As Rıfat Bali’s comments highlighted earlier, since the second half of the 1990s
‘those who had a problem with the state’ began to make their voices heard more in the public realm.
The editor of the Jamanak newspaper, Ara Koçunyan, explained this process as follows:
When Apo [Abdullah Öcalan] was labelled as ‘Armenian seed’ the community reacted to it, the Patriarch at the time called for a press conference. There was a need to shake off the death soil, to get rid of the victim mentality [in the community]. But we also need to acknowledge the other factors. Since the mid-1990s there is a search for democracy in Turkish society that is getting stronger. Especially the intelligentsia made efforts to understand, be close to and help the voices of those who were repressed and maltreated in the society to be heard… In analysing the change in Turkey it would be wrong to consider this in relation to the Armenian issue, because Turkish society is changing faster than its approach to the Armenian problem.
The general outlook on the Armenian issue is much slower than the general change. It is perhaps the biggest exception. It is also necessary to highlight the fact that the period in which this change has been taking place is also the period the Armenian community has begun opening itself to the bigger society. It was the period in which it intensified its efforts to explain itself to the bigger society (Interview, 4th February 2005).
Indeed, the most visible efforts came from the Armenian community, which, by establishing Aras (1993) and Agos (1996), began to participate in the public sphere and to combat social prejudices.
In fact, the Armenian minority media is diverse and includes both similar and rival elements in its media environment. The emergence of Aras publishing house in 1993 and Agos newspaper in 1996 can be seen as steps towards establishing new links between the different levels of public sphere, communal and national. It also reflects the transformation within the Armenian community in terms of the way it engaged with the ‘big society’152.
As one of the editors, Payline Tovmasyan, maintained, the foundation of Aras ‘fitted well with the political conjecture’ of the mid-1990s, when there was an accelerating Kurdish insurgency on the one hand, but a growing interest in the co-habitation of the heritage of different cultures on the other. As she further explained in our interview:
We were late in opening up this publishing house; but it was never thought of because such a thing would not even be imaginable… There was a shyness, we in our own shell as a society, and I think we (felt) repressed due to the oppressions… When (Aras) was first founded, there was the PKK, Kurdish events and especially Margosyan’s book [referring to the first book they published called The Gaivur District in Diyarbakir], these fitted well with the conjecture. You know when at the time they said “what kind of a mosaic?”153, the book was about that mosaic in Anatolia and that is why people had a great interest (Interview, 13th January 2005).
152 ‘Big society’ (büyük toplum) is how they describe Turkish society in general.
153 The term cultural mosaic became a buzzword in the 1990s to symbolise the diversity of cultures within Turkey. Although it was not welcomed by the far right political parties when it was first coined, it has been widely used in media and popular discourse in order to emphasise dialogue between the different elements. In 2007 a book by Atilla Durak published by Metis project (Ebru:
Kulturel Cesitlilik uzerine Yansimalar- Ebru: Reflections on Cultural Diversity) preferred to symbolise diversity by using a new concept, Ebru (marbled paper), a traditional art in Turkey. The book was introduced on the publisher’s website as follows:
Over seven years in the making, Ebru is a sweeping and poignant photographic journey that illuminates, through the faces of its people, the rich cultural diversity of Turkey.
The English translation of “ebru” is “marbled paper,” which refers to the fluidity of paint
Aras was initially founded to distribute translations of the Türkiyeli Armenian154 writers, and this remains as its founding principle and its identity. However, due to a lack of human resources, it has become very difficult to find people to make accomplished translations from Armenian into Turkish. Aras has published 70 books in a decade, and it is still is more like a voluntary or family business and can only provide financial support for some of the editors, all of whom work there for ‘love’
and ‘to keep their culture alive’ (Interviews with Rober Koptaş and Payline Tovmasyan, 13th January 2005).
Takuhi Tovmasyan, another editor at Aras, believed that ‘the things that could not be articulated in the 1980s could now be pronounced now in newspapers and books’.
As she further explained: ‘For instance, none of our books have been confiscated.
The Armenians who live abroad, who have the old mentality, are getting surprised when they read our books, and they ask us how are we able to write such things.
They can observe a change.’ Therefore for her, the launch of Aras in 1993 and Agos in 1996 signify two ‘rupture’ points in the lives of Armenian community that helped to construct ‘a bridge between the Turkish and Armenian societies’ (Interview, 13th January 2005).
and water on paper. With its creative combination of water and paper, “ebru” inspires the possibility of conceptualizing historical flow and “passing solidity” at the same time. As such, it is a metaphor that offers a promising alternative to others like “the mosaic” or “the quilt” for thinking through the new and old dilemmas of cultural politics at the turn of the century. Attila Durak’s visual portraits are rendered even more dramatic through John Berger’s foreword and interpretive essays from some of Turkey’s most discerning
contemporary writers. Because of this exceptional artistic pairing, Ebru provides rare insight into the vibrant color, complexity, as well as political nuance, of a country defined and sustained by its multicultural past and present.
(http://www.metiskitap.com/Scripts/Catalog/MetisBooks/1997.asp).
154 It is very difficult to use the term ‘Turkish-Armenian’ as easily as it is used in Western Europe and America, in the sense of, for instance, ‘Italian-American’ or ‘British-Cypriot’. In my interviews, I specifically asked my respondents about this issue, reminding them that I will be translating Türkiyeli Ermeni (Armenian of/from Turkey) and asked them whether it would be possible to say Turkish-Armenian. They reject this hyphenated version strictly, saying that they are not Turkish, because it still reminds them an ethnic connotation. They see themselves as Turkish only in terms of citizenship.
This was also the case in my interviews with the Greek (Rum) respondents. The Jewish community, because of their situation as the most integrated, pro-state community, use Türk Yahudileri (Turkish Jews) or Türkiyeli Yahudiler (Jews of/from Turkey) and told me that they would introduce
themselves as Turks when they are abroad. This seems to be a very good example of the differences between communities, and sensitivities around the notion of citizenship and national identity.
Agos has indeed become a pivotal point of reference for issues related to the Armenian community. Hrant Dink completely distinguished Agos from the rest of the community newspapers, which in his view have ‘historically inscribed themselves with the aim to preserve the Armenian culture only by preserving the language and never had any political mission to defend their rights’. For Dink, the emergence of Agos symbolises ‘an uprising’ both against the state and against what he calls ‘community bureaucracy’.
[Agos] emerged by saying that we can express intellectual our side by using our Turkish, that we live in the big society in the best way possible... It struggled with the state, by bringing to public attention the problems created by the state, fought against the negativities found in the public opinion and in the media, and defended its rights. Secondly, Agos completely opened its community to the big society and struggled with the community bureaucracy, which still wants to see this community only as a cemaat, as a religious community. It struggled against the centralist understanding of the Patriarchate. It also wanted civil society in this community to take action. It also managed to stay economically independent. If you exist by the revenues obtained by advertisements given by community institutions then you would have to produce a paper that they would like.’ (Interview, 4th January 2005) Hrant Dink believed that Agos helped the Armenian community to embrace its identity not only by celebrating ‘its language and its church’, but by ‘owning’ its history as well.
In establishing good links with the mainstream media and intellectuals, Agos seems to be exercising the second function in the double role of minority media.
Furthermore, by challenging the established norms of community media, it seems to be aiming to provide an ‘alternative’ or ‘citizens’ media. A consensus on the notion of alternative media is as contested as for community media (Rodriguez, 2001). The concept is usually used in relation to the ‘democratisation of communication’, which prioritises citizens groups and grassroots efforts instead of the national mainstream or big conglomerate media. Instead of alternative media, the term ‘citizens’ media’
was suggested by Rodriguez, which might help to explain the place of Agos within mainstream and community media practices. Indeed, as Dink also maintained in our interview, the news selection criteria for Agos prioritises developments that relate to the ‘democratisation process in Turkey’.
During the course of my fieldwork there were attempts to establish a local Armenian radio station. Although the Armenian community had the right to establish broadcast media, the initiative began after the use of Kurdish language was granted for private local radio and television stations. This may be construed as a tangible positive impact of the Europeanisation process on the performance of non-Muslim minority media in Turkey. In fact, the first attempts have begun when Ari Hergel, a young Armenian university student, and Hayko Bağdat, a young half-Greek, half-Armenian man, started making radio programs on minorities for a local station in Istanbul. The birth of this program, which is aired by Yaşam Radio in Istanbul, coincided with the beginning of the Europeanisation reform period. The show has been running for two years (at the time of the interview) on a voluntary basis, and so does not provide them with any income. This show is unique because, despite earlier attempts by other Istanbul radio stations to publicise minority music and culture, this was the first established programme to be produced by minority members themselves. Hence, it can be considered as a strong signifier of the ‘normalisation’ of minority issues, and a result of the positive atmosphere created during the Europeanisation period.
As Ari explained in our interview:
Our programme started as a minority programme that can encompass all the minorities, but unfortunately it is now carrying on as an Armenian one. But this has not been our choice. The other minorities, the Jews, Syriacs, Greeks, they have a small population so there are very few people to participate in the show. We did one or two Greek shows. The Jews are not very demanding to be honest with you, because they do not consider themselves as a minority like us or the other groups. They remain a bit on the outside (Interview, 28th January 2005).
As mentioned previously, Jews are the most integrated community and do not usually like to be considered as a minority group, which explains their reluctance to get involved in such endeavours to bring minority cultures into the public realm.
Şalom perpetuates this general understanding in society by arguing that it is possible to be both Jewish and Turkish (Barokas, Şalom, 26th December 2007). Nevertheless, in recent years, the most significant change for the Jewish community media has been the contacts they have established with mainstream media organisations. In this
way, it was possible for Şalom to be a point of reference for the community and it created continuity between mainstream and minority media performance. The efforts to establish links with the mainstream, and to increase the visibility of the community in public culture, have also been made possible by other activities organised by the cultural institutions of the Jewish community.
Tilda Levi, its editor-in-chief, admits that Şalom is not as political as Agos. But she also draws attention to a change in the attitude of the Jewish community in order to combat prejudices in public life. For instance, she explained to me that Şalom campaigned for many years to use the word ‘Jewish’ (Yahudi) in Turkish as opposed to Musevi (‘of Moses’ religion’), which is usually used in a politically correct way to refer to Jews in Turkey, because ‘Yahudi’ had negative connotations. She also maintained that the newspaper has become more proactive over the past couple of years. It has established links with the mainstream media and organised activities to help raise awareness of Jewish issues in the wider society. As Levi explained:
A couple of years back, we for the first time organised art events on a Jewish day. Why did we feel the need for this? If you do not introduce yourself, people either do not know you, or they know you partially. That is why we have been attending the book-fairs for more than a decade. At the beginning they were looking at us as if we were monkeys in a circus. The man on the street does not know the difference between an Armenian, Greek or Jew. For them, whoever is not Muslim is gavur [‘infidel’]… But who explained them what? People [referring to minorities and possibly the Jewish minority in specific] lived in fear, like a ghetto life, after the Varlık [Capital levy], with the instinct to protect themselves, so there will be no problems and they can live in peace. In this way, they did not even want to express themselves. But in time this has changed. As a result of our social activities we have established good relations with the wider press. I think this is a relaxation for both parties. We also made a gentleman’s agreement with Agos when they were first established, so we send Şalom to them and receive Agos. We also know that if we need any information we know that there will be someone at the other end of the line to answer to deal with our inquiries in the
mainstream media... We used to beg them to get pictures or information in the past, but now this has changed.’ (Interview, 25th February 2005)155. The activities organised by Şalom and other initiatives, like the establishment of the Jewish museum and a cultural centre, also contributed to the community’s active participation in public culture. The Jewish community established a cultural centre for Sephardic Jewish studies in 2004, and transformed a synagogue into a Jewish museum in 2001. Karen Gerson Şarhon is the head of the cultural centre, and has been managing an oral history research project on the Jews of Turkey. Although she wanted to launch the cultural centre back in the 1980s (during the 500th anniversary celebrations) she believes that it was not given the green light because the ‘time was not right’ (Interview, 25th February 2005). Although she has not articulated openly in the interview herself, she seems to have referred to the community leadership.
The research centre is now involved in an international oral history project, and for her this is of utmost importance for the Jewish heritage in Europe in general, because Turkey’s non-involvement in Second World War created an ‘uninterrupted’
Jewish presence in Turkey compared to other parts of Europe.
In the case of Rum media, Mr. Rombopulos, the editor-in-chief of Iho, explained that was a change in the content of his newspaper as a result of improvements in Turkey’s foreign relations, with Greece in particular and the European Union in general.
We give summaries of the Turkish morning papers everyday. In the last couple of years we also started giving summaries of the Greek morning newspapers that can interest the Greek community. Besides, the Greek-Turkish relations occupy a very important place. As you know, our community has been affected by this throughout history, in fact paid for it…
News from the Balkans and Middle East and, in the last 10-15 years, the
155 Non-Muslim minorities are themselves are historical rivals to each other in the way that they relate to state bureaucracy and official discourses. During my fieldwork, Beyoğlu newspaper, a local paper that was funded by a European project, organised a meeting with various minority journalists under the title of ‘Cultures gaze at each other’. Some minority journalists such as Rober Haddeler admitted that this was the first time they had met other minority journalists and editors.