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Kemalist Tattooing: Distinctive Ink and Reproduction of the Secular In KEMALIST TATTOOING: DISTINCTIVE INK AND REPRODUCTION OF THE SECULAR IN CONTEMPORARY TURKEY By Ezgican Özdemir Submitted to Central European University Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Supervisors: Prof. Vlad Naumescu Prof. Dan Rabinowitz CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2013 ABSTRACT This thesis focuses on the practice of tattooing Atatürk symbolisms in contemporary Turkey. A practice that embodies and communicates the prominent state ideology of Kemalism, tattooing as a body modification, today is perceived as a practice that distinguishes subjects and indicates group or identity affiliation. The human body then, is utilized as a mediator of the individual‟s identity formation. Kemalist tattoos in Turkey thus, communicate citizens‟ Kemalist sentiments and embody the demarcation between two identities of Kemalists/secularists and Islamists. Apart from such incorporation to a certain group, Kemalist tattoos are manifestations of Turkish citizens‟ particular understandings of their own social, political, and gendered subjectivities. Basing my research on an ethnographic field method, I first lay out the practice of Kemalist tattooing through the perspectives of tattoo artists, in order to demonstrate that Kemalist tattoos, according to their practitioners, harm the status of tattooing in the field of art. With this, I then move on to tattoo bearers and their positionalities within the practice. But more importantly, I argue that Kemalism, through these bodily inscriptions, as a social category among Turkish citizens, reifies other highly disputed and problematic categories like ethnicity, femininity, masculinity, and religiosity, which shapes people‟s understandings of identity-making and politics in Turkey. CEU eTD Collection ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest appreciation to all those who provided me the possibility to complete this thesis project. A special gratitude I give to my supervisors Assistant Professor Vlad Naumescu and Professor Dan Rabinowitz, whose contribution in insightful guidance, encouragement and constant patience, helped me in writing this thesis project. I am also thankful to Professor Jean-Louis Fabiani, whose great expertise in social theory allowed me to grasp the main theoretical concepts I use in this thesis project. I give my special gratitude to my colleagues Annastiina Callius, Anamaria Chiritoiu, Carmen Leidereiter, Omar Qassis, Povilas Junas, Rik Adriaans and Frank Karioris for their inspiring ideas, stimulating suggestions, and their constant support throughout a year of putting this project together. I am truly grateful to my host, Yeşim Tekün for her hospitality and guidance in exploring the city of İzmir. And lastly, I am particularly grateful for my informants in İzmir and İstanbul, for making this project possible. CEU eTD Collection iii Table of Contents ABSTRACT ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Theoretical Framework 4 2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW 9 2.1 Politics in the Everyday Life 9 2.2 The Case of Turkey 10 2.3 Tattooing the Self, Marking Social Boundaries 12 3.0 METHODOLOGY 15 4.0 TATTOOING AS A FIELD OF PRACTICE IN İZMİR 18 4.1 “It is not a tattoo; it is a reaction” 19 4.2 Differing Perceptions Towards the Campaign 23 5.0 UNPACKING IDENTITIES IN THE MODERN TURKISH CONTEXT 29 5.1 Political Reaction or Self-fashioning?: Kemalist Tattoo Bearers 30 5.2 An Ideology of ‘the Turk’, Materialized on Gendered and Secular Bodies 33 5.3 Acquiring Statuses, Reifying Secularist Masculinities 37 6.0 CONCLUSION 43 BIBLIOGRAPHY 45 CEU eTD Collection iv 1.0 INTRODUCTION Marjane Satrapi Persepolis, page 20. The image above is taken from Marjane Satrapi‟s captivating graphic novel Persepolis, on the author‟s childhood experience in Iran, during and after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. This single strip from the novel reveals a crucial aspect of social reality: appearance matters. Satrapi rightfully—but not accurately, since Atatürk‟s eyes are known to be blue, instead of green—highlights Mustafa Kemal‟s colorful eyes, when she exemplifies what a Republican ideal is. Blue or green, Mustafa Kemal‟s eyes are indeed, a symbol of his heroic liberation of Turkey from the hands of the enemy. With his blue eyes, he redefined being a Turk as he became Ata-türk, “the father of Turks”. Accentuated in all of his portraits; people admired and were taught to admire these blue eyes to this day. Appearance matters and Kemal Atatürk thought so as well. With his many reforms after the Republic was established in 1923, he transformed not only the political outlook of CEU eTD Collection Turkey by introducing new ways of governing, but also modes of public sociability—reforms that changed the way people dressed, spoke, and even named. The ideal Turkish man and woman no longer wore religious attire like the fez or the veil. Republican lifestyle is therefore, manifested on Turkish people‟s bodies, as secularism and Westernization, which 1 are the major principles of Kemalism, became the dominant forces of social life in Turkey. As Ozyurek (2005) points out, with the embeddedness of secularism in people‟s national imaginaries, “public expression of religious symbolism and the use of religion as a basis for political action are strictly prohibited” (510). This however, has been challenged greatly by the gradual incorporation of Islamism, which, as Göle (1997) states, is “the reappropriation of a Muslim identity and values as a basis for an alternative social and political agenda” (47). Thus, secularism and Islamism identities today, with AKP (Justice and Development Party)—a party that embodies an Islamist social and political agenda—winning the elections in 2002, have come to trigger an identity crisis. In my thesis, I take this very identity crisis that has been stirring up people‟s lives, as my main subject of inquiry through an anthropological study of the practice of Kemalist tattooing in Turkey. Turkish citizens see the victory of Islamism as a threat towards Mustafa Kemal Atatürk‟s Turkey; not only a threat to the secular state, but also a confinement of the modern, Westernized way of living. Celebrations of Atatürk‟s modern Turkey is spread out throughout the year with national holidays—April 23rd, the inauguration of the parliament; May 19th, the day Atatürk initiated the independence war; October 29th, the establishment of the Republic, November 10th, his death-day and so on. From school children to war veterans, everyone attends these festivities at stadiums, streets, and squares, waving Turkish flags and singing nationalist marches every occasion possible. On June 1st 2013, another highly participated, but not so anticipated demonstration occurred in the city of Istanbul. They were demanding the government to stop demolishing a major city park in Taksim, while the police CEU eTD Collection forces reacted with tear gas and water cannons. The protest quickly shifted its position; the struggle was against police violence and oppression that citizens have claimed to be subjected to by the Islamist (AKP) government. Then the Turkish flags appeared. Atatürk‟s portrait on posters, t-shirts materialized. The protest again quickly, but this time subtly, transformed into 2 a Kemalist, nationalist, and secularist one. Slogans of anti-fascism turned into the 10th Year March1. Details of the still ongoing uprising aside, the heart of the matter here, is that Kemalism ideals are so embedded in Turkish citizens‟ social lives that they rise to every occasion with such prominence and force. Atatürk materializes on statues, street names, coat pins (Ozyurek 2006), t-shirts, fridge magnets; his silhouette is even in the sky and on mountain tops as mystic apparitions (Navaro-Yashin 2002). Today, some people push even further and they deliberately and permanently inscribe their bodies with Kemalist symbolism. Tattooing Atatürk images (signature, portraits, etc.) on Turkish subjects is quite a recent practice that gained popularity in 2007. These tattoos— which I shall call Kemalist tattoos from now on—not only distinguishes people politically from others, but also engenders different social dynamics that impact notions of class, status, and most of all what it means to be a political subject and a „Turk‟ among Turkish society. Tattooing political symbols like swastikas, or portraits of political actors in history like Che Guavera or George Washington have been quite common and inscribing Kemalist symbolisms would seemingly be similar to them. Indeed they are, Kemalist tattoos however, have a twist. In İzmir, since late 2007, every Turkish citizen can get a permanent inscription of Atatürk‟s signature on his/her body for free. Yılmaz Özdil, a famous journalist/columnist in Turkey, is known for his Kemalist views and writes on his column on November 10th, 2010 (Atatürk‟s death-day) about this very campaign of getting free Kemalist tattoos. A man walks in to Köprüaltı Tattoo parlor in Alsancak, İzmir and requests the removal of his Atatürk signature tattoo, claiming that his CEU eTD Collection boss at work threatens to fire him if he does not get it removed. Nicknamed as Doktor, Enver, the owner of the parlor reacts abruptly. In Özdil‟s words, he says “My hands only inscribe our father‟s signature, they do not remove!” And with this man, Enver decided to initiate a 1 A nationalistic march that commemorates the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Republic, written in 1933. 3 campaign of free Kemalist tattoos. Sensationalizing the incident, Özdil writes the incident like a fairy tale and ends as such: “What we call our Republic is lost by the coward fathers, but regained by the courageous young men” (Özdil 2010). Today, there are more than 10.000 Turkish citizens, who carry this free-of-charge Kemalist tattoos, mostly İzmirians; Doktor is proud and Yılmaz Özdil is certainly proud of Doktor for this initiative. 1.1 Theoretical Framework Sociologist Emilé Durkheim argued that the body is a source of, and a location for sacred phenomena that served as a connective entity between the sacred and the profane (Shilling 2003:9).
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