From Alliance of Civilizations to Branding the Nation: Turkish Studies, Image Wars and Politics of Comparison in an Age of Neoliberalism

Abstract

In 2005, the United Nations launched the Alliance of Civilizations initiative, co-sponsored by the Spanish and Turkish governments, to address issues raised by “Clash of Civilizations” discourses in the aftermath of 9/11. In 2006, a series of “rebranding” initiatives were launched during the World Economic Forum meetings to repair the image of the Middle East and to propose Turkey as a “bridge between civilizations.” In this process, certain categories (e.g. civilization and the East/West) have informed the terms of relevance in these projects. This article engages these initiatives as politics of comparison—that is, comparison as a state-sponsored project to (re)position a state in a world order and to secure power. Such projects of comparison are important factors to consider the politics of positioning a nation state, and the categories that inform such alignments. In that light, this essay addresses the implications of such political projects for the production of knowledge in general, the dynamics of “relevance” related to Turkish Studies in the USA in particular.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Paul Levin, Sinan Ciddi, Paul Kubicek, İlker Hepkaner, and to Aslı Gür for their invaluable feedback on different versions of this essay.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

Aslı Iğsız is Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. Her teaching and research interests are multidisciplinary and informed by anthropology, literary studies, and cultural history. Her research and teaching address a wide variety of issues related to cultural representation and cultural history, narratives of war and displacement, and dynamics of alterity in late Ottoman and contemporary Turkish contexts. Her recent publications and work examined contemporary issues such as the Gezi Park protests, multiculturalism and museumization of culture in Turkey. She is currently working on her book project entitled Humanism in Ruins: Liberal Multiculturalism, Memory and the Greek-Turkish Population Exchange in Contemporary Turkey. The book undertakes a multidisciplinary approach and explores memory, cultural representation and governmentality of “multiculturalism” in post-Cold War and post-1980 military coup era Turkey, with a special focus on Greco-Turkish entangled histories and their legacy.

Notes

1. For “strategic languages,” see Lockman, Contending Visions of the Middle East, 238. For broader dynamics, see 122–30.

2. Mitchell considers such micro-level production of knowledge as a move against social sciences and to build expertise knowledge in the area studies programs in mid-twentieth century. See Mitchell, “The Middle East in the Past,” 6–20.

3. Cf. “Introduction,” this volume.

4. Stoler, “Tense and Tender Ties,” 829–65.

5. Critic Ertürk argues that comparability is in fact embedded in “modernity” projects. “Modernity and Its Fallen Languages,” 41–56.

6. Stoler, “Tense and Tender Ties,” 862–3.

7. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?,” 22–49.

8. “President: Today We Mourned”. Georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov. September 16, 2001.

9. General Assembly, “Resolution Adapted by the General Assembly.” Sixtieth session. www.un.org. October 24, 2005, 2.

10. Ibid., 22.

11. Ibid., 4, 6, 28.

12. Ibid., 31.

13. Ibid., 31.

14. For a critique of the “modernization theory” as a collection of approaches to historical change, see Lockman, 134–41. Also see, Mitchell, “The Middle East in the Past,” 1–24.

15. Different ministries developed different projects for the Alliance of Civilizations action plan. The very first project is titled “Medeniyetler İttifakı Perspektifinde Türk Modernleşmesi” Other projects included conferences on Atatürk's vision of culture and civilization, and the Islamic civilization and Ottoman peace. See “Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Medeniyetler İttifakı Ulusal Planı.”

16. “Genelge: Medeniyetler İttifakı Ulusal Planı.” 2008.

17. United Nations High-Level Group, “Alliance of Civilizations: Final Report of the High-Level Group.” unaoc.org. November 13, 2006.

18. “Ulusal Plan.” 2008, 10.

19. Ibid., 11.

20. Brown, Regulating Aversion.

21. Iğsız, “Palimpsests of ‘Multiculturalism’ and Museumization of Culture,” forthcoming.

22. See note 18 above.

23. See note 21 above.

24. Reynolds, “Interview with Aron Rodrigue.” Stanford.edu.

25. Ezine. “Dünya Sergisi ve Biz,” 142–9.

26. An economist by training, Tör later led the Turkish Yapı Kredi Bank cultural projects and published the periodical La Turquie Kémaliste in collaboration with the state. He led many important publishing projects such as Kadro—an important journal of political and cultural criticism. Yapı Kredi Bank also established a museum in his name. See http://www.yapikredi.com.tr/en/culture-and-arts/vedat-nedim-tor-museum.aspx Ahmed Emin Yalman was a famous journalist trained at Columbia University.

27. Birinci Türk Tarih Kongresi, 5–14. Many more citations can be found throughout the text.

28. Lockman, Contending Visions of the Middle East, 236–7.

29. UN High-Level Group, “Alliance of Civilizations: Final Report,” 3–4.

30. “Ulusal Plan,” 7–8.

31. There is also a new state university entitled University of Civilization [Medeniyet Üniversitesi] that was established in 2010, but I could not confirm at this time whether this name was a coincidence or part of this larger project.

32. Medeniyetler İttifakı İkinci Ulusal Eylem Planı: Türkiye. Medeniyetlerittifaki.org. 19 (This handbook was distributed in February 2013, but it is not clear when exactly it was published).

33. Durkheim and Mauss, “Note on the Notion of Civilization” (Introduction and translation by Benjamin Nelson), 808–13.

34. Mitchell, “The Middle East in the Past and Future of Social Science”, 5; Lockman, Contending Visions of the Middle East, 106–15.

35. Clash of Civilizations was also articulated in 1926. An American missionary, Basil Mathews, wrote a book entitled Young Islam on Trek: A Study in the Clash of Civilizations. Mathews also devoted a whole chapter on how the “battle of hat versus fez” and other series of state-imposed changes in Turkey constituted a “clash of civilizations.” According to him (what he called), “modernization” meant conversion. Ahmet Davutoğlu, scholar and the current Prime Minister of Turkey, wrote a piece addressing Mathews with his own interpretation of “civilization.” See Mathews, “The New Vista of Turkey,” Young Islam on Trek: A Study in the Clash of Civilizations, 93–123. Also see Davutoğlu, “Civilizational Self-Perception and Pluralistic Coexistence,” 101–22.

36. Historian Frederick Cooper and sociologist Rogers Brubaker call attention to the distinction between categories of practice and categories of analysis. Accordingly, an object of study would be composed of multiple practices (e.g. developing and changing the law or the education system; writing treatises, reports or novels; participating in debates in public venues such as newspapers or journals; daily life practices, etc.). These would be considered categories of practice. As for the critical analytical lens through which these practices are examined, observed, and engaged in scholarly works, that would constitute categories analysis. With this distinction, Cooper and Brubaker seek to offer a critique of the scholarly uses of certain terms such as “identity” as a category of analysis. Such loaded terms, they argue, include too many contradictory categories of practice at once, and therefore, become ambiguous and flattening categories of analysis. Cooper and Brubaker, “Identity,” 59–90.

37. World Economic Forum. “Davos WorkSpace Marketing and Rebranding the Middle East.” Weforum.org. May 21, 2006.

38. Ibid.

39. Ibid.

40. WEF in Turkey Report. November 23–24, 2006, 4.

41. “Turkish Prime Minister: We Have Fulfilled Our Promises.”

42. Ibid.

43. WEF Turkey Report, 2006, 6.

44. WEF Turkey Report, 2006, 5.

45. WEF Turkey Report, 2006,16.

46. Iğsız, “Brand Turkey and the Gezi Protests: Authoritarianism, Law and Neoliberalism.” Also see, Iğsız, “Brand Turkey and the Gezi Protests: Authoritarianism in Flux, Law and Neoliberalism,” 25–49.

47. Ak Parti Siyaset Akademisi: Lider Ülke Türkiye (10. Dönem) Ders Notları. Elektronik Kitap. Hamdi Turşucu and Hamit Emrah Beriş, eds. December 2011 siyasetakademisi.org

48. For more information, see the official website of the AKP Political Academy: “Sıkça Sorulan Sorular.” siyasetakademisi.org

49. “Siyaset Akademisi Başlıyor.” akpartiafyon.com.

50. For more information, see brandfinance.com/about.

51. See, for example, Karakaya, “Borsada 10 Yılın En Sert Düşüşü Yaşandı”. Wsjournal.com.tr

52. See Mevlüt Günay's coverage of the topic: “Çelik: Uluslararası Basının Amacı Türkiye'nin Marka Değerini Düşürmek.”

53. “Gül: İmaj Yapmak İçin 10 Sene Uğraşırsınız ama onu Bir Haftada Yıkarsınız”. Here, President Gül highlights the importance of Turkey's image and its direct impact on the foreign investors.

54. Kennedy, “Area Studies and Academic Disciplines across Universities,” 195–226. I am grateful to Aslı Gür for reminding me of Kennedy's text. Additionally, see Susan V. Berresford and Toby Alice Volkman, Revitalizing Area Studies, Crossing Borders, v–xiii.

55. Lockman, Contending Visions of the Middle East; Mitchell, “The Middle East in the Past and Future of Social Science.”

56. Some Turkish language programs were eliminated over the last years across campuses in the USA. This is not specifically targeting Turkish, as other language programs such as French, German, or Latin have also been shut down. Russell A. Berman—the 2011 President of the Modern Languages Association—discusses how more and more higher education institutions target languages and eliminate programs of classics, French, Spanish, or German. See Berman, “The Real Language Crisis.” Academe (September–October 2011). aaup.org. Of course, the implications of these policies are different for Turkish or any other “minor” language that is historically less funded and less “capitalized” on US campuses.

57. Brown, “Neoliberalized Knowledge,” 113–29.

58. Ibid., 118.

59. Taylor, “End the University As We Know It,” The Opinion Pages. April 26, 2009. His book is entitled Crisis on Campus.

60. Brown, “Neoliberalized Knowledge,” 115.