Turkey’s MeToo Moment Reveals Women’s Tragedies, Triggers Mighty Men’s Fall From Grace
By: Abdullah Ayasun
Tags: Turkey, Women, Prison, Metoo, Feminism

METOO MOMENT AND TURKEY’S WOMEN

Turkey’s MeToo Moment Reveals Women’s Tragedies, Triggers Mighty Men’s Fall From Grace

Turkey’s belated moment of #MeToo reveals long-hidden painful memories, sexual abuses experienced by women while condemning predatory men to public shaming.

A march by feminist groups in Istanbul’s iconic Istiklal Street against domestic violence and abuse of women in this archive photo.

“I did not prepare myself for such an end. I wished to be a good person, I could not achieve it. I could write for hours, days, but that won’t bring anything back. From now on, I cannot look at my wife, my children, my friends in the face.”

This farewell note posted by Ibrahim Colak on Twitter just before he committed suicide on Friday. What brought the downfall of the conservative writer was the emergence of revelations that raised sexual abuse charges against him. In a series of tweets, the writer admitted wrongdoing without divulging details of when, how, and whom he might have abused.

He expressed his heartfelt repentance over failing to observe what he preached to others about living according to moral values and principles. And with an apology to his wife and children, Colak ended his life last week.

His death came after the outbreak of Turkey’s #MeToo moment, which has recently triggered the fall of mighty men from grace in the U.S. and elsewhere over the past two years. Turkey so far eluded the initial shockwaves of the feminist upheaval that erupted when The New York Times and The New Yorker destroyed the kingdom of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Countless women, victims of Weinstein’s predatory approach and outright abuse for decades, finally came out and shared their moments of trauma long-suppressed to preserve their professional careers in a male-dominated work environment. The Weinstein affair became a watershed moment and created a snowball effect that ended the once-untouched careers of scores of male celebrities.

Hasan Ali Toptas, a famous Turkish writer, faced a similar public shaming after several women accused him of sexual abuse and inconvenient approach during their work with him. Toptas composed a statement to offer an apology on social media. But it did little to placate critics and his victims rooting for his downfall from fame. After a weeklong campaign, The Everest Publishing House, the publisher of the writer, decided to part its way with the writer deposed from public esteem. And Turkey’s Union of Journalists and Writers announced the cancellation of an award designated for Topbas. Extrapolating from what the country goes through now, it is safe to surmise that other heads would be rolling as well in the weeks to come as hundreds of new tales and accusations circulate on social media.

The belated #MeToo moment in Turkey has become a turning point in a society where talking about sexual abuse of women still remains one of the strong social taboos. This is so despite the fact that Turkey has a strong feminist tradition harking back to the early Republican era. From the times of Halide Edip Adivar, the pioneering figure of the late Ottoman period who valiantly fought for women’s empowerment against a myriad of odds in a patriarchal society, to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s novel reforms that elevated the status of women in society and politics, the modern Turkish republic has a proud record on the empowerment of women in all aspects of social life.

Turkey is one of the first countries that recognized the suffrage rights of women, allowing them to be elected to Parliament in the 1930s. Sabiha Gokcen, an adopted daughter of Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, is the first female pilot to fly a warplane. And Turkey, along with Pakistan, is one of the few Muslim countries where a female politician became a prime minister.

But this account, though relentlessly repeated in the official narrative in Turkey, is not without flaws. The republic’s national war against hijab in public service and higher education reduced a multitude of issues concerning women into a misunderstood dress code as the mere indication of being a modern woman. This reductionist treatment of women had become an abiding theme of culture wars and identity politics until very recently. The secular Kemalist elites have finally emerged content with seeing the hijabi women in positions of power, not out of a civilized and democratic embracing, but as a sense of resignation shaped by the power politics after the Kemalists’ once-unassailable hold on the reins of power eventually waned amid the rise of pious segments (embodied by the Justice and Development Party AKP) in politics.

#MeToo Moment in Police Custody

Today, feminist groups take the lead in the politics of memory and public shaming to dig into the long-concealed allegations of sexual abuse in the workplace. This noble cause, however, falls victim to the pervasive culture of political tribalism. The concerted campaign to shame men in positions of power for their perceived predatory acts against women misses a crucial element in the larger picture. Unfortunately, Turkey’s feminist movement cherry-picks the cases to be fought for, while it remains mute in the plight of some women ruthlessly targeted by the political crackdown in the post-coup era.

Still, today stands out as a moment of reckoning for all quarters of the social spectrum as women defy the social cleavages to coalesce around a shared cause. In this respect, the #MeToo moment has unleashed a torrent of revelations on social media, prompting countless women to share their ordeal in police custody and beyond. Turkish lawmaker Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, a human rights champion who fights for the rights of purge victims in Turkish Parliament, brought the issue of abuse in police detention during a session in the legislative body.

Scores of women, who had been swept up by authorities in the political crackdown that followed the 2016 coup, went through a strip-search in front of others, and in front of cameras in some cases, the lawmaker revealed from the speaker’s rostrum in Parliament at this past weekend.

In Edirne prison, female detainees went through humiliating treatment when they were forced to remove everything, including their underwear, during the body search. Gererlioglu also noted that 30 college students in the western province of Usak were exposed to strip-search and similar degrading treatment several months ago.

Journalist Sevinc Ozarslan, who has launched a hashtag campaign (ÇıplakAramaya SessizKalma) on Twitter, shared the stories of countless women on her account. The hashtag became a leading topic in Turkey as thousands came forward to share their moments of horror and shame they experienced in police detention. The revelations attest to a pernicious culture prevalent in law enforcement in its practices against women in custody. In a joint meeting, HDP lawmaker Filiz Kerestecioglu and Gergerlioglu called for the end of practice in police custody without a delay.

A brief survey of the sheer amount of stories shared as part of the hashtag campaign reveals that the strip-search and other forms of sexual abuse are not limited to a specific city or geographical region of Turkey. It points to a rotten system that is rooted almost in every city without a distinction. The national culture of impunity has recently been aggravated by the vanishing rule of law in the aftermath of 2016.

The public campaign endorsed by people of different social conviction and political creed offers a belated but indispensable reckoning with the inhumane treatment of women in the workplace and elsewhere. It reflects the burning desire for a comprehensive overhaul of the entire judicial system to eliminate the elements of torture, sexual abuse or threat of it, and strip-search in a humiliating fashion in police custody.

Whether this campaign would budge seemingly unperturbed authorities to take action remains to be seen. But the ground has already shifted in society. And, as Gergerlioglu demonstrated, the sheer amount of tweets generate a subtle but effective form of pressure for the officers who might otherwise consider crossing the boundaries of legal propriety.