Turkey's TV Revolution

"Packaging Islam: Cultural Politics on the Landscape of Turkish Commercial Television" by Ayse Öncü, in Public Culture (Fall 1995), 124 Wieboldt Hall, Univ. of Chicago, 1010 E. 59th St., Chicago, Ill. 60637.

For most of the 20th century, official on officially designated holidays. The overall Turkey has resolutely kept Islam in the clos-impression from what was shown (and not et. On state-controlled TV, evidence of the shown) by the Turkish Television and Radio faith was seen only in weekly 15-minute Authority (TRT), reports Öncü, a sociologist homilies delivered by a state official in secu-at Bogaziçi University in Istanbul, was that lar garb, and in limited mosque broadcasts Islam remained "a primordial force" requiring vigilance "lest its dark face reappear."

All of that began to change with the advent of commercial broadcasting in 1990 and a clever 1991 TV ad campaign by Turkey’s long-standing Islamist political party. The Refah (Welfare) Party had been seen as a marginal religious organization representing cranky traditionalists, especially backward small-town shopkeepers. The ads, however, Öncü says, put a new face on the Islamist movement, one that was "urban, literate, middle class." Quotations from the Koran were scarce, and Refah’s constituents, she observes, "were not the turbaned women and bearded dark men of the imagination, but everyday people." The only woman wearing a turban was a student who told the viewers she had been expelled from her university for wearing a headscarf. A voice-over promised that when Refah was in power, no one would face discrimination because of her beliefs and practices.

Today, Öncü says, Islam is everywhere on Turkish TV, "part of the issue-saturated culture of commercial television." (Seven private channels now compete among themselves and with TRT.) Islamic spokesmen appear in TV forums to present "the Islamist viewpoint." News commentators, politicians, and other secular figures advert to ominous global religio-political conspiracies involving Saudi finance capital or Iranian fundamentalism.

Islam is now seen, Öncü says, as "a problem that demands public awareness, encouraging audiences to clarify their own positions and take a stand." Although not the sole factor, Islam’s TV presence undoubtedly contributed to the Refah Party’s stunning showing in last December’s elections: it won 158 seats in the 550-member parliament, more than any other party.