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ABSTRACT
The events that have happened since 2002, when the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power, contain rich research topics that need to be examined for many years by social scientists who work on Turkey. However, AKP’s cultural policies have not yet received sufficient attention in academic studies. The dissolution of the moderate atmosphere created by the EU accession negotiations and liberal policies in the early 2000s had a direct impact on AKP’s cultural policies in the 2010s. This article argues that the cultural policies implemented in the last decade, which I will define as yerli ve milli (homegrown and national) cultural policy, emerged intending to fill the cultural hegemony gap that manifested after the conservative art debates (2012), Gezi Park Protests (2013) and the termination of the Turkish-Kurdish peace process (2015). By analysing the formation and implementation levels of the yerli ve milli culture, the article shows that this unofficially implemented yerli ve milli cultural policy seeks to construct a neoliberal cultural space in which the Islamic elements are integrated into the traditional national cultural policies centred on Turkishness.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. On July 25, 2018, the Directorate of Communications was established and Fahrettin Altun was appointed its head, just nineteen days after Altun’s tweet. For an analysis of how the Directorate under Altun’s leadership is recasting Turkey’s history from a neo-Ottomanist perspective, see (Özer and Özçetin Citation2024).
2. Such complaints continue to be made by those close to the government. For two recent studies complaining about the inability to establish cultural hegemony, see (Bilgin Citation2022; Yıldırım Citation2018).
3. In the Turkish language, the word Türk has been a subject of debate for many years as it refers both to an ethnic origin and to every individual who is bound to the Republic of Turkey as a citizen. In the former sense, Türk emphasises ethnic ties with other Turkic communities in Central Asia, while in the latter it includes diverse identities such as Kurds, Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Assyrians, etc. who live in Turkey but are not ethnically Turkish. In the following pages, the words Turkic (Türki) or Turkist (Türkçü) will be used to emphasise the Turkish ethnicity in kinship with Central Asia.
4. For a comprehensive compilation of these essays, see (Gündoğdu Citation2012).
5. Although there has been a ‘National Cinema’ movement since the 1970s, which centred on the spiritual values of the Muslim-Turkish Anatolian people, especially put forward by director Yücel Çakmaklı and supported by his productions, the films produced under this movement have remained at a very low level compared to the total film production in Turkey.
6. The report ‘The Kurdish Policies of the Republic of Turkey’ prepared by the Kurdish Language Association (HezKurd) discusses these steps in more detail. See (HezKurd Citation2022).
7. For example, in a series of articles written in 1923, Ziya Gökalp, who is considered one of the ideologues of Turkism and was influential on the foundations of the Republic, labelled the process that began with the Republic as New Turkey. Doğan Avıoğlu, the editor-in-chief of the highly influential Left-wing political magazine Yön, used the term New Turkey in 1962 to describe the period that began after the 1960 military coup. See (Avcıoğlu Citation1962; Gökalp Citation1977).
8. See (Esayan Citation2016b, Citation2016b; Tenekeci Citation2014, Citation2015a, Citation2015b).
9. The preference of the word şûra over words like kurul (board) or komite (committee) can be considered a symbolic act. The concept of şûra is an Arabic word meaning consultation and has gained an important place in the Islamic tradition with reference to verses in the Qur’an that affirm consultation. The AKP’s attempt to revive obsolete words with references to Ottoman culture can also be seen in Erdoğan’s naming of the presidential palace he commissioned to be built as külliye, the Ottoman term for mosque-centred building complexes.
10. Alevi organisations strongly opposed the establishment of this unit by the state within the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and interpreted this move not as a recognition of Alevis, but as a way of defining and assimilating them by the state. See (Ertan Citation2022).
11. It should be emphasised that many artistic events and art activism challenge the politics of homegrown and national culture. However, since this text focuses on the lines of development of the perspective of homegrown and national culture from top to bottom, the alternatives and struggles against this policy are excluded from the scope of this study. See (Hecker Citation2022; Marcella Citation2022; Ozduzen Citation2021; E. Yıldız Citation2020) for bottom-up practices proliferated against the yerli ve milli culture.
12. The crisis between the AKP and the Gulenist movement, which erupted with the bribery and corruption operation in December 2013, turned into a full-blown war with the coup attempt in July 2016. As the AKP emerged from this war stronger, it started to use YEE, Maarif Foundation and TIKA more effectively against the Gulenist movement’s soft power, especially in the field of education and culture abroad. One of the most striking examples of this is the Turkish Language Olympiads organised by the Gülenists in Turkey between 2003 and 2013 with the participation of many prominent AKP figures, which was rapidly replaced by the Turkish Language Festival organised by YEE in 2015.
13. Necip Fazıl Kısakürek is one of the important representatives of Islamist thought and conservatism who developed a reactionary attitude towards the modern republic. With his magazine Büyük Doğu (Great East), which he published between 1943–78, he presented an Islam-centred political and cultural perspective and became an acclaimed intellectual reference point for the masses who relocated in the suburbs after the 1950s and the actors of the rising political Islamist movement, especially after 1980. See (Mardin Citation1994; Mollaer Citation2023).
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Erdem Çolak
Erdem Çolak is a lecturer in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Middle East Technical University, and a multidisciplinary artist. He received his Ph.D. degrees, respectively, from the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), University of Amsterdam; and the Graduate School of Social Sciences, Ankara University. He is the author of Manifesta, Art, Society and Politics: Creating A New Europe through Contemporary Art (Bloomsbury, 2024). His research areas include visual studies, memory studies, cultural policy and the intersection of politics and art.