‘Turkish cinema’

I am truly fed up with this!

Ever since the political Islamist mentality has plagued this country, there has been an imposition that they keep reheating and serving us like stale soup:

“Let’s not say Turkish, let’s say from Turkey. Not Turkish cinema but cinema of Turkey, not Turkish literature but literature in Turkish, not Turkish politician, but a politician from Turkey...”

The resurfacing of the words “Turkish cinema does not feel right to me,” used by Haluk Bilginer in an interview years ago, has once again fueled this never-ending debate.

First, let’s underline this: the issue goes far beyond the person of Haluk Bilginer, his personal preference, or the meaning an artist attaches to concepts. The issue is an effort to erode identity that has been carried out systematically for years.

Let us emphasize this strongly!

Because the concept of “from Turkey” (Türkiyeli) is not just a simple, innocent word choice as it is thought or marketed to the people of our country. Behind the persistent circulation of this concept lies an extremely problematic, malicious, and even sinister political approach that makes the founding philosophy of the Republic of Turkey, the common identity of the Turkish nation, and the concept of the nation-state controversial.

Let’s be clearer; what is being done here is not just replacing one word with another. It is an attempt to tear the Turkish identity away from the ground of common citizenship and replace it with a hollow definition of belonging that only points to geography.

Is it a coincidence that everyone from second-republicans to Kurdish nationalists, from political Islamists to anyone who has a problem with the nation-state, the country’s founding values, its political unity, and its unitary structure—segments that meet at different political addresses—insists on the same concept, albeit for different reasons?

Some are uncomfortable with the Republic’s founding philosophy. Some do not want to accept the inclusivity of the Turkish identity. Some put the concept of the Ummah before national identity. And some are trying to erode the common citizenship identity to prepare the ground for their ethnically based political demands.

They all arrive at the same place: getting rid of the word Turkish!

Moreover, all of this is done by hiding behind concepts that sound pleasant, such as democratization, pluralism, and respect for differences.

That is the most disturbing part of the matter.

One must ask; why do concepts that are valid in the rest of the world suddenly become objectionable when it comes to Turkey?

When people say French cinema, English literature, German music, or Italian cuisine, no one claims that you are excluding people of different ethnic origins living in those countries.

No one presents saying “cinema of France” instead of French cinema or “literature of Germany” instead of German literature as a criterion for democracy.

But when it comes to Turkey, the word Turkish suddenly turns into a problematic, exclusionary concept that needs to be changed.

Why?

Because at the center of the debate is not linguistic sensitivity, but an ideological objection to the Turkish identity.

Yet, the founding philosophy of the Republic of Turkey was not built on establishing a system of superiority or discrimination based on ethnic origin. The understanding of the nation put forward by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was based on the rejection of distinctions made through lineage, skull measurements, and blood ties.

The Turkish nation was the name of a common struggle for liberation, defending the same homeland, a common history, and a common will regarding the future.

The provision in Article 66 of the Constitution, “Everyone bound to the Turkish State by the bond of citizenship is a Turk,” was the legal expression of this understanding.

Those who try to imprison the Turkish identity here into an ethnic mold are, in fact, those who have either never understood or never wanted to understand the Republic’s understanding of citizenship.

Moreover, presenting the concept of “from Turkey” as if it were the magic key to democratization is a political deception in itself.

Democracy does not come by changing the concept that brings a country’s citizens together around a common political identity. Wordplay performed without securing the rule of law, freedoms, and fundamental rights has no democratic value.

You do not become a democrat by feeling uncomfortable using the word Turkish!

Furthermore, conducting this debate through cinema is a separate absurdity.

When we say “Turkish cinema,” we are not researching the genealogy of the people filming in these lands. We do not look at anyone’s ethnic origin. We are talking about a tradition of cultural production, a common art history, social memory, and decades of accumulation.

We are faced with a massive artistic heritage extending from Nubar Terziyan to Ayhan Işık, from Kenan Pars to Zeki Alasya, from Tarık Akan to Filiz Akın, from Adile Naşit to Yılmaz Erdoğan.

Each of these people, with their different life stories and origins, contributed to the common memory of Turkish cinema.

Now, what logic does it serve to come out and market renaming this heritage as “cinema of Turkey” as progressivism, and calling it “Turkish cinema” as exclusionism?

Attempting to rename the common memory that constitutes an artistic tradition just because one is uncomfortable with the word Turkish is not protecting cultural heritage; it is imprisoning it in ideological molds.

Moreover, the place this approach leads to is extremely dangerous. Today you open Turkish cinema to debate, tomorrow Turkish literature, and the next day Turkish history. In the end, you try to strip the Turkish identity of being a common citizenship and national belonging and show it only as an ethnic sub-identity.

This is the real issue.

What Turkey needs is not identity engineering through words; it is a democratic order where everyone is equal before the law, differences are under guarantee, but the common national identity is not made a subject of debate.

It is not a problem for anyone to come from Kurdish, Circassian, Laz, Arab, or any other ethnic background. Anyone’s faith or lack thereof is also not a problem. The problem is the political insistence on eliminating the common citizenship identity that holds all these differences together, let us conclude our article by saying this.