The Centre for Turkey Studies (CEFTUS) is pleased to invite you to a Westminster Debate with Barbaros Sansal on LGBTI activism in Turkey.

This event is kindly hosted by Joan Ryan, Labour MP for Enfield North and Member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Turks and Kurds

The event will take place between 7-9PM on Tuesday, 16th of October 2018.

PLEASE NOTE THE LOCATION HAS NOW BEEN MOVED TO THE GRIMOND ROOM, PORTCULLIS HOUSE, 1 PARLIAMENT STREET, SW1A 2JR

Please note that security checks are required to enter, we kindly ask you to arrive at 6.30PM, allowing the event to start and end promptly on time.

People who identify as LGBTI in Turkey continue to face discrimination across all areas of life. Barbaros Sansal will discuss the history of LGBTI activism in Turkey and the prospects for the future.

Speakers: 

Barbaros Sansal is a fashion designer and prominent social activist. He studied Business Management at Marmara University and mastered in design and chromatics at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

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Join the Centre for Turkey Studies and Pluto Press in a special launch event with Halil Karaveli to mark the release of his new book Why Turkey is Authoritarian: From Atatürk to Erdoğan on Thursday, 1st November 2018 from 7:00pm to 8:30pm.

The event will be held at Unite House, 128 Theobalds Road, Holborn, London, WC1X 8TN.

The event will kindly be chaired by Gamon McLellan, teaching fellow at SOAS, University of London.

For the last century, the Western world has regarded Turkey as a pivotal case of the ‘clash of civilisations’ between Islam and the West. Why Turkey is Authoritarian offers a radical challenge to this conventional narrative. Halil Karaveli highlights the danger in viewing events in Turkey as a war between a ‘westernising’ state and the popular masses defending their culture and religion, arguing instead for a class analysis that is largely ignored in the Turkish context.

This book goes beyond cultural categories that overshadow more complex realities when thinking about the ‘Muslim world’, while highlighting the ways in which these cultural prejudices have informed ideological positions. Karaveli argues that Turkey’s culture and identity have disabled the Left, which has largely been unable to transcend these divisions.

This book asks the crucial question: why does democracy continue to elude Turkey? Ultimately, Karaveli argues that Turkish history is instructive for a left that faces the global challenge of a rising populist right, which succeeds in mobilising culture and identity to its own purposes.

Published in partnership with the Left Book Club. Copies of Why Turkey is Authoritarian will be available to purchase on the night priced £10 (RRP: £12.99) and cash, card and contactless payments are accepted.

Halil Karaveli is a Senior Fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center, a US-Swedish think tank, and the editor of the Turkey Analyst. His articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs and the National Interest. He is the author of Why Turkey is Authoritarian (Pluto, 2018).

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20 November 2018

Houses of Parliament

Join the Centre for Turkey Studies (CEFTUS) for this exciting and timely talk on media coverage of hate speech in Turkey, in Committee Room 15, the House of Commons on Tuesday, 20th November 2018 from 7:00-9:00pm.

The event will kindly be hosted and chaired by Dan Carden MP, Labour MP for Liverpool, Walton.

In this Public Forum CEFTUS invites Yasemin Inceoglu to discuss the reasons behind the increasing polarization between different segments of Turkish society. The mainstream media reproduce and pump hate, both openly and disguisedly based on the concepts such as racism, ethnic prejudice, xenophobia and anti-Semitism while creating its own agenda as the ideological apparatus of the state in Turkey. Media use negative, cynic statements, curses, insults, exaggeration and contempt as a tool to present those groups as dangerous to public safety and boogeymen spreading risk and threat. Media reinforce the prejudice towards these marginalized groups –“the others” and at the same time make them feel unprotected and defenseless. This hate shows itself in outbursts of social lynch and discrimination and it reinforces the polarization in the society. “Hate speech” is a complicated and controversial term that is difficult to understand. The question “What is hate speech?” brings with it questions such as “Where is the boundary between freedom of expression and hate speech?”, “Is hate speech only produced against persons or minority people/groups?”, “Does every discourse that involves negative expressions and sentiments constitute hate speech?”, “How can we explain the relationship between hate speech and hate crimes?” I will address these questions by giving different examples of hate speech disseminated or produced/reproduced by the media.

Ms Yasemin Inceoglu is professor of journalism and member of the UNESCO International Clearinghouse on Children and Violence on the Screen and of the American Biography Institute with an expertise in her field.

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24 January 2019

Committee Room 6

House of Commons

Westminster Debate ”Entrepreneurship and the Integration of Syrian Refugees in Turkey and Egypt”

On January 24, the Centre for Turkey Studies hosted a public forum in the House of Commons with distinguished academics Dr Dogus Simsek of Koc University alongside Dr Janroj Yilmaz Keles and Dr Salma Soliman of Middlesex University.

Chair Niall Finn introduced Dr Janrog Keles and Dr Soloman, who were presenting on refugee entrepreneurism in Egypt.

Dr Keles began the joint presentation by noting that since the Syrian civil war began in 2011 over 6 million people have left Syria for neighbouring countries. A new type of refugee entrepreneurism – distinct from migrant entrepreneurism – is developing in these countries.

While refugees are often seen as a social and economic burden on the host country, there is an emerging school of thought that considers entrepreneurism as a means by which refugees can be integrated. Through entrepreneurism, refugees can take steps to overcome their vulnerable status and marginalisation within host countries.

Syrian refugees in Middle Eastern countries have often been treated as temporary guests rather than being recognised as refugees. Their legal status is subject to change with the whims of government and they suffer restrictions to welfare and the labour market. This, argued Dr Keles, has forced many into setting up their own businesses in refugee camps and in the cities of host countries and this has seen the emergence of new types of refugee entrepreneurs.

Migrant and refugee entrepreneurism are under researched topics, explained Dr Keles, particularly in the Middle East. The majority of existing studies are influenced by the tripartite theory of ‘mixed embeddedness’ for conducive conditions for the success of migrant entrepreneurism. Firstly, the refugee’s cultural capital – having the linguistic and social skills and networks they can capitalise upon for opening and managing a business. Secondly, a level of local demand in the host country for ethnically specific products. Thirdly, the legal framework of the host country permits migrants to open businesses. If these three conditions are met, migrants are expected to be able to open and sustain businesses.

This, however, is not sufficient to explain the conditions for refugee entrepreneurs as it does not focus on the different legal statuses, motivations for migrating and often traumatic experiences of refugees as opposed to migrants, argued Dr Keles.

In the latter half of the presentation, Dr Salma Soliman outlined their empirical research, which took place in Cairo and Alexandria in 2018.  There are some 120,000 Syrian refugees registered in Egypt, but with only one in every 20,000 registered, there is an estimated total of 500,000. Their research, explained Dr Soliman, assessed how Syrian refugees use their social capital and connections to address the challenges of doing business within a developing country. In the course of their research, they found that the shortcomings and inefficiencies – ‘institutional voids’ – implicit in developing countries in fact provided opportunities to refugee entrepreneurs, who could mobilise their social capital to operate within these voids.

Dr Soliman explained that the key factors influencing the successful entrepreneurism of Syrian refugees in Egypt. Firstly, all refugees are housed in major cities, rather than camps, meaning refugees can interact with their potential consumers and understand their market. Secondly, cultural and linguistic similarities aided market understanding. Finally, local support from both Egyptians and NGOs provide advice and skills training.

Dr Soliman and Dr Keles’ research found that though refuges have the right to work, high unemployment rates in Egypt force many into the informal labour market. This underperformance – ‘void’ – actually facilitated some refugees’ business success. Some professionals such as doctors and engineers are not licensed to operate in Egypt with their Syrian qualifications, but with a robust informal market, such professionals are still able to find customers. This, Dr Soliman proposed, challenges the implicit assumption that labour market voids are necessarily challenges, they can also provide opportunities for refugees with requisite skills and social capital.

Chair Niall Finn introduced the final speaker, Dr Dogus Simsek, who presented her paper on class-focused approach to refugee entrepreneurism in Turkey, based on field work carried out in 2016 in Istanbul, Ankara, and Gaziantep.

There are over 3.6 million registered Syrian refugees in Turkey, with an additional estimated 500,000 unregistered. Refugees have predominantly moved out of the 25 camps that were set up in the southeast, with only 6% remaining in camps. Syrian refugees can be found in almost every majopr Turkish city. Turkey’s initial open-door policy was not supplemented by a structured migration policy or provision of rights. Syrian refugees are not granted refugee status in Turkey, meaning they are not granted international protection and assured access to rights.

Following pressure from the EU, explained Dr Simsek, Turkey formalised the status of Syrian refugees with the promulgation of the Law on Foreigners and International Protection in 2013. Under the law, Syrians were given ID cards, and – on paper – access to the labour market and to welfare. They were not, however, granted housing so finding work has been crucial to Syrians needing to pay rent.

The vast majority have been forced to find employment in the informal sector, as in practice, Syrian refugees face serious obstacles to accessing the formal labour market. This, Dr Simek noted, is borne out by only 25,000 Syrians having work permits, of the approximately 1.5 million eligible to work. Barriers to access take the form of government policy: only one in every 10 employees in a company may be Syrian, and employer’s must shoulder the financial and administrative burden of the refugee’s work permit. Long-standing racial prejudices also affect access to the job market.

In the course of her research, Dr Simsek carried out 120 in depth interviews with Syrian refugees in Turkey from different class and ethnic backgrounds, asking them about their experiences of integration and their plans for the future. Dr Simsek found that less well-off refugees, who found themselves working in the informal economy were concerned about their precarious legal status – fearing their right to remain could be revoked with a change in government or its priorities. Often working very long hours for low wages, less well-off refugees reported not having exposure to native locals, in turn inhibiting their language skills and integration.

Meanwhile, wealthier and professional refugees reported much easier integration. They learn Turkish through business exposure or private Turkish classes, and avoid the issues of access to education faced by most refugees by sending their children to private schools. This inequality has only been exacerbated, Dr Simsek argued, by the selective citizenship policies of the Turkish government. The Turkish government has announced that Syrian refugees trained in certain professions, and those who invest in the country can obtain citizenship. Some have already been granted citizenship, though the exact figure is not public. This, in addition to the Syrians’ class-based experiences of integration and access to the labour market further differentiates Syrians from different class backgrounds. Dr Simsek’s unskilled and less wealthy interviewees reported wanting to return back to Syria or leave for Europe, while skilled professionals were largely planning to build a life and remain in Turkey.

Speaker biographies

Dr. Dogus Simsek currently teaches at the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at Koç University. She received her PhD in Sociology from City, University of London where she taught undergraduate sociology courses and MA in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths College, University of London. Her research interests broadly cover integration and transnationalism, refugee studies, racism, ethnicity and identity. She has published various articles, research reports, op-eds and presented her researches at international and national conferences.

Dr Salma Soliman is a senior lecturer in International Management ar Middlesex University. She has work experience in the sectors of education, financial services and FMCG. Before joining academia, she worked as a management consultant on different projects in the UK and the Middle East for clients in the private and non-for-profit sectors.

Dr Janroj Keles is as an editor of the British Sociological Association’s journal Work, Employment and Society and a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Law and Politics, School of Law, Middlesex University. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology and Communications from Brunel University. He has widely published on migration, globalisation, stateless diaspora, transnational political activism, media, ethnicity, nationalism and ethno-nationalist conflicts. He is the author of the book entitled, entitled Media, Diaspora and Conflict: Nationalism and Identity amongst Turkish and Kurdish Migrants in Europe.

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29 January 2019

Committee Room 15

House of Commons

Westminster Debate ‘Seeking a new politics in opposition to the authoritarian-populist trend in Turkey’

On January 29, the Centre for Turkey Studies hosted a public forum in the House of Commons with a leading member of Turkey’s Felicity Party, Dr Cihangir Islam. The event was kindly hosted by Sir David Amess, Conservative MP for Southend West, and chaired by Mr Gamon McLellan, Teaching Fellow at SOAS.

Sir David Amess MP opened the debate by noting the importance of Turkey’s stability and success to Britain. Crucial to this, he said, is a commitment to democratic values and the rule of law. He introduced Dr Cihangir Islam as a steadfast advocate of these values.

Chair Mr Gamon McLellan first gave some background on the Saadet (Felicity) Party, its history and its position within the Turkish political spectrum. Mr McLellan introduced Dr Cihangir Islam and outlined his academic and political background.

Click here for photos.

Dr Islam began by defining some key terms in his presentation: post-truth, post-reality, post-modernism, ethos, pathos and logos. He noted that his own critical analysis of the populist-authoritarian trend in Turkey is underpinned by Max Horkheimer’s Eclipse of Reason.

Populism, argued Dr Islam, is a political strategy which is used by leaders to create a collaboration between the corrupt elite and their foreign collaborators, to the detriment of the people. Populism has reached out to people who have been excluded by the established system, the integration of whom is necessary for the full functioning of the democratic system. However, they have been drawn in by populist movements for the benefit of elites, rather than the people themselves.

Dr Islam explained how populist movements have benefitted from the economic inequality resulting from globalisation and neoliberalism.  Contrary to Francis Fukuyama’s hailing of the ‘end of history’, representative democracy now finds itself facing the threat of populist democracy from the inside, rather than the external threat of communism.

Turning to the precipitating social-economic factors, Dr Islam critiqued the impact of globalisation. The unfair apportioning of economic resources and the widening wealth gap has led to an increased focus on national borders and in turn an excessive focus on the ‘national will’. As terrorism and security concerns overlay huge wealth disparity in developed economies, feelings of fear and instability dominate and have led to the decline of traditional ‘right’ and ‘left’ wing politics. This, noted Dr Islam, is a global problem, but also one that specifically affects Turkey. Over the past 17 years, since the accession of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the numbers of millionaires and of people living in poverty has simultaneously risen.

Considering next the status of middle-income groups, Dr Islam criticised the selfishness and ignorance of the petty bourgeoisie and white-collar workers. Under neoliberalism, new forms of brutal capitalism have emerged, and lower income workers have been subject to various rights abuses. Subcontractors, child labour, migrant abuse, lack of social security are widespread problems in Turkey and more broadly in the global neoliberal system. The rights of lower income workers have been relatively overlooked in Turkey, argued Dr Islam. 2013’s Gezi Park protests and organisation against the third airport focused rightly on environmental concerns, but workers rights are too often overlooked. The middle classes, Dr Islam opined, have been too willing to turn a blind eye to their struggles, and have concerned themselves too narrowly with their own protections and wellbeing.

The overlooked lower classes have been successfully targeted by charismatic populist-authoritarian leaders, explained Dr Islam, of which Presidents Trump and Erdogan are clear examples.   Dr Islam described their connection with voters with reference to an ‘L’ shape. The vertical column of the ‘L’ represents the populist party’s cultural connection with voters, which spans a range of socio-economic groups. The horizontal layer depicts the appeal to the lowest socio-economic group, based on populist economic policies. Such populist movements thus contain elements from both traditional political cleavages and identity politics. The column and row of the ‘L’ leaves a ‘black hole’, corresponding to the middle classes, isolated from this new politics.

Noting the importance of the international context to Turkey, Dr Islam pointed out that the atrocities of the Bosnian War are still fresh in the minds of Muslims, who fear Europe as hostile. Political instability and security concerns plaguing many countries of the Middle East compound feelings of insecurity which can dispose people toward populist rhetoric.

Dr Islam then turned to examine the past 17 years of AKP rule in Turkey. From 2002 until 2010 there was a concerted focus on democratisation, an acceleration toward implementing EU accession laws, and a focus on Kurdish and Alevi issues. Since 2010, however, there has been a slide toward nationalism and authoritarianism.

The AKP has made significant strides to end the period of military tutelage that has seen six military interventions between 27 May 1960 and 15 July 2016. However, the executive power now overrides judicial and legislative power. Dr Islam gave an outline of the constitutional changes that have paved the way to one-man rule, focusing in particular on Article 148 Section 3 of the constitution which allowed President Erdogan to make a series of sweeping changes which could not be constitutionally challenged under the State of Emergency declared five days after July’s attempted coup.

In the coup’s aftermath, noted Dr Islam, over 130,000 people have been banned from public service jobs, and 200,000 workers in the private sector have been sacked and permanently lost their jobs. 55,000 people have been jailed, which has led to more than 700 children growing up with their mothers in prison. 60 people have killed themselves in prison and 6,000 academics have lost their jobs. Further to this, noted Dr Islam, thousands of radio stations, channels, and organisations have been closed or trustees have been appointed to these institutions, with security concerns invariably used to justify the curtailing of human rights and democracy.

The politicisation of the judiciary and the degradation of parliament is seen in the thousands of cases opened against individuals for insulting the president, and the incarceration of more than 10 opposition members of parliament. The centralisation of power in the president is a key issue, particularly in light of the upcoming March 31 local elections. Dr Islam pointed out that financial assistance to municipalities is entirely under the control of the executive. Dr Islam detailed some abuses of procurement contracts and patronage that is taking place under the AKP; for example, one firm alone has been awarded 50 major tenders, equating to USD 50 billion.

Considering the growing polarisation in Turkish society, Dr Islam reflected upon the prevalence of insulting language in Turkish politics. The ‘Nation Alliance’ formed by the major opposition parties before the 24 June 2018 general election, for example, was described by the AKP as a ‘sick’ alliance.

Dr Islam described how the major parties split into two major blocs before the 2017 referendum on the executive presidency, and maintain this divide ahead of the 2018 general election. It is important to note, Dr Islam asserted, that the heterogeneous structure is resisting the pressure of the authoritarian system. Dr Islam explained that the partnership between the largest opposition party, the People’s Republican Party  and the Saadet Party has been a substantial source of morale for their respective bases and will continue into the future.

In conclusion, Dr Islam argued that the most effective measure against authoritarianism is the separation of power. The cohesive functioning of the legislative and judicial mechanisms, he asserted, are imperative to democratic health. Democracy must be founded upon elections, human rights, rule of law, transparency and accountability.  In the international arena, it is important to try to achieve a greater power balance between the five permanent members of the UN security council and other countries, for a fairer and more equitable global political and economic system. Within Turkey and internationally, nonviolent and democratic means must be employed to find common ground and achieve progress. The Nation Alliance, Dr Islam noted, is imperfect and incomplete, but is a substantial and ground-breaking achievement as a coming together of different political traditions.

Speaker Biography

Professor Doctor Nazir Cihangir Islam was born in Sakarya, Turkey in 1959. In 1983 he completed his medical training and in 1990 he completed his specialisms in Orthopaedics and Traumatology at Ankara University. Dr Islam studied spinal surgery and clinical research at the University of Minnesota and at McGill University, Montreal. He has published around one hundred articles and papers in the areas of orthopaedics and basic research. He is also a graduate of Islamic Law and Philosophy. At present, he is undertaking a Master’s in Philosophy at Mimar Sinan University.

Dr Islam serves as a lecturer at Ankara University, Van Yuzuncu Yil University and the Kars-Kafkas University. He is a founding member of Mazlum-Der (Association for Human Rights and Solidarity for the Oppressed), the Saadet (Felicity) Partisi, and the People’s Voice Party. He is a signatory of and was a spokesperson for the Rights and Justice Platform. He has been a columnist for the Duvar newspaper and a co-moderator of Arti TV’s ‘45+45’ programme.  He is presently a Saadet Partisi Member of Parliament for Istanbul.

Dr Islam has written several articles for the Journal of Knowledge and Thought and Syllable Journal.

On February 7 2017, Dr Islam was removed from public office by executive decree.

On  June 15 2017, Dr Islam joined the “March for Justice” from Ankara to Istanbul.

Dr Islam speaks English and intermediate German and Arabic. He has three children.

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12 February  2019

House of Lords

Book Launch: ”How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship” with Ece Temelkuran

On February 12, the Centre for Turkey Studies hosted a public forum and book launch  in the House of Lords with acclaimed journalist and author Ece Temelkuran in conversation with Lord Maurice Glasman. The event was kindly hosted by Lord David Watts.

After introductions were made by Lord Watts, Ms Temelkuran began by explaining that the focus of her book, and its audience, is not Turkey. The book grounds an exploration of the global rise of right-wing populism in her own and her fellow citizens’ experience of the past two decades in Turkey. Employing the Turkish experience, Ms Temelkuran explained, she aims to alert others in Europe and the US to the warning signs of this phenomenon. While many in Turkey have found themselves exhausted by the emotional turmoil that results from this new political reality, Ms Temelkuran hopes to pre-empt this paralysing exhaustion in European and in the US. With collective, supranational strength and willpower, the rise of right-wing populism can be resisted.

We need to escape the cycle of reactionary opposition politics, argued Ms Temelkuran. In Turkey, she said, we have become lost in questions about the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and their supporters, asking ‘how could they be so cruel?’ and ‘how can politics have degenerated into such absurdity?’ But this reactionism has not changed the facts, nor has it translated into a viable oppositional strategy.

Lord Glasman asked Ms Temelkuran to diagnose the failure of the Kemalist ruling class to engage with the Turkish poor and those in the provinces. Was it not this disconnect, he asked, that opened up the space for the success of the AKP? Ms Temelkuran responded by warning against the tendency of populism to reduce politics to miserable dichotomies: Kemalist/Muslim majority, Brexiteer/Remainer, Real People/the American establishment. These false binaries only serve to obscure the true dynamics of populism. We need to look beyond this to understand the true mechanism of right-wing populism.

Lord Glasman asked Ms Temelkuran to briefly outline the seven steps to dictatorship, as referenced in the book’s title. The first step, Ms Temelkuran explained, is ‘create a movement’. Movements, she explained, promise change at a time when people have lost faith in representative democracy after several decades of neo-liberalisation stripping social justice from the concept of democracy. Second, is ‘disrupt rationale and terrorise the language’. In this chapter, Ms Temelkuran tries to decipher the narrative of right-wing populists in order to dismantle the conversational rules we knowingly or unknowingly operate within. Third – remove shame from the public sphere. This, Ms Temelkuran points out, is connected with the concept of post-truth. It is the removal of shame that has paved the way for the rise of post-truth. Fourth, dismantle the judiciary and political mechanisms. This happened very quickly during the recent US government shutdown, Ms Temelkuran noted. Fifth, sees the design of citizens by the regime. Europe hasn’t quite reached this stage, she says, but in Turkey the regime is raising new generations according to the regime’s ideas of an ideal citizen. At the same time, they are imprisoning and pursuing those who refuse to conform. The sixth step is the degradation of political humour from a symbol and tool of resistance to a comfortable shelter for the opposition to hide within. Finally – build your own country. Once the opposition has been enfeebled and ideal citizens designed, the country belongs entirely to the regime and their followers.

After outlining these stages, Lord Glasman asked if Ms Temelkuran distinguished between left and right-wing populism, or if there was such thing as a ‘good’ populism. Ms Temelkuran responded that she wasn’t aware of any left-wing populist movements posing threats to democracy. There are many books written about what populism is and is it an ideology – but these books often speak to one another. Her aim, Ms Temelkuran explained, was to speak beyond the theoretical debates and try to find clarity about the threat right-wing populism poses to democracies around the world.

These issues have for too long remained confined to academic debates, argued Ms Temelkuran. The  aim of this book is to reach people outside of ivory towers and stimulate thought, debate and action about and toward tackling right-wing populism.  For many people, these issues are fundamental to where and how people will be able to lives their lives in the near future.

Lord Glasman responded by articulating the rationale behind his own belief in populism.  We are living in an interregnum, he claimed, where globalism, liberalism, and capitalism have been the dominant ideologies of the past 40 years. And capitalism, Lord Glasman explained, necessitates the belief that there is no home: that humans are rational, self-maximising individuals. The ‘we’ that Ms Temelkuran refers to in the book, Lord Glasman states, is a democratic concept; the idea that there is a collective that resists the pressures of capitalism. Then there’s liberalism – the idea that an individual is outside of all social relationships and is a chooser. The administrative state then also treats people as individuals. These all coalesce in globalisation, which itself dictates that there is no home. So, Lord Glasman concludes, the very idea of ‘home’ resists these ideologies.

Capitalism has left human beings without meaning, and that is part of what causes people to look to religion. But believing in humans is to believe that humans can create their own secular morality. But we have not yet been able to create this secular morality, which contributes toward the political and moral mess in which we find ourselves, argued Ms Temelkuran. The form of representative democracy ushered in by neoliberalism is one stripped of social justice, and the anger that has resulted from this has fed right-wing populism. However, Ms Temelkuran lamented, People could have been mobilised, energised and politicised by richer politics – rather than promises of nostalgic greatness.

Speaker biography:

Ece Temelkuran is one of Turkey’s best-known writers and political commentators. Having made her name as a columnist at national newspapers Milliyet and Haberturk, she is also the author of several award-winning works of fiction and non-fiction, including “Women Who Blow on Knots” and “Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy”.

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26 March 2019

Committee Room 12

House of Commons

Westminster Debate “Who is ‘we the people’?” Elif Shafak in conversation with Rachel Shabi

On March 26^th, the Centre for Turkey Studies hosted Turkey’s most widely read female author, academic and rights campaigner Elif Shafak, in conversation with journalist and novelist Rachel Shabi. The event took place in Committee Room 12 of the House of Commons and was kindly hosted by Alex Sobel, Labour MP for Leeds North West.

Click here for photos, and here for a video recording of the event.

Shabi opened the discussion by asking Shafak how Turkey might constitute a case study for countries like the UK and the US, which are further behind in their own ethno-nationalist populist trajectories. Shafak looked back to the last period of optimism, after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Some two decades ago, she said, we predicted the downfall of fascism and socialism, and the triumph of liberal democracy. Optimism was so strong that even those countries lagging behind were expected to catch up by sheer momentum of progress being made in other parts of the world. This was especially true of attitudes toward the Middle East, where commentators praised the ‘Twitter revolution’ during the so-called Arab Spring, and posited that youths would henceforth topple dictators by firing Tweets rather than bullets.

Now, Shafak, argued, the pendulum has swung to the other extremity. Optimism has been superseded by anger, fear and resentment. We now, she continued, see a politics driven by negative emotions. Turkey is an important forewarning in this regard as it has shown that countries can slide backwards, away from liberal values and toward majoritarianism. The case of Turkey, Shafak explained, demonstrates that elections are not sufficient – rule of law, separation of powers, a free and diverse media, an independent academia and women’s and minority rights are vital to the functioning of democracy.

The accolade of authoring the ‘populist playbook’ has been attributed to both Turkish President Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Shabi noted, and asked if Shafak thought they have indeed provided a manual for authoritarians to come?

As extremists embolden extremists, Shafak noted, dictators and autocrats are emboldened by the impunity with which others operate. We must be vocal in our criticism of autocracy and lack of democracy, implored Shafak, in countries such as Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Brazil, Venezuela, and the Philippines. However – she warned – it is important to be mindful of the distinction between the people and their governments. Too often they are conflated; a careful examination of civil society is crucial to understanding their complexity, and to not forgetting about liberal progressives who live under majoritarian rule.

Focusing upon the titular question of “who is ‘we the people’?”, Shabi asked what is being signalled by the frequent invocation of the ‘elites’ by right-wing populist leaders around the world.

Populism is a very weak ideology, answered Shafak. Like a bird with one wing, it needs something else to fly. This aid, she explained, often takes the form of nationalism. Similarities thread through otherwise differing strains of populism, notably a reliance on oppositional binaries, such as ‘the people’ versus ‘the elites’.  But, Shafak warns, we must scrutinise what is really meant by these terms. Populists frequently reveal the insincerity of their claim to represent ‘the people’, Shafak argued, by distinguishing between the ‘real people’ or the ‘decent people’ and others. It is an illusion that populism unites the people, it is always underpinned by a divisive dualism. What we actually see, Shafak argued, is not a confrontation of elitism, but a new elite replacing the old.

The Left also invokes ‘the elite’, noted Shabi. Can we use the word ‘elite’ responsibly, to talk about the holding of economic and political power by a few at the expense of the majority, she asked.

Shafak agreed that we must find a way to responsibly employ the term. Finally, she said, inequality is becoming central to political discussions. Rising inequality is not only a political and economic issue but a moral one, Shafak argued. But we must be vigilant to the current, often sinister use of the term ‘elite’, which is often used to delegitimise those holding liberal democratic values, rather than to hold to account those who constitute the 1%.

Looking back to the anti-capitalist protests of the late 1990s, Shabi noted, which originated in the Global South, many were characterised by the international media as being anti-globalisation. The movements largely rejecting this rendering, as they took issue with the inequalities driven largely by the international neoliberal order, rather than with globalisation. Is it a mistake of the Left, asked Shabi, that we have allowed the values of liberal democracy to be too bound up with neoliberalism?

Certainly, Shafak responded, too many concepts have been bundled into the term ‘liberalism’. These must all be unpicked and individually understood in order to understand the damage neoliberalism has caused to liberal democracy. Looking at tech companies in Silicon Valley, who position themselves at the forefront of a ‘liberal’ capitalism, the rhetoric is not matched by practice. Tech companies profess to promote diversity and egalitarianism but fail entirely to employ minority ethnic or LGBT workers in representative proportions. We must be critical of the inequalities caused by neoliberalism, she argued.

Observing that the criticism of cosmopolitanism by populists is often employed to evoke a disloyalty to nationalism, Shabi asked Shafak her opinion on the duality of ‘People from Somewhere’ versus ‘People from Anywhere’.

Shafak explained she has been accused of being ‘rootless’ and faced a backlash in Turkey when she began writing in English. People said I was abandoning my mother tongue, she recalled, nationalist populism drives people to ask which monolithic, timeless, mutually exclusive identities you belong to. It is for this reason Shafak is critical of identity politics, informed largely by her exposure to the African American women’s movement in the US. The women of that movement emphasise  a multiplicity of identities and oppressions, Shafak explained, and that has been lost in the wider feminist movement.

Shafak described her own feeling of multiple belongings: an Istanbullite but European by birth and by choice, now a Londoner.  If we can have multiple belongings, she posited, there is a greater chance that some of our belongings will overlap and enable us to find common ground.

What is it about that kind of multiplicity that so threatens this latest incarnation of populism, asked Shabi.

It has been portrayed as something scary and too complex, Shafak explained. We must instead view it positively. Contributing to this issue is the constant bombardment of information and misinformation we are subjected to, Shafak argued. Drawing a distinction between information and knowledge is imperative for understanding how the former can obstruct the latter. Wisdom, meanwhile, necessarily has an emotional component. Shafak decried the success with which those she called populist demagogues have employed emotion to connect with people, and the Left’s almost complete failure to do so at present.

Shabi asked Shafak to expand upon a statement she has made, that as a writer she is close enough to society to be attached but distant enough to be critical. It’s the right place but it’s a lonely place.

Shafak explained that while she felt it was the right place for a writer, it is also a lonely place. From an early age she felt on the edge of society for a variety of reasons, not least because of her international upbringing and education. While in Turkey, she received a nationalist education and abroad a starkly contrasting, internationalist education. This, Shafak reflected, afforded her some cognitive distance from society, which has allowed her to be critical while remaining attached.

Likewise, writing in English has permitted Shafak to take some distance from Turkey. When dealing with certain subjects, Shafak explained she is able to be more bold. Humour, irony and satire come much easier in English, while she is able to express sorrow, longing and melancholy more richly in Turkish.

The conversation turned to public space, where Shafak highlighted the importance of diversity and inclusivity. In the Middle East in particular, men are often dominant in public spaces, and the important conversations women are having about topics such as faith, identity, and sexuality are confined to the private sphere.

We are only just coming to understand the dark side of public space, explained Shafak. We need to be alert to how digital public space can be manipulated and proactive about ensuring it is a diverse space, she argued.

Finally, Shabi asked Shafak to expand upon her statement that although economic inequalities have fuelled some of the resentment and negative politics we see playing out today, emotions too have a significant role to play.

Shafak explained, drawing upon electoral case studies from Germany and polling data in the US, that anxiety drives voters toward right-wing populism. In this age of anxiety, we have to talk openly and bravely about immigration anxiety, economic anxiety, racial anxiety; failure to do so will only continue to drive people toward right-wing extremism where they feel they can freely voice their fears. Political science can fetishise data and underrate that which cannot be so easily quantified, like emotions and cultural attitudes, which underpin many of today’s conflicts. Writers, Shafak explained, therefore have a vital role to play in helping us to tease out the roles culture and emotions are playing in today’s political landscape.

Speaker Biography

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist and the most widely read female author in Turkey. She writes in both Turkish and English, and has published seventeen books, eleven of which are novels. Her work has been translated into fifty languages. Shafak holds a PhD in political science and she has taught at various universities in Turkey, the US and the UK, including St Anne’s College, Oxford University, where she is an honorary fellow. She is a member of Weforum Global Agenda Council on Creative Economy and a founding member of ECFR (European Council on Foreign Relations). An advocate for women’s rights, LGBT rights and freedom of speech, Shafak is an inspiring public speaker and twice a TED Global speaker, each time receiving a standing ovation. Shafak contributes to major publications around the world and she has been awarded the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. In 2017 she was chosen by Politico as one of the twelve people who would make the world better. She has judged numerous literary prizes and is chairing the Wellcome Prize 2019.

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03 September  2019

Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS University of London

Book Launch: “Erdogan Rising: The Battle for the Soul of Turkey” with Hannah Lucinda Smith

The Centre for Turkey Studies is delighted to invite you to the launch of ‘Erdogan Rising: The Battle for the Soul of Turkey’ by acclaimed journalist and Times correspondent Hannah Lucinda Smith.

The event will take place in the Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS University of London between 19:00-21:00 on Tuesday 3 September.

Ms Smith will be in conversation with Mr Gamon McLellan, Teaching Fellow in Turkish, SOAS.

Who is Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and how did he lead a democracy on the fringe of Europe into dictatorship? How has chaos in the Middle East blown back over Turkey’s borders? And why doesn’t the West just cut Erdogan and his regime off?

Erdogan Rising introduces Turkey as a vital country, one that borders and buffers Western Europe, the Middle East and the old Soviet Union, marshals the second largest army in NATO and hosts more refugees than any other nation. We are introduced to Erdogan as the face of devotion and division, a leader who mastered macho divide-and-rule politics a decade and a half before Donald Trump cottoned on, and has used it to lead his country into spiraling authoritarianism.

Yet Erdogan is no ordinary dictator. His elections are won only by slivers, and Turkey remains defined and divided by its two warring cults: those who worship Erdogan, the willful Muslim nationalist with a tightening authoritarian grip, and those who fly fierce flags for Ataturk, the secularist, westward-looking leader who founded the Republic and remains its best loved icon – now eighty years dead.

Erdogan commands a following so devoted they compose songs in his honour, adorn their homes with his picture, and lay down their lives to keep him in power. Erdogan Rising asks how this century’s most successful populist won his position, where Turkey is headed next, and what the means for the rest of the world.

Reserve your tickets here

Author Biography

Hannah Lucinda Smith has been living in Turkey as the Times correspondent for nearly a decade, reporting on the ground from the onset of the Arab Spring through terrorist attacks, mass protests, civil war, unprecedented refugee influx and the explosive, bloody 2016 coup attempt that threatened to topple – and kill – Erdogan.

During her time in the country, she has also reported from inside rebel-held Syria, on the front lines of the battle against Isis in Iraq, and joined the mass movement of migrants on their journey to Europe in 2015.

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The Centre for Turkey Studies (CEFTUS) will hold its 8^th Anniversary Gala and Community Achievement Awards on 14 October 2019.

Founded in 2011, CEFTUS has grown remarkably and has been the only effective organisation that provides an open platform for issues regarding Turkey and the region, builds bridges between Turkey and the UK and brings together Turkish, Kurdish and Turkish Cypriot communities of the UK.

CEFTUS has now opened the nominations for the Community Achievement Awards (2018). The awards, which aim to recognise excellence of Turkish, Kurdish and Turkish Cypriot Communities in the UK, will be presented in categories of business, education, art, media and community work. Anyone can make a nomination by either emailing CEFTUS on info@ceftus.org with a nominee name, contact details, category, reason for nomination. Alternatively, nominations can be made via our nomination form which can be found here.

Last year’s winners of the Community Achievement Awards can be found here.

CEFTUS will once again organise a wonderful gala where parliamentarians, business people, community leaders, local and national media will be in attendance. Having hosted celebrities such as Zulful Livaneli and Gulse Birsel in previous gala events, CEFTUS will again host distinguished figures from Turkey including parliamentarians, academics, journalists and business people.

Please watch CEFTUS 7^th Anniversary Gala highlights.

CEFTUS 8^th Anniversary Gala will also aim to raise funds for the work of CEFTUS throughout the year, as well as for our charity partners Show Racism the Red Card. Supporters of CEFTUS are very welcome to make donations via the link below or purchase tickets/tables.

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Turkey is facing a crisis on multiple levels. Tensions over Syria and gas in the Eastern Mediterranean threaten to permanently damage relations with the country’s traditional western allies. Meanwhile, a crackdown continues on academics and journalists, with profound effects on the institutions that once provided a limited degree of free speech.

To analyse these issues, how they are interlinked, and what might be coming next, join former foreign minister Yasar Yakis, editor in chief of Ahval news Yavuz Baydar, Chair in Contemporary Turkish Studies, European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science Esra Ozyurek, and Managing Editor of Kappa news Yannis Koutsomitis.

Please note, you will need a conference pass to attend this event.

Room 3, Durham Hall
Hilton Brighton Metropole
Kings Rd
Brighton
BN1 2FU

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The Centre for Turkey Studies (CEFTUS) will hold its 8th Anniversary Gala and Community Achievement Awards on the 4th of November 2019.

Reception: 17:00 – 19:00
Dinner & Awards: 19:00 – 23:00

Park Plaza London Riverbank
18 Albert Embankment
SE1 7TJ

Dress code: Lounge Suit or Cocktail Dress

Founded in 2011, CEFTUS seeks to represent the interests of the UK’s Turkish, Kurdish and Turkish Cypriot communities, showcasing their contributions to every part of British society and providing a platform for open and informed debate on issues impacting them in this country and the region.

Our annual gala brings together all parts of the community for an evening celebrating their achievements in areas from arts and culture to entrepreneurship and community activism. We will be joined by distinguished figures from both Turkey and the UK, including parliamentarians, academics, journalists and business people, with previous attendees including Jeremy Corbyn, Zulful Livaneli and Gulse Birsel.

We are a non-partisan institution that receives no external funding from any political group or government body. To help us maintain our independence we ask that you support our work by purchasing tickets to the gala, considering a sponsorship package, or making a donation.

Last year’s winners at the Community Achievement Awards can be found here. And nominations for 2019 are now open!

We look forward to seeing you soon!

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23 October 2019

Committee Room 5, Houses of Parliament

Westminster Debate: “Public Health Practices in Turkey” with Gaye Usluer 

The Centre for Turkey Studies is delighted to invite you “Public Health Practices in Turkey” with Gaye Usluer, former member of the Turkish parliament and Clinical Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, Eskisehir Osmangazi University. 

The event will take place in Committee Room 5 of the Houses of Parliament between 20:00-21:00 on Wednesday, 23 October.

Reserve your tickets here

This event is kindly hosted by Alex Norris MP and jointly organised with “Knowledge Sharing in Turkish Health Forums” project funded by the British Academy.

Speaker Biography: 

Professor Gaye Usluer is an academic and former member of parliament for Eskisehir with the opposition Republican People’s Party. Having graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at the Hacettepe University, she became a professor in 1998. She is currently the Head of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Faculty of Medicine in Eskisehir Osmangazi University. Usluer was a visiting professor in Oxford John Raddclif Hospital in 1996, a Management Committee Member of the Society for Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology Specialty in 2006 and she is currently an honorary board member at the Eskisehir Medical Association. She serves as a member of the Turkish parliament’s education committee.

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Please note that due to current government public health advice, this event has now been cancelled. 

The Centre for Turkey Studies (CEFTUS) in conjunction with NeHaber.uk  is pleased to invite you to “Living and Working in the UK – From the Ankara Agreement to IR35”

The Turkish EC Association Agreement, commonly referred to as the Ankara Agreement, has long provided the basis for Turkish nationals to seek indefinite leave to remain in the UK, either by setting up a business or, more commonly, becoming a self-contractor.

However, Brexit and the unfavourable March 2017 court ruling have placed the future the Ankara Agreement in doubt. And with new legislation covering self-employment, known as IR35, set to come into force in April, Turkish nationals are facing ever greater uncertainty over their economic status and continued ability to contribute to the UK.

By bringing together a panel of experts and industry specialists, this event will focus on the future of the Ankara Agreement, self-employment, and the potential impact on the Turkish, Kurdish and Turkish-Cypriot community.

This event will take place in the Houses of Parliament from 7-9pm on March 23rd.

Speakers

Philip Ross was one of the founding members of the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE) and served on its first board as External Affairs Director and more recently as a member of its Consultative Council. He has a wealth of lobbying experience around issues of self-employment and has helped lead the campaign against the new IR35 legislation.

Bruno Rodrigues is a solicitor and director of the London law firm Cassadys Solicitors. He has 11 years experience in practising immigration law including Ankara Agreement applications and all types of business immigration applications. He also has extensive corporate and commercial law experience and is committed to helping his business clients thrive and this includes advice on contracts, compliance, company law and employment law.

Semira Dilgil is the Head of Corporate Immigration and one of the founding Partners of Ashton Ross Law. She is particularly skilled in all aspects of immigration, with over 15 years’ experience in the industry and as provided legal advice and assistance to some of the largest and well- known Turkish companies, including from the legal, oil, gas, financial, textile and investment sector.

Ozan Askin is a Personal Injury and Civil Litigation Solicitor with over 8 years of applied legal experience. Askin studied Economics at SOAS, worked for two years at HSBC before moving over into the legal sector and he started his own law firm, Silvine Law in 2017.

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The Centre for Turkey Studies (CEFTUS) Community Achievement Awards recognise excellence in the Turkish, Kurdish and Turkish Cypriot communities, as well as their continued contribution to life in the UK.

Anyone can make a nomination by emailing info@ceftus.org with a nominee name, contact details, category and the reason for nomination.

The categories are as follows:

Businessperson of the Year Award
Young Entrepreneur Award
Lifelong Achievement Award
Law Award
Female Role Models of the Year Award
Male Role Models of the Year Awards
Politics Award
Media Award
Community Centre of the Year Award
Law Award
Education Award
Art, Music, and Culture Award
Estate, Finance, and Accounting Award

Last year’s winners of the Community Achievement Awards can be found here.

The awards will be presented at CEFTUS’ Anniversary Gala later this year, which will be attended by parliamentarians, businesspeople, local and national media, as well as distinguished members of the community. Highlights from 2019 can be found here.

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The post-election context in Northern Cyprus was discussed in this talk, which was chaired by Baroness Meral Hussein-Ece. Turkish government openly supported the conservative candidate and the former Prime Minister Ersin Tatar, which tipped the contest in Tatar’s favour in the second round. Baroness Hussein-Ece argued that Tatar’s election has further pushed away Cyprus from the possibility of reunification. However, the debate on what comes next in Cyprus and the international effort to unify the island under one state will continue. The election results also show that Northern Cyprus is very much divided when it comes to the future of the island.

Derya Beyatlı was the first speaker. Beyatlı is a peace activist, and she began her talk with an account of the developments that started just before the elections. The elections were neither fair nor democratic due to Turkish interventions. There is a history of Turkish interventions in Cypriot elections, but the level of the intervention this time was much higher than in any previous occasions.

The opposition candidate, Mustafa Akıncı, complained about the threats he and his family have been receiving from the Turkish embassy. Tatar’s UBP (National Unity Party) was given tactical advice on its election campaign, and many people came from Turkey for campaigning. There was talk of bribes and the water pipe carrying water from Turkey was damaged for much of the past year, but it got fixed just before the election. Turkey wanted to have an official opening of the water pipe, but the law prohibited holding the ceremony in Cyprus. Instead, Tatar went to Turkey for the ceremony. During the ceremony, Erdogan announced that the ghost town of Varosha would be partly opened. All this happened without the involvement of Turkish Cypriots. In the first round, the elections were very close, but during the week before the second round, many MPs from the AKP and the MHP visited the island to help with Tatar’s election campaign.

Twenty thousand more voters voted in the second round of the election compared to the first round, which is a very high number given the total votes Mr Tatar received was around 65,000. During his victory speech, Mr Tatar thanked President Erdogan and said that he could not have won the election without Erdogan’s support.

Beyatlı said that she does not think Turkish Cypriots are divided about the future of Cyprus. Most support a federal and united Cyprus. Recent opinion polls conducted on both sides of the island show there is support for a federal solution – one scenario in which both Turkish and Greek Cypriots would vote ‘Yes’.

After the election and the Varosha visit, there was a reaction from the United Nations and the European Union (EU). On 26 November 2020, the European Parliament issued a resolution acknowledging what happened in Cyprus and urging Turkey to reverse its decisions. It also urged the European Council to maintain its position and ask Turkey to stop its illegal actions.

Beyatlı also mentioned that today was Human Rights Day and wanted to draw attention to a human right violation in Europe. She said that Turkish is an official language of EU because it is the language of Turkish Cypriots who are European citizens. Turkish is an official language of the Republic of Cyprus. As a Turkish speaking European citizen, she felt she was discriminated against because the European Parliament did not offer Turkish translation of the debates. Beyatlı said Turkish Cypriots could not feel part of the EU because they cannot understand the discussions. She mentioned that they had started a petition – with Niyazi Kızılyürek, the only Turkish Cypriot MEP – to make Turkish an official language of the EU.

The second speaker was Şener Elçil, who started his talk by expressing his pleasure for being part of the discussion and for having a platform for raising the real voice of Turkish Cypriots. He referred to the Turkish project of dividing the island and said that we have been living in extra-ordinary times. There were three guarantors in Cyprus, and according to the 1960 agreement, all three guarantors should guarantee the unity of the island. They are guarantors in name but did not act as such. The British created the initial tensions between the two communities during the1950s. Greece carried out a fascist coup and wanted to take over Cyprus and Turkey conducted a military occupation of it. Elçil asked: ‘Why is Turkey continuously transferring population from mainland Turkey to Cyprus?’ He mentioned that there had been many censuses since 1974, but no one knows the exact number of Turkish Cypriot population.

Elçil further reflected on the population of Turkish Cypriots and gave an estimate of 135,000. However, some estimates put the population of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) at 500,000 or even 600,000. In 2009, according to a survey conducted in schools, only 34 per cent of students had Turkish Cypriot parents and nine per cent had mixed parents (Turkish Cypriot and Turkish).

Elçil said that the elections cannot represent the will of the population and that Turkish Cypriot culture and their distinct character was under threat because the settler population was more than the native Turkish population. He also mentioned that Turkish Cypriots were secular people and there were never any problems in the island due to religion. Turkey was trying to impose religion on the secular Turkish Cypriot society.

Elçil claimed that Mr Tatar was acting like a civil servant of Turkey and a spokesman of President Erdogan. Cyprus had a two-state, but no one recognises TRNC, and that situation has not led to anywhere. Therefore, the unification of the island was in the interest of every Cypriot. Elçil said: ‘Cyprus is too little to divide and too big to share’.

Elçil referred to the deterioration of Turkey’s democracy and drew attention to Turkey’s bad relations with all her neighbours. The Turkish economy was collapsing because of the AKP’s bad governance and to distract the population from that Turkey was creating problems for all its neighbours.

Fabian Hamilton MP (Labour) made a short comment. He mentioned that the Labour party agrees with the comment that there should not be guarantors in Cyprus and argued for the need to work towards demilitarisation of the island. He stated his support for a bi-communal and bi-zonal federal solution in Cyprus.

The talk continued with comments and questions from the participants.

Join us for the online talk with Ece Temelkuran and Rachel Shabi “Are we losing the world as we know it?”

When: February 3, 2021

Time: 19:00 GMT

Journalist, author and broadcaster Rachel Shabi introduced the talk and the speaker, Ece Temelkuran, who is a prominent Turkish journalist and author of How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship.

Ece Temelkuran started by responding ‘yes’ to the question ‘Are we losing the world as we know it?’ She said a new form of fascism is on the rise across the world, which is one reason why we are losing the world as we know it. In her book, she lays out the global patterns of the rise of fascism, authoritarianism, and right-wing populism. Despite the differences between countries experiencing this phenomenon, all these countries experienced fascism, authoritarianism, and right-wing populism in the same way. That is why she came up with the seven patterns of the new form of fascism, and her motivation in writing the book was to alert the world about it. She then listed the seven steps from democracy to dictatorship.

The first stage is the creation of a political movement. The word movement promises action, renewal and change, and it is potentially inclusive of many people. When the right-wing populist leaders emerge in the political field, they split the people into two: the real people and the oppressive, corrupt elite. When you call yourself the ‘real people’, you declare the rest of the society as ‘unreal people’.

The second thing they do is start disrupting the rationale and terrorise the political language. They come to the political stage with an almost schizophrenic logic. For example, you are talking about climate change or global warming, and suddenly they speak about the earth being flat. The strategy they use catches you off-guard and simple dialogue becomes impossible because they attack the rules of logic when they are talking. They operate in two ways: with spin doctors of the party or the movement and the apparatchiks. They invade the social media sphere, and they do not argue with you but make it impossible to argue. They attack the communication sphere to the extent that you cannot even exist there. The unregulated communication sphere, the social media, makes it easier for them to turn the truth to a commodity which goes to the highest bidder.

The third pattern repeating itself in every country is that they are using the post-truth era very effectively. The loss of shame or shamelessness is a political tool used very effectively by the right-wing populists. In western countries and among journalists, post-truth and fake news are seen as technical issues; they think that if they fact check and prove fake news is ‘fake’, it can be destroyed. Temelkuran believes post-truth is not a technical question but a moral question. When you don’t know what truth is, you won’t know what is right or wrong morally. So, the loss of truth and loss of shame are interrelated.

The fourth pattern repeating is dismantling the judicial and political mechanisms. Right-wing populists or authoritarian leaders or this new form of fascism has no constant ideological consistency. Temelkuran is sceptical of making references to the Second World War and the Nazis when talking about this new form of fascism. Like it or not, the Nazis had an idea and political goal for what they wanted to do. The authoritarian leader now has no ideological consistency and political goal beyond holding on to political power. This is the most ruthless form of pragmatism.

The fifth common pattern is that they design their citizens from the very beginning. ‘Erdogan Supporters’ or ‘Boris Johnson Supporters’ or ‘Trump Supporters’ are very similar even though they speak different languages and are from other countries. It is as if they are cut from the same cloth. The supporters of right-wing populists are highly adaptable people, and this is because their leaders are highly pragmatic.

The sixth commonality is the use of political humour as a tool for opposing the right-wing populist. This is a useful tool up to a level, but it can become a shelter for comfort because people feel okay as long as they can joke about it. While we are making jokes, the authoritarian leaders are creating new regulations in our lives. Lack of voice is filled more and more with laughter.

The seventh and last commonality is designing your own country. It is the ‘love it or leave it stage’, and Turkey is in this stage at the moment. Those speaking up against the leader are eliminated.

This new form of fascism is one reason why we are losing the world as we know it. The other reason is the planet being exhausted by capitalism. The earth is speaking through all its tongues and shouting out for help, and we are calling this ‘global warming’, but it is more than that. The world is tired because this system extracts everything: it extracts life from human beings, minerals from earth and water from the sea. The greed and the pillars of capitalism cannot go on. We cannot imagine the end of capitalism easily and because of the new form of fascism and planet being exhausted, what we are living is predominantly fear, and that is what fascism lives on. We need to befriend our fears because we will be living in fear for several reasons in the coming decades. In future, what Temelkuran wants to talk about is how can we repair the faith in human beings and ourselves.

Shabi asked for a comment on the exceptionalism of the US and the UK. Temelkuran said the book was published two years ago and when the book first came out, she was telling Americans and British that Trump will be here for a while and Boris Johnson will be your PM so get used to it. She mentioned that fascism feeds on fragile consensus, and it leaks into cracks and opens them up. Some people say what is happening to us is a passing thing. The second group of people say this is the natural consequence of neoliberalism because capitalism’s main contract compromised the main contract of democracy. Some people say that social justice is not necessary for democracy, but the second group of people that Temelkuran feels close to think there cannot be democracy without social justice. She commented that the most important part of Trump’s departure was that the entire American establishment had to come together to get rid of him and still he got 70m votes. It is not the democratic institutions or the state that is disintegrating but also the society. Half of society thinks the other half is absolute evil.

Shabi then asked about the left’s response to right-wing populism and whether it has been effective. Temelkuran mentioned how the Labour Party is becoming patriotic and flag loving, which reminded her of the CHP in Turkey trying to prove that they are genuine Muslims. She thinks we need to reject the mentality of the new form of fascism altogether. Then she referred to expressing emotions and how they have no use for countering right-wing populism. Instead, we need to organise, stand our ground and develop proper and polite argumentation.

The talk continued with questions from the participants.

Join us to listen to Can Dündar, a distinguished Turkish journalist with over 40 years of experience of writing, editing and making investigative documentaries, and Sarah Clarke from ARTICLE 19 as Head of the Europe and Central Asia team, defending the human rights to freedom of expression and information in the region.

When: Wednesday, 10 February 2021, 18:00 GMT

The event featured a conversation between Sarah Clarke, Article 19’s Head of Europe and Central Asia Team and Can Dündar, a distinguished Turkish journalist. Clarke started by highlighting the scale of the erosion in freedom of expression in Turkey during the past decade and then introduced Dündar.

Clarke’s opening question was about the rise of illiberal democracies globally. She again highlighted that the increase in Turkey’s human rights violations had been a significant concern in the past decade. She asked Dündar to reflect on his personal experiences after he published the articles in Cumhuriyet and why has he been a challenge for an autocrat like Erdogan?

Dündar began by mentioning that he has been a journalist for 40 years, and in that period, he has never experienced proper democracy in Turkey. Still, the conditions have never been as bad as they are now. He has been targeted because he had written articles that Erdogan didn’t like, and this began in 2013 when Dündar was covering the Gezi Park protests. Erdogan told Milliyet’s owner to fire Dündar, who then joined the NTV channel as a presenter of a news show and made a documentary about Erdogan’s corruption. Erdogan filed a lawsuit against Dündar, and he moved to Cumhuriyet, where he continued to cover Erdogan’s corruption. He wrote a series of articles on Erdogan and a Saudi businessman’s attempts to appropriate land in Istanbul. Again, Erdogan didn’t like the article and filed a lawsuit. Dündar was the Editor-in-Chief of Cumhuriyet, and the paper published an article about the Turkish intelligence services transferring guns to Islamist fighters in Syria, which angered Erdogan. On the day after the article was published, Erdogan vowed that the person who published the article ‘will pay a heavy price’.

Clarke then asked about the factors that enabled Erdogan to come to power and stay in power for so long?

Dündar mentioned that Erdogan is not a unique case and is part of a global trend. The feelings of fear and instability that became pervasive after the Cold War created the conditions for Erdogan’s emergence and provided opportunities to consolidate his authoritarian rule. In recent years, the refugee issue allowed Erdogan to strike a deal with the European Union (EU). The European leaders accepted to turn a blind eye to Erdogan’s ‘excesses’ in exchange of keeping refugees in Turkey.

Clarke mentioned the increase in detention of journalists and human rights activists. She said how the European Court of Human Rights’ decisions had not been implemented by Turkey, particularly in the case of Selahattin Demirtaş and Osman Kavala. The reason behind the decision not to enforce the judgements is because Turkey does not have a price to pay. She drew attention to some of the recent elections where Erdogan managed a win with a small margin, but he has managed to hold on to power despite that.

Dündar said that Erdogan had consolidated his one-man rule and now controls every institution in the country. He mentioned the second-largest opposition party leader in Turkey is currently in jail as are many of this party’s MPs. Erdogan controls the media, the police force, the army, the business community. He has the backing of the Western leaders, and that means Erdogan does not fear anyone. The refugee flow helped him, as did the Trump administration. Erdogan played Russia against the US and managed to balance the power competition to his advantage.

Dündar argued that following Biden’s election there is now a swing towards democracy. He believes that the policies will change but maybe not a very dramatic change at the beginning. Erdogan has been waiting for a call from Biden, which is yet to come. Also, without Merkel, the conditions Erdogan faces will not be the same in Europe. Crises situations have helped Erdogan remain in power and have made it easier for him to run the country. Now that tactic will not work. Erdogan also lost the big cities in the last local elections, and now he faces an alliance of opposition parties, which creates hope for people who want democracy in Turkey.

Clarke talked about the issue of solidarity and asked about Dündar’s efforts to challenge Erdogan’s regime by building solidarity inside and outside Turkey.

Dündar responded that he now believes the West can see Erdogan’s real face. He said he is now in Europe and free to talk and does all he can to talk about what is happening in Turkey. He mentioned he wrote a play about what is happening in Turkey; he is writing for German media and reaching out to people via social media. Many Turkish people have come to Europe recently, and they are thinking about establishing institutions to campaign for democracy in Turkey. He referred to how the German opposition figures came to Turkey during the 1930s and tried to establish a radio station to reach people in Germany. He emphasised the need to do the same for Turkey now.

Clarke remarked that the exiled academics have an essential role in building the rule of law and democratic institutions in Turkey. She asked about Dündar’s play and the response it has got from around the world.

Dündar said people at the Royal Shakespeare Company were surprised that a journalist could be imprisoned, but many people can relate to his story. He mentioned the prison cell he was kept in had been recreated at the Gorky Theatre in Berlin. People can visit the cell and see how the prisoners are being held in the Silivri Prison. He is also exhibiting how the people that are imprisoned are communicating.

Clarke remarked about the artistic production of people in prisons being very impressive. Dündar mentioned Erdogan’s popularity declining, and now it was clear that he will go, but no one knew when or how.

Clarke read a question from a participant who asked, ‘What will it take for Erdogan to go?’

Dündar replied that Erdogan has been good at ‘selling dreams’ and mentioned how he recently came up with a plan to send a Turkish space mission to the Moon by 2023. He referred to Turkey’s massive police presence and how people don’t have the means to protest.

Another participant asked about Bogazici University students and staff’s protests and whether the government will reverse its decision to appoint a rector?

Dündar mentioned that it was remarkable that people got together to protest the government’s appointment, which shows that there is still potential for opposition. He does not believe that the government will reverse the decision but what the events show is that there is a huge need for an organised opposition in Turkey.

Clarke read another question from the participants about the UK’s response to Turkey, how it remained silent, and whether this was concerning?

Dündar said that the previous British PM visited Turkey just before an election, and she said nothing about the decline in the state of democracy, human rights or the rule of law in Turkey. She talked about nothing except arm sales to Turkey. Dündar said this was a disappointment to many people in Turkey and that the UK is not alone in behaving in this way. Germany behaves in a very similar way. He referred to Erdogan being capable of convincing Western states that everything is under control.

The event continued with further questions from the participants.

CEFTUS Online Talk “The role of religion and state identity transformation in Erdogan’s Turkey and its reflections to the Balkan Peninsula” with Ahmet Erdi Öztürk and Cengiz Çandar. Moderator of the discussion is Dr Derya Bayir.

When: Friday, 5 March 2021

              19:00 GMT

Photos of the event

This online talk focused on Dr Ahmet Erdi Öztürk’s recently published book Religion, Identity and Power: Turkey and the Balkans in the Twenty-First Century (Edinburgh University Press). The book focuses on Turkey’s foreign policy activism in the Balkans and unpacks the ethnoreligious and power-related political strategies Turkey has been pursuing in the Balkans during the Justice and Development Party (AKP). The talk explored some of the book’s themes and tried to explain how Turkey’s domestic ethnoreligious transformation in the 21^st century has impacted its relations with the Balkan Peninsula. Lawyer and academic Dr Derya Bayır chaired the event and also included comments by renowned Turkish journalist Cengiz Çandar on the central issues Öztürk’s book covers.

Öztürk began by thanking CEFTUS for organising the event and said that he was delighted to be sharing the platform with Cengiz Çandar, with whom he has conversed about the issues discussed in the book several times. Öztürk gave a brief account of how he conceived the idea for his PhD research that the book is based on. His numerous encounters with people in the Balkans made him decide to study Turkey’s engagement in the Balkan countries and the diverse reactions from the people of the region. He said his book was not only a politics or international relations book but was interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary. It was at the intersection of history, sociology, and anthropology. This approach was favoured because it would be very difficult to understand Turkey’s domestic transformations and their reflections outside Turkey.

Öztürk provided a brief outline of the argument he develops in the book. He said that many people put forward the ‘Turkey is back in the Balkans’ argument. Academics also talk about it. People say that Turkey’s engagement with the region and President Erdogan’s strategies concerning the Balkans have long been shaped and energised by Turkey’s desire to establish economic, political, religious, and cultural hegemony in the region.

In the book, Öztürk scrutinises Turkey’s increasing involvement and activism and seeks to uncover the role of religion, power and identity reflection in the Balkans in the new millennium. He explains this process by the domestic level changes taking place in Turkey, mainly through state identity change and the adoption of a Sunni Islamic identity. Öztürkasserted that Turkey uses an Islam based approach, which he defined as ambivalent soft power. He said he did field research between 2015 and 2019 and spoke to many political and policy elites.

Many scholars label Turkey as a secular country, but this does not tell the whole story because Turkish secularism or laiklik (based on French laïcité) resulted in the state’s domination of religion. However, the order based on this began a transformation under Erdogan, which resulted in developing a new state identity in Turkey. Öztürk argued that this has been creating tensions between Turkey and the countries in the Balkans. His book examines these tensions that he believes are caused by Turkey’s ethnic-nationalist Sunni Islamic identity. He said Turkey was invited to the Balkans because it was secular and offered an example to be followed by the Muslims in the region. However, Turkey’s increasingly ethnic-nationalist identity and its Sunnification under Erdogan in the past decade have generated anxiety and tension in the region.

Öztürk mentioned four issues regarding the transformation in Turkey’s engagement in the region and its identity. First, most of the region’s political elites considered Turkey’s activism as a service to the global ummah (the Islamic community). Second, it has led to the exportation of Turkey’s domestic conflicts, particularly the conflict between the Gülen movement and the AKP. Although that conflict might be over in Turkey, Öztürk argued that it is still very much alive in the Balkans. Third, it has led to a greater degree of interfering by Turkey in countries’ internal affairs in the Balkans. He mentioned that the AKP version of neo-Ottomanism seeks to turn Turkey into the dominant actor in the Balkans. Fourth, it led to the instrumentalisation of Sunni Islam and nationalism in Turkey’s foreign policy. Öztürkconcluded by a comment on Turkey being an ambivalent actor in the Balkans and emphasised that without a closer look at Turkey’s domestic context, it would be very difficult to make sense of its policy towards the Balkans.

Çandar started his talk by recounting meeting Öztürk. He reflected on his interaction with the Balkans and mentioned that his family has roots in the Balkans, and it is a region he is emotionally connected to. He noted that when he was advising President Turgut Özal in the early 1990s, the war in Bosnia and the Kurdish question were the areas he was mainly focused on. He then recalled visiting the region with President Özal just two months before his death in 1993. They were touring the region because Özal was keen to work towards a peaceful solution to Bosnia’s war. Çandar recalled many Macedonian Muslims lined along the road towards the airport to greet President Özal. It was like Muslims and Turks were greeting their Sultan, and thousands of people were there; it felt like an encounter that would have taken place in the 19^thcentury, and Muslims were there to greet their ruler. Çandar mentioned that in Ohrid, President Özal went into a tekke (a monastery of dervishes), and there was a group of children singing in Turkish. On the third day of the tour in Tirana, Albania, schoolchildren were singing in Turkish. Subsequently, this school became a Gülenist school, and the people running the school wanted President Özal to inaugurate the school. Despite the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ advice not to do it, Özal inaugurated the school. After President Özal’s untimely death, Turkey’s Balkans policy was frozen, and Turkey’s rulers were not very interested in the region because the relations were based on shared Muslim heritage and that was against the republic’s secularism.

Çandar offered some remarks on Öztürk’s book and the themes that it discusses. He said that the ethnic-nationalist Sunnification was a radical departure of the neo-Ottomanist approach that President Özal wanted to formulate. Özal was a pro-Western leader in a unipolar world and wanted to integrate the Balkans into the West. Hence, President Özal’s neo-Ottomanist project was different from the one articulated by President Erdogan. Erdogan’s neo-Ottomanism is a very nationalist, Islamist, sectarian and coercive project. He mentioned that Öztürk’s book also highlights the evolution of regime change in Turkey and that it opens many new and often controversial issues for further debate.

The event continued with Özturk’s response to some of the comments by Çandar and questions and comments from Bayır and the audience.

Dr. Ahmet Erdi Öztürk is an associate professor and Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow at Coventry University in the UK and GIGA in Germany (between 2021-2023) and  at London Metropolitan University. He is also an associate researcher (Chercheur Associé) at Institut Français d’Études Anatoliennes and Non-Residence Scholar at ELIAMEP’s Turkey Programme. He is the co-editor of Edinburg University Press’ Series on Modern Turkey and editor of International Journal of Religion. He was a Swedish Institute Pre and Post-Doctoral Fellow at Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO), at Linköping University, Scholar in Residence at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. He is the author of more than 25 peer-review journal articles, numerous policy reports, opinion pieces and co-editor of four special issues on religion and politics and Turkish politics. Dr. Öztürk is the co-editor of Authoritarian Politics in Turkey: Elections, Resistance and the AKP (IB Tauris 2017), Ruin or Resilience? The Future of the Gulen Movement in Transnational Political Exile (Routledge 2018) and Islam, Populism and Regime Change in Turkey (Routledge 2019). In January 2021, his first solo-authored book, Religion, Identity and Power: Turkey and the Balkans in the Twenty-First Century is published by Edinburgh University Press. He is a regular contributor to media outlets such as Open Democracy, The Conversation, Huffington Post and France 24.

Cengiz Candar

Distinguished Visiting Scholar” at the Stockholm University Institute of Turkish Studies and Senior Associate Fellow at UI (The Swedish Institute for International Affairs). Winner of Abdi Ipekçi Peace Prize in 1987 for contributing to Greek-Turkish relations. A public intellectual and a leading Turkish expert on the Middle East. Served as a Special Advisor to President Turgut Özal on foreign policy (1991-1993). The main architect of the establishment of Turkish-Kurdish relations. Public Policy Scholar- Wilson Center (1999) Washington, D.C. Senior Fellow, US Institute of Peace (1999-2000), Washington, D.C. Adjunct Professor on the Modern History of the Middle East in different universities, Istanbul (1997-2010). Veteran journalist since 1976, Columnist, Al-Monitor. Author of several books in Turkish and English. His bestseller (2012) (Mesopotamian Express – A Journey in History) is published originally in Turkish and also in Arabic and Kurdish languages. His latest book entitled Turkey’s Mission Impossible: War and Peace with the Kurds (with Eugene Rogan’s Foreword) published by Lexington Books in June 2020.

Dr Derya Bayir is the author of the book Minorities and Nationalism in Turkish Law. She obtained her doctorate from the Law Department at Queen Mary. Her thesis was awarded a prize by the Contemporary Turkish Studies Chair at the LSE. Derya has litigated many cases before the European Court of Human Rights, including the prominent case of Güveç v. Turkey. She was affiliated to GLOCUL as a visiting scholar while holding a Leverhulme Research Fellowship to research secular law and religious diversity in Turkey. Her areas of research include human rights, minority rights, diversity and law, and ethno-religious diversity in Turkey’s legal system, Nationalism, Ottoman pluralism, Constitutional Law, autonomous and federal state systems.

CEFTUS Online Talk: “TR/GR Relationships and USA” with Dr Soner Çağaptay, Dr Nicholas Danforth, Dr İlke Toygur. Moderator of the discussion – Dr Zeynep Kaya.

In 2020, tensions between Greece and Turkey had risen once again. These tensions are shaped by the complex history between the two states, the Cyprus Conflict, and the conflictual claims each state make about the boundary of its exclusive economic zone in the Eastern Mediterranean. In recent months, Turkey appears to be showing some restrain in its search for natural gas reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean. Exploratory talks have been held by Turkish and Greek delegations to resolve the issue. The need for mediation by the U.S. and Europe to help manage the tensions is also felt strongly. This panel discussion will explore the various aspects of the Turkish-Greek relations and assess how they may evolve during the Biden administration.

When: Wednesday, 10 March 2021

              18:00 GMT

The event is open to all and to join you must register via the link below

https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwqcuqhqzMpG9eIjKb20YoaWfG8EkMm6KJU

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

*The event is 1.5 hours long. The last 30 minutes will be a Q&A session.

Due to limited participation quota in Zoom event, we will be broadcasting our meeting live on Facebook as well.

Dr Soner Çağaptay is the Beyer Family fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute. He has written extensively on U.S.-Turkish relations, Turkish domestic politics, and Turkish nationalism, publishing in scholarly journals and major international print media, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and The Atlantic. He has been a regular columnist for Hürriyet Daily News, Turkey’s oldest and most influential English-language paper, and a contributor to CNN’s Global Public Square blog. He appears regularly on Fox News, CNN, NPR, BBC, and CNN-Turk. His latest book, Erdogan’s Empire: Turkey and the Politics of the Middle East, was published in September 2019 by I.B. Tauris. His books have been translated into Turkish, Italian, Greek, and Croatian.

A historian by training, Dr. Cagaptay wrote his doctoral dissertation at Yale University (2003) on Turkish nationalism. Dr. Cagaptay has taught courses at Yale, Princeton University, Georgetown University, and Smith College on the Middle East, Mediterranean, and Eastern Europe. His spring 2003 course on modern Turkish history was the first offered by Yale in three decades. From 2006-2007, he was Ertegun Professor at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies. Dr. Cagaptay is the recipient of numerous honors, grants, and chairs, among them the Smith-Richardson, Mellon, Rice, and Leylan fellowships, as well as the Ertegun chair at Princeton. He has also served on contract as chair of the Turkey Advanced Area Studies Program at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute. In 2012 he was named an American Turkish Society Young Society Leader.

Dr Nicholas Danforthis author of the forthcoming book The Remaking of Republican Turkey: Memory and Modernity since the Fall of the Ottoman Empire. He is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) and a visiting scholar at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. Danforth has previously covered U.S.-Turkish relations for the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Bipartisan Policy Center. He received his M.A. from the School of Oriental and African Studies and his B.A. from Yale. Danforth completed his Ph.D. in history at Georgetown University in 2015 and has written widely about Turkey, U.S. foreign policy, and the Middle East for publications including The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, War on the Rocks, and The Washington Post.

Dr İlke Toygur is Analyst of European Affairs at Elcano Royal Institute and CATS Fellow in German Institute for International and Security Studies (SWP). Her main research areas include European integration, EU institutions, political parties and elections in Western Europe, EU’s foreign policy, transatlantic relations and Turkish politics. After completing her studies in Economics she worked for more than two years in Economic Development Foundation (IKV), a Turkish think-tank focusing on the European Union and Turkey-EU relations. In 2016, she completed her PhD degree in Political Science in the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the Autonomous University of Madrid. Right before completing her PhD, she was granted the prestigious Mercator-IPC Fellowship in Istanbul Policy Center, Sabancı University. Ilke has been a Visiting Researcher in European University Institute (EUI), University of Mannheim, and Brookings Institution. She is a Fellow of Transatlantic Relations Initiative of the IE University and serves as a Board Member of Trans European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA). Ilke is native in Turkish and also speaks fluent English and Spanish.

Dr Zeynep Kaya is a Lecturer in International Development, Department of Social and Policy Studies, University of Bath. Her research looks at the international politics of the Middle East with a focus on Kurdish politics, gender and conflict.

Her book Mapping Kurdistan: Territory, Self-Determination and Nationalism was published in 2020 by the Cambridge University Press and she has also published journal articles, research papers, reports and blogs on Kurdish politics, democracy in Turkey, gender politics in Iraq, Yezidis and displacement in the Middle East.

She is Co-editor of Kurdish Book Series at I.B Tauris, Visiting Fellow at the LSE Middle East Center and Academic Associate at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge.