, one does observe a change; the former essentially based their self-attributed importance on a self-defined modernizing mission while the latter justify their presumed indispensability in terms of their expertise. But there is also a continuity; both categories of bureaucrats display bureaucratic elitism and tend to reject political constraints as inputs in policy making. There is no difference between an Ali Tigrel or a RO§dil Saraco~u. who show impatience with their political superiors, and the principal technical advisers who worked at the SPO in the early

131 Cumhuriyet (29 July 1987). 132 Milliyet (26 December 1988).

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1960s and who resigned collectively (in September 1962) because the government wished to dictate the Plan to them.133 There is a continuity in another sense, too. Not unlike the pre1980 bureaucrats (m particular, Mahmut Dikerdem and Feridun Cemal Erkin). the post-1980 bureaucrats show a tendency towards a one-man show. For instance, Professor Orban Gilvenen, Head of the State Institute of Statistics, stated: 'Some may argue otherwise, but in Turkey there is quite a large sector which benefits from high inflation. This sector constitutes an obstacle to the efforts to bring down inflation.•134 This approach was perhaps commendable but contrary to that of the governing MP which on the whole was careful not to alienate the private sector. Not unexpectedly, Professor Gilvenen's statement drew sharp reactions from the business community. Similarly, the Central Bank's Head RO§dil Sara~u had an attitude of 'Only I can bring down inflation'. Dr Saracoglu stated that his bank would make concessions neither to public agencies nor to business circles, and would continue its efforts to bring down inflation in a determined fashion. To back up his Bank's stance, he added: 'In Germany, the Central Bank is affiliated to the Ministry of Fmance. But in Germany a Minister of Finance would never send instructions to the Central Bank.'13.5 The point that in Germany the Central Bank would not receive instructions from a Ministry is well taken. What Saracoglu overlooked was that higher civil servants in post-1949 Germany have been politically more responsive than their counterparts in Turkey.136 Both the pre- and post-1980 bureaucrats in Turkey tended to view 'power as absolute', an attitude Frederick W. Frey

133 134

13.5 136

On the latter incident, see Feroz Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, 1950-1975 (London: H\ll"St, 1977), p. 127. Milliyet (6May1990). Hiiniyet (21 December 1988). On German bureaucrats, see Kenneth H.F. Dyson, Party, State, and Bureaucracy in Western Germany (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1977), p. 20 and Robert D. Putnam, 'The Political Attitudes of Senior Civil Servants in Western Europe: A Preliminary Report', British Journal of Political Science, 3 (1973), p. 271. For a comparison of German and Turkish bureaucrats from this particular perspective, see Metin Heper, 'The State and Public Bureaucracies: A Comparative and Historical Perspective', Comparative Studies in Society and History, 27 (198.5), pp. 86-110.

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has found to be salient among the Turkish political elite.1 37 The antecedents of this approach can be traced back to the nineteenth-

century Ottoman bureaucratic elites: Ali [Pasha), in the new Ottoman view, is the symbol and apex of a tyrannical bureaucracy. Namik Kemal, a leading critic of the Re§id Pasha school, wrote with effective irony about the peasant who, visiting Istanbul and seeing many fine houses, thinks there must be many Sultans. There are many Sultans, the peasant is told, but they lack the title. They are ministers.138

Conclusion This study points to the significance of different bureaucratic encounters with the West, and how these experiences form images of the West. If these bureaucrats are representative of the larger population, how far do their images of the West contribute to a political culture conducive to the consolidation of a liberaldemocratic state? A superficial encounter with the West - basically reading about it - leads to admiration and even to a fervent wish for Westernization. This may involve transferring Western organizational blueprints and mannerisms to Turkey, but not necessarily encouraging Western values and attitude patterns (including the political ones). Those bureaucrats who are most strongly for Westernization (Bener and Yenice) are farthest away from a notion of a liberal-democratic state; instead, they are the most earnest partisans of the non-liberal State. A meaningful encounter with the West - being brought up and/or educated in the West - on the other hand moves people away from non-liberal Statist solutions. The encounter pattern that gives rise to a political culture most appropriate for a liberal-democratic state is being brought up in the West (Kuneralp). Being educated in the West is also 'useful', because it prevents people from being totally opposed to the free play of 'politics', though by itself it does not stop people from developing elitist attitudes (Erkin and post-1980 technocrat-bureau137

138

Frederick W. Frey, The Turkish Political Elite (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 196.S), passim. Roderic Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 185frl876 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 223.

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crats). In the absence of a meaningful encounter with the West, an emphasis on the 'nation' or the 'people' by themselves does not, in the Turkish context, give rise to non-elitist political culture patterns (Ceyhun and Dikerdem). The particular relationship pattern between the type of encounter with the West and the type of political culture one so acquires also suggests that in Turkey's past and recent attempts to become an integral part of the West (say, by joining the EC) many may have been placing the cart before the horse. Perhaps a further consolidation of a liberal-democratic state in Turkey is contingent upon Turkey's first becoming an integral part of the West.

4

Journalists: Cautious Democrats §ahinAlpay What are the attitudes of Turkish journalists towards the West? What are the basic elements of the Turkish press elite's political culture? How committed are Turkish journalists to liberal democratic values and institutions? Would Turkish journalism help Turkey integrate with Europe or create difficulties? These are the fundamental questions addressed in this chapter. In order to provide some answers to these broad questions I will first discuss Turkish journalists' attitudes towards the West in general and the European Community (EC) in particular. The most important issue concerning the Turkish press elite's attitudes towards the West is the views of Turkish journalists towards Turkey's relations with the EC. I will then take up the political culture of mainstream Turkish journalists, in particular their commitment to liberal democratic values and institutions. Finally, I will examine the working environment of Turkish journalists - press freedom, and relations between the State and the press on one hand, and between publishers and journalists in Turkey on the other. To a large extent this study relies on interviews with some of the leading representatives of opinion writers in the Turkish daily press.1 I will also draw upon writings by some of the prominent 1

15 editors and other columnists of various political inclinations represented in the top ten national dailies were interviewed about their views regarding Turkey-EC relations in December 1989 and January 1990. Interviews were conducted with the following journalists: Taha Akyol (then chief editorial writer for TercUnian); Mehmet Ali Birand (foreign news commentator for Sabah); Ismail Cem (then columnist for Gunq); Hasan Cemal (then editor-

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representatives of the Turkish press as well as studies on the Turkish press by others. In addition. my experiences and observations accumulated through long employment at Bab1ali (Istanbul's counterpart of Fleet Street in London) have provided me with some insight on issues that are taken up in this chapter.

Journalists and the West It may be argued that there exists among the Turkish secular elite a feeling of admiration for the Western world for its achievements; if so there is equally a feeling of resentment towards its superiority. An aspiration to Westernize and to become part of the West is mixed with a certain ambiguity towards the West. Rightists and Leftists, Islamists and secularists, liberals and conservatives2 all share a certain feeling of mistrust and suspicion towards the West, which may be partly explained by Turkey's historical experiences of the Western powers. Among journalists, it is a widely held view that the political and economic decline of Ottoman Turkey was to a great extent due to the effects of Western imperialism. Turkey's accomplishments in modernizing and Westernizing the country on the other hand are regarded as achievements in spite of the West.

2

in-chief and columnist for Cumhuriyet); Abdurrahman Dilipak (columnist for Milli Gazete); Oktay Ek§i (chief editorial writer of Hiirriyet and president of the Turkish Press Council); Fehrni Koru (columnist for Zaman); Gilngor Mengi (chief editorial writer for Sabah); Upr Mumcu (columnist for Cumhuriyet); tlhan Sel~ (columnist for Cumhuriyet); Miimtaz Soysal (columnist for Milliyet); Altan C'.>ymen (chief editorial writer for Milliyet); Yal~ 6zer (chief editorial writer for Tlirkiye); Rauf Tamer (columnist for Milliyet); Haluk Otman (columnist for Giinaydln). (Zaman is an Ankara daily; other newspapers are Istanbul dailies). In July 1990, more interviews were held on journalism in general and the political culture of journalists in Turkey in particular: Nazh Ihcak (columnist for Terciiman ), Hasan. Cemal, and Ne:zili Demirkent (President of the Turkish Journalists' Association and publisher of Diinya). Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from journalists are from these interviews. Here, by 1iberals' in Turkey, reference is to those who believe in the value of the individual's freedom and rights. By 'conservatives' in Turkey, reference is to those who attach greater value to national and/or religious values and traditions.

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The often contradictory attitudes of Turkey's elite towards the West are well reflected by opinion writers in the Turkish press. The Turkish press often welcomes political pressure from the West as support for the enhancement of democratic rights and freedoms. Western pressure concerning the rights of cultural and ethnic minorities. on the other hand. is often viewed as a violation of Turkey's independence and sovereignty and is sometimes even interpreted as part of a conspiracy by the Western powers to divide and weaken Turkey. Conspiratorial thinking and explanation are widespread among both the journalistic elite in particular, and Turkish intellectuals in general. There also exists an inclination among Turkish journalists to make sweeping generalizations about the West and Westerners. Many of them fail to see that Western societies are pluralistic entities composed of groups with widely different interests and ideologies. This partly explains why any conference, book, film, performance or speech in the West that is critical of Turkey and the Turks, often gives rise to bitter reactions in the Turkish press where the 'West' in its entirety will be condemned for being against Turkey or the Turks. The anti-West orientation which for a time was a serious political and cultural trend during the 1960s and 1970s has, however, lost most of its force during the last decade. Isolationist, nationalist, Third-Worldist ideas and views in favour of economic autarchy, which were widespread especially among the journalists on the Left, no longer have a strong appeal. The relationship between Turkey and the EC has probably been the most interesting issue in the context of Turkish journalists' attitudes towards the West. During the 1960s and 1970s, the opposition to Turkey's involvement in the EC, which was united around the slogan, 'They are the partners and we are the market', had spread over nearly the full political spectrum from the Marxist, nationalist, social democratic Left to the nationalist and religious Right, and was well represented in the Turkish press. The Turkish governments' policies towards the EC were to some extent affected by this opposition - that involvement with the EC would result in the loss of political and economic independence. For instance, the government's decision in 1978 that Turkey should no longer fulfil its commitments to the EC was partly a consequence of opposition to

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Turkey's integration with the EC on the part of some members of the government party - the Republican People's Party.3 In the 1980s opposition to the EC subsided along with the antiWest currents of the previous decades. Turkey's application for full membership in the EC on 17 April 1987 by the Motherland Party government headed by Turgut Ozal (who was himself known to be an opponent of EC membership during the 1960s when he was the Head of the State Planning Organization for a time) was supported by all political parties and groups with the notable exception of the Islamist Prosperity Party (PP). This broad consensus also has found its expression in the Turkish press. The most radical change of attitude towards the EC issue took place on the Left. Hasan Cemal, former Editor-in-chief and columnist for the Istanbul daily Cumhuriyet, feels this change of attitude grew out of the recent realization that there is not much room for dreaming in economics; it is not possible to discover and pursue vastly different economic models. According to Cemal, Turkish economists and journalists now recognize that it is impossible to build a self-sufficient economy and that customs walls are purely damaging; an economy will not function without market mechanisms. Social democrats have arrived at the conclusion that it is important to let the market operate, though without complete submission to it. Cemal points out that there is also a political dimension to the change of heart regarding the EC membership. In the sphere of politics, the view is now that pluralist democracy is the best form of political regimes and that one comes across fully developed democracies only in the EC countries. A great majority of journalists whom I interviewed, supported Turkey's membership application to the EC. Opposition to Turkey's EC affiliation, came mainly from two political groups - the nationalist Left4 and the Islamic Right. Professor Milmtaz Soysal, political columnist for Milliyet, is perhaps the best representative of the nationalist Left. According to him, membership of the Council of Europe is sufficient to keep Turkey within the general framework of European values, especially 3 4

See Mehrnet Ali Birand, Turkiye'nin Ortak Pazar Maceras1 (Istanbul: Milliyet Yaymlan, 1990), pp. 3TI-9. The 'nationalist' Left in Turkey takes a strong stance in favour of national and economic 'independence', and etatism in economic affairs.

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those concerning democracy and human rights. Membership of the EC, however, should be opposed on economic, political and cultural grounds. The EC, which began with the goal of economic integration, is now headed towards a political union. In such a union, argues Professor Soysal, Turkey would be forced to leave decisions regarding her economic development and other important issues to the discretion of a superior authority. The EC membership should be rejected not only on the grounds of nationalism and national sovereignty, but also because Turkey's needs can best be conceived by the Turks themselves. There is a real danger of Turkey's national interests being undermined by the EC. The issue of the cultural conflict between Europe and Turkey is not a simple problem which can be expressed solely in terms of the Christian-Islam divide. In Europe, there exist widespread prejudices regarding Turkey and the image of Turks as an inferior people. As far as Soysal and the Left are concerned, joining the EC without these prejudices and images being changed would be tantamount to accepting treatment at the hands of the EC countries as a secondclass country. Turkey has first to get herself recognized as a nation with an equal status before entering into a relationship with Europe. Despite his radical opposition to the EC membership, Professor Soysal believes that Turkey will become an EC member in the next 10 to 25 years. The EC would eventually wish to incorporate Turkey, because Turkey has the potential of developing into a country with economic power. Professor Soysal insists that as of today Turkey should reassess her application for membership in the EC, arguing that such an important decision, which will be binding for future generations, should be taken in a referendum. The main spokesman of the Islamic right opposition to the EC membership, Abdurrahman Dilipak demands that the issue of EC membership should be decided in a referendum. Dilipak, who is a popular columnist for Milli Gazete and a supporter of the PP (the only political party opposed to Turkey's EC membership), says he is opposed to Turkey's membership of the EC on moral, political, philosophical and historical grounds. According to Dilipak, what brings societies together is a consciousness of history, common patterns of social behaviour, and religious beliefs and traditions. In all these respects there exist fundamental differences between

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Turkey and the European societies. Turkey's membership would not only be against Turkey's national interests, it would also constitute a threat to the EC countries, since it would mean millions of unemployed Turks rushing to Europe where many people are already out of work. EC membership would also constitute a violation of the Turkish Constitution which emphasizes Turkey's independence. The most radical opposition to Turkey's affiliation with the EC comes from Islamic groups. It does not, however, mean that there are no Islamic groups which view Turkey's EC membership favourably. Nurcu groups, who derive their basic ideas from Said Nursi's teaching that the supremacy of Islam is established in ordinary daily life rather than political power, believe that Turkey's EC membership will not only enhance religious freedoms in Turkey, but will help Turkey in its positive role of bringing together the realms of Islam and Christianity.5 Those journalists who oppose Turkey's membership in the EC constitute a small minority. The main argument in favour of Turkey's EC membership is political. It is argued that EC membership will provide a strong guarantee for the development and stability of Turkey's fragile democratic regime. This argument has been most clearly put forward by Professor Haluk Ulman, foreign news commentator of Giinaydm, and a former social democratic member of Parliament. Ulman has always supported Turkey's membership in the EC, and does not care much about its economic consequences. He wants Turkey to join the community of democratic regimes so that future military interventions may be prevented. Altan Oymen, chief editorial writer of Milliyet, and a former social democratic cabinet member, thinks that the greatest benefit of membership in the EC for Turkey would be in the sphere of human rights. According to Oymen, human rights is not a firmly established idea in Turkey. Integration with the EC countries will help the Turks internalize this notion. It will also help Turkish society establish rational ways of thinking and behaving which would sweep away current adherence to dogmatisms. S

For the positions of various lslamist groups on the question of Turkey's EC membership, see RU§Cll Qtlar, 'Tiirkiye'de lslami Hareketler ve Avrupa', Kitap Dergisi, nos. 40-42 (1990), pp. 37-42.

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Mehmet Ali Birand, foreign policy commentator of the liberal daily Sabah and for some time producer of a very popular foreign news programme on Turkish television, supports Turkey's application for full membership of the EC. He is convinced that Turkey's integration with the EC would help the country to consolidate its democratic regime because, like Oymen, he believes that the commitment of the Turks to democratic values and human rights is not sufficiently strong. Cumhuriyet's columnist Ugur Mumcu, who points out that he is not an enthusiastic supporter of Turkey's EC membership, nevertheless backs Turkey's membership application, because the EC stands as the model of pluralist democracy in which all political trends from the far Left to the far Right are represented, and all sections of society, including the workers, are guaranteed freedom of expression and association. Taha Akyol, chief editorial writer of the conservative daily Tercuman, believes that Turkey's membership application will never be accepted. Nevertheless, he supports the application on the grounds that when Turkey takes its place within the political and cultural framework of Europe, it will be free of military interventions, and political crises will be solved by democratic processes. Some others support EC membership on cultural grounds. Oktay E~i, chief editorial writer of Hurriyet, thinks that EC membership is extremely important for Turkey's cultural identity. According to him, Turkey's entry into the EC will be the climax of the country's efforts to modernize and Westernize which began in the early part of the last century. Gungor Mengi, chief editorial writer of Sabah, thinks that the Turkish people have for many centuries been orientated towards Western civilization, and seek their future among the Western nations; integration with the EC would bring a final solution to Turkey's prolonged wavering between the East and the West. Yal~m Ozer, the chief editorial writer of the conservative daily Turkiye, who personally does not believe that Turkey will one day become an EC member, nevertheless supports Turkey's efforts to become part of the EC, because membership would help the country transform its collectivistic culture into an individualistic one. According to Ozer, group consciousness predominates in Turkey,

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while European culture rests on the realization of individual abilities and the development of the creativity of individuals. There are few among Turkish journalists who support Turkey's EC membership on economic grounds. However. the majority is inclined to think that EC membership will involve economic costs. This argument is perhaps best expressed by Ismail Cem, a social democratic member of Parliament and columnist for Sabah. According to Cem, almost all sectors of society in Turkey are in favour of joining the EC, but none has really considered the costs involved. If Turkey joined the EC today an important part of her industries would be paralyzed, with ensuing increases in unemployment. All in all. 11 out of the 15 journalists I interviewed supported Turkey's membership application but only three of them believed in its eventual realization. Three journalists thought that Turkey would never be accepted into the EC; all based their arguments mainly on cultural grounds. One of these pessimists, Professor Haluk Ulman, argued that the EC is a community of nations which share a tradition of Cartesian, rationalist philosophy which is stronger even than their shared Christian heritage. Turkey is rather misplaced in such a community. Any culture is as much a system of values, attitudes and behaviour as religious convictions. Members of one culture may attend church, members of another go to a mosque, but belief in scientific thinking. respect for human rights, and a secular regime are indispensible in a modem society. Ulman suspects that dogmatic religious views are becoming widespread in Turkey, so strangling scientific and secular thought. and widening the cultural gap between Turkey and Europe. Mehmet Ali Birand argues that Turkey will never be accepted in the EC, because Europeans do not consider Turkey part of Europe. They regard Turkey with her different culture and Islamic religion as a country outside Europe - an anti-Europe that has always fought against them. Until recently Western Europeans approached Turkey with some favour because of the Soviet threat. Birand thinks that now that the Soviet threat is over, Europe regards Turkey as a country which should be kept close but which should never be taken into the community. Support for EC membership that was displayed by most opinion writers in the Turkish press during the 1980s has lost some of its

Journalists: Cautious Democrats

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momentum in recent years. A belief that the end of the Cold War has diminished Turkey's importance for the West and the probability that the EC will, in the wake of the radical changes in Europe, give priority to democratizing Eastern European countries rather than accepting new members may have contributed to a fading of the zeal with which many journalists supported the membership. They have also been discouraged by the EC Commission's December 1989 'Opinion on Turkey's Request for Accession to the Community', which found Turkey too politically and economically immature for membership. My exploration of this matter with some of the prominent members of the Turkish press indicates that while the broad support for EC membership still continues, few now expect its realization, at least in this century.6 On the other hand, even among those journalists who lend strong support to Turkey's application for membership in the EC, the idea that Turkey should reassess the current world situation and perhaps adopt new foreign policy lines seems to be spreading. Taha Akyol, for example, argues that Turkey must recognize that she is growing ever further from the EC. On the basis of this recognition Turkey should reconsider her place and develop new concepts in foreign policy, while maintaining cordial relations with the EC. Turkey should not lose sight of her geographical location. Turkey is not only a European country but also a Middle Eastern one. Caucasia has been a point of interest for Turkey in all periods of its history and the EC is certainly not the only option for Turkey. A similar point is made by the Cumhuriyet columnist ilhan Selc;uk. In the light of the new conditions Turkey should evaluate all new developments and possibilities, and broaden its space for manoeuvering. It should try to balance its relationship with the West and the EC with a similar approach to the Middle East and Islamic countries. According to Selc;uk, such an orientation would also be in line with the original policies of the Turkish Republic.

6

For a full report of that study, see ~bin Alpay, 'Turkey and the European Community as Viewed by Turkish Journalists', Zentrum fiir Tiirkeistudien, Working Papers No. 7, Bonn, August 1990.

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Journalists' Political Culture In the aftermath of the recent military intervention (1980-83). a broad consensus on the virtues of a democracy based on basic rights and liberties appears to have developed among opinion writers of the mainstream Turkish press. The idea that solutions to political, social and economic problems should and can be found within the context of a democratic regime has grown in the Turkish press elite. Thus, the intellectual climate of the post-1980 period has been very different than that of the previous decades, when mistrust towards democratic institutions and procedures was widespread. The military interventions of 1960-61, 1971-73 and 1980-83 all found supporters in the Turkish press, though reasons for support differed. 7 The view that parliamentary democracy is inapplicable in a backward country like Turkey was shared by many of the influential writers of the Turkish press, especially in the late 1960s. They argued that in Turkey elections merely made possible the rule of conservative forces which hindered the radical reforms necessary for securing economic development and social justice. Faith in parliamentary democracy, which was sometimes labelled 'democracy on paper' (gostennelik demokrasi) or 'bourgeois democracy' (cici demokrasi), had not been strong in intellectual circles.8 During the 1980s, the intellectual climate changed radically; the main demand since then even on the radical Left, is for 'democracy as it exists in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and EC countries'. In the early 1990s the dominant ideas in the political discourse of Turkish mainstream journalism, on both Left and Right, are democracy, human rights and freedom of the press. Nevertheless, there is still some scepticism about the firmness of the commitment of the Turkish press to democratic principles and values. Nazh Ihcak, who is perhaps the foremost representative of the liberal Right in the Turkish press and who was sent to jail for 7

8

For a review and assessment of the attitude of the Turkish press towards military interventions, see Nuf§Cn Mazict, Turkiye'de Askeri Darbeler ve Sivil Rejime Etkileri (Istanbul: Giir Yaymlan, 1989), pp. 154-86. For an account of critical views on parliamentary democracy, voiced by some of the most widely read representatives of the Turkish press in the late 1960s and early 1970s, see Hikmet 67.demir, Kallanmada Bir Strateji Arayqi: Yon Hareketi (Ankara: Bilgi Yaymevi, 1986).

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three months by the military regime in 1982, is one of the sceptics. Ihcak is convinced that since the 1980 military intervention there has existed a strong consensus against military interventions; but that the Turkish press has identified with the idea of democracy only in appearance. It has not internalized that idea. The press has not realized that to attain democracy one has to fight for it. According to Ihcak, the representatives of the mainstream Turkish press will all say that they are for democracy, but they will not pay the price to achieve it. Hasan Cemal. one of the prominent representatives of the social democratic Left in the Turkish press is also uncertain about the degree to which Turkish journalists embrace democracy. Cemal grants that in the period following the military regime of 1980-83, there was not even the slightest sign in the Turkish press which pointed to a possible support for military interventions in the future. No one argued that the military takeovers solved problems. All agreed that Turkey should consolidate her democracy, and find solutions to problems through democratic means. In the face of President Turgut Ozal's violations of the Constitution, everybody spoke of eliminating Ozal in the first general elections; but there have been no other calls. If democracy is taken to mean a certain culture, argues Cemal, Turkish journalists have not been sufficiently socialized into that culture. The typical Turkish journalist would begin by saying that the values which have made the West are democratic values, including human rights and freedom of the press. These values he feels, should be internalized in Turkey. Yet he would add that it has taken a long time for these values to develop in the West. According to Cemal, the typical Turkish journalist would thus try to legitimize a limited democracy including restraints on the freedom of the press. This attitude is shared by politicians and, Cemal argues, people in general regard democracy as a freedom of expression for themselves, but not necessarily for others. There are some who think that democracy is simply a majority rule; minority rights can be pushed aside. They regard any behaviour, even if it is tyranical, as democratic if it has majority support. Nezih Demirkent, President of the Turkish Journalists' Association and publisher of the Istanbul daily Diinya, is even more sceptical than Ibcak and Cemal about commitment to democratic

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values among Turkish journalists. He too believes that there is a definite trend towards consensus against military interventions, but this consensus is not strong enough. Journalists are opposed to military interventions but many still believe that the military is the only guarantor against the establishment of a regime based on religion. There are times when columnists make coded calls for military action. Demirkent argues that if people are still relying on the military instead of trying to win over the majority, then there is no real democratic consensus. He personally believes that Turkish journalists are democrats of a very subjective nature. They all demand freedom for themselves, but are not prepared to recognize others' rights. Tolerance, which is the most important value in a democracy, is not a widespread commodity in Turkey.9 In the context of the relationship between the press and the military in Turkey, it may be worth quoting the views of Erol Simavi, owner of the Hurriyet group. In the first and last public interview he gave, on the 40th anniversary of the publication of Hurriyet, Simavi made the following observations: It is said that the press is one of the five major powers ... that it is the fourth power. This statement is not valid for Turkey ... Sovereignty, of course, belongs solely to the people ... . That's something else .... But which is the first power in Turkey? The army? No ... it is the press ... The army is the second power .... It is the press that urges the army to stage the coups.10 Critics of contemporary Turkish journalists believe that the latter as a group do not have the determination to struggle for their rights and liberties. Nazh Ihcak ascribes this submissiveness of Turkish newspaper owners and journalists to their lack of a democratic culture. She believes that the Turkish press is in a state of great moral decline in the aftermath of the military intervention of 1980. This moral decline is due to the lack of democratic qualities among newspaper owners and opinion writers. From this point of view the Turkish press is far behind their colleagues in the West. In the West 9

10

Nezih Demirkent has emphasized that the views he put forward in the interview were his personal opinions, and that he did not make these statements in the capacity of the president of the Turkish Journalists' Association. HUrriyet (3 May 1988), p. 5.

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belief in democracy is quite developed. If, for example, a television programme were censored, people would protest. In Turkey, however, both the people .and the elite are submissive. When the military regime of 1980-83 enacted an authoritarian law of higher education only very few professors protested. In a mature democracy they would all have resigned from their posts. When the government adopted decrees concerning the press in May 1990, press associations issued declarations in protest and newspapers published critical reports, but that was the full extent of the protest. Newspapers, for instance, did not decide to stop publication for a day or two; journalists did not organize mass demonstrations. Ihcak told this author: 'No, we do not do such things. Our people do not react. I do not know why. It may be due to an Oriental manner or to submissiveness before the State.' Cemal shares Ihcak's opinion. He explains the lack of an effective resistance to the so-called 'censorship and exile' decrees first by the fact that a democratic culture is not sufficiently developed among Turkish journalists. Secondly, the Turkish press has not been able to make a clear distinction between freedom of the press and notions such as 'national unity' and 'national interest'. And thirdly. newspaper owners in Turkey still do not see themselves as strong enough to act independently of the State. Demirkent believes that the Turkish press is unable to resist government pressures because it is economically feeble and as a newspaper publisher, he emphasizes the need to rapidly strengthen the economic position of the newspapers. As long as newspapers lack sufficient economic power, they will be toys in the hands of governments. During my interview with him Demirkent argued: We need to be financially strong. What does the government in effect do to put pressure on the press? It tells 30 or so holding companies to give or not to give their advertisements to this or that newspaper. We have to fortify our newspapers financially so that they will not be in need of revenues from holdings' advertisements.

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Journalists, State and Democracy Freedom of the press is one of the key concepts of the professional - discourse of Turkish journalists. The need for press freedom as it exists in Western democracies is a basic demand that keep appearing in the declarations of journalists' associations and unions, protesting at encroachments on press freedom by governments. For the mainstream Turkish journalist, the West means democracy and freedom of the press, as much as it means civilization, modernity and prosperity. Judging by the standards of Western democracies is a common habit of the Turkish secular elite, and the argument that Turkey will not be regarded as part of the West as long as freedom of the press fails to accord with Western standards has been a constantly recurring theme in the writings of Turkish journalists.11 The argument is justified. The Turkish press functions in a very restrictive legal framework. Restrictions on press freedom increased after the 1980 military intervention. The 1982 Constitution, press laws enacted by the military, new laws and decrees adopted after return to civilian rule in 1983, and various articles of the Penal Code that have been in effect since the 1930s, severely restrict press freedom in Turkey.12 The abrogation in April 1991 of the articles of the Turkish Penal Code, which have prohibited Communist and religious fundamentalist propaganda and organization, was welcomed as a step towards greater freedom of expression. There are fears, however, that the provisions of the Anti-Terror Law, which abrogated those articles of the Penal Code, in turn may be used to curtail the freedom of expression as effectively as before.13 According to a study by the Turkish Press Council, there are 152 laws and government decrees which in one way or another restrict

11 12

13

For some of the most explicit formulations, see Abdi ipekt;i, 'D1§3ndaki Goriintiimiiz', Milliyet (16 July 1972); 'Dllj Goriintiimiiz ve t~ Barllj', Milliyet (16 December 1972); 'Basin 6zgiirliip', Milliyet (2February1973). For a detailed discussion of the press freedom in Turkey, see The US Helsinki Watch Committee report, 'Paying the Price: Freedom of Expression in Turkey', 1989, pp. 12-19. For reactions to the Anti-Terror Law adopted in April 1991, see 'Teror Yasasma K~ku,' Bizim Gazete (11 May 1991), pp. 1, 9.

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press freedom in Turkey.14 Most recently, government decrees (promulgated in April-May 1990) have brought certain amendments to the emergency law in force in the southeastern provinces of Turkey. These amendments empower the Ministry of Interior Affairs to ban publications and close down printing houses indefinitely, if it is thought that the publications in question endanger the public order in the region. The law applies to the whole country, and there is no right of appeal. The decree was introduced as part of a package of measures to fight against the Kurdish separatist movement, which has claimed over 2500 lives in recent years.15 Regulations that make discussion of many topics a criminal offence result in self-censorship. Many aspects of religion and sexuality, the cult of Atatilrk, the Kurdish and Armenian questions, and questions pertaining to the military are among sensitive topics that have for many years been avoided or taken up at great risk. The first and only critical study of the internal workings of the Armed Forces was published only recently. 16 The press has started using the word 'Kurdish' only in the last few years. The plight of the Kurds of Northern Iraq in the wake of the Gulf War, and the lifting in April 1991 of the ban on the use of the Kurdish language imposed by the military regime of 1980-83 have, at last, facilitated a broader discussion of Turkey's own Kurdish problem. The many restrictions on press freedom and government harassment of the press do not, however, prevent journalists from being engaged in lively political criticism. A differentiated and dynamic press contributes to the formation of public opinion. More than ten dailies with national circulation are in fierce competition to increase their share of the relatively small newspaper market - only about three million copies sell daily in a country of nearly 60 million people.17 14 15 16 17

M. Gernalmaz and 0. Dgru, Turkiye'de Basin Mevzuatl. Yasalar ve Kanun Hiikmundeki Karamameler (Istanbul: Basin Konseyi Yaymlan, 1990). For a detailed account of the restrictions on and actions against the press in Turkey, see Alpay Kabacah, BGllan~tan Gunilmuze Turkiye'de Basin Sansiirii (Istanbul: Gazeteciler Cerniyeti Yayuu, 1990). Mehrnet Ali Birand, Emret Komutamm (Istanbul: Milliyet Yaymlan, 1987). For trends in newspaper consumption in Turkey, see Biilent 6ziikan, 'Basmda Tirajlar', Cumhuriyet DOnemi Tilrkiye Ansiklopedisi, fascicle 8

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State control of the press is not limited to legal restrictions. Economic pressure is a lever often used by governments against press opposition. Advertisements placed by public enterprises, especially state banks, constitute one of the main sources of income for the daily press, accounting for about 40 per cent of total advertising revenue. The main devices for indirect state control of the press are distribution of public enterprise advertisements between various newspapers, credits to newspaper publishers from state banks, and fixing the price of newsprint which is a state monopoly. In 1988, state banks instituted an advertisement embargo against the dailies Giinaydm, Terciiman and Bu/var in retaliation for their critical stance towards the government. The resulting severe decline in revenues is said to have forced the owner of Giinaydm to sell the paper. Nazh Iltcak, chief editorial writer for Terciiman and later for Bu/var, who had been very critical of Prime Minister Turgut Ozal's policies, was forced to discontinue her editorials for a while.18 In April 1988, the government raised newsprint prices, making an overall increase of 225 per cent in 16 months. The government has opted for a policy line aimed at destroying newspapers financially and economically just because newspapers have been publicizing the government's shortcomings and mistakes. It is widely believed that changes in newspapers' leading editors and attitudes towards the government are often due to economic pressures by the government on newspaper owners in the form of punishments or rewards. The relatively low rates of profit in the press business have led most newspaper owners to invest in other sectors or sell their newspapers to businessmen who have made their fortunes elsewhere. But newspaper owners' interests in businesses outside the press are believed to render them even more vulnerable to economic pressures by the government.19

(1983), pp. 229-32; tsmet Berkan, 'TV Reklarnlannda Basin KU§3tmasi', Cumhuriyet (1 February 1990).

18 19

For economic pressures on the press, see Nail Giireli, 'Nazh Harurna C>z.giirliik', Milliyet (4 March 1988). For newspaper publishers' investments, see Htfn Topuz, Korkmaz Alemdar, ~t Kaya, Oktay Kurtooke and Nalan Orlci Topuz, Basinda Tekellejmeler (Istanbul: IIAD-TOS~ Yayuu, 1989).

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Hasan Cemal, former editor in chief and columnist of

Cumhuriyet, reiterated how the State in Turkey continues to control the press in two ways - by utilizing the anti-democratic press laws, and through economic pressures. The State through the allocation of credits and subsidies by public banks, and by control of foreign trade policies, possesses great economic power over the press. Newspapers can be deprived of large revenues should the State decide to divert public advertisement away from them. Newsprint production is a state monopoly, and its import is regulated by the state. These are the levers with which the State exercises economic pressures on the newspapers. Cemal also confirms that newspaper owners who have investments covering a wide range of areas from tourism to automobiles, import-export businesses to banking, are placed in a very vulnerable position before the powerful State. Nazh Ihcak, who was perhaps the most notable target of the government's economic pressure on the press in the 1980s, believes that newspapers became especially vulnerable to government pressure during that decade. According to Ihcak, previously newspaper owners in Turkey were journalists themselves. The press was composed of small entities, and it was more dynamic and vigorous. Today most newspaper publishers are not journalists by profession, and they have much to lose. The great influence newspaper owners exercise over the policies of their publications is believed to be another important feature of the Turkish press. Bab1ali seems to lack rules and traditions that regulate relations between newspaper owners and editors, so that editors have a limited sphere of influence, and can seldom resist the decisions of their bosses. N azh Ihcak described to this author the relationship between owners and editors in the Turkish press as follows: In the Turkish press, newspaper owners are the masters. They decide the general policy to be followed. No matter how determined the journalist is to defend his views, it is the boss who has the last word. In Turkey newspapers have become big business. Newspapers that are run with small numbers of people and limited amounts of capital are now a thing of the past. Newspaper bosses, perhaps because they have a lot to lose, do not dare to put up a fight. Editors and writers, on the other hand, lack guarantees against their employers. An editor-in-chief or a

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columnist hardly dares resign from his post when he is not allowed to defend his views or when he is censored. His employment opportunities are not that many. Co§kun Ktrca, former Mil/iyet columnist and former diplomat and presently an MP, claims that the influence owners have over a newspaper's political stance is one of the main differences that exist between the press in Turkey and the West: In the West, newspapers' reporting and opinion functions are the responsibility of a team of journalists in accordance with an agreement of principles between the journalists who carry out the daily work and the newspaper owners. Owners do not try to influence the contents of publications as much as they do in Turkey. In Turkey, on the other hand, aside from Milliyet, there is not even a single newspaper or magazine which abides by this rule.20 During recent years, the Turkish press has quite swiftly adapted itself to the modern technological advances in the media. Competition between papers, and with the rapidly spreading television network, has prompted the Turkish press to keep pace with technological innovations in the production of newspapers. All major newspapers employ electronic typesetting and offset printing techniques, and are in the process of transition to fully computerized production systems. From a technological point of view, the Turkish press is not below European standards. It is, however, a widely held belief that the Turkish press has neglected investment in journalists. The generally poor educational and cultural credentials of journalists, especially at reporter level, is a major criticism directed towards the Turkish press.21 This situation is explained primarily by the generally low level of wages paid to reporters. It is also argued that the growing trend towards boulevard journalism in the 1980s limits the need for better quality personnel in the press.

20

Milliyet (30July1990).

21

For a study of the educational and general cultural background of reporters employed in the Istanbul press, see Asiye Uysal, Turk Basrnmda Muhabir (Istanbul: Gazeteciler Cemiyeti Yaymlan, 1987).

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The growth of boulevard newspapers was indeed a trend of the 1980s. Newspapers of this kind, publishing mostly fabricated news, sex and crime stories with colour photographs, have succeeded in enlarging their share of the market. Even serious newspapers have, to a certain extent, been affected by the sensationalist trend in the midst of fierce competition to increase sales. The struggle for sales has augmented another major trend in the Turkish press; with few exceptions, newspapers have been drawn into a rash of give-away and lottery campaigns. Such campaigns result in substantial fluctuation in the total circulation numbers of individual newspapers.22 A distinguished Turkish journalist, Gok§in Sipahioglu, currently owner of the world's third largest photograph agency {SIPA), regards these new campaigns as a a major shortcoming of the Turkish press: A major mistake of the Turkish press is the failure to train young people for leading positions. The newspapers have been run by the same people for the last 30 years. This is because these editors dare not train young people for fear of losing their posts. For the same reason they avoid employing quality people. All this is due to the incompetency of people in leading positions. In the past all newspapers were making money; now most of them are losing. They are still trying to increase their sales by advertisements and lottery campaigns. They could increase and stabilize their sales more easily if they instead tried to do good quality journalism.23 Recently, there have been developments towards better quality journalism. Serious Turkish newspapers have not only increased their news coverage in the last decade, but they have also made improvements in the field of specialized journalism. Most of the mainstream newspapers now publish regular business, foreign news and culture pages, which did not exist a decade ago. Their news reporting is clearly more objective, and their opinion pages tend to be more differentiated. The number of correspondents employed at 22 23

bharni Soysal, 'Bastnda Lotarya', Cumhuriyet DOnemi Turkiye Ansiklopedisi, fascicles 7-8 (1983), p. 223; Haluk ~hin. 'Lotarya Kwr Dongiisii', Turk Baslmmn Bq Sorunu (Istanbul: Bastn Konseyi Yaymlan, 1989), pp. 29-31. Interview with Go~ Sipahioglu, 'Tiirkiyc'nin Ba§llUI Ne Geldiyse Tiirk Basuu Yiiziinden Gelrni§tir', Arredamento Dekorasyon, no. 18 (1990), pp. 36-42.

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major news centres of the world has increased enormously. Journalists have begun to travel abroad to a much greater extent than they did previously. Like the rest of Turkish society, the Turkish press experienced 'an opening to the outside world' in the 1980s. There is little doubt that Turkish journalists' encounters with the outside world are today more frequent than in previous decades. The rising influence of journalists as editors, columnists and senior reporters is another trend of the 1980s in Turkey. Journalists and businessmen are the two sections of the Turkish elite whose influence increased in the 1980s while influence of groups such as intellectuals and trade unionists, which were influential in the 1960s and 1970s, generally declined. Journalists certainly constitute that section of the Turkish elite which is most articulate. The fact that many of the bestsellers of the 1980s were written by journalists is perhaps a good indicator of their rising influence. Turkish journalists have played an important role in Turkey's social and political development since the appearance of privately run newspapers in the 1860s. They have been instrumental in introducing Western institutions and values to Turkish society in both the Ottoman Empire and Republican Turkey. After the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923, journalists assumed the role of defending and propagating the modernizing reforms of the one-party regime which lasted until 1945. The press played an effective role in preparing the public for the coming to power of the Demokrat Party in 1950. There is no doubt that the part played by Turkish journalists in the Westernizing and modernizing movements in Turkey has been greatly disproportionate to their numbers.24 The daily press, comprising more than ten national papers with different political leanings, is one of the most important institutions of civil society in contemporary Turkey. The three military interventions hindered the development and institutionalization of political parties, trade unions and voluntary associations, through bans and closures. By contrast, the mainstream press despite

24

For the history of the press in Turkey, see, Orban Kologiu, 'Osmanh Bastru: l~rigi ve Rejimi', Tanzimat'tan Cumhuriyet'e TUrkiye Ansiklopedisi, fascicles 3-4 (1985), pp. 68-93; Ali Gevgilili, 'Tiirki~ BaStru,' Cumhuriyet DOnemi TUrkiye Ansiklopedisi, fascicle 7 (1983), pp. 202-8.

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various suppressive measures, has managed to keep its head above water, and has fought for greater participation in politics. The Turkish press has a long standing tradition of political opposition and criticism. The mainstream press has played an important role in securing the maintenance of democracy in Turkey, despite many reversals. Even at the time of tightest control by the suppressive regime established after the 1980 military takeover, at least part of the Turkish press was able to preserve its critical stance. It thus contributed to a relatively rapid re-democratization of the regime.

Conclusion The West has been the model for Turkish elites' efforts to modernize their country. Turkish journalists, too, have taken the West as the embodiment of civilization, prosperity, democracy and freedom. There is no doubt that there exists in the mainstream Turkish press a broad consensus on the superiority of such Western values as secularism, rationalism, positivism, democracy and human rights. There exists at the same time a strong feeling of mistrust towards Western nations which may be partly explained by the widely held view that the decline of Ottoman Turkey was to a great extent due to Western imperialism. Despite the continuing and widespread feeling of mistrust towards the West, the anti-Western, nationalist, isolationist, and Third-Worldist political and cultural currents that were fairly strong among journalists in the 1960s and 1970s, lost much of their force in the 1980s. The opposition to Turkey's membership of the EC, which united various political movements, has been replaced by a broad consensus in favour of integration with the Community. The rather strong support found among journalists for Turkey's application for full membership of the EC is based primarily on political arguments. It is widely believed that membership of the EC, and even efforts in that direction, will provide strong props for Turkey's fragile democracy. There are also journalists who argue that EC membership, by bringing Turkey into close relationship with Western European societies, will enhance cultural modernization of the country. Turkish journalists tend to believe that membership of the EC will, at least in the short run, entail

90

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economic 'losses' for Turkey, but these 'costs' should be borne for the sake of its political and cultural 'gains'. Although there is broad support in the mainstream press for Turkey's membership of the EC, few believe this will be realized in this century. Cultural-religious differences between the EC countries and Turkey are perceived as the main obstacles to Turkey's integration with the EC. It is widely held that the diminished strategic value of Turkey after the end of the Cold War is an additional factor contributing to the growing distance between Turkey and the EC. Many with a pro-EC orientation share the idea that Turkey should look for options that would constitute alternatives to EC membership. The commitment of Turkish journalists to democratic values and institutions has become stronger after the bitter experiences of three military interventions in the last three decades. There seems to exist a broad consensus that solutions to problems should and can be found in the context of a democratic regime. The feeling of mistrust for parliamentary democracy that was widespread in the previous decades, lost much of its momentum. The main demand among Turkish journalists at present is the broadening of Turkish democracy through lifting the many restrictions on press freedom. Currently, 'Freedom of the press as it exists in the West' is a major theme in the discourse of Turkish journalists. There exists, however, a concern among journalists that commitment to democratic values and principles in some members of the Turkish press may be superficial, and that these journalists may not have internalized a democratic political culture. An independent press in Turkey has a long history that goes back to the 1860s. Throughout its history, the Turkish press has played an important role in the social and political modernization of Turkey, and has been the major disseminator of Western values in Turkish society. Since the transition to multi-party politics in the 1950s, the independent press with its fairly strong tradition of political opposition and criticism has been an important source of support for Turkey's fragile democracy. Journalists with their growing commitment to values such as human rights, freedom of expression and political pluralism certainly constitute a major force in Turkey's further democratization, and are likely to play a positive role in

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Turkey's integration with Europe in particular and in its ongoing Westernization process in general.

J

5 Novelists: New Cosmopolitanism versus Social Pluralism Ahmet 0. Evin

Introduction 'With each passing day, I make fewer and fewer excursions to Istanbul, that I love so much', confesses the narrator in a letter that serves as the epilogue of a recent volume of novellas, Bir Sehre Gidememek (Unable to Go to a City). 'Spending a little time in certain places or in the company of a few friends now suffices to satisfy me.'1 The sentiment reflects not so much a sense of alienation as that of a melancholy resignation to the fact that there remain only a limited and diminishing range of possibilities to recall and relive past experiences in an environment that has changed over time. It is his obsession with a particular environment at a particular time that has driven the narrator to such a solitary life in a small town by the sea where he can nurture the memory of the city as he has known it. His conscious and deliberate effort to retain a vivid picture of specific settings as they used to be is shared by one of the characters, Rachel, who confesses to the narrator on a balcony in Tel Aviv, that she is afraid of going back to Istanbul, because 'I want everything about Istanbul to remain as it was when I left it and to live unchanged in my memory'.2

1 2

Mario Levi, Bir ~ehre Gidememek (Istanbul: Apa Ofset, 1990), p. Ibid., p. 73.

17.

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Mario Levi's prize-winning work of fiction, which received the 1990 Haldun Taner Short Story Award, and whose second printing appeared within three months, is a complex book which defies the distinction between memoir and fiction, and moves freely between the two genres in a similar way to Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu. The three novellas in which the narrator also figures as a character - the one who writes the prologue and epilogue which appear as authorial confessions - provide glimpses of cosmopolitan Istanbul in the not so distant past. In the second novella, for example, the setting is captured in fragments as two lovers, long separated by circumstances and geography, share on different occasions their reminiscences with the narrator. Istanbul as remembered constitutes the backdrop to the story in which E§ref Bey, a middle aged teacher of Turkish literature, and Rachel, a young Jewish girl from a small merchant family, had a doomed love affair. It finally ended when her family was forced to emigrate to Israel because the conservative lower middle-class Jewish community could not accept Rachel's illicit liaison. It is a real setting in the sense that it conveys the physical and social characteristics of a particular city that is unmistakably Istanbul of the early 1950s. But scenes recalled from that setting in a fictional context, intermingled with the vividly sustained memory of the love affair, are merely aspects of a mental construct: they are parts of an environment that relate only to personal experience. What Rachel recalls in Tel Aviv is an Istanbul frozen in time; it is an environment that is real to her to the extent that it is subordinated to her desire to keep it as she had experienced it. Mario Levi's novellas that investigate states of nostalgia reflect in part a growing trend in Turkish fiction to rewrite recent history and in part a renewed interest in urban life and manners among contemporary Turkish novelists. These trends reflect, in turn, both aesthetic and ideological considerations which may be coterminous with and indistinguishable from one another at the level of literary product itself. The aesthetics of works by Henry James or Thomas Mann, for example, are informed by and celebrate genteel manners of the urban upper classes. But the author's social background does not necessarily determine his or her ideological choice. The social segment depicted in a work of fiction is instead a result of that ideological choice, and therefore aesthetic considerations that come

-j

I. I

Turkey and the West

into play depict a particular milieu. Balzac's depiction of depravity stands in sharp contrast to Flaubert's depiction of boredom leading to adultery. Zola's depiction of banal conflicts in working class lives presents yet another sharp contrast to Stendhal's depiction of political tensions among the nobility. But those clifferences in the choice of subject matter and the points of view that result both from the ideological inclinations of these four authors and from their aesthetic preferences with respect to the novel as a literary genre, have little to do with their own position in society. If differences between perception and reality pose crucial methodological questions regarding the interpretation of literary constructs regarding social values and outlook, separation of the author from his or her work is essential when using literary texts to investigate how a certain segment of the Turkish elite may have formed a 'Western reality' in its own terms. The 'reality' of the novel depends on the situation of the protagonists in an environment consistent with their state.3 In the psychological novel, many of whose characteristics are incorporated in Mario Levi's work, the atmosphere of the immediate setting is more important than extensive documentation of the broader social milieu. In a historical novel the reverse is the case, where significant individuals are placed in a particular location in time. The realist novel (whose descendants would be best exploited as source materials for social and cultural research) entails a process of selection and isolation of a representative social milieu according to the class of the characters selected for portrayat.4 Regardless of such categories, however, the cultural milieu of a novel is determined by that of its protagonists and is revealed in relation to their situation. Real or imagined, historical or contemporary, the setting of a novel primarily defines the world of the individuals that make up its cast of characters. It therefore reflects the characteristic aspects, values, morals, and behavioural patterns of the segment of society to which those individuals belong. The setting might be wider in a novel which depicts the manners 3

4

For concepts of realism as discussed in this chapter, see Harry Levin, The Gates of Hom (New York, NY: Viking, 1963); Rene Wellek, The Concept of Realism in literary Scholarship', in Harry Levin, ed., Concepts of Criticism, (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1963). Levin, The Gates of Hom, p. 49.

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and morals or political conditions determining relationships among broader segments of a society, but such a broad picture may be revealed from the viewpoint of personae who acquire a specific social identity. The world of fiction is itself a construct, but one which is anchored in a particular cultural context; its shape and colour derive from the perception and consciousness of a narrator who imagines, observes and describes it from a particular cultural perspective. Turkish fiction with Turkish characters will present first and foremost a Turkish cultural context even if the characters are placed in an European environment, just as Henry James' novels present Europe from an American perspective. It could be said that novels, as opposed to memoirs or travelogues, cannot in the main provide such constructions of Western reality as may make possible a particular reading of Turkish society, because they present Turkish society through Turkish cultural lenses even as they simultaneously present a constructed West. They provide, however, a means for reading or understanding a society by focusing on representative types or particular social groups within their own cultural contexts. A Western setting, or European influences in the formation of character, would then serve to sharpen the sense of cultural identity or alienation that may inform a particular work of prose fiction. It could also be said that novels aspire to cultural authenticity because they seek to represent 'reality', albeit from the viewpoint of their narrator or characters. Yet precisely because they attempt to capture emotions as well as precise value judgements, they reflect more accurately than other writings the range of ideological responses to Western European and American culture in Turkey.

The Turkish Novel: Past Patterns A Western Institution The history of the Turkish novel itself reveals the dichotomy between cultural authenticity and Western example. The genre was 'imported' from Europe and adapted into the Turkish context, to replace the story or tale, not merely as a literary form but as a

L

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requirement of contemporary civilization.5 The modernizing Ottoman elite of the late nineteenth century viewed the novel as a cultural institution much the way as they considered parliament a necessary political institution. They took the existence of the novel to be a mark of advancement in society equal to the discovery of electricity and the availability of elevators.6 The first generation of Turkish novelists in the 1870s and 1880s used the novel as a means of social mobilization. and they also used it as a mirror to hold up to society. The second generation discovered the French realists in the late 1880s - those novelists who claimed to pursue a scientific method in writing novels. Their claim validated the Turkish modernizers' argument that the adoption of the novel was an integral part of catching up with Western science, and therefore with Western civilization.7 Yet, Turkish society of the late nineteenth century did not have the essential ingredients for creating realist novels after the French model: there was no Turkish bourgeoisie, nor did traditional middle-class life afford a chance of social intercourse between men and women. Novelists who wished to write about broader segments of urban society turned to didacticism by way of social criticism. The effete, 'super-Westernized dandy' become a favourite type depicted in the work of these novelists who attempted to distinguish between the material benefits of Western civilization and the ill effects of copying Western manners.8 The scientific novel collapsed under its own weight in the hands of those authors who imported the genre in the first place as a mark of civilization. but then turned against the nefarious lack of morals they discerned in the cultural milieu where these novels were created in the first place. A successful adaptation of the genre was made possible when a few writers turned to the Westernized elite environment to create the Istanbul version of the realist novel. Ultimately, the most successful one, A~k-i Memnu 5 6 7 8

Ahrnet 0. Evin, Origins and Development of the Turkish Novel (Minneapolis, Minn.: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1983), pp. 9-21. Ibid., p. 15-6. Ibid., p. 95-7. ~rif Mardin, 'Super Westerniz.ation in Urban Life in the Ottoman Empire in the Last Quarter of the Nineteenth Century', in P. Benedict, F. Mansur and E. Tiimertekin, eds., Turkey. Geographical and Social Perspectives (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974), p. 426.

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(Forbidden Love) published in 1900, owes its coherence to the fact that its setting is confined to a mansion along the Bosporus in which manners and morals could be observed in terms of the individual inhabitants, without reference to commonly accepted traditional values. But even the author of this remarkable novel, Halit Ziya, a person steeped in French culture and one who deeply appreciated the aesthetics of Zola's naturalism above and beyond his scientific claims on naturalism, could not help but register his regret about Zola's obsession with the filthy lives of the lower classes.9 In its initial stages of following European models, the Turkish novel was unmistakably a product of its author's cultural milieu and elite preferences. The process of selection and isolation involved determining the range of social segments to be represented in the novel to ensure authenticity. While the aesthetic priorities required a focus on elite lives, the didacticist concerns of social mobilizers forced them to address broader segments of society whose values and outlook provided the social background to their novels. Such novels sought a mediation between the ideas that modernizers wished to transmit, and the normative values of those social segments which they wished to convey and whose lives they portrayed. The novel as an elite institution continued into the republican period when novelists turned their energies to recording rather than investigating social change. The early republican novel discovered the nation, rather than dwelling on segments of urban society. Novelists' attempts to portray facets of a unified Turkish society corresponded to the elite leadership's exclusive focus on nationbuilding. Elite idealism led to romantic fiction extolling the virtues of the pure, honest, and patriotic people of Anatolia. 10 Elite realism, on the other hand, led to the discovery of cultural differences within the periphery: the indifference of the villager to national issues; reactionary small town dwellers who resisted republican reforms; secret societies and orders which aimed at nothing but survival and 9

10

See Jennifer C. Noyan, 'Halit Ziya U~khgil's "Hikaye" and the Process of Modern Turkish Cultural Transformation', unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1979), p. 264. Re~t Nuri Giintekin,