“Sultan of the Net” – © EvrenKalinbacak/Shutterstock
The “Sultans of the Net” Turkish women’s volleyball team solidified their dominance at global level by winning the European Championships earlier this month, but the victory reignited divisions in the country over LGBT rights and identity.
On September 3, Turkey won the Women’s European Volleyball Championship in a major upset, avenging their loss to Serbia in the previous European Championships. After Turkey was declared the winner, 3-2, the players, affectionately known as the “Sultans of the Net,” danced, cheered and hoisted the trophy into the air as the sounds of Turkish drums and horns echoed around the volleyball court at the Palais 12 in Brussels.
One of the team’s stars, Ebrar Karakurt, known for his aggressive serve, was in tears as the Turkish national anthem played over the loudspeakers. Led by coach Daniele Santarelli, the team won its first world title by defeating defending champion Italy in the Nations League. Now crowned European champions, the online champions have their sights set on the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Such a victory would normally be a cause for pride, but in Turkey the joy was overshadowed by political controversy and hate speech. The controversy began over Karakurt, an outspoken female athlete who has faced harassment and insults over her sexual identity from religious extremists in Turkey. Although she has never openly identified as a lesbian, she was targeted after sharing photos of herself with a supposed boyfriend on social media.
Before the match in Brussels, X-user with the handle Abdülhamid, a name associated with one of the last Ottoman sultans and accepted by Turkish conservatives as an ideal Islamic leader, slammed Karakurt. “We, as Muslim Turkish citizens, will continue to tolerate you,” the user wrote. Karakurt replied, “Stop saying nonsense.” After her post went viral, Karakurt shared a photo of herself holding a poster of the same tweet. In response to this perceived disrespect for Sultan Abdülhamid’s memory, the Islamist daily Yeni Akit published an article calling Karakurt a “national disgrace.” Controversial former Ankara mayor Melih Gökçek issued a statement saying she was “an LGBT person who does not deserve to be on the national team.”
AKP: Anti-LGBTQ+ Political Agenda
These attacks against volleyball players who are alleged to be lesbians were reported by the Turkish government Attacks on the LGBTQ+ community. Although homosexuality is not illegal in Turkey, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has rallied its supporters around an anti-LGBTQ+ agenda. In his first speech after reelection in May 2023, Erdogan promised to pass constitutional reforms to “protect the family” from “perverts.” Meanwhile, some of the AKP’s Islamist allies want to criminalize homosexuality. They also attack the principle of coeducation and call for reforms to current laws on alimony, legal age of marriage, and divorce rights.
Deep debate and controversy
As the internet sultans prepare for the big game in Brussels, Karakurt has become a lightning rod for the debate over LGBTQ+ identity, which is part of a larger culture war in Turkey between those who want a Turkey based on religious identity and those who defend the country’s secular identity enshrined in the constitution. Mahir Akoyun, a left-wing graphic designer, An illustration of a female volleyball player hitting her fez, a symbol of the Ottoman Empire that was banned by secular leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in front of a rainbow instead of a ball prompted some Turkish social media users to express their hopes for a win for Turkey’s longtime rival, Serbia, against the Turkish national team.
The controversy continued during and after the match. Although the game was broadcast across Turkey, Istanbul’s AKP governor rejected the opposition-led mayor’s application to broadcast the match in the city’s iconic Taksim Square, the site of major anti-government protests in 2013. Faced with the reality of the team’s victory, key government figures congratulated the team but sidelined Karakurt. Mehmet Şimşek shared a photo of the team on social media with players out of frame. After the match, neither Karakurt nor the team’s MVP, Melissa Vargas, a shaved-headed Cuban who is widely believed to be a lesbian, were interviewed by Turkey’s national broadcaster TRT. In response, Karakurt On social media, she posted a photo of her and Vargas embracing each other with the caption, “This isn’t the first final we’ve played in, nor is it the first mind game we’ve fought.”
The role of women in sports and in public life in general has long been a topic of debate under the AKP government. Erdogan famously said, “Women and men cannot be equal. It is against nature.” Şimşek claims that high unemployment in Turkey is due to women seeking work. Media theologian and former Ministry of Religious Affairs official İhsan Şenoçak attacked the Sultan of the Internet in 2021: “Daughter of Islam! You are not the Sultan of the court, but the Sultan of faith, virtue, morality, modesty and courtesy. You are the child of a woman who was even ashamed to show her nose.” These views are by no means heretical. On her way to the Turkish Handball Championship, player Merve Akpınar, then 13 years old, spoke about the challenges girls face in sports. In her village of Şanlıurfari, she was told many times, “You are a girl. You should not wear shorts or play with boys.”
Turkish female athletes, such as Shahika Ercımen, the world record holder in freediving, and Ais Turkoglu, the first Turkish woman to swim the North Channel, are praised by the Turkish government for their achievements as long as they do not threaten this view of women as submissive, modest and demure. Karakurt was targeted because she is assertive, unapologetic and at peace with her sexuality. Outside Turkey, the online sultans have become symbols of women who reject the rules and boundaries set by religion. When footage of the athletes jumping and embracing each other after the final was shown, X was filled with Iranian women who wished they could dance as freely as their Turkish sisters.
Erdogan’s Ambiguity
Erdogan congratulated team captain Eda Erdem by phone after the team’s victory, but appeared to ambivalently join the controversy surrounding the Sultan of the Nets. statement In a post on September 6, he wrote that sports, arts and culture are areas in which Turkish people should feel proud and united, but that “we are beginning to see disrespectful people harassing our citizens on buses, subways, in stores and on the streets.” He went on to say that the nation “does not belong to a few” and promised to fight “social perversion.”
The president’s statement, at first glance, seems to lament how a sporting victory that should be a cause for national pride has become a narrow political debate. The reference to attacks on public transport reminded many of the incident that took place in Istanbul the day after the volleyball match, when a woman was caught on camera harassing another woman on a city bus, yelling, “You won’t turn my country into a lesbian!”
But Erdogan’s statements’ references to “perverts” and a “lewd minority” suggest that his target is elsewhere. In his speeches, his own supporters always form a righteous majority that represents the Turkish nation. In this view, women like Karakurt are “perverts” who ruin national pride.
As long as Turkish government officials continue to stoke social polarization and culture wars over issues of gender and sexuality, it will be difficult for the country to find any unity, even at a time when people of all political backgrounds and identities should be able to come together.
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