Take-Home Final
Section A
The concept of minority has been an issue of concern for Turkey. The Republic of Turkey accommodates citizens of different ethnic groups and religions. The Jewish community is a clear indicator as it portrays one of the many groups, including Kurds, Armenians, and Islamists (Duruiz, 33). The nation has a long history that describes the gradual acceptance and support for minorities. After Spain eradicated the Jewish ethnic group in 1492, Turkey welcomed them with open arms (Duruiz, 37). Since then, the mixed society has raised concerns regarding the fair treatment of all people residing within the country. There are efforts by the Turkish state to regulate the notion of the minority that the residents feel is the routine of their daily lives, despite their high residential precedence. Drawing from the arguments of different scholars, an elaborative picture of the efforts of both the state and the minority groups comes out clearly.
Turkish State Regulation on Minority Difference
Political Realm
The Jews changes elevated from minority to being the right minority. Through self-promotion aided with external forces, the Turkish Jews managed to give themselves a distinction from the rest of the society. At a point where the Republic of Turkey was sweating its way to gain membership into the European Union, the Jews had the privilege to politicize their intentions. Furthermore, the creation of the Quincentennial Foundation (QF) in the 1980s was an enormous influence of the increased allegations by the Turkish Jews (Brink-Danan, 34). This group rose with the purpose of commemorating a five hundredth anniversary of when the Jews needed refuge from the violent extremism and exclusion from Spain. The Turkish Jews accordingly exploited the chance to propagate their nature. Therefore, the inclusion of organizations other than the government was a political means of regulating minority, which the target group appreciated.
Kurdish people forcefully migrated into Turkey. Initially, the Kurdish people used to enter the southern parts of Turkey to work as seasonal laborers on the firms. Things changed not long afterward since a lot of Kurd nationals took the initiative to migrate into Adana in the early 1990s, one of the cities found in southern Turkey (Darici, 778). Initially, the state of Turkey felt a sense of defeat because of the growing population, which strongly supported the PKK. As a result of the uncontainable support for the opposition party, the state declared a state of emergency. The state destroyed villages and evacuated the Kurds, forcing them to move into the outskirts of the Turkish towns like Adana. The state’s choice to oppose the PKK led to the disruption of the ordinary lives of the majority of Kurdish ethnicity. Therefore, the declaration of emergency did more harm than good following the massive loss of lives of the Kurds.
The government, at times, takes to children for the political differences they have with the Kurds. One of the children from the Kurd community recalls an encounter where the police would always interrogate them even when they were not on the wrong side of the law. Both civil and political law enforcers would randomize their walks into the streets where they continually investigated children verifying their IDs. Furthermore, these policemen would take the initiative of breaking into Kurdish homes where they used uncordial means to torment the residents (Darici, 784). Following such unruly forms of regulating the Kurdish minority, the government of Turkey only served the purpose of unknowingly creating resistance of Turkish children. Indeed, state sanction to interrogate and arrest ‘innocent’ children starred up a young resistance among the Kurdish society.
Legal Realm
Tourism also attempted to boost relations between Turks and Turkish Jews. The QF envisioned a society where all people were free to visit any part of the nation at all times. In line with this motion, the entity sought from the Jewish professional organizations the best approach toward Jewish tourism to Turkey (Brink-Danan, 40). One of the directors of the United Jewish Appeal gave a clear response; stakeholders needed not broad initiatives like public campaigns; rather, attractive items like brochures were enough. Soon afterward, a series of public campaign promotions launched all over to give Turkey the image of a Jewish tourist destination. Therefore, the development of tourism was a political approach to unify the Jews as the minority, with the Turks
The Jews obtained some set of theoretical privileges. In the early days of Turkey’s existence, the Ottoman Empire felt the need to disrupt the barrier between Turks and Jews. This initiative came along with giving the Jews a social setting with collective rights and responsibilities. The Turkish Republic went ahead to affirm the Jews as a people no different from the rest of the residents, granting them full rights and responsibilities. As of today, the Jews who reside in Istanbul have no legal ‘minority’ distinctions from the general community of Turkey. However, these are just, but laws that do not apply in the day-to-day situation of life because the Jews still experience discrimination and rejection with reference are ‘foreigners’ (Brink-Danan, 88). Such virtual regulations that fight against minority differences theoretically force the Jews to maintain a low profile in the Turkish state. Therefore, weak initiatives make the minority live in fear.
Cultural Realm
The Turkish state constructed a museum to project the positivity toward minority groups. The Quincentennial Foundation Museum of Turkish Jews, better known as the Jewish Museum of Turkey, situates at Karakoy, Istanbul (Brink-Danan, 43). The museum is a symbol of how the Republic of Turkey is neither anti-Jewish nor anti-minority. Compared to other Jewish museums, this particular one had a positive story to portray concerning the Ottoman Empire rescuing and accommodating the excluded Jews from Spain. However, the process of Jews inhabiting Turkey was not that smooth because there were previous incidents of oppression, such as Capital Tax (Brink-Danan, 46). In this regard, the Turkish Jews felt that the museum was not giving a true definition of the society of Turkey because the crucial ‘bad’ segments were left out. There were not enough reason to justify the exclusion of the dark side, because all of it was part of a story the museum ought to tell. Therefore, the Turkish state, in its attempt to confiscate the issue of minorities, was blindly setting up more extensive segregation of minorities.
Turkish modern lifestyle developed chose to develop on a different path. Originally the Ottoman Empire was multilingual because it contained ethnicities from various dimensions of the world. During the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, it was a great fear that the inheritance of cosmopolitanism from the Ottoman reign would hinder the development of a unique national identity. According to Neyzi, one interviewee denied herself to having anything to do with the Sabbatean minority (153). Moreover, the Sabbatean individuals also feared that if they declared their background openly, then they would be the ‘outsiders.’ Such allegations reveal the kind of complications that ignorance of culture results. The exclusion of the minority group during national advancement did not give the intended result of a unified identity. Instead, the majority and minority learned to distance themselves even more.
Further Responses
Minority groups reacted differently toward the state regulations respective to age and ethnicity. One of the distinctive aspects falls concerning the Kurdish younger population, preferably children. According to Darici, the emic term for children is cocuk and zarok in Turkish and Kurdish, respectively (778). These children were better known as zaroken keviravej in Kurdish to mean stone-throwing children. During political demonstrations, the girls joined the guerrilla camps in the mountains as the boys campaigned in the streets. The other trait falls follow the Turkish Jewish, who prefer to engage in harmonious cultural citizenship, which is less threatening to the state. Brink-Danan prefers to articulate the Jews as kayadez to refer to their nature of silence and quietness (88). The type of reaction toward the country depends on the quality of the group in question as not all people foster the same way. Indeed, the Kurdish proved to be a retaliating minority compared to the Turkish Jews.
My Take
The Republic of Turkey portrayed an ideal way to counter minority differences. First of all, the creation of the Jewish Museum of Turkey is a vital step toward welcoming the notion that no group is a minority. Moreover, the initiative by different organizations from both sides to promote a Turkish nation where Jews could make tours was also worth applause. However, the government, along with the general Turkish citizens, still choose not to translate these policies into practice. Accordingly, the Jewish minority develops a negative attitude, which makes them act in a silent ‘kayadez’ manner whenever in public forums. These policies are as good as empty promises, and the state should incorporate intentions into action.
Section B
Sexual Honor and Tradition in Turkey
Newspaper Article Summary
The women in Turkey face serious seclusion, which aims at their feminine nature. Sassounian wrote an article known as “Men who rape and marry girls under 18 could be pardoned in Turkey,” which features in the Armenian Weekly (2020). The article refers to the seriousness of gender-based violence, particularly on females. For example, lawmakers in Turkey came up with a bill that intends to allow men to have sex with underage girls and marry them to escape punishment. Surprisingly, the legal age for consent upon which a man is no longer a minor is 18 years. Despite the provisions of the law on the rule of consenting age, the country still holds a high percentage of violence against women. A member of the Turkish Republican People’s Party (CHP) stated that 26 percent of the females in Turkey entered marriage before 18 years (Sassounian). The state of Turkey is living in the past, where women are objects and not equals to their male counterparts.
Women’s rights activists have a lot of influence on the matter of violence directed towards women. For example, the bill of 2016 intended to pardon men on condition that they had sex with young girls without coercion, force, or threats (Sassounian). Women right’s activists from around the globe conveyed their criticisms over the issue forcing the Turkish parliament to abolish it. According to the campaigners, incorporating such bills into laws meant that children were open to sexual abuse and exploitation, a thing of the past. The real picture of Turkey portrays the kind of measures they are proposing, which diminish the female based on their feminine nature. The world has undergone tremendous advancements, and currently, there is no room for gender-based violence.
Merits of the Article
The state of Turkey and the lawmakers are not using the power bestowed on them appropriately. Zengin suggests that the state uses various techniques and regulations to torment the lives of transgender people (240). One may see this as a routine exercise to control the kind of sector a person can work, say the military. Physicians and military medics insert instruments into the vagina of a trans woman, or examine the rectum of a gay man; the real picture of the heterosexual desire of the state concerning sex, gender, and sexuality. Parla continues to state that a police officer in Ankara could allegedly accuse anyone of prostitution, causing the person to undergo virginity exams (80). Moreover, state doctors could perform virginity tests on young women living in traditional places run by the state, including vocational high schools and orphanages. In a similar manner to the lawmakers, the state of Turkey is the main driving force pushing for issues of sexual honor.
The way of life in Turkey has attracted the attention of activists since time immemorial. In particular, the reference to the rise of honor crime, rights activists, and scholars have had their part to play. For example, the Women Living Under Muslim Law (WLUML) organization is one of the forefront fighters against the honor crime (Abu-Lughod, 19). In addition to advocacy for publicized workshops, the union is also responsible for the publication of numerous documents and news bulletins in respect to sexual honor. Human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch have managed to produce various reports over the same subject. These publications, with the theme of sexual honor, have sold well and managed to get a positive response. Members of different book clubs are buying these books because they get emotional inspiration from the articles. In this regard, the efforts of activists and scholars on sexual honor have an impact on the public, causing them, which is a step to rescue women from sexual suppression.
In the current world we live in; the issue of sexual honor is a concept that has no place. Regarding forced virginity examinations, most of the Western liberal and human rights discourse perceive this act as a form of state violence. As such, entire Turkey suffers from incomplete modernization. Women and men in Turkey are adopting a new say, “Virginity is not in the hymen, but in mind” (Parla, 83). With a portion of the population possessing distant views from the old cultural ways, the Turkish state can strive to achieve gender equality. Therefore, people know that a bright future exists, which intrinsically motivates rights activists and scholars.
Conclusion
Turkey is a country where the suppression of women in the name of sexual honor, has become a norm. Currently, many underage girls submit to violence basing on the feminine nature. Factors such as the state and the lawmakers are the leading influencers who come up with bills that seem to focus on diminishing the female. On the contrary, women’s rights activists and prominent scholars have taken the battlefront to prevent such kinds of oppressions from making a proper direction. Supposedly, the Turkish state is still majoring in the cultural part of society without considering the current lifestyle where all people are equal. What a man can do, a woman can do.
Works Cited
Abu-Lughod, Lila. “Seductions of the “honor crime”.” Differences, vol. 22, no.1, 2011, pp. 17-63.
Brink-Danan, Marcy. Jewish life in twenty-first-century Turkey: The other side of tolerance. Indiana University Press, 2011.
Darici, Haydar. “Adults see politics as a game: Politics of Kurdish children in urban Turkey.” International journal of Middle East studies vol, 45, no. 4, 2013, pp. 775-790, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43304012
Duruiz, Deniz. “Seasonal agricultural workers in Manisa: Materialization of labor, bodies and places through everyday encounters.” Thinking Kurdish politics in dark times (2011).
Neyzi, Leyla. “Remembering to forget: Sabbateanism, national identity, and subjectivity in Turkey.” Comparative studies in society and history vol. 44, no. 1, 2002, pp. 137-158, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3879403
Parla, Ayse. “The “honor” of the state: virginity examinations in Turkey.” Feminist studies vol. 27, no. 1, 2001, pp. 65-88
Sassounian, Herut. “Men who rape and marry girls under 18 could be pardoned in Turkey.” The Armenian Weekly, 28 Jan. 2020, https://armenianweekly.com/2020/01/28/men-who-rape-and-marry-girls-under-18-could-be-pardoned-in-turkey/ Accessed 2 May 2020.
Zengin, Asli. “Violent intimacies: Tactile state power, sex/gender transgression, and the politics of touch in contemporary Turkey.” Journal of Middle Eastern women’s studies vol. 12, no. 2, 2016, pp. 225-245