Despite its negative connotation, “cancel culture” — ostracizing someone for
their harmful views — has had a big impact on addressing inequalities in the
West, particularly discrimination against women. But in Turkey, it is women
themselves who are getting canceled.
اضافة اعلان
In late July, actress Birce Akalay took to social
media to lament Turkey’s current economic crisis, expressing disappointment in
the declining value of labor and the plummeting value of the lira.
“I’m fed up,” she wrote. “Our workers, our people
have become miserable.”
Akalay, of course, was right. The lira has been
steadily depreciating, and inflation has reached 79 percent, the highest among
OECD countries. And yet, because Akalay is a woman, her views were almost
immediately discounted as heresy.
Turkiye newspaper columnist Cem Kucuk twice
threatened Akalay over her criticism. The first time, Kucuk made her an open
target by saying that “those who have spoken like this in the last 20 years
have either gone to jail or fled or their careers are over”. In a follow-up
piece, Kucuk even compared Akalay to the ex-president of the TUSKON business
organization, Rizanur Meral, who was accused of supporting Fethullah Gulen, a
Muslim preacher implicated by Ankara of masterminding the 2016 attempted coup.
Sadly, Kucuk is not the only powerful man to scorn
outspoken Turkish women. Following the June 2013 anti-government protests in
Istanbul, when 14-year-old Berkin Elvan was killed by a gas canister fired by
police, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Elvan a terrorist and encouraged
thousands to boo his mother.
Since then, condemning women for taking a stand
against injustice has become a government-sanctioned epidemic — with many
victims.
In August 2020, a suicide note left by an
18-year-old woman from Batman, in Turkey’s Kurdish southeast, claimed that she
had been kidnapped and raped by a Turkish sergeant, Musa Orhan. Orhan was
eventually charged and found guilty of rape, but a judge refused to issue an
arrest warrant.
Like thousands of concerned citizens, actress Ezgi
Mola expressed outrage on Twitter, writing: “Shame on you for releasing an
inglorious rapist.” But when Orhan sued Mola for libel, accusing her of
“insulting” him, he won, and Mola was fined nearly 7,000 lira ($390) for her
post.
Violence against women has risen by 70 percent in the last 15 years, and 246 women have been killed by their partners in 2022. According to a March 2022 report from Turkish polling agency Metropoll, domestic violence is the biggest problem that women in Turkey face.
Another egregious example surfaced in October 2021,
after Ece Ronay, a 22-year-old Kurdish musician, publicly accused comedian
Mehmet Ali Erbil of sexual harassment. On social media, Ronay published some of
the messages Erbil had sent her — including a proposition for sex. Yet rather
than come to her defense, the public victimized Ronay all over again.
Erbil defended his actions by claiming Ronay had
marketed her body via TikTok, and therefore, should not be coy about sex acts.
Not only did he get his followers to shame Ronay using a raunchy hashtag, he
also sued her for defamation. That lawsuit is still pending.
While femicide and harassment have been
long-standing problems in Turkey, they have become worse during the Justice and
Development Party’s two-decades-long reign. Violence against women has risen by
70 percent in the last 15 years, and 246 women have been killed by their partners
in 2022. According to a March 2022 report from Turkish polling agency
Metropoll, domestic violence is the biggest problem that women in Turkey face.
Turkey did have a flicker of a #MeToo moment after
the brutal rape and murder of 20-year-old Ozgecan Aslan, in 2015. But it never
caught on, and contrary to women’s movements abroad, Turkey’s push against
sexual abuse and harassment has arguably backtracked.
Erdogan’s decision last year to withdraw from the
Istanbul Convention — a decree that aimed to prevent and combat violence
against women — only reaffirms the statement of Canan Gullu, the president of
the Federation of Women Associations of Turkey, that “government is an explicit
ally in hatred against women”.
Journalists, entertainment moguls, and politicians
are fueling this violent, hate-filled rhetoric, while the Turkish judiciary
system keeps rewarding men who treat women like property. People who have the
ear of the public should not target women with their vileness, as doing so will
only perpetuate the injustice.
In countries like Turkey, where media censorship is
high and transparency is low, social media is the frontline of political
debate, the most democratic platform for silenced opinions. But with a new
social media law in the pipeline, where “intention” will dictate whether speech
is deemed illegal, it is women who have the most to lose. The only solution is
to flip the tables and cancel the men who continue to live in the past.
Alexandra de Cramer is a journalist based in Istanbul. She reported on the Arab Spring from
Beirut as a Middle East correspondent for Milliyet newspaper. Her work ranges
from current affairs to culture, and has been featured in Monocle, Courier
Magazine, Maison Francaise, and Istanbul Art News. Syndication Bureau.
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