[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
This week some Turkish newspapers ran annoyed stories about a new billboard on German streets: “Mach mich nicht an, Ali!,” it read, which means, “Don’t abuse me, Ali!” The stylish blonde lady that stood beside this cold warning was evidently representative of many other Teutonic females who, apparently, had a problem with sexually abusive Turkish men.
Yet the Turkish media imagined a totally opposite — and cultural, not sexual — abuse behind this German poster. They thought this was a case of racist bigotry against Turks. One of our top selling newspapers ran the story with the headline, ”The latest crusade.” Another one defined the poster as a piece of ”anti-Turkey propaganda.”
Come on, let’s be honest. Do we really think that the image of sexually abusive Turkish men stems solely from German prejudices? I don’t. I rather think that indeed there are so many rude, aggressive, machoistic men in our nation that indulge in abusing women. A bunch of them just made the news on New Year’s Eve for harassing four young Australian women in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. (And they were freed after paying a penalty of just YTL 57!) At first, the Turkish press had reported that an Iranian was responsible for this crime. (Because we noble Turks never do such bad things.) Soon, it turned out that the Iranian guy was not only innocent, but that he had even tried to stop the bullies, who were all home-grown and pure-blooded Turks.
The Turkish Street
Of course all nations have machoistic villains who enjoy hounding women. But we Turks really stand out amongst them. Female tourists and ex-pats in Turkey constantly complain about rude guys with disgusting attitudes who look at and speak to or, far worse, try to touch them. There is a wide tendency in the Turkish street to regard Western women as easily achievable sexual objects. Even rapists argue that their victims “asked for it.”
But why is all that? I have been asking that question for sometime, and my non-academic, intuitive answer is that Turkey is a country torn, or even trapped, between tradition and modernity.
In traditional society, sexual morality had well-defined rules and limits. Most people didn’t practice, and even imagine, sexual relations outside the bonds of marriage. That’s why sexuality remained as a very private issue, undisclosed beyond the closest friendships.
Then came modernity and its sexual revolution. Hedonism replaced moralism. ”Since sexuality is fun,” the so-called progressives asked, ”why not have it unlimitedly?” This view, which peaked in the late 1960s, has been criticized since then, and I agree with much of those critiques. (Let me postpone them to another column.) But the sexual revolution led to the ”normalization” of sex it became just an ordinary fact of life that people do not necessarily crave for. The abundance of ”supply” calmed down the “demand.”
However, Turkey is neither traditional nor modern. Most Turks still believe in traditional rules of ”engagement,” but at the same time they are bombarded with, and tempted by, sexual stimulants of all kinds. While the ”supply” remains limited, the “demand” is constantly provoked. If you take look at the Turkish press, you will see that some of the serious and mainstream newspapers have pages that rival the magazine Playboy. In fact, the Web pages of those serious Turkish newspapers were recently, and notoriously, classified in some Arab countries as porn sites.
Indeed the Turkish media is truly responsible for raising a sex-crazed nation. From the 1980s on, dozens of cheap and low quality tabloids have been printed in Turkey that solely ran sex photos and stories. A popular news story in that rubbish would be a huge photo of a topless blonde tourist in the southern coast who, supposedly, expressed her burning desires for ”powerful Turkish men.” Some readers were naïve enough to think that they really were irresistible sex idols in the eyes of such Western women. One of those papers, which devoted most of its pages to photos of naked Russian ladies, was unabashedly named ”Natasha.” (I can’t imagine what we Turks would have done, if some other nation had published a pornographic daily named ”Emine” or “Ayşe.”)
Sexual Hype for The Masses
This sexual hype for the masses was a good source of profit for the Turkish media, to be sure. Perhaps it was also a tool for secularization. (As the saying goes, the fastest way to a conservative man’s secularization is through, err, well, neither his stomach nor his brain.) What emerged at the end it is a society which has lost much of its traditional religious morality, and which has not been able to develop a modern one, either. What came out indeed is a generation of psychopaths who can beat up their own sister for ”honor” — when she simply goes out to have coffee with a guy — but who can try to grab the first attractive body they see on the street.
To deal with this disgraceful culture, we first need to honestly accept that we have a problem. In lower classes, it might be surfacing as physical abuse on the street, but our well-educated and supposedly refined men can be similarly machoistic in their mindsets. After all, they are the ones who run our ”serious” papers, aren’t they?
That’s what the problem is! I suppose the Qatif girl got sentenced for being raped because Saudi Arabia has lost touch of it’s traditional roots? It all makes sense now…
Having accepted doubtlessly Machoism to be a dishonourable fact for Turkey,we must confess that the whole world is patriarchal(sad but true ), so that sexual abusive approache is a worldwide problem of today which shows itself mostly at commercial issues by using women as a material to increase profits.
Coming to Turkey fact again, as you have also mentioned,we can divide machoism to two according to classes.When machoism of lower classes causes physical abuse , well-educated/refined men’s machoism cause deeper depredations on women due to its indirect/hidden form.
But maybe becuase Turkey is an Islamic country ,and maybe because muslim men are still known to have four wives machoism is mostly equated with Turkish men.
Am I too nationalist ?
Dear Mustafa,
It’s great that you started the discussion of the “sexuality” issue. This problem is even more important on a wider level (not only in Turkey) and the one that needs to be dealt with honestly and urgently. Abusive behavior of “Muslim” men towards non-Muslim women is an everyday encounter which strengthens stereotypes about Islam.
Living in Russia I have been witnessing similar incidents and the general attitude of “Muslims” from Central Asia, Azerbaijan, Muslim regions of Russia (Chechnya, Dagestan, etc) towards Russian women. I put the word Muslim in quotation marks because I abhor the way we represent ourselves and then blame others for Islamophobia (I’m not ignoring objective reasons for Islamphobia though).
I’m aware that “ethnic” Muslims in Europe (not only Turks, but Arabs, Berbers, Kurds, etc) also “suffer” from such a disease.
I have been thinking about the reasons of such behavior and came to two main causes of this machoism. The first one is similar to the one you mention in the article – secular educational systems totally eradicated religious morals leaving vacuum which was filled by street sex tales, Playboy, MTV and Hollywood.
While studying in the US I had a chance to compare the way Turks arriving to Moscow looked at Russian ladies (same as, say Morrocans look at American girls) and how (religious) Saudi students sheepishly talk to American female students. Surely, we shouldn’t stereotype, but if we generalize – those coming from religious background/education differ quite significantly from generally secular Algerians, Turks, Moroccans, Egyptians, Azeris, etc.
The second reason is even more important as it affects relations of Muslim men with Muslim women too. It is the lack of knowledge and education on beauty and sexuality in Islam or sex & love in Islam if you wish!
By the way, here in Russia about two years ago Islam.ru published a book called “Sex & Love in Islam” which became Nation’s bestseller for a time.
Russians were amazed to learn that oral sex is permitted in Islam and in some instances even encouraged in order to better satisfy one’s spouse or that the pious may earn Allah’s pleasure by making love with their spouse’s! The Orthodox were surprised to find out that contraception is allowed in Islam and that condoms are sold in the Holy city of Mecca (probably comparing to the Orthodox & Catholic Churhes’ view of condoms as Satanic).
We need to popularize the knowledge about halal and haram in Islam regarding sex and clear the alien traditions from Islam. Most of Muslims would be surprised to learn how liberal Islam is on sex and sexuality within the limits of lawful marriage!
When Muslim men and women learn more about Islam’s view on being beautiful, on sexuality, love and sex, our men and women will have satisfaction within their families. Men won’t have their instincts take over them on streets when they have charming wives at home!
Peace!
Being abusive towards women cannot only be explained by inefficiencies derived from secular educational system.
In fact I am firmly inclined to think that it is not very related to secularity.
If not, mostly some middleeast youth would not tend to behave women-especially young and western ones- in the same way.
However, it is not the problem that is only encountered in middleeastern or asian countries. I think in every country- and even in the countries that are known the most developed such as the US or France, women in some occasions may, alas, get caught up in such events.
Finally that billboard concerning “Ali” is somewhat unfairness towards Turks.
When talking about
-humans tortured,
-the people who cannot have the whole human rights,
-the people who were pitilessly murdered,
-the people who have not been allowed to practice their faith
-e.t.c.
the first word on lips is always Kurds.
On the other hand when talking about for example western young women being abused, we should firstly think about Turks as criminals.
Hmmm….How much does it sound logical?
Then, we may prepare some billboards like these;
-Hans, please do not be that explicit
-George, please do not publish and broadcast that much porn activities into the telecommunication system
-Helga, please quit that absurd supposedly educational tv programmes in which each type of sexual relation is widely praised, incited and encouraged
-Then, Ali please do not comply with them!
(although thanks to this site i can make my ideas learnt and perhaps shared by some others, i have to say that some basic yet important grammatical mistakes can be made. Therefore, I would like to correct them with my apologizes. This is because I try to write a piece very quickly and i am not that adept at writing in English.
Again, I am apologizing to whom may be interested in my piece)
Here is the one corrected by me…There might still be some grammatical faults though:
Being abusive towards women cannot only be explained by inefficiencies derived from secular educational system.
In fact I am firmly inclined to think that it is not very related to secularity.
If not, mostly some middleeast youth would not tend to treat women-especially young and western ones- in the same way.
However, it is not the problem that is only encountered in Middleeastern or Asian countries. I think in every country- and even in the countries that are known the most developed such as the US or France, women in some occasions may, alas, get caught up in such events.
Finally that billboard concerning “Ali” means somewhat unfairness towards Turks.
When talking about
-humans tortured,
-the people who cannot have the whole human rights,
-the people who were pitilessly murdered,
-the people who have not been allowed to practice their faith
-e.t.c.
the first word on lips is always Kurds.
On the other hand when talking about for example western young women being abused, we should firstly think about Turks as criminals.
Hmmm….How much logical does it sound?
Then, we may prepare some billboards like these;
-Hans, please do not be that explicit
-George, please do not publish and broadcast that much porn activities into the telecommunication system
-Helga, please quit that absurd supposedly educational tv programmes in which each type of sexual relation is widely praised, incited and encouraged
-Then, Ali please do not comply with them!
There is definitely a problem in Turkey with Turks as there is in Germany with Germans and the UK with Brits. This is the consequence of a highly sexualised world. Relating it to this racist German poster makes no sense.
Mustafa, you fail to mention that this poster is the work of the REP, an extreme right party.
The only motivation for this poster is hate and jealousy.
The Turks (or other muslims) in Europe are no more explicit in their sexual desires than their ‘white’ counterparts. Maybe even the opposite, I see ourselves as more respectful.
What pushed some german fascists to make this poster is the fact that they are hateful. Hateful that European women prefer a Turkish/Muslim man. What really bothers them is that European women are having babies called Ali at a very high rate. I’d go as far as saying that there is a trend taking place which makes it ‘interesting’, even ‘cool’ for a European woman to be with a Muslim.
I could go on…I would be stating the obvious
This article confuses too many different issues. It also denotes that Turkish men of Europe behave similarly to our brethren in the motherland. Believe me Mustafa, us Turks in Europe don’t find blond women and miniskirts as impressive as our Anatolian brothers who leave their village to work in Marmaris every Summer.
I believe your blogs/articles contain powerful messages and are entertainingly written, yet I wonder why these same English articles are not presented in Turkish for you Turkish readers on your Turkish website?
It’s funny i’ve never seen or even heard of this billboard. And i live in Cologne, Germany.
“Maybe even the opposite, I see ourselves as more respectful.”
Ummm… no!
“Hateful that European women prefer a Turkish/Muslim man.”
Lol, lol, , lol! Talk about utter delusions! I can assure you they don’t!
“I’d go as far as saying that there is a trend taking place which makes it ‘interesting’, even ‘cool’ for a European woman to be with a Muslim.”
Lol, lol, a perfect example of deluded machismo! I have certainly never seen this supposed “trend”.
Whatever the poster is trying to depict, the article is quite correct.
Amy… I am guessing that from what your constant use of ‘lol’ in a web site posting that you are still relatively young. I will refrain from criticizing your posting but rather inform you and give you advice.
It is very possible that you have not caught on to this European trend yet. Trends are not for every one by definition. They only affect a certain amount of people but are notable. People will always have their personal tastes. A much bigger trend in the ‘courting’ world of Europe is that of White women and Black men. This has demographic consequences. Proof of this is that Britain’s biggest ethnic minority are half-casts of this mix. What I wanted to highlight is that some women, often who have grown up around Muslims, don’t have hang-ups that some more isolated town women or older generations do. As people get to know each other, some also get to love each other. Curiosity prevails and love conquers. As more and more Muslim men grown up in Europe, side by side with European women, it is only natural for this trend to occur. The far-right perceive this as a stain on their nation. It angers them and is beyond their understanding. They fear further mixing hence the necessity to damage the reputation of ‘foreign’ men. This poster exemplifies it.
What we need to remember here is that the Muslim men of Europe are not all your stereotypical overweight, semi-bold, garlic smelling, woman harassing, sexually obsessed peasant. Some are undoubtedly. But they are also your dark featured, olive skinned, tall and built, polite and charming, disciplined and respectful gentlemen. There are also plenty in between or nowhere there. These men don’t need to harass women, believe me, it is often the contrary in this day and age. It is impossible to generalize, therefore impossible to say that we have a problem in our community. Certainly not a problem that would require local right-wing Neo-Nazi affiliated groups to make such posters. As I said previously, we are not the Turks of holiday resorts. ‘Sexual Abuse Alla Turca’ is a Turkish phenomen of Turkey, not of Europe.
If you have not had that ‘Muslim boyfriend’ yet, maybe give it a try Amy (if you’re old enough of course). You might like it. You might not. How do you know until you’ve tried? Many of the European women I know who are married to Turkish Muslims (who are often European born/raised) have often told me that what they appreciate the most about their husbands are their family values, disciplined characters and working ethos. The good looks and Turkish food were just bonuses. They are adamant that these have become rarer in European men. This is understandable somewhere like the UK where ‘Lad culture’ prevails which has caused the ‘native/white’ English population to be the biggest culprits in regards to the harassment of women on the street.
May I also point out, the name ‘Amy’ pairs up very well with ‘Ali’. ‘Amy and Ali’. Nice ring to it don’t you think.
I can’t believe you spent three paragraphs trying to convince yourself of this. The truth is, Turks are relatively ugly, and European women are not “trending” towards having anything to do with them (or Muslim Men in general). Now, I understand the Turkish desire to obtain White flesh is extremely strong, so I’ll just assume you needed to create this fantasy to alleviate your frustrations with them.
This will be my final post here.
p.s. Do you have any idea how creepy your last post was?
The poster is racist.
Whether you can draw other lessons from it is of no relevance.
Can you imagine a similar poster deriding Jewish citizens with, for example,
‘Don’t kill women and children, Shlomo!’
Such a poster would quite rightly be condemned for its racist scapegoating of Jews in general for Israeli war crimes. The vast majority of Jews, as we know, abhor Israeli attacks on Palestinian refugees.
Your blog is otherwise excellent and I hope my point is taken as a constructive one.
I think the article was extremely well written and a lot of foresight went into it. Myself being an American woman who recently dated a Turkish guy in Pennsylvania, I can only say that if he hadn’t slept with everyone he could, he was a very intelligent, hard working, respectful man.
The problem was he also slept with more women on any given week than the best stock brokers trading stocks for a given week. This behavior made him disgusting to me. It took away from all of his other beautiful qualities and made him look bad not only for himself but I would think twice about dating another Turkish guy.
All reports here in the US say Turkish guys are the most unfaithful men in the world. Not something I feel a country wants to be noted for.
Jane, you, like most Americans, seem to have a very puritanical view of sex. Sex is a souce of joy, not of embarassment. Much sex is good. Much of good sex is excellent. Mediterranean people feel really relaxed about it, unlike you puritans of the North. I cannot imagine Spaniards, Italians or the French to agonise over sexual misdemeanors of their president. I still remember the Clinton-Levinski scandal. How ridiculous and immature. America has become a laughing stock of the world, and rightly so!
As far as the article itself is concerned, suggesting that tradition is a panacea againt bad behaviour, as Akyol does, is an utter nonsense. How many lives were destroyed either mentally or physically because of those wonderful traditions in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, other Muslim and Arab countries? What needs to be done is not clinging to stupid old prohibitions, but a modern sexual education in schools, including teaching teenagers on how to use condoms!
I am once again fascinated by the vagueness of this article. It attempts to explain a discriminatory behavior predominantly driven by under-disciplined basic urges by using politically loaded terms, such as “modernity”, “tradition”, “secularization” and etc. As a result, we end up with another Akyol classic, an entrapment, which
both confines the user to think within the analytically and descriptively poor “tradition” and “modernity” framework and leads the reader to choose “tradition” over “modernity.” However, the article lacks the clarity and perhaps courage to expressly state where it exactly stands – which I think is another Akyol classic. It tacitly advocates certain standings, provides lopsided examples, and steers the reader to reach certain conclusions – which, by the way, are also the main elements of manipulation. This characteristic makes Mr. Akyol’s writings political in nature and not of politics.
More specifically, there is no explanatory value in arguing that “Turkey is a country torn, or even trapped, between tradition and modernity,” when the author defines these terms on an ad-hoc basis. Almost, every country is stuck in between tradition and modernity if we use Mr. Akyol’s equivocal measure. Women are identified and treated as sex objects at various degrees in various countries regardless of where these countries stand in Mr. Akyol’s invisible scale of tradition and modernity. Neither tradition nor modernity can solve gender issues per se even though Mr. Akyol suggests otherwise. We have read enough about scandals involving religious figures in various countries, including Turkey. I do not even need to mention the reputation of Islam in addressing the status of women in society.
I strongly agree with Mr. Parviz for he advocates education over Mr. Akyol’s “nonsense”. A promising generation would be one that is well educated in the sense that they apply reason over dogma; are not bound to the restraints of their ancestors whom they have never seen; and are not acting with the fear of being struck by a lightning coming from the sky or burnt in some type of a hot place commonly named as hell. Turkey’s problem is that we have a lot of confused people who do not know where to look for guidance, and a lot of people who do not miss the opportunity to show them their own “white path” as they know it.
Very interesing article. As a Swede I´m embarrassed and ashamed for the “modernism” that my country and the western world have brought to you.
Forgive us!
However I don´t think the trap between tradition and modernity can explain it all. I´m for example thinking of the “Turkish tradition” (or Middle Eastern?) of Fathers and older brothers taking the teenage son to a prostitute. As I´ve understood that tradition is not as common today as before, am I right?
I would really like to know more about this “tradition”, where does it come from? What´s its roots? How was it under the Ottoman Empire? The founding of the Republic? I would be surprised if it´s as new as from the 60´s.
Please, can someone tell me more about this!
According to several of my Turkish friends the general view is that the guy should be experienced and the girl should be a virgin. It´s such hypocracy!
I’m not a Turk, but I come from South Asia (Muslim). I’ve never heard of this tradition in the Muslim/Arab world – but perhaps it does exist in certain areas. If it does – it is pure hypocrisy and can in no way be blamed on ‘The West’.
excuse me for being black and white and calling all turkish men oversexed, but with the knowledge of the general thinking of the turks that all bad things come from outside, my reaction is short-sighted, there is a turkish saying ‘CUVALDIZI KENDiNE, iGNEYi BASKASINA’ unfortunately our AKP granted thinkers or islamic doers act the reverse of this saying.. ten years ago we had three groups of 11 and 12 years old boys on visit in europe; one group came from the slumdogs of brasil, the second from the slumdogs of kenya and the third group from the 1999 earthquake hitten city of turkey…
even after comparing these three groups of about ten young boys I unfortunately noticed oversexed actings only from the turkish group… so maybe my experience of three weeks (or watching turkish tv programs for many years, or reading ottoman history) is very short to affirm that turkish men are really oversexed but as a ashamed turkish man I honestly advise you to start this investigation as soon as possible
I’m a blonde Western woman who spent the summer studying Turkish in Istanbul. Nothing could have prepared me for the endless sexual harassment that I experienced there.
Other comments here have argued that secularism is to blame: No. This is not true. I was harassed (and groped) by religious and secular men equally. I didn’t fear the crowds of Taksim any more than I feared those leaving the mosques on Fridays in Atasehir.
I would never suggest to any Muslim (male or female) that s/he might be a terrorist. Yet whenever I went outside of my university, I was regularly called a prostitute, and asked by Turkish men (again, both religious and secular) how much I cost.
Speaking Turkish made it so much worse, because I knew what the men were saying about me amongst themselves.
I still liked living in Turkey and like most of Turkish culture. However, whenever someone in my home country suggests that Turkey is European, I say, “No. Go there, don’t just go to the tourist areas where they depend upon your Euros. Go off the beaten path, and tell me how “European” it feels.”
Turkey is a wonderful country, but the level of sexual harassment (and genuine fear that I felt as a result) changed my mind on Turkey’s European nature.