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Turkey's Future State (of) Theatre
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 November 2019
Extract
With the inauguration of the presidential system in Turkey, theatre as an institution is at a historical crossroads. By 15 July 2018, just before the controversial emergency law was lifted, two decrees restricting the autonomy of artists working at state theatres, operas and ballets were issued. The first decree replaces a law from 1949 which secures autonomy over budgeting and programming.1 The second places all state theatres under direct control of the president. During the summer, the institutions were temporarily closed until they were harmonized with the new political system. With this structural change, a lengthier political process of shifting powers and centralization is being consolidated. But there has also been a more fundamental epistemological shift going on in Turkey's ideological consciousness, which is deeply rooted in a history of the public sector and of state institutionalism.
- Type
- Reflections on Turkish Theatre
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2019
Footnotes
1
There were two laws that regulate the state theatres. Law no. 5441 concerned the Foundation of State Theatre (dated 10 June 1949) and Law no. 5225 regulated the Promotion of Culture Investments and Initiatives (dated 21 July 2004). The latter largely describes the responsibility of the state to protect the ‘national culture’. See Serhan Ada and H. Ayca Inci, Introduction to Cultural Policy in Turkey (Istanbul: Bilgi University, 2009). Relevant parts have been summarized in ‘Laws on State Theatres’, at www.culturalexchange-tr.nl/mapping-turkey/cultural-laws/law-state-theatres, accessed 25 June 2016.
References
Notes
2 The so-called ‘TÜSAK’ proposal (the Turkish Arts Council law) was published in the periodical Tiyatro, June 2013, at www.tiyatrodergisi.com.tr/detay.php?hng=3829, accessed 10 September 2018.
3 Merve Erol, ‘The Future of Theater in New Turkey’, 26 March 2015, https://tr.boell.org/de/node/2237, accessed 25 May 2016.
4 Ece Göksedef. ‘New Drama: Turkey's State Theatre Freedoms Curbed under Presidential System’, Middle East Eye, 17 July 2018 (last updated 15 August 2018), at www.middleeasteye.net/news/turkish-state-theaters-are-not-autonomous-any-more-under-new-presidential-system-51210182, accessed 10 September 2018.
5 In fact, they did say no. At the time of the draft bill, Lemi Bilgin was dismissed and replaced by Mustafa Kurt as attorney to the General Directorate of State Theaters. The latter resigned on 31 May 2013, during the early days of the Gezi protests, because of censorship regarding two theatre plays, Sun Is Even Large during Sunset (by Kazım Akşar) and I Gave Up, but the Theater (by Yeton Neziray), allegedly due to ‘abusive and erotic expressions’. Kurt had also strongly condemned the draft bill, since it would eliminate the directorate entirely. See the report prepared by the CHP EU Representation, ‘CHP Report on the Turkish Government's Culture and Arts Policies – 2014: Oppression and Censorship’, 25 February 2015, at https://chpbrussels.org/2015/02/25/chp-report-on-the-turkish-governments-culture-and-arts-policies-2014-oppression-and-censorship, accessed 24 June 2016.
6 Erol, ‘The Future of Theater in New Turkey’.
7 See Kedistan, ‘Artist Fatoş İrwen also in Jail’, Kedistan.net, 3 October 2017, at www.kedistan.net/2017/10/03/artist-fatos-irwen-also-in-jail, accessed: 15 January 2018. Also see Vanekspress, ‘Xece Herdem Gözaltına Alındı’, Wanhaber, 16 January 2017, at www.wanhaber.com/xece-herdem-gozaltina-alindi-216744h.htm, accessed 15 January 2018.
8 Ari Akkermans, ‘Prominent Members of Turkey's Art Community Released after Arrest at Peace March’, Hyperallergic, 1 January, 2016, at www.hyperallergic.com/265559/prominent-members-of-turkeys-arts-community-released-after-arrest-at-peace-march, accessed 15 January 2018.
9 Elif Ince and Siyah Bant, ‘Turkey's State of Emergency Puts Kurdish Theatre in a Chokehold’, IFEX, Defending and Promoting Free Expression, 5 January 2017, at www.ifex.org/turkey/2017/01/05/kurdish_theatre/, accessed 12 July 2017. Mahmut Bozarslan, ‘Is Turkey Wiping out Kurdish Institutions during Lengthy State of Emergency?’. Turkey Pulse, 11 January 2017, at www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/01/turkey-emergency-rule-wipe-out-kurdish-institutions.html, accessed 26 December 2017.
10 Among the Kurdish artists are Zehra Doğan, Xece Herdem, Fatoş Irven and the renowned Zaza-author Fadıl Öztürk. Pınar Öğrenci, Atalay Yeni, Arzu Erdemir, Pınar Ercan and Aziz Kılıç were detained in December 2016 for organizing the I Am Walking for Peace march (Barış İçin Yürüyorum) from Bodrum to Diyarbakir. Turkish novelist and columnist Aslı Erdoğan, who wrote for the pro-Kurdish daily Özgür Gündem, was in jail for alleged links with Kurdish militants. Activist philanthropist Osman Kavala was arrested on 1 November 2017 (and is still in jail) for his alleged support of the Gezi uprising, although through his work with the Anadolu Kültür foundation he is also known for his support of exchange with Kurdish artists. His arrest sent a shock wave through the independent theatre scene, particularly in Istanbul. On 20 February 2019 a weighty indictment against him and fifteen other civil rights defenders, including theatre artists, turned into a complex political trial.
11 The Independent Experts’ Report by the Council of Europe in 2013 (the year of the Gezi Park uprising) reported on and warned against political interference in the theatre. See CDCPP Report, ‘Steering Committee for Culture, Heritage and Landscape. Review of Cultural Policy in Turkey: Independent Experts’ Report’, presentation of the Cultural Policy Review of Turkey, submitted 9 October 2013, prepared for the 4th Meeting of the Bureau, Strasbourg, 16–17 October 2013 (Council of Europe, April 2013), p. 41.
12 ‘Turkish Prime Minister's Bid to Privatize Theaters Stirs Uproar’, Hürriyet Daily News, 30 April 2012, at www.hürriyetdailynews.com/pms-bid-to-privatize-theaters- stirs-uproar.aspx?pageID=238&nid=19577, accessed 11 September 2018.
13 Kemalists are those who strongly believe in the early Turkish republic's ideals of enlightenment and cultural participation through the arts, as part of a larger nation-building project and modernization (read ‘westernization’) of Turkey against the old Ottoman Empire. Historically, theatre plays a significant role in the education of the broader middle classes. Theatre practitioners in state institutions are, therefore, still strictly Kemalist and among many of them, the belief lives on that theatre should act against possible wrongdoings of the state.
14 In election campaigns, Erdoğan and the AKP have often referred to their supporters with the slogan, Osmanl? Torunu (descendant of the Ottomans), and also in popular culture (mainly television) and state protocol, they have openly supported a revival of Ottoman culture and traditions.
15 ‘Sümeyye Erdoğan’, Ufilter blog archive, 26 August 2012, posted on 6 February 2014 by Uden filter, at http://ufilter.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/sumeyye-erdogan.html, accessed 1 September 2016.
16 Fiachra Gibbons, ‘Turkey's PM threatens theatres after actor “humiliates” daughter’, The Guardian, 17 May 2012, at www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/17/recep-tayyip-erdogan-theatre-daughter, accessed 14 September 2015.
17 Today the CHP (Republican People's Party) is the main inheritor of the Kemalist ideology as well as the main opposition party. Though no longer in power, they are still quite influential in many municipalities across Turkey in supporting the arts.
18 Farrier, David, ‘The Politics of Proximity’, in Postcolonial Asylum: Seeking Sanctuary before the Law (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011), pp. 181–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here p. 184.
19 Marc Pierini, ‘Individual Freedoms in Turkey’, Carnegie Europe, 9 September 2013, at http://carnegieeurope.eu/2013/09/09/individual-freedoms-in-turkey-pub-52880, accessed 29 October 2018.
20 In fact, communalism is often defined as a political way of organizing and/or practising a way of living together based on federated communes. It can have revolutionary connotations, as in the case of the Kurds, who strive for democratic federalism in the region. Largely inspired by Murray Bookchin's sense of communalism, the Kurds see it as a source for empowerment for citizens through communal self-organization and municipal self-management against the repressions of the nation state. In this part, however, I refer to Kemalism as a nationalist communalist project, based on territorial nationalism, which is quite different. See Murray Bookchin, ‘What Is Communalism? The Democratic Dimension of Anarchism’, Green Perspectives, 31 (October 1994), pp. 1–6, at http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/CMMNL2.MCW.html, accessed 24 September 2016. See also Farha, Mark, ‘Global Gradations of Secularism: The Consociational, Communal and Coercive Paradigma’, Comparative Sociology, 11 (January 2012), pp. 354–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
21 Umut Özkırımlı, ‘From Semi-democracy to Full Autocracy: “Statist Communalism” in Turkey’, Ahval, 12 November 2017, translated by Sarah Metzker Erdemir, at https://ahvalnews.com/statism/semi-democracy-full-autocracy-statist-communalism-turkey, accessed 4 April 2018.
22 Standing Man was a peaceful, so-called passive act of resistance during the Gezi protests, initiated and conceived by Erdem Gündüz in the night of 17 June 2013, two days after the Gezi Park occupation was broken. In the midst of constant surveillance by police special forces, Gündüz stood still for more than eight hours in front of the AKM on Taksim Square, adjacent to the Gezi Park. He made a statement afterwards that he was standing for all who are affected by police violence and are generally unnoticed because of a media bias against the protests. This act was quickly copied in the following days by a multitude of protestors in and outside Turkey, adapting it in various symbolic places (near the place where a protestor was shot dead in Ankara's Kizilay district, near a shrine at the Syrian border, near trees or embassies), in different poses (beside empty shoes, or while reading), and with or without meaningful attributes (with taped mouths, Guy Fawkes masks, flags, plaques or gas masks). See Pieter Verstraete, ‘The Standing Man Effect’, Istanbul Policy Center, Sabanci University, Stiftung Mercator Initiative 2013, at http://ipc.sabanciuniv.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/IPC_standingman_SON.pdf, accessed 29 October 2018.
23 Verstraete, Pieter, ‘Still Standing? A Contextual Interview with “Standing Man” Erdem Gündüz’, in Özil, Şeyda, Hofmann, Michael and Dayıoğlu-Yücel, Yasemin, eds., In der Welt der Proteste und Umwälzungen: Deutschland und die Türkei (Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2015), pp. 121–36Google Scholar.