Turkey’s longtime leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan easily won Sunday’s run-off election, extending his rule into his 30th year. The divisive campaign enthused conservative supporters but antagonized critics, including many of the country’s artists.
His opponent, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, warned that the election was the last chance to “shut the gates of hell” on Erdoğan’s authoritarian rule, which has undermined democratic norms, but most voters I ignored it. Preliminary results from Sunday’s vote showed the incumbent candidate receiving 52% of the vote, compared with 48% for Mr. Kulçdaroğlu.
Turkey’s creative community is concerned that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will intensify a long-standing crackdown that has threatened artists, musicians, filmmakers and other cultural activists. President Erdogan has exploited social rifts to galvanize religious and nationalist voters, claiming the opposition is “LGBT” and labeling the main Kurdish bloc of 5 million voters as “terrorists”. Kurdish, female and gay artists feel particularly vulnerable.
“I’m worried about the environment in which I create my work. I’m not at the stage where I apply self-censorship… But when I see people shutting themselves in their shells, I worry about the community,” said Fatosh Irwen. To tell. state. Irwen, a Kurd, served a three-year prison sentence for participating in political protests before being released in 2020.
Osman Kavala, a philanthropist who supported marginalized artists in Turkey, and film director Sidom Mater remain in prison for their roles in large-scale anti-government protests 10 years ago. .
“Many artists feel alienated in a society where freedom of expression is curtailed and yet President Erdogan is re-elected. What should I do?” says Kürtigin Khan Akbult, art critic and founding editor of the website Argonotlar.
Erdogan has long lamented the power of art to inspire political action and vowed to raise a new generation to strip his opponents of cultural influence. In the past year alone, the government has canceled a dozen music festivals and pulled state funding from projects that strayed from the official narrative, such as “Burning Days,” which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival but was forced to return the Culture Ministry’s funds at the government’s request. Allied media called the film gay propaganda.
On the eve of the election, Turkey’s culture wars were reignited when Merve Dizdar became the first Turkish woman to win the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grass.” Ms. Dizdar dedicated her award to “the spirits that strive for better days for Turkey.”
In response, Turkey’s Deputy Culture Minister Serdar Çam compared her to anti-Turkish “lobbies” in Western countries. Regarding her funding, the deputy minister said on Twitter: “The piece of the pie that you don’t deserve will be gradually distributed to new cadres who are currently in training.”
Private companies stepped in to violate funding for the nation’s largest cultural institutions and events. But their dependence on friendly relations with governments to operate their businesses in the commercial sector may encourage silence about state intervention in culture, including Ms. Kabbalah’s imprisonment.
“Kabbalah remains in prison because he is a symbol and a message to those with capital that if they get involved, open up art spaces and try to strengthen civil society, this will happen. That’s the message,” Akbulut says.
The Istanbul Modern Art Museum invited Erdogan to speak this month after it reopened in a Renzo Piano-designed building inside the cruise ship port and shopping complex on the Bope Strait. In a speech that sounded like a stump, Erdogan lambasted the disregard for traditional Ottoman culture and said criticism of his own cultural heritage, particularly the 1,000-room presidential palace he built on former woodland in the capital, Ankara, was “a lie and slander. Propaganda.”
However, independent curator Kerimcan Güleruz, who runs the Empire Project Gallery, said the opening of Istanbul Modern, whose mission is to make contemporary art accessible to all strata of society, was an important move in the current climate. He says this shows how important art is.
“The pressure cooker that Turkish artists use produces better art. Turkish art is political precisely because it can be considered a thought crime,” Gülerüz says. “The community understood what democracy was good for, and they understood that they had to fight for it.”
Working as a Kurdish artist in Turkey, Ilwen “feels like the grass on the couch. That’s the tenacity we need right now,” she says. “What gives me hope is that this election will be a motivation for artists. For that, it is important, both morally and materially, that educational institutions do not abandon artists now. ”
