9. Mediated Narratives of Syrian Refugees : Mapping Victim–Threat
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9. Mediated Narratives of Syrian Refugees : Mapping Victim–Threat Correlations in Turkish Newspapers Ayça Tunç Cox Abstract Turkey has become the first and main transition hub for Syrian refugees. Furthermore, Turkey is spatially as well as culturally simultaneously referred to as European and Asian or Middle Eastern depending the point of view. Therefore, the representation of refugees in the Turkish press proves significant for the knowledge produced about refugees. Accordingly, this chapter strives to investigate the coverage of Syrian refugees in newspapers, which constitutes only one aspect of the overall reception of the issue in Turkey, and therefore does not claim to be exhaustive. Yet, because daily newspapers are still among the most important media sectors in Turkey, they constitute a special case of knowledge production worth investigating. Keywords: Turkey, refugees, print media, narratives One of the biggest current global issues is arguably the so-called refugee crisis that is likely to have an impact on every possible aspect of daily life – from employment to housing, education, and health – especially in Europe, for the coming decades. This should be evaluated in light of major debates about transnational mobility, migration, ethnic and racial discrimination, and the concomitant image and knowledge production. Arjun Appadurai argues that ‘mediascapes provide large and complex repertoires of images, narratives and ethnoscapes to viewers throughout the world’ (2003, p. 35). In other words, mediascapes help to create and then to consolidate transnational ‘imagined communities’. In this context, mediated narratives about migration and about refugees play an important role in ethnic and cultural identification processes. Strohmaier, A. and A. Krewani (eds.), Media and Mapping Practices in the Middle East and North Africa: Producing Space. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021 doi 10.5117/9789462989092_ch09 202 AYÇA TUNÇ COX Turkey has become the first and main transition hub for Syrian refugees, and furthermore, the country is spatially as well as cultur- ally simultaneously referred to as European and Asian/Middle Eastern. Therefore, the representation of refugees in the daily Turkish press is significant for the knowledge produced about them. Accordingly, this study strives to investigate how different media groups in Turkey deal with the issue from different perspectives based on political stance, affiliations, and agenda. Focusing on the coverage of Syrian refugees in newspapers comprises only one aspect of the overall reception of the issue in Turkey, and therefore, this study does not claim to be exhaustive. Yet, because the daily newspapers are still among the most important media sectors, especially owing to increased global accessibility via the internet, they constitute a special case of knowledge production worth investigating.1 The Turkish government’s official welcoming attitude notwithstanding, it appears newspapers with varied ideological affiliations subscribe to differing interpretations of the issue. To this end, the coverage in Hürriyet, a mainstream conservative paper; Milliyet, a right-wing pro-government paper; and Cumhuriyet, the nationalist Kemalist representative of the Turk- ish press, are analysed in the following. Rather than employing random sampling, certain periods that raised momentous interest among the public have been chosen: 1) the three days following the outburst of the Syrian crisis (17–19 June 2011); 2) the three days following the discovery of baby Ailan’s body washed ashore (3–5 September 2015); and 3) the three days following the European Union’s three billion-euro fund for Turkey (29 November–1 December 2015). It is important to locate the critical discourse analysis of Turkish newspa- per coverage of Syrian refugees in the appropriate context. It therefore seems crucial to first illustrate Turkey’s position with regard to the Syrian war, and second, to disclose the ownership structures and ideological affiliations of the newspapers in Turkey that would presumably affect their framing of the issue, and thus, the ultimate portrayal of Syrian refugees. 1 As explained by Sőzeri and Güney, based on an official report by the Press Audience Research Committee (BİAK), there were 11.4 million newspaper readers in cities alone in Turkey in 2010. This indicates a decrease in readership compared to previous years; however, such a drop appears to be a common trait across the world, according to an OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry Committee for Information, Computer and Communications Policy report. And yet, Sőzeri and Güney argue, the drop ratio in Turkey seems to be less in comparison with other countries, which might owe to the widespread promotional campaigns employed by Turkish newspapers (2011, p. 58). MEDIATED NARRATIVES OF SYRIan RefUGEES 203 Is the Door Really Open? The war in Syria, which has been going on for seven years, is now an is- sue of international importance even though ‘it was not a problem until it hit Europe’, as argued by Kirişci (2016, p. 84). Millions of Syrians have escaped the country due to increasing violence. Human rights abuses such as rape, torture, and the use of incendiary and chemical weapons have been extensively reported.2 People have fled from the war-torn area to several neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, and some have even managed to take refuge further west despite extreme difficulties on migratory routes, including being forced to travel illegally, often ending up in the hands of human traffickers. It is estimated that so far around 150,000 people have been killed during flight from Syria; over twelve million have been displace, either internally or externally (Kaya 2017, p. 365). Among all the neighbouring countries, Turkey arguably harbours the highest number of refugees from Syria. Since the beginning, Turkey officially acknowledged an ‘open-door’ policy regarding Syrian refugees, albeit calling them ‘guests’ rather than refugees, with the hope that they would soon leave.3 This allowed an unprecedented flux of people to be admitted into the country, first in the contained refugee camps in border cities, and then across the country. According to a recent report by the European Commission (2017), the current number of refugees in Turkey is over 3.4 million.4 This means Turkey is the country with the highest number of refugees in the world right now. By January 2017, the number of refugee babies born in Turkey was around 230,000.5 It can easily be claimed that, although Turkey has received migrants throughout its history, the sheer scale of this recent human mobility, as well as its duration, struck the country unexpectedly; Turkey was not ready, neither legally nor socially. As rightly put by Erder, ‘it did not have the legal arrangements, institutions, and resources that would cater to the needs of such a large and diverse refugee group with differing expectations’ (2016, p. 126). Initially, while complying with the 1951 Geneva Convention, to deal with this unforeseen number of refugees, Turkey appropriated a temporary 2 For further information, see: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/ syria 3 ‘This is partly because the geographical limitation clause of the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees maintained by Turkey restricts the refugee status only to those coming from Europe’ (Toğral Koca 2015, p. 209). 4 Among those, 85 per cent appear to live outside of specifically designated refugee camps. Refer to ORSAM Report 2015 for details. 5 https://www.milliyet.com.tr/, 7 January 2017. 204 AYÇA TUNÇ COX protection regime.6 In addition, in February 2016, Syrian refugees were granted the right to work legally in Turkey. These implementations undeni- ably provided certain assurances for Syrian refugees: ‘An open-door policy for all Syrians; no forced returns to Syria (non-refoulement); and unlimited duration of stay in Turkey’ (Kaya 2017, p. 370). Nonetheless, as Toğral Koca explains, ‘if asylum seekers are recognized as refugees, they are resettled in a third country with the support of the UNHCR. However, said latest Directive prevents refugees […] from being considered for resettlement into third countries as recognised refugees’ (2015, p. 211; emphasis in original). That is to say, they have no other option than to settle in Turkey as somewhat ‘unwanted/overstayed’ guests or to resort to dangerous, illegal means to migrate to Europe. The latter has been made even harder, if not impossible, by the highly criticized deal signed between Turkey and the European Union in March 2016 to stop movement from Turkey to European countries.7 For those who opt to stay in Turkey, the prospect does not seem any brighter either, as the local people’s attacks against Syrians in 2014 showed. Such incidents underline the fact that the more ill-conceived, stereotypical images prevail in the media, the more prejudices are formed against the refugees among the Turkish public. Furthermore, research conducted in areas with a high population of refugees demonstrate the effects of these prejudices. Even though most of the Syrian interviewees express their gratitude towards the Turkish state and society for accepting them, among their complaints are exploitation in the labour market, bigotry and discrimination they are exposed to on a daily basis, limited access to health and education facilities, housing problems, and integration problems – further made difficult not only because of linguistic and cultural differences but also by their perceived temporariness (Dinçer et al. 2013; Erdoğan 2014; ORSAM Report 2015; Toğral Koca 2015; Kaya 2016). On the other side of the coin is the impact of the increasing number of refugees on Turkey’s socio-economic structure. As addressed by the ORSAM Report in 2015, forecasted problems are an increase in child labour, an increase in polygamy and the resultant divorce cases, a potential risk of ethnic and religious polarization, a change in demographic 6 With the additional introduction of the Temporary Protection Directive in 2014, the scope of temporary protection was expanded (Toğral Koca 2015, p.