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ABSTRACT
This paper examines the relation between nationalism and heteronormativity through the lens of hegemonic masculinity and shows how Turkish nationalism helps to construct the “normal” and thus strengthen heteronormative thinking in Turkish society. Utilizing in-depth interviews in Çanakkale with 16 men who carry the typical features of a privileged Turkish citizen—namely the ones self-identifying as Turkish, Sunni Muslim, heterosexual, and breadwinner—my aim in the paper is to reveal and comprehend attitudes toward non-heterosexual people in Turkey, to challenge the effect of the possible nationalist ideological tendencies on participants’ discourses, and to explicate if such tendencies play a part in justifying their attitudes. I suggest that respondents’ privileges are obtained in exchange for strict commitment to Turkish nationalistic values. These values not only define what constitutes “normal” but also determine and disparage anyone who deviates from such definition. Greater commitment to such values signals a more powerful heterosexual matrix and thus greater exclusion of queer people in Turkey.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. As Sunni Islam is the dominant religious doctrine of Turkey, only “Sunni Muslim” identity functions as a source of privilege (see, Lord, Citation2018).
2. Some major determining characteristics of a Turkish nationalist citizen are closely related to the characteristics of the present hegemonic masculinity in Turkey. “A constant play of vigilance and willingness to claim and protect and to sacrifice for family, kin, community, flag and nation” is essential in defining a typical dominant male citizen in Turkey (Zengin, Citation2016, p. 229).
3. I am close to Connell (Citation1979), who rejects “‘role’ as a theoretical paradigm in social science” and “provides grounds for understanding its ideological effect as a practical concept” (p. 7). Thus, every time I say “role” throughout the paper, I am always critical and always mean constructed roles. I regard roles as imposed human positions manipulated by the authorities of related contexts. They are ambiguous/obscure in nature and especially sex/gender roles are much more complicated in this sense (see, Connell, Citation1995, pp. 25, 26). However, when respondents talk about their places, duties, obligations, etc. in society, they take them as stable, fixed, God-given and/or unquestionable which naturally, biologically and religiously appointed to them or to other people. This is undoubtedly parallel to what Connell says: “role theory paralyses the social (and sociological) imagination by taking the given as the real, the immediately accessible as the fundamental structure of society.” Thus, my use of “roles” doesn’t refer to any stance presupposing a role theory of any kind but to unavoidable “concept,” which Connell criticizes as if it refers to “truth” “by mutual agreement” (p. 15). She says “the concept picks up features of everyday experience which people can easily recognize as their own and reflects this experience back as ‘science’” (p. 15). This approach, which Connell opposes, is evident both in the respondents’ words and in the current Turkish political context.
4. “Compulsory military service is one of the most entrenched institutions in Turkey, thanks in large part to its imbrication with heteronormative masculinity” (Açıksöz, Citation2019, p. 4).
5. Although these examples from the related literature are shaped in totally different contexts with a strong Christian influence and the recent history of the secular former Soviet bloc, they still give us an impression of how nationalism, religion, and homophobia link together, which this article also attempts to clarify in the totally different, complex, and changing context of Turkey.
6. The term “queer” is not a straightforward matter in the non-Western world considering the colonial modernity discussions around the term’s usage. Savcı (Citation2021b) elaborates this issue in her work on the scholarship on Turkey’s queer times and discuss Turkey’s unique position: “As the descendant of an empire and thanks to its current imperial aspirations as exemplified in its military invasion of Syria, Turkey throws a wrench in the ongoing reproduction of the colonized East–colonial West divide. The Republic interrupts the representation of Islam as the victim Other of the imperial ‘West’ with its history of repressive secularism and its present state of repressive Sunni Islamism” (Savcı, Citation2021b, p. 17).
7. “Ya sev ya terk et.”
8. When I use the term “Turkish nationalism,” I always mean a kind of ideology which is intertwined with and dominated by Sunni Islamic elements. The peak point which directly reflects the togetherness is the adoption of the Turkish Islamic Synthesis as a new leading national ideology of Turkey after 1980.
9. Here it might be useful to recall Szulc’s (Citation2016) work on banal nationalism and queer sexualities. The Turkish and Polish LGBTI websites Szulc analyzed reaffirm the world “as a world of nations” (utilizing Billig’s concept of banal nationalism, which is about the ideological habits in daily life that continuously and sometimes unintentionally reproduce “nations”); namely they, who are the victims of nationalism, also “flag their nationality in a variety of ways” (p. 320) (with national flags, maps, symbols etc.). They also contribute to a continuous cycle of nationalism with “banal” “daily” usages/preferences/activities. However, they “also subvert those national discourses which exclude queer sexualities from the nation, particularly through the more explicit coupling of queer symbolism with national symbolism” (p. 318).
10. Presenting a group of men who consistently express “homophobic” accounts may legitimize “homonationalism” according to Puar’s conceptual frame (Citation2007). Puar says “nation-states are now vested with the status of ‘gay friendly’ versus ‘homophobic’” (Puar, Citation2013, p. 337). Thus, presenting such research results from Turkey may contribute to other binaries, leading to other stigmatizations. Although unpacking Puar’s work and the way homosexuality is utilized as a part of nationalist otherizations requires another full-length article, I have to express my reservations regarding any contribution to stereotype what Puar means by presenting the others of the Western civilized subject (Puar & Rai, Citation2002, p. 117). I am afraid Puar’s theory not only ties LGBTI organizations’ but also many researchers’ hands through reservations about reproducing “the image of the ‘homophobic Muslim country’” and therefore providing “ammunition for global Islamophobia” (Savcı, Citation2021, p. 8). For further discussions on this issue see, (Savcı, Citation2021).
11. Rising femicide rates are also an urgent issue that deserves international attention. In 2020, 410 women were killed in Turkey (Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu, Citation2021) and most of these murders were so-called “honor killings,” which directly refers to the accepted gender norms.
12. Although Çanakkale is militaristic and nationalist due to the reasons explained above, it is also a relative stronghold of Turkey’s main opposition and modernizing-secularist party, the CHP [Republican People’s Party]. In the last local elections, they recevied 60,73% of the votes.
13. “Political Islam refers generally to any interpretation of Islam that serves as a basis for political identity and action. More specifically, it refers to the movements representing modern political mobilization in the name of Islam, a trend that emerged in the late 20th century” (Voll & Son, Citation2010, p. 3).
14. The social values related to gender/sexuality are about the control of women’s sexual behavior and protecting women’s sexual purity in the name of “honor/namus” (See, endnote 19). Loyalty to husband, sacredness of motherhood, and premarital female virginity are highly significant values in most of Turkey.
15. “Vatana millete hayırlı.”
16. “Düz,” “düzgün/dümdüz,” “sapmayan/doğru/doğrudan,” respectively.
17. “Çıkıntılık yapmak.”
18. “Sivrilik.”
19. The word “namus,” here, refers to something more than when it is translated into English as “honor.” It is a “notion that is used to reflect the bodily and moral qualities women have to have and a notion that is closely related to sexuality” (Durudoğan, Citation2011, p. 871).
20. “Kazık gibi dikilmek.”
21. “Zorbalık.”
22. “Eşcinsel.”
23. “Özenti.”
24. This belief explains the respondents’ antagonism to the possibility of becoming neighbors with queer people or employing them even as a house cleaner. They said they would rather hire a Roma person—although most of them were also highly Romaphobic. They especially find unbearable to have a queer teacher for their children, as they believe their child will end up being homosexual. These answers reveal the danger of the belief that homosexuality is something learnable and transmissible.
25. In my research group, the only subtle difference I observed involved the manner participants explain their attitudes against non-heterosexual people. Younger participants were much more careful while talking about homosexuality. They exclude LGBTI people in a much more polite manner. However, the way older men were talking about non-heterosexuality was much more reckless (including swearing and an intolerable, aggressive loud way of speaking). As Öztürk, Rumens and Tatlı (Citation2020) state in their research investigating the relationship between hegemonic masculinity and age in terms of older gay men, “ageing can generate anxieties about conforming to the ideals of the hegemonic masculinity” (p. 1255). The reasons that make older heterosexual men more intolerant may have parallels with such anxieties and with older men’s greater interest in maintaining some aspects of heteronormativity in general.
26. “Pisle oturan pis, misle oturan mis kokar.”