03 Apr 17 | News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
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Enough is Enough, a play formed as a gig, tells the stories of real people about sexual violence, through song and dark humour. It is written by Meltem Arikan, directed by Memet Ali Alabora, with music by Maddie Jones, and includes four female cast members who act as members of a band.
While touring Wales recently with my new play Enough Is Enough, I thought about what I experienced with my earlier work in Turkey. But which Turkey?
In the so-called “New Turkey”, everything is being surveilled by the government, from plays and books to everything you share on social media. There were no undercover Welsh police or prosecutors sitting in the audience in Newport or Pontypridd.
We designed Enough is Enough as a touring project. We went to 21 different Welsh venues in 21 different places, north, south, east and west, in less than a month. Audience members had strong positive reactions and some suggested that the production should be taken into schools. In the New Turkey even thinking about taking the play to schools would be enough to be accused of something unimaginable. If you dared sing the songs sung in Enough is Enough, you can be sure you would receive a violent reaction.
When you confront reality in a direct way, even if it is through art, governments around the world do not want to hear your voice. The New Turkey’s government is only an extreme example. When you speak truths, governments do not want you to be heard – they do not want you at all.
Yet when you show reality in a direct way, when you slap the audience with pain, the reaction becomes the same everywhere. First they are shocked, then they find you unusual, but in the end they compliment you for doing it.
During our tour of Wales, people let us into their hearts, looked after us and many venues promised to invite us again. Audience members shared their stories with us. Many wanted to work with us, others supported us unconditionally.
After every performance we had “shout it all out” sessions. We heard repeatedly how many of the issues we confront on stage – sexual violence, oppression and misogyny – are being swept under the carpet because people don’t like to discuss them.
These sessions took me back to a time before I wrote Mi Minor, the play accused of being a rehearsal for the Gezi Park protests in 2013. A time before I had to leave the country because of those accusations. A time before the innovations in the New Turkey was not as horrifyingly obvious as they are now. A time when the AKP, the ruling party of Turkey, was backed not just by the liberals in Turkey but liberals around the world. Back then I was told I was wrong about the government. It was in 2007 that I wrote a play entitled I am Breaking the Game.
That play premiered in Zurich and toured to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Istanbul and Ankara. No matter where it was performed there was a particular reaction that stuck with me: “These issues are not our issues, they belong to the East.”
I was inspired by the stories of people I know personally. I was in touch with the victims of domestic violence, honour killings, rape, incest and sexual abuse. I knew all stories were true. So I wasn’t sure why then so many didn’t see these issues as theirs. I searched and searched for this place far away from everyone and everything, where all these horrible things keep happening, called the “East”. Eventually I found myself in the West.
After graduating from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, actor Pinar Ogun felt inspired by Breaking the Game. She felt angry that the run of the play was short in Turkey and she became passionate — almost obsessed — to stage it in London. She tried to convince her instructors at LAMDA, artistic directors of various venues and theatre friends to make it happen. She even introduced me to a couple of people who showed interest, but the reaction was again the same: “Of course these issues are very important but these issues are not our issues, they belong to the East. We resolved these issues in the 1970s. Such plays, performances have been done in the past. These are very old discourses.”
Laurie Penny was one of the only people who had a different reaction. She interviewed me nine years ago: “However much she is hounded by Turkish authorities and tutted at by European theatre goers, one thing is certain: Meltem Arikan is not about to roll over and hush. And thank goodness for that.”
When slapped in the face does it hurt less in the West than in the East?
Why is it considered a social phenomenon when women are killed in the name of honour in the East but an individual crime when women are killed in the name of passion, obsession or jealousy in the West? Child marriage in the East is seen as a nightmare. But, in the West, does calling pregnant children “teen moms” prevent their lives from turning into a nightmare?
After I was forced to leave Turkey and began living in Wales, Ogun restarted her campaign to stage I am Breaking the Game. A year ago, I finally said yes. I’ve been observing a West that has been dazzled by the light of past enlightenments, alienated from its very own issues, attached to the chains of concepts and utterly disconnected to its reality. With Ogun’s company, Be Aware Productions, we applied to Arts Council Wales for research and development funding. But even after the grant was awarded, I was afraid I would still hear the echoes of the long-dead rejection: “These issues are not our issues, they belong to the East”, “the stories of the East”, “The East…”
My rejections, my questions, my issues.
During our research process we met with Welsh sex workers, organisations that help and support women facing violence, and victims. My initial idea was to replace these new stories with the stories in the play, but then I decided to write a new play entirely.
I developed the play with stories of abuse, rape and incest from Britain, all true stories, all had actually happened in these lands. Sometimes I used the exact words of the victims, sometimes I made them more poetic, but most importantly, in order to reach the hearts of the audience, I decided to use the magic of music and that’s how the idea of making it a gig-theatre came to be.
My rejections, my questions, my issues.
When writing Enough is Enough, my intention was to become a megaphone to the people who are facing violence here, to point to the elephant in the room by talking about incest and to underline the fact that when it is about the existence of women and men, those in the West and those in the East were the same.
I dare to say this because I can see blatantly that no matter how much cultures, cuisines, languages, clothes, ethnical backgrounds have managed to differentiate each and every one of us, no matter whether we were born in the West or in the East, we’re all forced to have the life forms designed by the patriarchy and so we are all dominated by the same fears for thousands of years.
Just like the East, the West also lives in its own virtual world built on the concepts of the patriarchal culture. And the relative comfort of this world doesn’t mean a thing for the victims. Just like Turkey, just like France, just like Yemen, just like the USA, women, children and men in Britain become victims. Abuse, rape and incest endlessly continue to exist with all its savagery within society, behind closed doors. The pain and consequences of this ongoing violence continue to be ignored. And while children become the children of fear, not the children of their parents, all around the world violence continues to beget violence. Those who face their pain empathise with victims, whereas those who escape their pain empathise with the perpetrators.
During the Wales tour, the reaction from people who were violated, who knew what violence was, who did not escape from their pain, who faced themselves, who were not in denial of their experiences, in short, the reaction from people who knew the pain of reality, was warm, open and stripped-down. We received the biggest support from women’s organisations, women, some brave men, young people and the LGBT community.
On 8 April 2017 at the Wales Millennium Centre and from the 26-29 April at Chapter Arts Centre, we will continue to say “Enough is Enough”. This time our goal is to reach promoters and artistic directors for an England tour. We want to make our voice be heard in England, and shout “Enough is Enough” together with the English audience.
I really wonder about the reaction of the audience in England. Will they be as open as the Welsh audience or will they keep repeating their apologies while saying these are the East’s problems. The irony is that this time we will be coming from the West, at least west of England.
Yet, whatever the reaction of the audience in England may be, I know for sure there won’t be any audience members who try to organise a mob against us.
Whatever the reaction of the audience in England may be, I know for sure the play would never be banned with the accusation of “disturbing the family order”.
Whatever the reaction of the audience in England may be, I know for sure that newspapers won’t run a smear campaign against the actors because of our play.
Whatever the reaction of the audience in England may be, I know for sure I won’t receive any death threats just because I dared to address violence against women. [/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
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02 Apr 17 | Magazine, Magazine Contents, Volume 46.01 Spring 2017
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The spring issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at how pressures on free speech are currently coming from many different angles, not just one. Richard Sambrook, former director of global news at the BBC, shows how journalists are in a bind, caught between what advertisers want and what readers want. Also looking at journalists, Duncan Tucker casts his eye on the grave situation in Mexico, where getting to the truth involves working against the government, violent cartels and even coworkers.
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Meanwhile, in the Maldives Zaheena Rasheed shows how a mix of forces conspire against those who want to write anything beyond the usual tourist sale pitch.
But the squeezes on free expression don’t just concern journalists. Annemarie Luck reports from Japan, where penis festivals are popular, but women struggle to discuss their own bodies. Can they find a voice through art and manga? For musician Smockey from Burkina Faso, art should indeed be a way to confront truth and yet that’s not always the case. Expectations run high for him to not be “too political” in his lyrics.
Universities, normally the cradle of free expression, aren’t faring too well either, as two articles show. Jan Fox reports from the USA, where bias response teams are becoming a staple of US collegiate life. In South Africa Fees Must Fall has created a divide between right and left, writes Natasha Joseph, with neither side talking to each other and those in the middle being silenced altogether.
Outside of our special report, Roger Law, creator of the iconic TV satire Spitting Image, talks about the great fun he had with the series back in the day and questions whether the show would be able to air today. Alfonso Lázaro de la Fuente might say no. He was one of the Spanish puppeteers arrested last year for a show that referenced Basque-separatist organisation ETA. In an Index exclusive, he explains what the charges have meant for his personal and professional life.
Want to know how to spot fake news? Then read Reel-time news in which Index’s team of experienced global reporters offer tips on how to spot fake news from a mile/screen away. And don’t miss Martin Rowson‘s fake o’clock news, a hilarious – and sinister – take on what a future of alternative facts would look like.
Index also publish an interview with Turkish journalist Canan Coşkun, whose coworkers are currently in jail, and a pair of writers discuss the situation of free speech in Poland, which is tumbling down global charts following the election of the Law and Justice party. And in the UK, former attorney general Dominic Grieve reveals that MPs are avoiding hard talk in parliament.
Finally, the culture section includes a short story from award-winning French writer Karim Miské and original work from Vyacheslav Huk, a Crimean novelist who is unable to publish work in his mother tongue.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”SPECIAL REPORT: THE BIG SQUEEZE” css=”.vc_custom_1481731933773{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
The Big Squeeze: Freedom of speech under pressure
Fact-filled future? by Rachael Jolley: Journalists need to step up, and produce more detailed news coverage. The public needs it
Between a rock and a hard place, by Duncan Tucker: Mexico’s journalists face threats from cartels, the government and each other
Reality rapped, by Smockey: An award-winning musician from Burkina Faso explains why he won’t water down his lyrics to avoid rocking the boat, despite pressure to do so
Talking a tightrope, by
Kaya Genç: Despite the crackdown in Turkey, the post-Gezi spirit still survives among the determined
Taking the bait, by Richard Sambrook: The quest for instant gratification online is seriously compromising news reporting
Dangerous minds, by Natasha Joseph: Rather than creating an alliance, Fees Must Fall is limiting free speech at South Africa’s universities, leaving some early supporters disheartened
Japan’s Madonna complex, by Annemarie Luck: Japan’s contradictory attitudes include highly sexualised images of women and women not being allowed to talk about sex-related subjects
Squeezed in the closet, by Hannah Leung: Get married and be quiet are the messages China’s LGBT community is given
Degrees of separation, by Jan Fox: The author investigates units appearing on US campuses suggesting students should report lecturers who they feel are biased
Dying to tell a story, by Sadaf Saaz: The list of what Bangladesh writers cannot talk about is getting longer, but that isn’t stopping some from writing
Trouble in paradise, by Zaheena Rasheed: Behind the image of palm-lined beaches is a side of the Maldives the government doesn’t want you to see
Your cover is shown, by Mark Frary: Tech giants and governments are out to get your data. Soon it might be impossible to remain anonymous
Stripsearch cartoon, by Martin Rowson: Tune in to the fake o’clock news
Composing battle lines, by Steven Borowiec: Why have South Korean pop stars found themselves caught in crossfire between their country and China?
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”IN FOCUS” css=”.vc_custom_1481731813613{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
We have no time for fear, by Canan Coşkun: A Turkish journalist on the perils of reporting in her country when fellow reporters are imprisoned
Reel-time news, by Natasha Joseph, Kaya Genç, Jemimah Steinfeld, Duncan Tucker, Abraham T Zere, Raymond Joseph: As “fake news” dominates headlines, Index’s global team of experienced journalists offers tips on how to spot falsehoods before you click and share
Singing from the same hymn sheet, by Suhrith Parthasarathy: Rising Indian nationalism is creating a repressive state where non-conformity is deemed unpatriotic
Poland: Special Focus, by Wojciech Przybylski, Marcin Król: Poland has gone from free speech hero to villain almost overnight. Two writers discuss the shift and why history is being rewritten
Shooting from the hip, by Irene Caselli: A new mayor in a Mexican border city believes he will make it less dangerous for journalists
Silence in the house, by Dominic Grieve: The former UK attorney general says MPs are shying away from tough topics in parliament
Puppet masters, by Roger Law: The creator of iconic TV satire Spitting Image on whether we still have our sense of humour
Drawing the line, by John Power: Australia is debating free speech, one cartoon at a time. Cartoonist Bill Leak interviewed just before he died
Puppet state, by Alfonso Lázaro de la Fuente: A Spanish puppeteer, arrested after terrorism charges related to a show, discusses the impact on his life
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”CULTURE” css=”.vc_custom_1481731777861{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Novel take on terror, by
Karim Miské: The award-winning crime writer on why fiction and reality overlap. Plus his short story featuring a future where tech rules supreme. Interview by Sally Gimson
The war of the words, by Amira Hanafi: Translated extracts from an American-Egyptian writer’s project to capture the shifting linguistic landscape in Egypt since 2011. Interview by Sally Gimson
Crimean closedown, by Vyacheslav Huk: The Crimean novelist on being unable to publish in his mother tongue and a story of the narrator’s memories. Introduced and translated by Steve Komarnyckyj
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Index around the world, by
Kieran Etoria-King: What to look out for at Index’s Freedom of Expression Awards 2017, alongside news of other projects that Index has been working on in the last few months
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”END NOTE” css=”.vc_custom_1481880278935{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]
Getting print out, by Jemimah Steinfeld: Self-publishing may be a new solution to censorship in China and other countries
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”SUBSCRIBE” css=”.vc_custom_1481736449684{margin-right: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 1px !important;padding-bottom: 15px !important;border-bottom-color: #455560 !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”][vc_column_text]Index on Censorship magazine was started in 1972 and remains the only global magazine dedicated to free expression. Past contributors include Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Marquéz, Nadine Gordimer, Arthur Miller, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and many more.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”76572″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]In print or online. Order a print edition here or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions.
Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester), Calton Books (Glasgow) and on Amazon. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.
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31 Mar 17 | Mapping Media Freedom, News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
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“I wear my Turkish and Muslim identity as easily a pair of well-worn jeans. I no longer worry that my writing will land me in trouble.”
These were some of the heady feelings I shared with Yeni Safak, a highbrow pro-Islamic newspaper, in a 2005 interview. Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) had been in power for just three years. Overtly pious yet savvily flexible AKP used its big popular mandate to dismantle decades of army tutelage and embark on a giddying raft of reforms. Turkey, it seemed, was on a path to full-blooded democracy, shaming the European Union into opening talks for Turkish membership that same year.
It was a golden age. Erdogan became the first leader to publicly acknowledge that the country’s long-suffering Kurds had been treated unfairly by the state. Bans on the Kurdish language were steadily eased while Kurdish rebel leaders sat opposite Turkish government officials to hammer out a deal for lasting peace.
The changes swept across the ethnic, religious and ideological divide. Using the word genocide which accurately captures the horrors that befell the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 was no longer a criminal offence. In 2003, Turkey’s long-suppressed yet vibrant LGBT community held its first ever gay pride march in Istanbul. In 2011, Zenne, a film about the first officially recorded gay honour killing in Turkey, swept five of the country’s prestigious Antalya Golden Orange awards including best film. That night as I snuggled in bed with my beloved friends and the film’s co-directors, Caner Alper and Mehmet Binay, my heart soared. Albeit in fits and starts, my country was becoming a community of shared values, where citizens of all stripes and creeds could find a place for themselves, be respected, and treated equally before the law. And yes, a majority Muslim country that could prove to hundreds of millions of other Muslims living under thuggish regimes that yes, it is possible, that yes, they too can become us, this. Or so I believed.
Six years on it all seems like a distant dream.
Today, Yeni Safak, is nothing but a government propaganda sheet, spouting off obscene conspiracy theories about how everything from the failed July 2016 coup attempt, to the deadly New Year’s Eve shooting spree at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, were all engineered by the USA, and other dark forces bent on destroying Turkey.
Apparently I was among them. Turgay Guler, the managing editor of another pro-government title, Gunes, said I helped “plan” the Reina attack. He declared this to his 480 thousand plus Twitter followers unleashing a tidal wave of cyber threats which inundated my timeline for days. The tweet has not been removed. A Turkish prosecutor saw no harm in it and ignored my formal complaint, as has Twitter. Yet, well over a hundred of my colleagues, some of them dear, trusted friends, are languishing in jail for airing critical views of the government that are grounded in hard facts.
Peace with the Kurds is also on thin ice. A two and a half year-long ceasefire with the Kurdish rebels broke down in July 2015, soon after Mr Erdogan disowned a draft roadmap for peace that was initiated between his government and Kurdish leaders. The rebels recklessly threw coals on the fire by carrying the battle into towns and cities. Over 2,000 people, at least 300 of them are thought to be civilians, have died in the fighting since then
Emboldened by the new spirit of openness Diyarbakir, the biggest and most vibrant city in the mainly Kurdish south-east region had been striving to recreate its multi-cultural past. Udi Yervant, a renowned Armenian oud virtuoso gave up his life in California to return. Today, Diyarbakir is a ghost of its former self. Large chunks of its historic centre, home to a glorious Armenian Orthodox church, and a cherished Ottoman mosque, were pulverised following months of bitter fighting between Kurdish rebel youths and Turkish security forces, who bloodily prevailed. Diyarbakir’s co-mayors, a man and a woman, in keeping with the main Kurdish parties’ emphasis on gender equality, are currently in prison on thinly-supported terror charges.
Tens of thousands of others have been sacked, jailed or both, on tenuous charges of involvement in the failed putsch. Fethullah Gulen, the Sunni cleric and a former ally of Erdogan is accused of masterminding the coup. While there is little doubt that many of his associates were involved few believe they were acting alone.
Torture and arbitrary detentions are once again the norm. Not since the 1980 coup has Turkey been this divided, broken and grim. Should yes votes outnumber the nos in a critical referendum on formalising the vast powers Erdogan already exercises, Turkey’s sharp turn towards authoritarianism can only accelerate. And in the opposite case a fresh cycle of revenge may be on the cards.
How did it come to this? Many say it is because Erdogan was never serious about democracy. His real goal all along was to supplant the generals’ tutelage with his own. Others blame Turkey’s perennially squabbling pro-secular opposition politicians.
Power crazed Gulen has caused incalculable harm as well. Then there is Europe which held out the hope of full membership only for the likes of Germany’s Angela Merkel and the former French president, Nicholas Sarkozy to declare that it was all a farce. Turkey was too big, too Muslim and too poor. Either way, the rise of populism and xenophobic nationalism infecting Turkey is a global trend.
Many cast the April 16 referendum as a final chance to turn back the clock. But the odds are heavily stacked against the opposition. The referendum is being held under emergency rule. The government has virtually full control of the media. It is painting the vote as a choice between Erdogan and the abyss, between patriotism and treachery. Whatever the outcome, Turkey has entered uncharted waters. The big question now is how long it can remain afloat.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
[/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1490975695361-635cda74-947b-0″ taxonomies=”8607″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
28 Mar 17 | News and features, Turkey, Turkey Uncensored
[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content”][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”87772″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Semih Poroy left the Istanbul University Law School to devote himself to the world of cartoons. His first works appeared in Akbaba (The Condor), Turkey’s oldest humour magazine, in 1975.
In 1988 he became a full-time member of the daily Cumhuriyet, to which he had been submitting as a freelancer since 1977. His comic strip Harbi has been running in this newspaper since 1989. For the last ten years he has been drawing the full-page Feklavye, a satire of the literary world, for Cumhuriyet’s book supplement.
In addition to many articles on cartoons and humour published in art and culture periodicals, Poroy has five published cartoon collections (the last ones in 2008: Feklavye and Ohne Worte).
Poroy was elected as the chairman of the Cartoonists Society of Turkey in 1984 at the national cartoonists congress.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Turkey Uncensored is an Index on Censorship project to publish a series of articles from censored Turkish writers, artists and translators.
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