March 02, 2007
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TV series sparks free speech row in Turkey
The hit show ‘Valley of the Wolves’ was recently pulled off the air
for stoking nationalist fervor.
By Yigal Schleifer | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
The most talked about television show in Turkey these days is one
that’s not even on the air.
The wildly popular "Kurtlar Vadisi" ("Valley of the Wolves"), a series
that chronicles life in Turkey’s criminal underworld, was set to
return for a triumphant second season in early February after a
one-year hiatus. But, only one episode into its new run on the private
Show TV network, the series was unceremoniously yanked off the
airwaves, following a large number of complaints and pressure from the
government body that oversees Turkish television.
"Kurtlar Vadisi" has been accused of glorifying violence and extreme
nationalism. The show tells the story of Polat Alemdar, a patriotic
undercover intelligence officer who infiltrates the mafia but starts
operating in the murky zone where the interests of unsavory elements
of the state and of organized crime meet. It’s as if special agent
Jack Bauer of the hit show "24" took over Tony Soprano’s gang, but
instead of engaging in protection rackets started bumping off enemies
of the state.
A spin-off movie, which saw the show’s hero going to Iraq and doing
battle with the US military, is Turkey’s highest-grossing movie ever
but was accused of being crassly anti-American and anti-Semitic. The
new season was supposed to deal with the problem of Kurdish terrorism,
but many feared that the show’s take on this volatile topic would only
fan sectarian tensions in Turkey.
The cancellation of the hit show is raising a debate in Turkey about
whether limiting free speech in the name of curbing violence and
nationalism is censorship or simply good government, and whether the
show is a product of surging nationalism or a contributor to it.
"It was a dilemma for people who support free speech. They were
outraged by the show, but yet they couldn’t say a word," says Yusuf
Kanli, chief columnist for the English-language newspaper Turkish
Daily News.
Turkish intellectuals have in recent years accused the government of
stifling free speech by prosecuting writers under article 301, a vague
law in the penal code that makes it a crime to "insult" Turkish
identity, even in a work of fiction.
This time, though, many of those same intellectuals were on the other
side of the divide, asking the Turkish government to step in and use
its influence to cancel "Kurtlar Vadisi." It was an irony that was not
lost on some of the show’s supporters.
"These so-called intellectual journalists and writers who were talking
so much about the incompatibility of article 301-type legislation in
Turkey with the European Union, which was built on the notion of free
speech, now all of a sudden have become the supporters of censure when
it comes to ‘Valley of the Wolves,’ " wrote Yilmaz Ozdil, a former
television executive who is a columnist for the Sabah newspaper.
But critics of the show say it had crossed the line from fictionalized
entertainment into something that was stoking what has been a rising
nationalist wave in Turkey. Cleverly mixing references to real events
with dramatized scenarios, "Kurtlar Vadisi" – on television and on the
big screen – consistently touched upon several political and cultural
hot-button issues, among them a growing anti-Americanism and a fear
that Turkey will ultimately get dragged into the war in Iraq.
In the first season, for example, Polat Alemdar, on trial for
murdering several heroin smugglers who were part of a larger foreign
plot to destabilize Turkey, is let go after the judge decides that he
did it for the love of Turkey.
In the "Kurtlar Vadisi" film, meanwhile, Alemdar and his crew head to
Iraq to avenge the honor of the Turkish military after American GI’s
arrest a contingent of Turkish special forces, putting hoods over
their heads while in captivity. Based on a real event – American
soldiers did arrest several Turkish soldiers in Northern Iraq in July
2003, putting hoods on their heads – that caused an outrage in Turkey.
The movie goes on to weave a tale of almost cartoonish blood-thirsty
Americans wreaking havoc, throwing into the mix a Jewish-American
doctor who is harvesting organs from the bodies of Iraqi prisoners for
patients in the West.
"People look at the movie and the series as a documentary, not
fiction. That is the problem," says Nilufer Narli, a sociologist at
Istanbul’s Bahcesehir University. "It is not a positive nationalism
that the show puts forward, but negative nationalism based on fears
and polarization in Turkey. In this nationalism, there are enemies and
these enemies need to be destroyed."
For the series, the recent cancellation was a distinct fall from
grace. After the successful first season, the gala premiere of the
"Kurtlar Vadisi" film was able to attract some of Turkey’s leading
figures and top celebrities.
Analysts say, though, that recent events – most notably the January
murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink by an extreme
nationalist 17-year-old – has made many realize that the nationalist
fervor whipped up by "Kurtlar Vadisi" may be pushing Turkey in a
dangerous direction.
"[Canceling the series] was obviously censorship, but if an industry
decides to produce dangerous junk, then society has the right to have
some control over this," Irfan Erdogan, a professor of communications
at Gazi University in Ankara, says. "If the industry has no social
responsibility, the society has the right to step in."
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