Women hold placards (with 3 languages, Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian) reading "stop the weapons", "Women want peace" and "we don't want any war in Sur-Cizre-Silopi", during a march on Istiklal avenue in Istanbul, Turkey, to mark International Women's Day on March 8, 2016. Depo Photos/ Press Association. All rights reserved.The title is not mine.
It is the title of an article published on March 17, 2017, just a day after the
referendum, in Şüjin, a
feminist e-journal produced mainly by Kurdish women.
Thanks
to some last-minute procedural manipulations by the governing party, AKP, the
YES votes won with a very slight margin, 51.1% to 48.9% and this result has
officially changed the political structure of the country from a parliamentary
to a presidential system.
The
campaign period for the referendum, as well as the referendum itself proceeded
under an eight month long "state of emergency." This means to say
under heavy police pressure and mass-media censorship, which Erdogan and his
AKP callously used to muffle dissenting voices pursuing a NO vote and to
amplify pro-Erdogan voices calling for a YES vote.
Yet
it was still possible to run an effective NO campaign and the Şüjin
article highlights the very prominent role that women from all over the country,
from the southeastern Kurdish, to western provinces, played in defying the
governmental attempts to boost the YES. Significantly, women and LGBTI
individuals from various backgrounds acted in concert, and it was their
concerted actions that upset the plans of Erdogan and the AKP to win the
referendum with a landslide majority of over 60%. Significantly, women and
LGBTI individuals from various backgrounds acted in concert, and it was their
concerted actions that upset the plans of Erdogan and the AKP.
It
was not surprising that women were the animating forces of the NO campaign,
because what was at stake for them in the constitutional change from a
parliamentary to a presidential system, was and still is nothing less than a
huge backlash in the rights that they had won through their active struggles in
the last 40 years.
Why?
Because the constitutional change effectively abolishes the separation between
executive, legislative, and judicial powers, and introduces the president as
the sole authority in running all branches of the government. And who is the
president now? Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who very recently resumed his position as
leader of the governing AKP and is also the most likely candidate to win the
presidential elections of 2019 with full powers.
When
it comes to describing Erdogan's and AKP's policies towards women in the last
decade, "egalitarian" is hardly a word that comes to mind;
"anti-feminist" and "sexist" are more likely to fit the
bill.
AKP's
vocally sexualized women
What
the AKP and Erdogan tried to do was seek control of the whole population by
regulating and disciplining women's bodies. Now, this technique of societal
control is not an invention of the AKP. It has been in use since the foundation
of the Republic. It was the Kemalist state which first sought to introduce and
instill new national values through the construction of an image of the modern,
secular, Turkish, woman, in binary opposition to other women, from Islamic, Kurdish
or other ethnic or religious backgrounds.
The
Kemalist state did not, however, position women only as model citizens
embodying the new republic's values. It also positioned them as mothers charged
with the task of reproducing and raising new generations of republican
citizens. Moreover the Kemalist state also expected women to support, if not
fight alongside the men in times of war, so they were charged with cultivating
and instilling in their sons militaristic values as well.
It
was because of these vital tasks assigned to women that women's sexuality was
subjected to governmental control from very early on. The reasoning went as
follows: the nations's honour depends upon woman's honour, and since the state
had an active duty to protect the nation, it had to regulate and discipline the
bodies of its mothers. That was how women's bodies were turned into instruments
of societal control. The nations's honour depends upon woman's honour, and
since the state had an active duty to protect the nation, it had to regulate
and discipline the bodies of its mothers.
The
practice of chastity controls in public schools and hostels which has driven
many, many women to committing suicide until it was finally stopped in the
1990s, was but one example of such violent disciplining mechanisms over women's
bodies. Such practices of social control were not, however, publicly trumpeted
as official state policy, rather they were silently but consistently practiced
with the approval, complicity, and in the full knowledge of men from all sections
of society.
Neoliberalism foreshadowed
When
the AKP first came to power, it turned to the EU as a potential ally against
the military and Kemalist state bureaucracy and in its endeavor to accede to
the EU, it did not resist the insistent demands of the women's movement to
grant women an equal status in the family, and to abolish penal remission in
cases of honor killings.
AKP
even passed a law to fight violence against women. But the tenor of AKPs
approach to women soon changed and nothing marks this change better than
Erdogan's public speeches in which he urged women, whom he referred to as his
"sisters" (bacilarim), to make at least three babies. This, he
thought, was necessary for the continuing survival of the Turkish nation! A
change in the name of the Ministry of State Responsible of Women to the
Ministry of Family and Social Services was a further symbolic but significant
turning point, for it foreshadowed the neoliberal social policies soon to be
implemented by successive AKP governments which effectively reduce women's
contributions to the economy to domestic caregiving.
Accompanying
this change in tenour, was a marked increase in violence against women and including
murder. Even though there was a law to combat violence against women, courts consistently
failed to apply it, state agencies consistently failed to implement preventive
measures, and the number of women's shelters has never reached sufficient
levels to host an ever-increasing number of victims. The emergency hotline
established for the victims of violence against women was even turned into a
hotline for social counseling! At the same time AKP dignitaries publicly
censured women for such "misbehaviors" as "laughing out
loud" or for wearing what they considered to be 'immodest" clothes.
The cumulative effect of all of this was a positioning of women as second class
citizens charged with the task of domestic caregiving and who can be beaten or
even murdered with impunity! Such practices of social control… were silently but
consistently practiced with the approval, complicity, and in the full knowledge
of men from all sections of society.
As
stated earlier, this method of instilling a new set of societal values by
regulating and disciplining women's labor, women's image and women's sexuality
was not new. The Kemalist state too used similar methods. There was one
significant difference however. This time the secondary position to which women
were relegated was endorsed, not silently and privately, but publicly and
vocally, by high-profile dignitaries of the AKP, including Erdogan himself. And
this helped violence and not only violence against women, but violence as such
to become normalized in public perception.
Honour of the nation
In
the AKP era women's sexuality was also used as a discursive instrument to shift
the focus of public debates, to manipulate public perception, or to mobilize
AKP and/or Erdogan supporters, against political opponents. The prime example
of this is the so-called Kabatas incident, in which a young, headscarved women
walking with her baby daughter in a push-chair, was said to have been assaulted
and pissed on by a bunch of drunken men in black bandannas coming from Gezi
protests, wearing only leather trousers and leather gloves. The story was first
published in one of the pro-governmental newspapers, and Erdogan used it in a
number of public speeches to construct the image of the victimized ideal
citizen of his new Turkey, in binary opposition to the alcohol-consuming,
sexually-uncontrollable secular men of the republican era. Even though the
story was later proven to be bogus, Erdogan continued to refer to it to express
his sympathy with his "headscarved sister" (başörtülü bacım)
and to manifest his loathing for the secular Gezi protestors, positioning
himself thus as the protector of the honour of the nation.
Then
there was the case of the Roboski massacre of December 27, 2011, where the Turkish
air force bombed and killed 34 civilian Kurdish border traders. Far from any
public apology, the government did not even bother to offer an official explanation.
But six months later, when public protests over the incident demanding an
explanation were at their peak, Erdogan introduced a draft bill to ban abortion.
In a public speech at a UN demography conference he declared that "each
abortion, is an Uludere" which is the Turkified name of Roboski. The
massage was clear: in what Erdogan is fond of calling the 'New Turkey' women's
bodies were as controllable by the state, as Kurdish lives were expendable.
Thanks
to the adamant opposition of the women's movement, as well as of a number of
Muslim women and men who opposed the bill for different reasons, the draft bill
was withdrawn, and the attempt to legally ban abortion was stopped. Yet,
Erdogan's approach nonetheless won the day, for his speeches encouraged a de
facto ban on abortion in public hospitals, which to this day consistently
refuse to perform abortions on demand. His speeches encouraged a de facto ban
on abortion in public hospitals, which to this day consistently refuse to
perform abortions on demand.
In
one sense, this linking of the fates which Erdogan apparently deems appropriate
for second-class citizens in what he is fond of calling the 'New Turkey' –
namely women and the Kurds –gave early notice of the spike in political
violence which started with the recent war against the Kurds in the summer of
2015, leading henceforth to the internalization of a sexist form of nationalism
in public discourses.
Gendering
the State of Emergency
Even
though the State of Emergency was declared officially on July 20, 2016, the
persecution of those who opposed Erdogan and the AKP started much earlier,
right after the Gezi protests. In 2014 the crackdown on the opposition was
tightened with a series of legal changes in the laws regulating public
communications and the operations of internal security and intelligence agencies.
Finally, the state of emergency declared after the 2016 coup attempt provided
the legal basis for effectively banning all opposition.
The
declaration of the state of emergency gave Erdogan the legal pretext to run the
country single-handedly through executive decrees. In this period the situation
of women went from bad to worse. Male-dominated violence became normalized and
women faced more restrictions in social and everyday life. Moreover HDP's success
in the June 7, 2015 elections (they passed the 10% threshold, as a result of
which the AKP lost its absolute majority in the parliament), led the AKP to
harden its Kurdish policy. When the PKK responded to AKP's call, violence in Turkey
took the form of an openly sexist, nationalist militarism. When the PKK responded to
AKP's call, violence in Turkey took the form of an openly sexist, nationalist
militarism.
Violence
against women has continued at an increasing pace during the state of
emergency.[1] After the
normalization of violence against women, came steps towards the normalization
of violence against children. Under the state of emergency, the AKP tried to
pass a law on the sexual abuse of minors which stipulated that if a perpetrator
married his victim and if the marriage lasted at least five years without
problems, then he would be acquitted of his crime!
Obviously
the proposed bill attracted a huge public reaction and the women's movement was
in the lead of the protests. The bill was eventually withdrawn from the agenda
of the Parliament on the day when it was due for a vote, because apparently
even some of the AKP MPs could not bring themselves to give an assenting vote
and decided to give the meeting a pass.
Yet
this did not prevent the de facto implementation of what the proposed
bill stipulated, for in many cases the judges released perpetrators on the
condition that they marry their victims. Courts still give mitigated sentences
to the perpetrators of violence against women, including murderers of women.
And it is a common occurrence in Turkey that newspapers report every single day
at least one case of violence against women, and one woman’s murder.
Fighting back
The
state of emergency has also harmed the public mechanisms for fighting against
discrimination against women. Women's social, political and economic activities
in the public sphere has been severely restricted under the state of emergency.
A number of non-governmental organizations in the area of woman and children
were closed down for their alleged association with terrorist organizations,
and a large number of employees of such establishments were detained and arrested.
Media
channels that regularly give voice to feminist voices, like IMC and Hayatin
Sesi, or women's new agencies like Jinha have been closed down by
executive decrees. While AKP’s neoliberal policies determine women's main area
of economic activity as maternal care-giving, during the state of emergency the
numbers
of the unemployed have skyrocketed to around 500,000, of which 343,000 were
women.
While
human rights abuses and political persecution was wreaking havoc in Turkey in
general, the situation of Kurds was even worse, for they found themselves in the middle of a dirty
war. And as in any war, women and children were the main victims. The security
forces did not refrain from killing civilians, including women and children,
and entire neighborhoods and even towns were literally eradicated from the face
of the earth. Women militants were killed, stripped and their naked bodies were
dragged along city streets – apparently in a show of sexist defiance by the
security forces.
Women
militants were killed, stripped and their naked bodies were dragged along city
streets – apparently as a show of sexist defiance by the security forces.
Security officers published their photos from the bedrooms of the homes they
raided, with sexist messages of defiance and abuse written on mirrors. Yes,
such sights of violence and abuse have never been absent from the conflict
zones of Kurdish provinces in the last 30 years. But what was different this
time was the way that such abuses were publicly exhibited with uninhibited and
unapologetic clarity. It was as if such sights have become the most normal everyday
things in life!
The
gender of the streets
This,
then, is the background, against which women "turned the color of the
referendum purple, and its spirit to NO."
The
existence of the women's movement in Turkey is not new. It goes back to the
last decades of the Ottoman Era. And even though the state's control mechanisms
have significantly curbed their sphere of activity in the republican era, it
was women who first found the courage to engage in organized street protests
after the coup of 1980.
Women
have been one of the most active groups, and in fact, perhaps, the most active
group in demanding their rights in the public sphere, in organizing large mass-demonstrations,
and in struggling for legal changes. In the 1990s, they became a formidable
group of organized plurality comprising women from diverse ideological and
ethnic backgrounds, including, Kemalists, Muslims, Kurds, socialists and LGBTI
women capable of triggering legal changes.
Even
though the movement shrinks or expands as its internal debates among diverse
identities evolve, it is a movement that never loses its vitality. It is a
movement that gave the Gezi protests their purple and rainbow color. As such,
it is not only an identity movement, but also a form of issue-based activism. A
movement that has both limits and resilience, open both to collective and
individual participation.
It was thanks to these qualities that feminist women, or, in fact, all women who want to participate
in secular life freely and equally are excluded as are others from Erdogan's new
Turkey. Yet, the very plurality within the women's movement itself, and the
experience and resilience of years of struggle, enabled women from diverse
backgrounds to meet once again on the streets before the referendum. What
they were opposing was not merely Erdogan's presidential ambitions. Their NO spelt a NO to male domination, discrimination, violence and militarism.
[1] Of the two sources
which keep track of women's murders, Bianet
reports 261, and Kadın Cinayetlerini
Durduracağız Platformu (We
Shall Stop Women Murders Platform) 348 women murders for the year 2016. Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu says that half of the 348 women murders occurred under the state of
emergency. Given the fact that not all women's murders are reported as such,
the numbers may well be much higher.
