The Ottomans Return

“When General Bonaparte arrived in the Middle East in 1798 there were only two independent states in the region: Turkey and Iran, which are now striving to restore their inescapable role as the region’s two superpowers.” (Bernard Lewis)

There is a great deal of talk today about the signs of a Turkish cultural invasion of our Arab societies as evidenced mainly by the very frequent presentation of Turkish arts and culture through Turkish serials on most Arab TV screens. What was a craze a decade ago has become a fashion these days, turning into a lifestyle in the future. The key question is: Do the reasons behind this surge lie in the performance of these TV serials which continue for months, even years? Are there in fact economic and societal, or even political objectives behind all that? A careful look at this issue is needed to investigate this phenomenon. To begin with, let’s review the recent developments in the aspects and areas of Arab-Turkish relationships which the last decade has witnessed, after an account of examples of old and contemporary life in Turkey as presented through dubbed TV serials.

Let’s begin with the economy. According to the Arab League Organization of Industrial Development and Mining, trade between the Arab world and Turkey has increased fourfold since 2002 totalling $ 27.7 bn in 2009. Arab exports to Turkey amounted to $ 7 bn in 2009, and in the same year Turkish exports to the Arab world reached $ 22 bn, rising to $ 35 bn in 2011. Turkey’s ambitions have no limits. According to the Turkish Minister of Science, Industry and Technology, Nihad Ergon, the Turkish government aims for increasing the volume of trade with the Arab League member states to $ 100 bn within the next five years.

The Arab countries account for just 9% of Turkey’s foreign trade, that’s what made the Turkish minister say his country was ready to enter into more free trade agreements with Arab countries, increase the cases of exemption from visas for Turkey, offer its experience to the Arab countries of the places where there are organized industrial zones as well as the areas with small and medium-sized enterprises, an incentive system and consumer rights.

The benefits of the Arab Spring … in Turkey!

Turkey does not operate in the traditional areas alone but has also got into the economies which have recovered in the aftermath of wars. At an Iraqi-Turkish business conference in Istanbul held a few weeks ago, the Turkish Economy Minister, Zafer Caglayan, said the volume of trade between Turkey and Iraq had increased during the first quarter of this year. It was estimated at $940 m in 2003, and rose to $ 11 bn last year.

The same is true of the economic relations with the Arab Spring countries: Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. The first quarter of this year witnessed an increase in Turkey’s exports to these countries in particular after a period of slowdown due to the popular uprisings. Turkey’s exports rose by 84%, from $ 899m last year to $ 1.6 bn this year. In comparison with the first quarters of 2011 and 2012, exports to Libya rose from $ 264m to $ 526m, to Tunisia from $ 139 m to $ 208 m and to Egypt from $ 496 m to $ 917 m. Arabian Gulf countries are also involved in this respect as they are the favourite market for Turkish export companies. As the results of a questionnaire administered by the Turkish Exporters Union show, 62% of the exporters seek to break into this market.

A visit to shopping malls in the Arab region shows how well stocked they are with Turkish goods. The same is true of the African and Iranian markets.

Turkey’s benefit from the Arab Spring revolutions has been twofold: boosting economic ties and the balance of trade, and increasing the number of Arab visitors to Turkey who changed their tourist destinations from Egypt, Tunisia and Syria to ones in Turkey’s cities and islands on the banks of the Bosphorus. The value of tourist investment in the Middle East is estimated at 400 million Turkish lire. Turkish tourist organizations expect the number of tourists from Kuwait lone to be 30,000 by the end of this year.

Promotion of the lifestyle

But, what does all this have to do with the plethora of Turkish TV serials on Arab screens?

It is closely related to the key role of the media in changing consumers’ lifestyles. We remember, e.g., how the beginnings of American cinema promoted the American lifestyle very widely, making the consumption of American cigarettes an example of luxury, power and adventure.

The star of cowboy films, John Wayne, cultivated the concept of modern power against primitiveness and the victory of the strongest principle. On the scaffold the convict is asked what he wants before the execution and he says he wants to smoke. The hero rushes into the prairie with a cigarette between his lips. Repetitive scenes financed by tobacco companies to produce generations of smokers – a consumerist lifestyle. The same happens with sumptuous American cars, reflecting the spirit of luxury and affluence. This phenomenon moved to the Arab world after the oil boom, making these huge vehicles run along our city streets paved amid desert sand.

We see how most old and new Arab cities alike suffer daily from severe traffic congestion, with their population cramped into can-like concrete, blank buildings and families’ societal freedoms curtailed under religious and moral taboos.

Amid all this, satellite channels carry utopian dreams through these Turkish TV serials dubbed in Arabic, presenting an alternative to this world: houses like paradise surrounded by gardens for sitting, thanks to its nice weather night and day, unlimited family relations, clothes not seen in our Arab cities, long, rich dining tables, relaxed, care-free faces of actors and actresses playing roles which suit their age. This is all different from what Arab stars, writers and screens present about our life.

“Istanbulwood’s” new dream

This state of affairs is quite similar to “Bollybood’s” dream, the dream of the Indian film industry, which titillates the imagination of the poor and miserable in most Indian cities. For an average three-hour duration of a film, viewers forget their misery and pain, escape from reality and identify with the film heroes as they fire into the air, defeating all enemies and dancing with the pretty heroine before they marry her.

Bollywood’s dream makes a simple Indian citizen intoxicated and cut off from reality for some time until he is brought back to reality at the end of the film. That’s what Turkish TV serials do: touching all that is neglected and prohibited in our life. In point of fact, this is not the real image of life in Turkey, but the one which the producers of these serials want to promote about Turkey.

It’s an image designed for export rather than for local consumption. It presents the contemporary values of freedom exceeding what is available in Europe. It also presents the values of the past with its glamorous clothes and architecture in a way which differs from history lessons which taught us that the old Ottomans were behind four centuries of stagnation and backwardness which required opposing them and achieve liberation from them.

Some Muslim countries even found unacceptable excesses in the Turkish TV serials. Tajikistan, e.g., found that these serials had a negative impact on its people because of the pornographic and violent scenes they contained, despite the fact that some Tajik actors shared in them.

“Instanbulwood’s” dream is renewed with every new serial which influences viewers so much that they name their newborns after the new heroes and heroines: “Muhannad”, “Fatima”, “Karim,” “Lamis”, some of which are invented by the dubbing company, but are mostly Turkish names with an Arabic/Islamic spirit.

As soon as an episode ends on a certain satellite channel, another episode begins on another, some of which are exclusive, screened and rerurn every day. A number of episodes are screened one day, dubbed or subtitled. One serial may be divided into two to allow for commercials and questionnaires for viewers about the scenes and predictions about the sequence of the events.

The craze then turns into a fashion which is so widespread that it becomes a lifestyle. A mother buys a ring or necklace like the one worn by the heroine; a daughter buys clothes similar to the ones worn by the heroines; young men buy sunglasses carrying the same trademarks as the ones worn by the actors. Everyone starts planning for spending their annual holiday in the Turkish resorts. Serials thus become a purchasing power and a promotion tool whose economic value exceeds their cost.

The other side of the picture

We are looking at the soft side of the TV picture, but we have to look closely at the other side: regional movement beyond the TV screen. In his book “The Strategic Depth: Turkey’s Position and Role in the International Arena”, the Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davudoglu, gives a broad understanding of this movement, highlighting Turkey’s strategic activity and role, stressing that Turkey should fill he vacuum in the Middle East and his country’s right to rearrange the picture of the new Middle East and play an active role in its leadership.

Accordingly, Turkey’s political movement during the Arab Spring and its relations with Iran and the Israeli occupation state can be monitored to help us see this Ottoman coming back to Arab houses which invite breaking into or to tumbledown houses which invite demolition.

At a time when an Arab capital like Mogadishu is suffering all civil war and famine crises, Turkey emerges as the pigeon of peace and bounty embracing the Somali capital with its wings, along with the influx of Turkish relief workers into Mogadishu. In addition, Turkey’s interest in the Somali affair started two years ago, when it hosted an international conference which called for providing security and investments in this country which has become synonymous with piracy and chaos.

Moreover, the Turkish Prime Miniser, Recept Tayyip Erdogan, paid a visit to Mogadishu, the first by a non-African leader for twenty years, about which he said, “In Turkish culture there is a belief that hope must rise from the rubble. This applies to Somalia. The disaster (the 2011 famine) can be the starting point for a new attempt to draw the attention of international relief efforts to the tragedy of this part of the world.”

While the former Egyptian president prevented relief effort from reaching the Gaza Strip, which is under siege by the Israeli forces, Turkey supported the Freedom Flotilla and funded one of its ships sent to lift the siege, with relief supplies and humanitarian aid on board, in addition to rights activists, politicians and journalists. The Israeli army carried out a massacre against the flotilla’s activists in international waters, killing 16 of them, which has worsened Turkish-Israeli relations.

Furthermore, Turkey has received thousand of Syrians who fled their country to escape death and accommodated them in camps on its border – another example of cooperation with the Arab peoples begun with participation in the war against Libya’s former dictator.

This other side of Turkey as an active player in Arab politics makes many welcome the Turkish model in politics as an approach to follow. The two pictures – imaginary (on TV) and living – thus combine to reformulate the Arabs’ image of the Ottomans’ descendants and give a different example of the new Ottomans and polish their image, shedding the historical negative image.

Turkey has perhaps found difficulty in joining the European Union at least in the foreseeable future, and has developed a new approach presenting itself as an active – not dominant – regional player in Arab politics. It looks as if Turkey uses the Arab gateway as a new approach to enhance its image which adversary powers still use as an example of the old Ottomans’ accusations of massacres, atrocities and genocide wars.

Turkeys is doing this, putting the Arab peoples on its side. Our Arab societies talk about Turkish TV serials’ heroes as if they were family members. Similarly, they refer to resorts in Turkish cities and ports as if they were at a stone’s throw. Advertisements to buy Turkish property are published in the Arab press and websites, particularly in the Arabian Gulf region.

The victory of the Islamist movements in the presidential elections and ministerial portfolios in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco and Palestine is a new starting point for a new arena in the background of which appears a screen which presents Turkish Islam as a practicable model of modernity, democracy and positiveness.

Now that we are almost halfway through the month of Ramadan, further Turkish presence has been boosted through the Turkish TV serials, like documentaries, which Arab viewers spent hours watching them.

We have repeatedly called for improving the others’ image of the Arab personality, and I think the Turkish model is he best in this respect. Let’s start translating and dubbing the best of our drama works which highlight parts of our life and present prominent figures from our history, thus promoting a positive image in a world in which the TV picture is more powerful than the word, re-presenting reality in a new, influential way.