Last Friday my Turkish professor showed us a Youtube video that is
the rage now among Turkish students at Columbia. It deals with the
"cultural revolution" of the young Turkish Republic that sought to
erase all Ottoman and Islamic influences and replace them with a
version of the French republic cooked up by Mustafa Kemal. It is no
accident that both Turkey and France have been going through battles
lately over the right of Muslim female students to wear headscarves
to public school classes. This kind of overzealous secularism was at
the core of constitutional thinking in both countries. Of course, in
Turkey it was much more of a Western import.
In the image from the video below, you can see Turkish soldiers on
orders to arrest anybody who was playing native Turkish music as was
being done when the video begins. They then order the cowed villagers
to "be happy" (ol mutlu). Just before the soldiers arrive, there are
some Turkish words that provide a set-up. Loosely translated (which
is all I am capable of at this point), they mean: "The Turkish
government declared that Turkish music was to be banned from the
radio. The goal was the widespread dissemination of Western music. It
wanted to replace the Turkish musical style with French as part of
forcing 'Western culture' on society." The soldiers proceed to read
off a list of acceptable Western composers, whose names they all butcher.
full:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/forcing-culture-down-peoples-throats/
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