February 23, 2009
This is the third and final post in my
"Turkish Politics and the News" trilogy. I hope it's been as fun for
you as it has been for me. In my first post from a couple of days ago,
I wrote about the machinations which had brought ATV-Sabah, the second
largest media group in Turkey, under the control of Turkish Prime
Minister Tayyıp Erdoğan's son-in-law, and the attacks that the largest
media holding company in Turkey, the Doğan Media Group, is now facing
from Turkey's finance ministry. In my post yesterday,
I discuss the Ergenekon trial, and my concerns that it is being used to
not only unearth secrets from Turkey's "Deep State," but also to attack
the opposition.
Today I'm going to talk about American coverage of Turkish politics, as well as discuss a newspaper, Taraf, which is becoming increasingly influential among foreign observers of Turkey.
In the great majority of stories written by American observers of Turkey,
the Turkish military is typically presented as the "bad guy" of Turkish
politics with respect to freedom of the press and democracy. And
indeed, this reputation is richly deserved. The Turkish military has
made four major interventions into Turkish politics since 1960, the
most recent occurring when I was living here in 1997, events that I
wrote about on numerous occasions back then. After the last full-scale military
takeover of September 12, 1980, the military ruled the country directly
for three years, initiating a particularly brutal and very unhappy
period of modern Turkish history.
It is mistaken, however, to
view the Turkish military as the only potential threat to democratic
freedoms in Turkey. As I've written in posts on Monday and Tuesday of
this week, I think there is also much to be concerned about the ruling
AK Party's approach to press freedoms in Turkey, and also with respect
to the state's handling of the Ergenekon trial.
Taraf is tough in taking on the military. But they
tend to be a little mild when talking about some
other issues
I
don't think this because I buy into fears that the AK Party is
"Islamist." Indeed, when the AK Party was first elected to form a
majority government in 2003, I was very happy and optimistic for
Turkey's future. Finally, I thought, a party that is not hostile to the
open display of Muslim piety--but which at the same time seemed less
confrontational and more mainstream than its predecessors, Refah and Fazilet--has
been elected in Turkey. Maybe this party, I hoped, could bridge the gap
between state-imposed secularism and a Muslim majority in Turkey which
wants both personal freedom and a government that is democratic and
accountable for its actions.
My concern about the AK Party has
nothing to do with their specific policy stands. Rather, I find the
party to be increasingly authoritarian with respect to its relations
with both the opposition and the Turkish media.
Don't try to
find this perspective in the stories on Turkey appearing in the
American media, however. In the New York Times, which is the only major
American paper with a correspondent in the country, Ergenekon is
treated largely as a straightforward case of government investigations into "ultranationalists,"
while the possibility that the Turkish state may also be using this
investigation to intimidate opposition to the AK Party in the media and
the military is largely ignored. Even worse was a recent discussion of
Ergenekon on NPR, where critics of the government's handling of the
trial come across as apologists for the Turkish military.
Not
surprisingly, the major source for the NPR piece was Yasemin Çongar,
who over the past year has emerged as heroine of sorts among the American
correspondents covering Turkey. Çongar, a Georgetown graduate who worked for a decade in Washington as a correspondent for Milliyet and CNN-Türk, is the deputy editor of the Turkish
newspaper Taraf, which began publishing in November of 2007. Taraf has been the subject of a number of very positive stories
in the western (and particularly, American) media lately, including a favorable VOA story from a few months ago, a Der Spiegel columnist's designation of Taraf as "Turkey's most courageous newspaper," a long and extremely friendly interview with Yasemin Çongar on the website of the OSI-funded European Stability Initiative*
(with a great reader comment at the bottom that sharply challenges the
uncritical nature of the interview), a very positive story on Taraf on the Times Online,
and several favorable stories in blogs operated by foreign observers of
Turkey, such as this one, this one, and this one. "Courageous," "independent," "plucky," and "scrappy" are all
words which come up time and time again in each of these pieces to
describe Taraf, and several of these outlets appear to rely mainly upon Taraf when reporting the news from Turkey.
Last month, I read a particularly long article on Taraf by Suzy Hansen, a freelance journalist and fellow at an organization called the Institute of Current World Affairs. Hansen's article, which originally ran in the National, an online journal based in the United Arab Emirates, repeats all of the same talking points that can be found in the articles linked to above, i.e that Taraf is a "courageous" and "independent"
newspaper locked in a desperate battle against the Turkish military in
its defense of press freedom. Hansen's piece was quickly picked up by
other Western observers of Turkey, including the Kamil Pasha blog of Jenny White (who is quoted in Hansen's piece), and the website of a columnist for the Guardian. The article was also the subject of a brief commentary on a website called the American Scene, where Reihan Salam (an associate editor at The Atlantic and self-described friend of the editor of the National), picking up on the general vibe of Hansen's article, describes Taraf as "a
little Turkish newspaper that has taken dead aim at various Kemalist
shibboleths and that is unraveling the shadowy Ergenekon conspiracy
that is allegedly been behind some of the uglier episodes in the
country’s recent history."
Hansen and others who have lauded Taraf tend to focus upon the strong stand the newspaper has taken against Turkey's military. And indeed,
Taraf has gained notoriety in Turkey for publishing secret materials that were
embarrassing to the country's military leaders. In Hansen's article, Istanbul businessman
and self-described Taraf supporter Ishak Alaton is quoted as saying that Taraf's
bad
relationship with the military is the primary reason why the paper
can't find advertisers. "They are afraid," said Alaton. And, indeed, I think he
has good reason to say this. Just a few days after Hansen's
article was
published, Adnan Demir, who is on the editorial staff of Taraf, was charged with leaking secret military information, and could face three to five years in prison if convicted.
Alaton
(who was also the subject of an interview
with New York Times Istanbul correspondent Sabrina Tavernise a month
later) is right to argue that companies are afraid to advertise in Taraf
because they fear repercussions from the military and its allies.
However, another reason why companies are reluctant to advertise in Taraf certainly stems from the belief, right or wrong, among many people here that Taraf
is funded by the CIA, George Soros, Fetullah Gülen, the AK Party, or some other
hidden source, a suspicion which has been aired frequently in interviews, Turkish blogs, and the columns of Taraf's competitors.
To
her credit, Hansen acknowledges the existence of these rumors, but then
seems to dismiss them as yet another manifestation of Turkish
paranoia.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It is hard – for a great many reasons – for Turks to believe that an
independent newspaper can exist in Turkey, and this scepticism speaks
volumes about Turkey’s hard-to-explain but insidiously suffocating
atmosphere.
In some ways, Turkey can feel as free as any other developed nation, but
deeply-held fears readily strangle dissent. Memories of military coups
and the steady creep of a violent neo-nationalism make ordinary Turks
scared to do or say the wrong thing, and paranoid about ulterior
motives. |
Hansen
has a very good point here. There is a tendency in Turkey to always
want to look "behind the curtain" (perde arkası).
At
times--perhaps especially to an American--it seems like Turks are
completely incapable of accepting political events at face value. And
perhaps, by even talking
about this issue, I am contributing to the "strangling of dissent" in
Turkey.
I sincerely hope not.
My aim in writing about this is not to throw mud at Taraf. For all I know, the folks at Taraf
are dedicated journalists who are fighting a system that is
rigged against them, just like all the American press reports say they
are. It's
definitely not a bad paper, and is particularly good at
covering stories relating to the Turkish military, mistreatment of the
Kurds, and the Armenian genocide issue--the type of stories that
Turkish newspapers generally don't cover. I'd say it's among the 3-4
Turkish newspapers that I read the most, and that's why I've included
it on my blogroll of sources that I encourage people to consult.
I
do, however, think it's worth commenting on how a newspaper that is
increasingly becoming an opinion-maker for western observers of Turkey
is at the same time widely considered by people inside Turkey to be a
shill for a hidden benefactor. This, I think, is reflective of a
world-view disconnect between people living in Turkey and people
covering Turkey that is worth talking about.
Taraf
is a newspaper which has made its name primarily in the context of its
battles with the Turkish military. This, of course, is something that
Americans rightfully cheer. At the same time, however, simply being an
antagonist of the military does not prove a newspaper's "independence,"
particularly in the context of a power struggle between the AK Party
and the military. As independent as Taraf may
actually be, one shouldn't forget that there are lots of very
non-independent partisans of the AK Party in Turkey who are also quite
critical of the military.
My mind is hardly made up about Taraf. However, if Taraf
is truly an independent and courageous newspaper, I would like to see
them
take on more than just the military. I'd like to see them be more
critical of the Finance Ministry's Putinesque tax investigation of the
Doğan Media Group, or of the takeover of ATV-Sabah. I'd like to see
them ask
why people like Sedat Bucak
and Mehmet Ağar have never been questioned in connection with the Ergenekon investigation, even as folks like Cumhuriyet editor and publisher İlhan Selçuk have been thrown behind bars. Cumhuriyet (which is hardly independent) raises these questions all the time, and newspapers in the Doğan group (such as Hürriyet, Milliyet, and Radikal) have also become increasingly aggressive in their reporting since a war of words erupted between their boss and Prime Minister Erdogan in September of last year. What I haven't seen, however, is Taraf take a stand on these issues. Taraf's
reputation for toughness and independence notwithstanding, the
newspaper's take on the AK Party government is actually rather tame.
Maybe the people at Taraf
simply believe that a strong political party, even an authoritarian
one, is required to break the grip the military holds over politics in
this country. This is, of course, a potentially valid argument, but not
something that I'm ready to sign on to by any means.
Then there is the question of Taraf's funding. The newspaper carries very little advertising. On the 10-12 occasions
I've bought Taraf on the street, I've never seen more than 10 ads or so in the paper, nowhere near the
frontal assault on the senses to which one is subjected in the largest
of Turkish newspapers like Hurriyet, Milliyet, or Sabah. Hansen says the paper makes up for its lack of advertising "by
selling ads for 500 and 1000 lira ($293-$586) to largely anonymous
individuals." I don't know very much about the newspaper business, but
I'm pretty sure it takes a lot more money than this to put one out,
especially if you have a circulation of 50-60 thousand, which is what
Taraf editor Çongar claims in Hansen's article (she says 60-70 thousand in a separate interview with a Turkish journalist).
In
any case, the sale of ads to anonymous individuals still doesn't tell
us anything about where the money is coming from. In an interview
conducted in Turkish, Çongar again denies that Taraf has received funds
from the CIA, George Soros, or Gülen, but claims that she doesn't know the numbers
relating to how much the newspaper may be losing, or earning. Nowhere
, however, is she asked point-blank where they get their financing. Rather, Çongar
simply denies one by one various theories about where the money is coming from
(and also denies the rumor that her husband, an American whom she describes as "an academician who also
did some diplomatic work for a while," is in the CIA).
While Hansen should be commended for at least raising the questions that people here are asking about the origins of Taraf's
financing (which is much more than most people have done), the answers
she was given still seem pretty vague. Indeed, how does a company newspaper like Taraf seemingly
come out of nowhere, manage to hire a number of columnists away from
more established and widely-read newspapers, then continue to function
despite running virtually no ads at all? Is Taraf's
founder, Başar Arslan, simply going broke on this project? We don't
know, because he refused to talk to Hansen for her article--something else which seems a little odd given Hansen's very friendly
portrayal of the paper in her piece.
Also interesting is the issue of Taraf's
connections to certain state authorities. Particularly with regard to the
Ergenekon trial, Taraf has managed to frequently scoop the competition with reports (often leaked by the largely AK Party controlled national police force) which have
embarrassed military officials. As Hansen writes, this has created some sore feelings among Taraf's competitors, something which is no doubt a factor in the spreading of rumors about Taraf's funding.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
For a time Taraf seemed to break a new Ergenekon story every other day,
and this too raised the eyebrows of sceptics. “I don’t see a
journalistic achievement,” said one experienced Turkish journalist.
“They just gobbled up what the police intelligence was leaking them
regarding Ergenekon. In terms of challenging the state – sure, maybe
[that is an achievement],” the journalist continued. “But they have
gone overboard, and basically came across as a paper that is just out
there to attack the military. In their reckless columns day in day out
talking about how corrupt the military is, I didn’t find responsible
journalism.” |
So, Taraf carries only a minimum of advertising, yet is able to sell more newspapers per day than Radikal,
not to mention hire journalists away from other papers. Nevertheless,
the paper survives thanks to the support of anonymous friends. At the
same time, the paper has contacts in the police who allow Taraf
to consistently scoop the competition with regard to Ergenekon, a news
story that, with one fell swoop, could end up neutralizing not only the
political opposition but also the army. Some
parts of this story do seem a little strange, but could be explained in
a variety of ways. Perhaps there is more to this story "behind the
curtain," but perhaps not.
In any case, I am quite certain that the treatment Taraf has
been receiving from American correspondents is unrelated to the source
of the newspaper's financing. I'm not, I'd like to emphasize, trying to
argue that the individuals who have been praising Taraf are secretly in
the tank for the CIA. Rather, the newspaper's popularity among western
observers of Turkey clearly stems from its approach and perceived
independence--not to mention the connections of someone like Çongar,
who has spent so much time reporting the news from Washington.
Indeed,
there is an obvious presentiment among Americans towards the
economically neoliberal, anti-statist and anti-military view that Taraf emits. And this presentiment, even when we leave the question of Taraf's
funding to one side, is also a little bit troubling in that it seems to
have created a virtual army of commentators who cover political events
in this country from strikingly similar perspectives. For some people, Cumhuriyet is a crusty old fossil, "serv[ing]
the old-guard secular elite." Taraf, on the other hand, is
hip, geared towards the world citizens of Istanbul and other
urban centers. And it must also seem comfortably familiar to foreigners covering Turkey, especially Americans.
After all, Taraf's
writers speak English, have lived in the US, and can talk about their
country in a language that Americans and other foreigners can readily
understand. Describing a Taraf party she attended, Hansen approvingly notes the
presence of "a bonfire, American R&B music, lots of smoking, a
little dancing, [and] beer on ice in large bins." Sounds like it was a
fun party, and something tells me George Clinton probably wasn't on the
playlist at the last party thrown by those sourpusses over at Cumhuriyet.
But all the same, the folks at Cumhuriyet
and other opposition newspapers (among whose ranks we now must include
the Doğan Group papers) have something to tell us that we're not
getting from Taraf. And these days, if an issue isn't taken seriously on the pages of Taraf, then there's also a good chance that you won't be hearing much about it in western media coverage of Turkey, either.
Ultimately,
there are two points I want to make here. First of all, I think that
people should be made aware of the credibility gap that exists between
what is emerging as the west's favorite Turkish newspaper and the
attitudes of Turks towards Taraf (though it should be noted
that many non-Turkish citizens of Turkey, such as Kurds and Armenians,
do appear to hold the paper in high esteem). Secondly, I think it's
important to keep in mind that the military is not the only potential
threat to democratic freedoms in Turkey. There is much more to worry
about here than "Kemalist
shibboleths." Both
the AK Party's policies towards the media and the strange shift that
the Ergenekon trial has taken seem to be indications of this.
It is unquestionably very important to support media and organizations which are working towards
the democratization and "civilianization" (sivilleştirme)
of Turkey, and it can take an enormous amount of courage to stand up to
the military in this country. At the same time, however, in a battle royale between the military and the AK Party, we shouldn't assume that either party is wearing the white hat.
* The interview was conducted by an Open Society fellow who is
the director of the European Security Initiative, which in turn is funded by the Open Society Institute.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment