STARTING POINT: Arts, culture and the prime minister
Friday, January 21, 2011
Hatice Utkan
A theater play can focus on anything. Usually in the old days, Turkish theater plays focused on political issues. Although it was very hard to do a proper or funny play with political issues, playwrights and artists tried very hard and in the past, Turkey opened new dimensions in terms of political jokes.
Political issues were also seen in comic strips. Many comic strip magazines, such as Leman, Hıbır, Uykusuz, Pehguen, Lombak all wrote about politics or politicians.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was also the focus of those comic strips and sometimes he was disturbed by them and filed suit against some of the artists.
However, the latest suit was a little bit different from the rest and it was a little bit disturbing for the arts and culture community in Turkey.
This time the suit was against a theater play. The play focused on workers’ deaths in the Tuzla shipyards, people who cannot pay their hospital bills, women’s problems and a TV series that featured violence and ultra-nationalism, like “Kurtlar Vadisi” (Valley of the Wolves).
Erdoğan has filed suit against 16 people from the Beyoğlu Kumpanya art group, with the reason given that the group insulted him during a play last year.
The group was accused of using the phrase “İşportacı Tayyip,” or “street vendor Tayyip,” during a song in the play “Ülkemizden” (From Our Country) during the Erguvan Festival, which was organized by Istanbul’s Çatalca Municipality on July 11 and 12 last year.
However, according to a recent statement from Kumpanya, Erdoğan once said he would never file a suit against students but here his is filing a suit against a group that is entirely made up of students.
Beyoğlu Kumpanya was formed in 2007 by students from various amateur theater and music groups at universities. The company said its goal was to reflect “theatrical approaches to current political issues through a leftist perspective.”
Beyoğlu Kumpanya, which has performed 11 street plays nearly 200 times, recently produced the musical “Ülkemizden,” which has been performed at university festivals and municipal events.
A group very active in Turkey’s arts and culture scene is now in the crosshairs of the prime minister. Turkey is changing, say some intellectuals, but regarding in what manner, we should stop and think. Judging artists and filing suits against them is not a good change.