Politics and the Turkish Language
When I sat down to write this piece for City Journal about the waves of mass arrests followed by utterly surreal trials in Turkey, I found myself repeatedly vexed by what I think is a problem for many journalists here: trying to explain the sheer absurdity of these proceedings. Obviously, this is not a novel problem in literary history:
If there's an absolute acquittal all proceedings should stop, everything disappears from the process, not just the indictment but the trial and even the acquittal disappears, everything just disappears. With an apparent acquittal it's different. When that happens, nothing has changed except that the case for your innocence, for your acquittal and the grounds for the acquittal have been made stronger. Apart from that, proceedings go on as before, the court offices continue their business and the case gets passed to higher courts, gets passed back down to the lower courts and so on, backwards and forwards, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, to and fro. It's impossible to know exactly what's happening while this is going on. Seen from outside it can sometimes seem that everything has been long since forgotten, the documents have been lost and the acquittal is complete. No-one familiar with the court would believe it. No documents ever get lost, the court forgets nothing. One day - no-one expects it--some judge or other picks up the documents and looks more closely at them, he notices that this particular case is still active, and orders the defendant's immediate arrest. I've been talking here as if there's a long delay between apparent acquittal and re-arrest, that is quite possible and I do know of cases like that, but it's just as likely that the defendant goes home after he's been acquitted and finds somebody there waiting to re-arrest him. Then, of course, his life as a free man is at an end." "And does the trial start over again?" asked K., finding it hard to believe. "The trial will always start over again" ....
But the literary figure who grasped it best, I think, was--yet again--Orwell, who recognized that some political phenomena demand the wholesale invention of a new language to express the worldview and mental habits required to explain them.
Although I'm hardly a fluent Turkish speaker, it's obvious even to me that standard Turkish is itself far too rich a language to render literally unthinkable the thoughts ordinary Turks might be tempted to have about their justice system, and that it would moreover be dangerous for them to have such thoughts. Because I like to be helpful, I've tried my best to provide a vocabulary better suited to diminishing their range of thought and keeping them out of legal trouble. I hope they find it useful.
... It’s relatively fortunate to be a famous arrested journalist: at least there’s hope that someone will notice you’re in jail. The Turkish government denies that the arrested journalists were arrested for journalism—or rather, it says that only eight of them were; the others, it says, are in jail because they are terrorists. This is where a new language must be invented, because the word “terrorist” doesn’t do justice to the concept that the government has in mind.
Take, for example, Interior Minister İdris Naim Şahin’s recent explanation of the concept: "The efforts of the terrorist group are not limited to vicious attacks. ... There is psychological terror, scientific terror. There is a backyard feeding the terror. There is the terror propaganda. There is an effort to portray it as innocent, reasonable and right ... Some support terror by seriously distorting it, making it sound reasonable by inventing excuses. By drawing pictures, reflecting it onto canvas, writing poems, reflecting it onto poems, writing daily columns ... They try to demoralize the military and the police fighting against terror by making them subjects in their artistic work. In such ways, they take on those who fight terror. The backyard is Istanbul, Izmir, Bursa, Vienna, London, Washington, university lecterns, associations, NGOs. They have infiltrated all these places. Sometimes it is the cultural center, educational association. Other times it is a think tank."
Let us say, then, that the accused have been charged with the crime of subtle terrorism—what an official of Oceania might have abbreviated to subter.
Special courtrooms, annexed to the prisons where some detainees await trial—in many cases for years—have already been constructed, as have the new prisons, so constructing the new language should be quite quick and painless by comparison. I welcome comments from native speakers about my application of the rules of agglutination; obviously one wishes to preserve some relationship with traditional Turkish grammar. Certainly, there's little hope of explaining the logic of the Turkish justice system to the outside world without such a language, so we'd best hurry.
Or perhaps--it just occurs to me--some people don't want the rest of the world to understand?
No, no, that idea is too cynical.
- Comment (15)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (2)
Comments :
Apr '11
Re: Politics and the Turkish Language
I don't speak Turkish at all, but I thought it was a splendid language, one in which you can hang prefixes and suffixes on "the book" until it becomes "the book you bought for me that is sitting on the table." So different from English; I love the concept of agglutinating languages. And I think it supports Charlton Laird's argument that an English grammar based upon Latin grammar makes little sense.
Jan '12
Re: Politics and the Turkish Language
I have lived in Turkey for 37 years and have never known fear...I was asked on TV 3 years ago if I trusted the Turkish justice system. My reply was, " I am too afraid to answer that question."
Re: Politics and the Turkish Language
Glad to have you here on Ricochet. Hoş geldiniz.
May '10
Re: Politics and the Turkish Language
Claire, you've lived in Turkey for several years, obviously you have had a lot of opportunity for immersion language studies. How well do you speak the language? If you aren't fluent, I am curious how/why you'd want to stay for an extended time...?
Apr '11
Re: Politics and the Turkish Language
So is the Turkish approach to freedom of speech just the result of along tradition of lack thereof, and a kind of insecurity on the part of the ruling parties or is this a more deeply troubled manifestation of a system sliding into dictatorship?
What always struck me about the rest of the world compared to us in America is that really we have enjoyed very high levels of democracy and freedom since the first colonists. If there was disagreement people would just move like 50 miles away and start their own colony. In America there was always more room ad land for everyone to carve out a spot for themselves. Thus if you feared persecution in New York you just moved out and made your own state. Like what the Mormons did. This has developed in us a strong sense of live and let live and a tolerance for decent and different viewed.
Can this be build into countries like Turkey, or do we just have to accept that Turkey will never be able to have the American 1st Amendment, and neither will Germany for that matter (not to pick on Islamic countries)?
Edited on Jan 4 at 11:57amRe: Politics and the Turkish Language
Duane, the big problem is that I read and write in English all day--so it's not an immersion environment in my head. I speak enough Turkish to do the daily things I need to do (mostly), and I can struggle through something like an indictment with the help of a dictionary, checking parts I don't understand with friends. But absolutely, my life would be a lot richer if my Turkish were better. Hence my New Year's resolution, which is to improve it.
Re: Politics and the Turkish Language
Valiuth: So is the Turkish approach to freedom of speech just the result of along tradition of lack thereof, and a kind of insecurity on the part of the ruling parties or is this a more deeply troubled manifestation of a system sliding into dictatorship?
...
Can this be build into countries like Turkey, or do we just have to accept that Turkey will never be able to have the American 1st Amendment, and neither will Germany for that matter (not to pick on Islamic countries)? · Jan 4 at 11:29am
Edited on Jan 04 at 11:57 am
Two really important questions. The answer to the first one is that this is definitely not new, and it's a mistake to think this came out of the blue. This very good article will give you a sense of just how old and complicated this story is.
The second question is the one that fascinates me, and in a way I've been writing notes for a book in my mind about it. I don't think I can give you a glib answer to the question. I'm not sure I know the answer. (Con't.)
Re: Politics and the Turkish Language
I do think the concept of "freedom of expression" is becoming more widespread around the world. People have heard the term; increasingly, they're exposed to the idea, especially with cellphone and Internet penetration. Turkey is linguistically isolated, so in many ways ordinary people have no idea what that concept means or that it really exists elsewhere--and certainly don't grow up thinking about it as an important liberty with real utilitarian benefits in addition to the moral case for it. Could that change? Could it even change quickly? I don't know. I'm more pessimistic, after six years here, than I used to be. I'm deeply internally divided about the proposition that people instinctively want to be free. I want to believe that's true, it feels true to me, but the evidence for it from here doesn't look that strong.
Apr '11
Re: Politics and the Turkish Language
As always you make me feel less good about the world. You are probably right, of course. But, it is not an easy truth to hear. It makes so much of what we as a nation have been trying to do seem worthless and foolish, despite our intentions. The answer can not be our own disengagement though can it? But, how do we maintain our moral to keep pressing for governments and people to achieve and accept new levels of freedom? Do you think it is even worth it for us to keep trying, or should we just follow Ron Paul's advice and let them figure it out on their own.
As a person born in a dictatorship (1985, Romania) and having heard first hand accounts of it. I can not bring myself to just advocate for disengagement. I know for a fact that there were people in Romania that looked to America for support and solidarity, and who had faith that ultimately the Americans would find away to save them. Maybe Eastern Europe is too different from Turkey and the Middle East.
Do any Turks look abroad for help and solidarity? Are we giving any?
Aug '10
Re: Politics and the Turkish Language
Not sure which country is rushing to the Orwellian construct faster . Our highest police authority recently said "“If you want to have this legal conversation, it all has to do with your state of mind, and whether or not you had the requisite intent to come up with something that can be considered perjury or a lie". I'll see your bet and raise you two holders...
Apr '11
Re: Politics and the Turkish Language
Do you not think that the linguistic isolation is likely to be on a permanent downward ratchet, and that this will help over time?
Re: Politics and the Turkish Language
Valiuth: Maybe Eastern Europe is too different from Turkey and the Middle East.
Do any Turks look abroad for help and solidarity? Are we giving any? · Jan 4 at 12:58pm
Have you been following the news from Hungary? It's not encouraging on that score--and certainly the news from Russia isn't. Yes, Turks look for help and solidarity. No, we are giving them very little. Follow the US Embassy in Ankara Twitter feed to see what I mean.
I'm struggling with the same questions you are, and won't pretend to have an authoritative answer, because I go back and forth. Turkey is such an unusual case that lessons from it may not be relevant elsewhere. My somewhat evasive answer for now is "case-by-case basis."
Re: Politics and the Turkish Language
Yes, I do, and I wouldn't discount the effect of cellphone penetration and Internet access. But "over time" is the key--and how much time, I don't know.
Re: Politics and the Turkish Language
Well, we have no choice but to engage in many cases--we follow Ron Paul's advice and let Iran figure it out on its own, for example, and we'll end up with a nuclear-armed Iranian hegemony over much of the globe's energy resources--which, by the way, we could survive in the medium-term quite nicely; it's the developing world that would be most affected.
Of one thing I'm sure: It's disastrous to intervene without knowing what we're doing, and right now, there is far too little understanding of the cultures, languages, history, etc. of the regions in which we're intervening among the people doing the intervening.
Apr '11
Re: Politics and the Turkish Language
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Have you been following the news from Hungary? It's not encouraging on that score--and certainly the news from Russia isn't.
Alas I must admit I was not aware of any thing wrong in Hungry. Russia though I am aware of though over the holidays I lost track of the story...I will have to pick up the threads of it again. Any article you recommend on either of those situations?
I agree with your assessment that the US could bear a nuclear Iran dominating the Arabian Gulf and states, and that the main sufferers will be other smaller nations. My experience from hearing of Romania makes me very sympathetic to them, but we always seem to be behind the eight ball on trying to help such nations. I don't think people like it when we send in our troops to deal with problems, but we seem to have such little political leverage, and what we do have is always being undermined by our allies and their second guessing and fence straddling nature.