Anonymity is the price for individual freedom in Turkey says survey

Turkey

A study under fire    

A study, which Bosphorus University contributed to, shows that many people in Turkey do not feel free. For example, it draws attention to the sad fact that female students are controlled and closely placed under surveillance by the owners of their dormitories.

Individual freedom, the price of which is anonymity, is possible in modern society: This was the result of a study to which, among others, Bosporus University and Open Society Institute made contributions. The survey was carried out in 12 Anatolian cities as well as in the Istanbul districts of Sultanbeyli and Bagcilar. In selecting the various cities, great efforts were made to include all regions of Turkey. The only areas left out of the study were the Aegean and Mediterranean coastal regions, which are greatly influenced by tourism and the concessions granted to it.

An object of research, for example, was whether those people who were interviewed were exposed to any type of pressure. The issues to what degree people have to make autonomous decisions as well as to what degree an individual feels free to make such decisions, have time and again been taken up in evaluating such groups of people. This, for example, is the case with regard to a chapter of the study regarding women’s opinions on the headscarf issue.

Young people generally show a high degree of intolerance toward unusual attire, hairdos and other components making up the style of an individual. Men with long hair or earrings and women with slacks or without a headscarf have reported being molested on the streets.

When the dormitory owner is in control … 

For students, control on the part of the owner of their dormitory adds up to the other problems: For example, dormitory owners reportedly forbid visits of students of the opposite sex. As of female students, the owners also stress that they should not leave their dormitory after dusk. In the universities, pressure is reportedly exerted by nationalist groups (ülkücüler).

Whether they take place at the university or in the streets, assaults, attacks or insults rarely become the object of a police investigation. It is reported that, in cities in Anatolia, young men and women can hardly get together.

Young Kurds furthermore report about harassment due to their ethnic origins. Such harassment means insults, discrimination and actual assaults. The most common complaint from this group is that they are not allowed to talk to one another in their mother tongue or to hear Kurdish music.

Public life during Ramadan

Restaurants and bars, but also cafeterias in public buildings are reportedly closed the whole day in many Anatolian cities. In many public buildings, not even tea is served. Smoking in the streets is often not tolerated. In order to evade the pressure, many students pretend to be fasting.

Most interview partners told the investigating team that, in their opinion, living conditions in their native cities were getting worse. Even if in several places, for example Batman and Trabzon, there are localities in the centre of the city where alcohol is indeed served and which are frequented by both men and women, the authors took note of the fact that there are hardly any women in the streets at night. Women have especially reported about social control in the streets, which curtails their freedom of movement. Such control regards their way of dressing, the places they are allowed to visit and the people they may meet. In many cities, women and men (haremlik/selamik) are strictly separated from one another in social and public life: Men and women do not touch each other in public and live in mostly separate worlds. The social pressure to which women are exposed also mostly comes from women.

A study as an object of criticism

Two aspects strike the eye when one follows the discussions taking place regarding this study. The first impression is that an evidently hostile attitude toward it on the part of various conservative authors appears, albeit unwillingly, to precisely confirm one of its key conclusions: For those who takes such great pains in playing down the importance and perceptions of people who see themselves marginalized actually run the risk of themselves being accused of marginalizing such people. It goes without saying that the great degree of emotion which comes up when the study is being discussed can be traced back to the topic of the study, inasmuch as social conflicts such as marginalization can never be dealt with without feelings. The topic is moreover tightly linked to the discussion regarding laicism which has dominated the political scene in the past two years and has greatly contributed to a polarization of politics and society. On the other hand, the CHP-Party, which had formerly been wont to stress the violations of the secular order on the part of the AKP, appears to have taken a different view in the past few weeks. The stance taken by the chairman of the CHP on the issue of accepting of women wearing headscarves as party members, namely that one should not conclude on how people think just from the style of clothes they wear could have contributed toward mellowing the animosity generated by differing viewpoints.

Various commentators have remarked that the study was actually not a scientific survey at all, but rather a journalistic commentary. Criticism often centres on the number of interviews conducted (401) and on the way in which the interview partners, male and female, were chosen. However, whoever takes the trouble of reading the study will come across a series of answers from its authors. To deal with such answers could well surpass the limits of what can be treated in an editorial. That certain methodological questions are indeed left unanswered – for example, more detailed information on the form of the interviews, the evaluation procedure chosen, the treatment of observation data and other such matters, which can serve as a point of departure for a discussion (for example, in the framework of a symposium), cannot, however, lead toward casting the entire study under a wave of fundamental doubt.

Under fire

It goes without saying that every human fundamentally has the right to voice criticism. And it is not the criticism as such which is annoying and which causes fear. Rather, it is the merciless invective of accusations hurled, day in, day out against the study by the media, especially by pro-government newspapers such as Zaman, Yeni Safak and Star, which is disgusting and shrouds any ray of hope for a better future. The vicious dispute does not at all appear to centre on a despicable reality. Rather, the fact that somebody dares to report about such a reality is considered by the opponents of the study as the pivotal point of their animosity. Toprak, the female scientist responsible for the study, asked in the course of a TV transmission whether no feelings of sympathy existed for the people whose accounts provided the framework of the study.

Are there bourgeois in Turkey?

Modern societies, too, are admittedly not completely immune to social control. However, the fundamental difference between them and a society like Turkey’s lies in the fact that an individual living in modern societies can evade such control in some way or another. Whoever would like to lead a life differing from the norm may do so in the framework of the degree to which a modern society guarantees an individual the right to live according to his or her opinions, preferences, etc. And it is exactly here wherein the problems which present-day Turkey confronts are rooted. Despite increasing modernity on the outside, the avenues of escape available are becoming all the narrower by the day. This process moreover corresponds to a growing bourgeois mentality that desires to impose its will on the other person and to permeate every niche of everyday life.

Christian Solidarity International (CSI)