The Politics of Text and Context: Kurdish Films in Turkey in a Period
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The Politics of Text and Context: Kurdish Films in Turkey in a Period of Political Transformation Ayça Çiftçi A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Royal Holloway, University of London April 2015 I hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Ayça Çiftçi April 2015 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank first and foremost my supervisor, Professor John Hill, without whose encouragement, guidance and support I would have never finished this thesis. His supervision has always been inspirational. I would also like to thank the other members of the Department of Media Arts at Royal Holloway University of Londonfor their encouragement, in particular Dr. Manishita Dass and Professor Daniela Berghahn. For the financial support which made this thesis possible, I would like to thank my department for the Reid Scholarship, the Mithat Alam Film Centre for the bursary I received during the two years of my studies, and Istanbul Bilgi University which continued to pay my salary for an extra year to support me in the initial year of my doctoral studies in the UK. Heartfelt thanks go to my family who have always been there for me. I must also mention the unquantifiable measure of love, financial and moral support which I have always received from my friends. Those friends in İstanbul, Norwich and London who supported me in this process are too numerous to list here in full, but I would like to saythat I am much indebted to them all. I would, however, like to give special mention to Volkan Aran, Özge Özyılmaz and Cemil Yıldızcan,all of whom supported me in so many ways over the years;it would not be an exaggeration to say that without them I would never have finished this thesis. I am also grateful to Esin Paça Cengiz, Sait Bayrakdar and Özge Özdüzen for their companionship throughout my studies. I must also thank Alan Pulverness and Mark Wyers for their careful proofreading and support.Last but not least, I wish to thank Robert Cooke who has had to put up with my thesis for years and has always been incredibly thoughtful and encouraging; without his love, patience and support, I never would have gotten this far. 3 ABSTRACT This research concentrates on Kurdish films in Turkey with a particular focus on understanding the political dynamics of the nation in the realm of cinema, and investigates the relationships between ‘cinema and the nation’, ‘film and politics’, and more specifically ‘socio-political conflicts and film’, by exploring the issues and questions regarding these fields generated by the recent rise of Kurdish films and the birth of the concept of Kurdish cinema in Turkey during a period of political transformation. While analysing the prominent political meanings in Kurdish films, as well as their public reception, my aim is to interrogate the way in which Kurdish films incorporate with the political struggle over the future direction of Kurdish conflict in Turkey, the way their meanings are affected by this struggle, and finally, how they might have an impact on this struggle. How do films that directly address contemporary social tensions and political cleavages in a certain society enter into dialogue with those areas of socio-political conflict in their immediate context? This is one of the key questions I engage with in this thesis. In tackling these issues, I develop a contextual film analysis approach in my examination of the interpenetration of film and politics in the case of Kurdish films in Turkey, and I designate three main axes for this contextual analysis. The first axis concerns the socio-political operation of Kurdish cinema as a concept, the second develops a context-specific political analysis of individual Kurdish films, and the third concentrates on the social circulation and reception of these Kurdish films. And all of these axes are developed through close references to the period of political transformation in Turkey in the 2000s. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 7 CHAPTER 2: THE NATIONAL CINEMA DEBATE 31 Introduction 31 The Nation and the Transnational 33 The Nation and the Subnational 37 The Issue of Cultural Specificity 44 The Validity of National Cinema as a Concept 52 The Issue of Categorising Films 55 Conclusions 58 CHAPTER 3: THE ‘NEW TURKEY’: POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION IN THE 2000S TURKEY 61 Introduction 61 The Emergence of the AKP as a New Political Actor in Turkey 62 Shifting Balance of Power between the Old and the New Power Elites in Turkey 70 The History of the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey 76 The Kurdish Conflict and Social Polarisation in Turkey 80 The Pressing Necessity of a Political Solution to the Kurdish Conflict 83 The Revision of State Nationalism in the 2000s: The Kurdish Conflict and the AKP 86 Kurdish Opening and the Peace Process 89 Public Consequences of the New Kurdish Policy 97 Conclusions 100 CHAPTER 4: KURDISH CINEMA IN TURKEY AS A QUESTION AND A QUESTIONER 102 Introduction 102 The Birth of Kurdish Cinema 104 Kurdish Activism and the Political Construction of Kurdish Cinema 107 Kurdish Cinema and the National 112 The Void of Representation in Turkey Preceding Kurdish Films 118 Yılmaz Güney: Tacit Representations of Kurdishness on Screen 122 First Attempts of Turkish Filmmakers to Break the Silence on the Kurdish Conflict 124 The Emergence of Kurdish Films in Turkey in the late 1990s 127 Kurdish Filmmaking and the Revival of Cinema in Turkey in the 2000s 130 The Public Exposure of Kurdish Films after the ‘Kurdish Opening’ 132 A Conceptual Shift: From ‘Turkish Cinema’ to ‘ Türkiye Sineması ’ 136 The Politics of the Definition of Kurdish Films in Turkey 142 5 Conclusions 143 CHAPTER 5: POLITICS OF TEXT 146 Introduction 146 The ‘Burden of Representation’: Screening Memories of State Oppression 150 Revising the Image of the Kurdish Region in Public Memory 156 (Re)introducing the Kurdish People via Film 163 Personal Memories and Social Histories 169 From Present to Past: What to Do With the Kurdish Memories? 176 Claim of Truth-telling and Convergences between Fiction and Non-Fiction 180 Conclusions 190 CHAPTER 6: POLITICS OF CONTEXT 194 Introduction 194 Reception Studies and the Issue of Political Impact 197 Politicisation of Film Culture in Turkey in the 2000s 201 Films as a Means of Debating the Kurdish Issue 204 Kurdish Films and the New Kurdish Policy 211 Political Camps and Films: Moviegoing as a Political Statement 216 Direct Interactions between Parliamentary Politics and Kurdish Films 220 Segregated Receptions of Kurdish Films 223 Breath : The Political Manipulation of a Hesitation 231 Conclusions 245 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION 247 BIBLIOGRAPHY 257 FILMOGRAPHY 274 6 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This research concentrates on Kurdish films in Turkey with a particular focus on understanding the political dynamics of the nation in the realm of cinema, and investigates the relationships between ‘cinema and the nation’, ‘film and politics’, and more specifically ‘socio-political conflicts and film’, by exploring the issues and questions regarding these fields generated by the recent rise of Kurdish films and the birth of the concept of Kurdish cinema in Turkey during a period of political transformation. Kurdish cinema correlates with the Kurdish people who are widely recognised as one of the largest non-state nations. They have been physically divided into four main parts across Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria since the establishment of these states at the end of World War I, and they have thenceforth been subject to policies of denial, assimilation and oppression in the ‘host’ states. Moreover, as a result of the oppressive nation-state policies and the ongoing political conflicts in the Kurdish region, Kurdish people have become dispersed not only among these four countries, but all around the world, to constitute a widely dispersed large diasporic/exilic community. However, despite this picture of fragmentation, Kurdish political struggles based on the claim to be recognised as a nation have always been on the agenda and Kurdish people have maintained a national consciousness which has strengthened over the decades as an adverse effect of the oppression to which they have been subject. Due to the social, political and economic circumstances they have historically experienced, the meeting of the Kurds with the medium of cinema was a notably retarded one. It was the 2000s when Kurdish filmmakers took to the stage, films narrating the Kurdish issue from the Kurdish perspective first came out, and the concept of Kurdish cinema came into existence. And the dissemination of Kurds worldwide was reflected in the fragmented nature of their cinema. When talking 7 about Kurdish films, we refer to films from the main host countries, and also, for example, a film by a Kurdish filmmaker from Iraq living in Norway, or a film by a Kurdish filmmaker from Turkey living in Germany. While ‘Kurdish cinema’ started to appear in festival programmes, film criticism, academic studies, as well as within political debates on the Kurdish issue, there have always been a cluster of questions shadowing the concept of Kurdish cinema. Any argument concerning Kurdish films first of all starts from the very question as to whether there is such a distinct and coherent group of films to be recognised and named as ‘Kurdish cinema’. And, if so, what makes a film Kurdish? Is it the ethnicity of the director, the language, the theme, a specific aesthetic style, or a political stance that allows one to recognise it as a Kurdish film? Can we talk about a national cinema, ethnic cinema, or a minority cinema, or shall we take Kurdish cinema as an example of diasporic cinema, Third cinema or ‘accented cinema’? Because it is a rather new phenomenon, there is a very limited amount of literature dealing with Kurdish cinema.