{"id":10676,"date":"2019-07-03T09:20:39","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T07:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=10676"},"modified":"2019-07-03T09:35:16","modified_gmt":"2019-07-03T07:35:16","slug":"transformations-of-the-gender-regime-in-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2019\/07\/transformations-of-the-gender-regime-in-turkey\/","title":{"rendered":"Transformations of the Gender Regime in Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Azadeh\u00a0Kian<\/span>\u00a0et Buket\u00a0Turkmen<\/span><\/strong>, \u00ab\u00a0Introduction:\u00a0<\/span>Transformations of the Gender Regime in Turkey<\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u00bb,\u00a0Les cahiers du CEDREF<\/em>, 22 | 2018, 15-22 (SOURCE<\/a>)<\/p>\n

This collective work is the outcome of a conference organised by the CEDREF (the organising committee was composed of Azadeh Kian and Buket Turkmen), which took place on the 22<\/span>nd<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0of March 2017 at the University Paris Diderot, with the financial support of the structuring action PluriGenre. <\/span><\/p>\n

The day was held in solidarity with our Turkish colleagues, all of them gender studies specialists, who signed the peace petition in Turkey and were discharged of their functions by the power in place. The 11<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0of January 2016, 1128 Turkish university professors signed a petition entitled \u201cWe will not be party to this crime\u201d. In it they denounced the armed-conflict taking place in Kurdish cities and villages of Turkey, on-going since July 2015. <\/span><\/p>\n

Following the petition\u2019s publication in the press, the Turkish president denounced the signatory academics and accused them of collaborating with the \u201cterrorists\u201d. Following this accusation, the number of signatories increased to reach 2213. They denounced exactions against human rights, repeated curfews, and the military operations in progress in the Kurdistan region.\u00a0<\/span>The petition, at the initiative of the \u201cAcademics for Peace\u201d<\/span>1<\/a>, thus accused the government of committing serious violations of both international and Turkish law. They demanded that the government implement all that was in its power to resume the peace negotiations in the Kurdish regions, and volunteered to participate in those negotiations as independent observers, voicing their refusal to be complicit of this crime.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The mass firings that followed these brave position statements caused the exile of those who were able to leave the territory<\/span>2<\/a>. The authors of this collective work are part of these exiled academics. They took refuge in institutions across Europe, but continue to fight for peace in Turkey.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The present collection offers an occasion, through the prism of gender, to analyse and debate on the connections between political authoritarianism and the gender regime. Authoritative regimes\u2019 first attempts are to erase all of the achievements of past feminist struggles as these advances challenge the patriarchal, conservationist and populist discourses of non-democratic regimes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the AKP\u2019s (the Justice and Development Party) rise to power following the 2012 legislative elections in Turkey, a new political current, termed \u201cMuslim democracy\u201d, was identified by some Political Islam specialists. They stated that unlike the traditionalists who do not attribute any genuine legitimacy to democracy but use it at best as a tactical tool with the sole purpose of gaining power, the aim of the \u201cMuslim democrats\u201d was not the establishment of an Islamic state or the inference of Islam in political affairs, but to participate in elections so as to form governmental coalitions that would serve individual and collective interests, both Islamic and secular, within a democratic arena<\/span>3<\/a>. Following this analysis, for the \u201cMuslim democrats\u201d, political change must precede religious change because it is not born out of theoretical principles but of political imperatives that then modify Muslims\u2019 attitudes toward politics and society. This analysis has been detrimental to the actors and actresses of predominantly Muslim societies, who have been trying to introduce profound changes in religious thought through\u00a0<\/span>ijtih\u00e2d<\/span><\/em>\u00a0(reinterpretations), arguing that the adaptation of religious thought must precede political democratisation. Thus, the impacts of the AKP and its politics reach far beyond the Turkish territory and its society.<\/span><\/p>\n

Betul Yarar\u2019s contribution examines the conceptual context and vocabulary employed by intellectuals and feminist militants, but also by other political groups that have criticised the AKP\u2019s policies. She divides the AKP\u2019s hegemony in two periods: the first, during which policies were defined by the regime\u2019s so-termed project of \u201cconservative democracy\u201d, a project built on a coalition between conservative and liberal Islamic intellectuals. In this period, oppositional critical discourses were framed, in particular by some of the New Left\u2019s viewpoints that are in resonance with the paradigm of New Social Movements. In the second period, the AKP\u2019s position became increasingly authoritative and conservationist, as defined by their new slogan \u201cone flag, one nation\u201d. According to the author, the oppositional groups\u2019 arguments started to become more efficient and concepts such as neo-kemalism and neo-fascism emerged to criticise this new political stance of the AKP. Betul Yarar here proposes an alternative theoretical frame that links various theories and advocates the upholding of a post-structuralist and neo-foucauldian reflective track, while seeking a new post-identity political trajectory.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hilal Alkan\u2019s article shows the ways and the extent in which war politics make use of the stigmatisation of women and women\u2019s representation. Her article demonstrates that the appropriation of three profiles of the Kurdish woman represent three stances that are taken regarding the Kurdish movement, all three of these characterisations being largely gendered: \u201c<\/span>the joyful freedom fighter, the woman to be saved and the dishonourable terrorist\u201d. The female Kurdish freedom fighter is largely re-appropriated by the West, all the while underestimating the historical conditions that made way for her emergence, and fetishizing her image of fighter and liberator. In Turkey<\/span>\u00a0the two profiles most utilised by official media channels are:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>the woman to be saved and the dishonourable terrorist. The stigmatisation of the Kurdish woman, politicised under the representation of \u201cdishonourable terrorist\u201d legitimises sexual violence against these women. \u201cThe Kurdish woman to be saved\u201d is, for her part, reduced to her mere biological and reproductive functions, crushed by traditions, and can be only be saved by governmental measures. For the author, all of these profiles work together to disregard Kurdish women\u2019s subjectivity under war politics.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zeynep Kivilcim\u2019s contribution demonstrates the point to which the State of Emergency, by using a judicial regime of exception, oppresses two gendered groups, the LGBTI and women. She shows the manners in which the weakening of the separation of powers prevents the women\u2019s movement from advancing its agenda within the state apparatus, and how it demolishes institutional frames of solidarity. Thus, the new regime, all the while calling upon the public-security discourse, threatens women\u2019s physical security as a result of the disruption of women solidarity networks. The destruction of the local democratic administration under the State of Emergency in Kurdish areas reinforces the public-security discourse and thwarts any civil organisation that would protect gendered groups in the region. Furthermore, Kivilcim, by drawing attention to torture practices, ill treatment and sexual violence that take place during interrogation, custody and detention, reinforces her hypothesis that the Emergency State, by using the public-security discourse, threatens the security of gendered groups. Nonetheless, both women and LGBTI continue to resist the Emergency State by taking to the streets and investing it as spaces of struggles. For Kivilcim, the crowds that fill the streets on the 8<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0of March and the 25<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0of November in Turkey, despite increasingly violent police interventions, are a testimony of this obstinate resistance.<\/span><\/p>\n

This resilience of women is also addressed in <\/span>Buket Turkmen\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>article, as she analyses the emergence of new female subjects during the 2013 Gezi movement. Turkmen underlines the difficulty for these new subjects, who emerged out of a pacifist and horizontal movement, to survive amidst a period of armed conflict. In this article, the new individual, still barely constructed on a basis of collectivist solidarity found in Gezi, is analysed in its relation with the State, the public space and Leftist movements in Turkey. The new Gezi female-subjects, in a simultaneous relation of rupture and continuity with feminism\u2019s heritage in Turkey, knew how to intervene in both the language and the organisation of a mixed movement so as to change its patriarchal attributes. Thus they could suggest a new horizon for the Left in Turkey, by defying its patriarchal bases. However, these new female-subjects face new challenges as to the possibility of expressing themselves in a public space that is increasingly militarised and regulated by security policies, as shows Zeynep Kivilcim.<\/span><\/p>\n

In her article, <\/span>Elif G\u00f6zdasoglu K\u00fc\u00e7\u00fckalioglu<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>analyses the underpinnings of the gender regime by the ruling power\u2019s discourses and through its policies targeting gender violence. She examines the legal and institutional changes aiming to prevent violence against women, all the while assigning women to their place within the family home. The author shows that legislative reforms are not necessarily followed by implementation, especially since this a context in which violence against women seems to be accepted as a part of daily life and reproduced through patriarchal discourse, notably that of the current president and of the AKP.<\/span><\/p>\n

In their contribution, <\/span>Ayse Dayi and Eylem Karakaya<\/span>\u00a0mobilise transnational feminist theory, emphasising neoliberal globalisation. They analyse recent transformations by looking at the AKP\u2019s health program and particularly reproductive politics and health\u2019s neoliberal restructuring, which reduces the state\u2019s role in the regulation of healthcare. In order to examine the impact of the debt economy on abortion and birth control services, the authors undertook a study in seven cities across the country. The results show the dismantling of public health care, the creation of individual debt and the quantification of care. These neoliberal mechanisms interact with the anti-abortion and anti-birth control conservative discourse, which leads to an erosion of women\u2019s rights and of women\u2019s access to contraceptive methods and abortion in Turkey. Women are assigned to their role within the family and family is designated as \u201cthe pillar of society, of national unity and well-being\u201d thus denying women the social services of care.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cagla Aykac\u2019<\/span>s contribution is a brief report of the process which led our colleagues to Paris to participate in the study day. The process in question extends from a period of relative democracy and freedom in Turkey in the years 2000-2010, through the days of resistance in Gezi and the elections that followed, to a period of armed conflict in which the gains of the past period are fading away quickly and the borderline between \u201clegal\u201d and \u201cillegal\u201d resistance is becoming increasingly ambiguous and blurred. In the new period, the rules of violence and of conflict are imposed and individuals are invited to opt for silence and submission. The coming together of some academics around a petition proclaiming \u201cthey shall not be accomplices of this crime\u201d is a strong and obstinate response to this silence requisite.\u00a0<\/span>Aykac<\/span>\u00a0believes that breaking the silence is the common feature of feminist struggles: \u201cOur path is made by breaking the wall of silence and being cheerful about it. In truth we have never had the luxury of being neutral.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Notes<\/span><\/h2>\n

1<\/a>\u00a0The Academics for Peace initiative was brought together for the first time in November 2012 when 264 colleagues from 50 universities, united around a petition supporting the hunger strike of Kurdish prisoners, with the aim of pressuring the government into resuming peace negotiations with the Kurdish movement. Then, in December 2012, they published a statement indicating their decision to produce scientific knowledge on the Kurdish problem. Accordingly, the Academics for Peace decided to pursue on an academic path that would concentrate on the production of knowledge on the Kurdish question and to integrate it in their courses\u2019 syllabus. When the peace process started in 2012, these university professors contacted the government with their research and scientific reports to offer an academic support to the political process. The return to war, after 2015, incited many more academics to develop an interest in the question, outside of the initiative. These academics were not necessarily specialists on the question, nor were they all politically engaged, however, as Turkish citizens and intellectuals, they suffered from being mere witnesses of this war and the rise of terror, none of which was justified in their eyes. The 2213 signatures on the petition represent almost every university in Turkey, which is the sign of the broadening of this pacifist sensibility. Today, the Academics for Peace initiative regroups a very wide range of academics, and consequently reveals the convergence of struggles around the peace question in Turkey.<\/span><\/p>\n

2<\/a>\u00a0Following the coup attempt in Turkey on the 15<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0of July 2016, a State of Emergency regime was implemented. Under the State of Emergency, the purge against peace academics intensified: via law-decrees, 389 signatories were fired (along with hundreds of thousands other civil servants in Turkey). Amidst such political conditions, in December 2017 \u2013 one year after the petition \u2013 the Istanbul prosecutor opened individual lawsuits, with the same indictment against the signatories: they are charged with article 7\/2 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, which gives rise to 1 to 7.5 years of imprisonment. The trial was opened to 265 signatories in the beginning, but is it expected it will gradually include the rest of the signatories. The trials continue, and almost every week our colleagues are being judged in the court of assizes.<\/span><\/p>\n

3<\/a>\u00a0Nasr, Vali, \u00ab\u00a0The Rise of Muslim Democracy\u201d,\u00a0<\/span>Journal of Democracy<\/span><\/em>, avril 2005, p. 13.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Table of contents<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Azadeh KIAN & Buket TURKMEN :<\/strong><\/p>\n

Introduction: \u00a0Transformations of the Gender Regime in Turkey<\/p>\n

Betul YARAR :<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reflecting on The Oppositional Discourses Against the AKP\u2019s Neoliberalism and Searching for a New Vision for Feminist Counter Politics<\/p>\n

Hilal ALKAN :<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Sexual Politics of War: Reading the Kurdish Conflict Through Images of Women<\/p>\n

Zeynep KIVILCIM :<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gendering the State of Emergency Regime in Turkey<\/p>\n

Buket TURKMEN: \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Gezi Revolt and the Solidarist Individualism of \u00ab\u00a0\u00c7apulcu\u00a0\u00bb Women (marauder)<\/p>\n

Elif G\u00d6ZDASOGLU K\u00dcC\u00dcKALIOGLU :<\/strong><\/p>\n

Framing Gender-Based Violence in Turkey<\/p>\n

Ayse DAYI & Eylem KARAKAYA :<\/strong><\/p>\n

Transforming the Gendered Regime Through Reproductive Politics: Neoliberal Health Restructuring, The Debt Economy and Reproductive Rights in Turkey<\/p>\n

\u00c7a\u011fla AYKAC : \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

On resistance, Women and the Petition of the Academics for Peace<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

To order the publication: valerie.lowit@univ-paris-diderot.fr(link sends e-mail)<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tel: +33 (0) 157276686<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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