Turkish Drama 2 - issue 8 - حبر أبيض

Turkish "Drama" ...

Its First Victims are Arab Teenagers, and the Last victim is the Turkish President

The Turks paved their way into infiltrating their ideas into the subconscious mind of the Arab individual and then tried to control his thoughts through favorable lighting and glamorous makeup, adding in few beach scenes found in old Arab and foreign films, for the sake of art—they said—and not with political intentions, of course. Turkish producers were able to devise another method of injecting politics into Arab and Islamic societal customs, particularly in the societies of the Arab Gulf, through “art”—especially the art of the series. The melodrama “Muhannad” was nothing more than a sword to cut modesty and protective jealousy out of their roots and to indulge the Arab viewer in a maze of excessive sentimentalism and distract their minds. Prior to that, it also aimed at slaughtering the eternal message of art that Malraux referred to in 1901—that art merely provides humans with a true sense of greatness that they have long ignored in themselves.

Even if dramas are part of the consciousness and freedom advocated by art, the Turkish series, dubbed in Arabic, has a final goal of obscuration and acquisition, by depicting Turkish society as a hunk of soft romance, while broadcasting scenes of the most beautiful landscapes in the country. Let romanticism and the invitation to tourism unite in painting the beauty of the Turkish spirit, as a stage within the stages of improving the Turkish image and beautifying it through an unexpected door that even the most powerful political analysts and art critics fail to notice, all while bypassing the language barrier through Arabic dubbing, in addition to portraying the Turkish society in an idealistic light.

If it is, in fact, true what is said about dubbed Turkish series being offered to Arab channels for free in the beginning, and even the political artistic product bearing the cost of its direct transmission and dubbed in the Arabic language, then one is forced to stop and ask bitterly: Who was behind this “leak”?

If these drama series succeeded in attracting high numbers of Arab followers because of its foreign atmosphere and scenarios that evoked surprise and suspense, and also because it was able to elicit the sympathy of the Arab viewer for Turkish personal issues. This was the end-goal of the Turkish drama, after which, the presence of Arab investment in real estate in Istanbul, Ankara, Trabzon, and other cities increased substantially, and even the destination of Arab tourists was moved to the Anatolian mountains and Istanbul miniatures, along with its dirty bars and streets which always lead to the circle of politics. The majority of its victims were teenagers—the fact of which was noticed by the Jealous Arabs from among the pioneers who began to notice the political and social ideals being propagated by the Turkish drama game; they pointed out the goal that was hidden underneath the folds of the Turkish scenery and its luxurious décor, with its lavish “makeup,” which was made to present a pure and innocent political image of Turkey, a picture which was far from the reality.

Turkish art sought to pave the road with a "pitch" for the development of political tourism.

Dubbed Turkish series were expensive, like any other dubbed series in the history of art, because they were an attractive alternative to subtitled translated films; their great similarity with the origin of the series helped them, and it was easier to rely on hearing than reading. Natural scenes and sites in Turkey—those works of art which are not lacking in elements of suspense and attraction—were able to enter the Arab hearts, thus creating an emotional Arab public opinion in support of the strange Turkish case, after emptying the Arab mind of the origins of its thoughts and ideologies by means of art and filling it, instead, with Turkish propaganda.

Furthermore, the other part of Turkish drama, which is the “historical” drama, finds a wide difference between it and Arab drama; Arab drama aims at providing the viewer with cultural and artistic material for the purpose of fun and entertainment firstly.

Secondly for moral benefit, and thirdly, it is based on a mostly agreed upon historical information base of Arab and Islamic history. As for the Turkish drama, which was translated and dubbed into Arabic with the voices of Arab characters, including but not limited to: “The Sultan’s Hareem,” “Ertugrul Resurrection” series, “Ottoman Resurrection,” “The Governor,” and many others, it relied heavily on mega directing, impressive scenes, and strong language content—a way to serve the Turkish policy of restoring the Ottoman Empire, at which the Turkish officials sometimes hinted, while sometimes declared it frankly and brashly.

They forged the history with millions of dollars in order to return Ottomanism to the limelight.

With that being said, all this expensive production that could very well be done without—its goal is not to compete with the role of Western production and to emulate its shows, but rather to glorify the alleged Ottoman “caliphate” and polish the image of its sultans and to replenish the Ottoman character among the Turkish people by reviving the abhorrent racism in the souls of Turkish people towards the other and giving the Turkish ruler the status of a protector and the preserver of the pillars of the Ottoman “caliphate” and the legal heir to it. Twenty years ago, Turkish drama penetrated the mindset of Arab teenagers, and it began running them with a remote control, so that when they grew up, they would become a supporting voice for the Turkish rule.

Various Arab intellectuals and researchers who were shaped by Turkish drama tended to support and endorse the false information that it broadcasted and marketed with political skill, according to a programmed approach that may, in fact, reach the level of intelligence programming. There is an Arab researcher at an Arab Islamic university who is known for his scientific thesis in which he described Turkish character Ertugrul as being his first grandfather, the conqueror, and that Ertugrul’s grandfather Fakhr al-Din Pasha is the last defender of the honor of Medina, and he went on to describe the Ottomans and their ancestors as being honest and the righteous ones of humanity, as well as being the wise men of the nation.

Contemplation of the Turkish political situation can say with ease and spontaneity that the magic has turned against the magician, and Mr. Recep Erdogan has become, without his knowledge, one of the heroes of the dubbed Turkish series and their victims, as he covers his character with dazzling artistic direction and buys his appearance with the misery of Turkish people, in a last desperate attempt. Instead of building modern Turkish history, he has returned to the Ottoman history to obscure the facts and conceal secularism in the features of his political face, pretending Islamism, in a very long series which will inevitably end with the death scene of the director and the hero for which the Turkish people began writing the script, by showing their anger at the economic and political reality.

The critic Mustafa Al-Kilani to "White Ink magazine":

“We allowed the bloody Turkish colonialism to take hold of our region by promoting "Al-Asmali drama".

The tone of sorrow rises in the presentation of the Egyptian art critic Mustafa Al-Kilani about the decline in Arab drama in light of the penetration of Turkish drama in the Arab world. Therefore, the specialized artistic opinion that corresponds to the general concern of the Arab region appears between the scientific opinion in the historical discourse, and what is translated from Turkish drama or what confronts it in terms of Arab drama.

Mustafa Al-Kilani hardens Arab drama and its supporters, saying: “We must punish ourselves, as drama makers, government and private production companies. This is because we allowed the return of bloody Turkish colonialism to our region, after we voluntarily opened the door for them through Turkish drama at the beginning of the second millennium. The Turkish colonialist did not make any effort to be in our country except that he presented series for us. His servants on Arab channels supported the presence of those series that marketed the Turkish dream to us”.

Our main challenge is correcting the consciousness of entire generations that were left to Turkish drama to mess with.

And about not sensing the danger, he affirms, “Since the beginning of the second millennium, several pens have written about the Turkish invasion, and have provided a detailed description of what will happen next. But no one was able to comprehend the extent of the coming danger, until Turkey now became intellectually controlling a large segment of the Arabs, and it is actually moving in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Sudan, and has become on the borders of the rest of the Arab countries”.

Al-Kilani notes that Syria has opened the door to a Turkish invasion through drama, “The Syrian state has acted against itself, to the point of criminalizing talk about the massacre of Armenians, among the Syrian Armenians, and allowed series to enter from its gate to the rest of the Arab world. It was the first victim of that colonialism. The Turkish works were received as if they were the savior, so the Gulf channels stopped buying the Egyptian series for the Turkish benefit, and some North African channels stopped production and opened the way for the colonization of their brains. All this in the presence of a pretended Islamic sponsor, “means: a person aiming to earn money through religion,” penetrating into society to present Turkey as an alternative to the homelands, and to present the Turkish model instead of the national leadership”.

While he sees that “Al-Asmali” has a strong political and popular supporter, and whole generations have formed their awareness of the violence, bloody, incest, and insult to women presented by the Turkish series. “To the extent that the famous Turkish actress among the Arabs, Beren Saat, indicated in several press interviews that she is not satisfied with what is shown on the Turkish screen of series that encourage violence and oppression of women”.

Regarding the generations that were brought up on the Turkish series, Kilani asserts, “Groups go out in demonstrations and on social media pages in order to support the Turkish colonialist against their country, under the pretext of what they called the “Islamic Caliphate”. And as if the rightly guided caliphate was in Turkey, as if there was no caliphate in Medina, Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo. No wonder that they distort the Qur’an and the Hadith to prove that only Turkey represents Islam. We are not surprised that there are generations that will come out later to talk to us that the Prophet of Islam was Turkish, just as the black community in America speaks that the Prophet Muhammad was from Africa. Aside from the losses in Arab society from the dependence of brains on what Turkey offers, there are gains on the other side. The most important of these gains is that Turkey’s revenues from selling its series reached nearly a billion dollars in 2020 from Arabs only”.

He points to an article on a Turkish alliance website that Turkish dramas have led to the number of Arab tourists reaching more than three million Arab tourists a year, and there are more than a million from the Gulf alone who visit Turkey annually. Even after the boycott, there are still many people out of their minds who support the Turkish economy and tourism. All this in addition to the increase in Turkey’s exports of clothes and accessories in the countries of the Middle East, and the opening of many branches of Turkish brands in most Arab countries after the increase in popular demand for what they see in Turkish series and movies. Al-Asmali has turned into an important milestone in the “Islamic fashion” that has recently penetrated the Arab markets in conjunction with the dramatic invasion.

According to Al-Kilani, Al-Asmali series also led to the desire of the Arab citizen to acquire the furniture that he watched in them, which led to an increase in the imports of one of the Arab countries of Turkish furniture from 81.2 million dollars in (2013) to 159.7 million dollars in (2015). And the matter came under the influence of Turkish drama, to the extent that Arabs began to name the newborns after the characters of the series, or Turkish actors. They completely forgot the crimes committed by Turkish colonialism against the region, and made it retreat for more than 1,000 years in the path of human development, after withdrawing from it all the doctors, engineers and skilled workers, in order to build its cities and treat its people. They have deliberately impoverished and ignored their colonies.

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(Al-Fateh 1453) film

Critics: Who give up the historical truth.. shall stay naked

A long list of historical Turkish films may omit the historical truth by either not mentioning it or giving the priority to the value of art direction and mentioning the truth slightly. This is what might be called “political fiction” Cinema like “science fiction” cinema. This cinema draws a Turkish politician approach to use art as a soft power in order to pass Istanbul government’s different ideas. To achieve such objective, they tend to ascribe trophies and titles to the Ottoman sultans and polish their personalities, as well as improve the political image which is stained by more than seven centuries of murder, oppression, racism and discrimination. Therefore, the political meals have become part of cinema tickets.

There was an early apprehension among many art critics and historians related to the production of Turkish drama industry. For example, (Al-Fateh 1453) film is a narcissistic show. It is the last famous Turkish film, who spoke on behalf of the Justice and Development Party about the invasion of Sultan Muhammed Al-Fateh to Constantinople. It is introduced for the first time in its country on February 16, 2012. Before that, Recap Tayyip Erdogan saw it at his home when he was working as prime minister, and he said to the film team: “I liked it a lot, Good work.” The film costed $ (18.2 million) dollars, which had been paid by the Secretariat of the Grand Istanbul ruled by Erdogan’s party itself. This confirms the political will of Turkey to create a politicized and prepaid cinema. It seeks to promote the ambition to recreate the Ottoman Empire within the fantasy system, experienced by current dreamy Turkey. Yet, this dream came after hundreds of years passed on the failure of Ottoman’s sons to join Europe and the European Union, because of their criminal atrocities committed to the Arab and European peoples, most notably; the massacre of Armenians, racial tyranny, financial plunder and cultural theft. This failure makes the ruling political party turn to the peoples of the defunct Ottoman Empire by arousing religious instinct using cinema and television drama, especially in the presence of artificial groans of the followers of the Muslim Brotherhood in the world to return to the Political Islam.

Erdogan launched it from his house .. His party paid more than (18) million dollars.

Dr. Fathi Abdul-Aziz Muhammed, a researcher at the historical cinema, indicates that this film and other Turkish works of art include enormous risks to the Arab mentality as it may lead to what he called: “Historical illiteracy”. These artistic products, with their stunning production, may make some recipients to be satisfied with the information and scenes displayed in the screen, believing it is the Historical truth. However, such products shall Call the Arab recipient to revive the positive side of the works of visual art, which is searching historical sources in order to find the truth related to the film subject in the great books, whatever the theme was.

Accordingly, based on the risk referred to by the Egyptian critic Dr. Fathi Muhammed, he also calls for what he called the similar cinematic respond to the output of the Turkish cinematic machine with their same high costs and highly modern technical capabilities, avoiding low costs.

The art critic Klaus Kraiser has commented on the film as it is the second film talking about Sultan Muhammed El-Fateh: “It is noted that the Ottomans, who opened Constantinople in this film of 2012 AD., have Islamic ideology more than their Islamic ancestors who conquered it in 1453 AD.” This is highly indicated after his talk about the film director, Farouk Aksoa, saying: “The director has placed the scene of the political situation deliberations in the bathroom with the Roman Emperor, Constantine atheist ten, swimming with three girls wearing swimwear; does he want to show the curse of “byzantine bitch”? Or does he want to make fun of paintings of Orientalist artists who painted the Ottoman rulers immersed in such pleasures?” In this context, the critic commented that the film ignores the immersion of Ottoman sultans in the pleasures which are documented in fine arts. Then, he said: “In the end, the film does not even hint to the acts of looting and pillaging Constantinople had been subjected to by the Ottoman army. These acts had lasted for three days.” Thus, Yilmaz Kurt -a director of the Faculty of History at the Ankara University- commented on the neglected Historical truth in the film from an academic point of view and said: “The film is of a high quality and technology, but the historical reality has been sacrificed for the benefit of commercial considerations.” he commented on the film scene in which the Byzantine emperor appeared ordering his army to go out of the city to fight the Ottomans, saying: “getting the army out of the city is ridiculous as the city was on a defensive position and Constantinople has no power to do so.”

The film, which lasts about 165 minutes, combines the ingenuity of modern technologies with the imperfect realities, so they are destroying each other and the result is a film for political consumption. The film is a means of new Ottomanization in the purpose of affecting the passion of the new generation with cinematic effects in the hope that this Arab generation might abandon the memory of their ancestors who realize the magnitude of the great Ottoman crime on their lives. According to film critics, These efforts will not be more than polishing and hinting at Erdogan’s ambitions to get out of the bottle where his people have fallen into and will not be a “cinematic empire”, and those who left the truth, the truth will leave them even after a while.