Juhood Volume 2 Issue 2

juhood v o l u m e

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i s s u e

2 ,

q u a r a n t i n e

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JUHOOD v o l u m e

s e c o n d

Containing four essays regarding

THE MIDDLE EASTERN REGION which shall be considered to include the

NORTH OF AFRICA , TURKEY and IRAN edited by GIACOMO MCCARTHY , and his merry team.

WE HAPPILY PRESENT this journal ;

C O N S I S T I N G O N L Y O F U N D E R G R A D U AT E W O R K , to our esteemed readers.

D U R H A M,

In the year two thousand and twenty P u b l i s h e d a t D u ke U n i ve r s i t y b y t h e D u ke A s s o c i a t i o n f o r t h e M i d d l e E a s t

1 Acknowledgements Editor-in-Chief

Giacomo McCarthy

Associate Editor

Hannah Kaplon

Editorial Board

Gianna Affi Jeremy Jacobs Hana Hendi Ava Erfani Nour Kanaan

llustrations

Masha Feingold | @mashamadethis Morlan Brauer | @daynevisuals

Cover and Feature Artist

Jude Hamze | @judehamze.art

Our Sponsors

John Spencer Basset Fund Student Organization Finance Committee (SOFC) Duke University Middle East Studies Center

The information provided by our contributors is not independently verified by Juhood. The materials presented represent the personal opinions of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Juhood, DAME, or Duke University.

Juhood: The Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Affairs Volume 2, Issue 2, Spring 2020 • Copyright Š 2020 Duke University

2 Editor’s Note Friends, Juhood 2.2 was supposed to launch the week in March after spring break. Instead, I left school on a chilly late winter evening and caught a flight to New York the next morning. I haven’t been on campus since then, and Juhood hit the back burner.

At this point, I’ve also been graduated for a few months. Leaving this final issue of Juhood unfinished has been a way for me to keep my undergraduate experience open, to stall the inevitable, and to reclaim a little piece of those final months. Hannah, Hadeel, Grayson—sorry! You three, and the rest of the wonderful staff, have done an incredible job making the journal and magazine your own this summer, so perhaps you can forgive my lethargy.

For a long time, one of my most effective stalling techniques was to inform Hannah that I was writing a lengthy Editor’s Note as a reflection on my experience at Duke, the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd and the powerful movement since, and whatever else was floating around my head. Never fear, dear readers! This piece remains at the tip of my pen—I’ll just ask Hannah to publish it online when it emerges.

What is there to say that hasn’t been said? Every day brings new fear, heartbreak, stress, need, hunger, death, and temptation. Remember what matters. Black lives matter. Your voice matters. Your tears matter. Your love matters.

You matter!

Through the muck of pandemic, I feel so much gratitude and love. This unexpected journey through Middle Eastern Studies has taught me how to think. Without it, I would be lost. Thank you to the Focus cluster. Thank you Brother Omid, who proved that it is possible to learn the meaning of love in a classroom. Thank you Erdağ, who was my true Duke mentor and best intellectual advocate. Thank you Tom, Julie, Griffin, who were always behind the scenes.

Thank you Abdullah, who gave me the most meaningful summer of my life. Thank you Maha, who welcomed me into a language and has always trusted me even when she shouldn’t have. Thank you to all of my wonderful students in Lebanon, who I love dearly. Thank you Shai. Thank you Claudia. Thank you Wahneema. Thank you Ellen, who has always doubted me in the most productive ways. Thank you Fadi, who gave me the sagest advice that I have ever received. Thank you Nour, who I am proudest of. Thank you Masha, who is a very loveable illustrator. Thank you to everyone else who has been a part of this journey.

Thank you Josh, who made everything real.inks Thank you Hadeel and Grayson, who are going to turn Juhood into something that is better than I ever conceived of.

Thank you Phoebe, who let me be a part of her weird, wild, wonderful story.

Thank you Bryan, who had the ridiculous idea that a few undergrads could shake the boat.

Thank you Hannah, who is a wonderful friend, a protégé, a student, a clear mind, a willing listener to all of my strangest thoughts, the mother of a palm tree and Momo, and a more powerful person than she knows.

I will miss you all.

Giacomo

_ 05 _ 19 _ 37 WORKING FOR THE WORKER?

WHERE IS THE SCREEN?

MONUMENTALIZING ATATURK:

A Study of the Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT)

Waltz with Bashir (2008) and the Displacement of Catastrophe

Izmir and the Construction of Turkish Identity

JAMES MUSHABAC- DUNCAN RANDALL LOWENS UNC UNC DARTMOUTH

AVA EFRANI

_ 51 _ 61 _ 63 FROM THE STANDS TO THE STREETS: Çarşı and the Gezi Protests

OWEN ZIGHELBOIM DUKE

ARTIST INTERVIEW

END MATTER

WORKING FOR THE WORKER? A Study of the Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT)

By AVA EFRANI

N

ational trade unions rose in popularity and necessity after the Industrial Revolution; their multinational presence is dependent on the industrial development of the countries into which it proliferates. As laborers faced deteriorating conditions and low wages with industrialization, unions to stave off the most glaring parts of industrial working conditions. While national trade unions are widespread internationally, their efficacy and impact remains a point of contention.1

The friction between fruitfulness and superfluous authority is particularly relevant with respect to the Arab Spring uprisings which can be linked to broader public rejection of neoliberal economics.2 My interest in this issue led me to study the Tunisian national trade union, the Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail (UGTT). As evidenced by the widespread protests leading to the Tunisian revolution in 2011, the Tunisian worker was not sufficiently aided by the efforts of the UGTT. However, the union (along with three other major civil society organizations) was entrusted with the task of establishing order in 2014 during a political crisis that threatened the democratic reforms won by the Tunisian revolution.3 In the context of Tunisian labor relations and government power,4 I see the UGTT as bearing the faith of both the citizens and the state. These two forces are in opposition, but the UGTT is a representative of each, seeking to find a confluence in the contradiction.

BACKGROUND Tunisia’s history with trade unionism can be traced back to the origins of the independence movement (from 1881 to 1956, Tunisia was under French occupation).5 Before the creation of the UGTT, there first existed the Confédération Générale des Travailleurs Tunisiens (CGTT), a trade union, founded in 1924 by Mohammad Ali al Hammi, that aligned itself with the Tunisian 1 Visser, Jelle, “Union Membership Statistics in 24 Countries: MLR MLR.” Monthly Labor Review 129, no. 1 (01, 2006): 38-49.

2 Bogaert, Koenraad, “Contextualizing the Arab Revolts: The Politics behind Three Decades of Neoliberalism in the Arab World.” Middle East Critique 22, no. 3 (February 2013): 213–34.

3 Margaret Coker, “Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet. Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, October 9, 2015, https://www. wsj.com/articles/nobel-peace-prize-awarded-to-tunisian-national-dialoguequartet-1444382662.

4 For a broader discussion of what is meant here by the term “power” and how it is exercised, see: Michel Foucault, “The Subject and Power.” Critical Inquiry 8, no. 4 (1982): 777–95, https://doi.org/10.1086/448181.

5 The effects of this colonialism can be expanded upon in multiple volumes, but for the purposes of this research, I am interested in the impacts of French colonialism on the political structure of Tunisia post-independence as well as how this structure impacted the creation and development of the UGTT.

7 nationalist and anti-colonial Destour party. This was the first break from the French trade union, the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), to gain real autonomy on behalf of the Tunisian worker. The CGTT was quelled by the colonial authorities. Years later in 1946, the UGTT was formally established

by Farhat Hached.6 From the start, its goal was to advocate for both workers’ rights and Tunisia’s independence from France. This duality is important: as we trace the organization to the postmodern era in which colonial influence is no longer obvious or direct, the union’s outward goals remain to subvert multiple forms of control (governmental, international, etc.).

As was the case for other historically colonized countries in the Maghreb, a formal end to direct colonial power did not lead to an increase in the power of the citizen of the postcolonial state.7 In the absence of the French authority’s disciplinary control, power was simply transferred to new authoritarian (yet now described as “nationalist”) actors. The Neo-Destour party (successor to the Destour party of the pre-1930s era) led the anti-colonial and nationalist effort to remove the French authority from Tunisia. After independence, this party assumed power. However, there was a large conflict within Neo-Destour, primarily between its top leaders: Habib Bourguiba and Salah Ben Youssef.8 The former chose to work with the leading French authorities in the process of independence (initially due to his willingness to accept the softer “autonomy” rather than independence) while Youssef took a more radical approach. Eventually, Bourguiba’s influence won and he went on to become the first and longest President of Tunisia. Bourguiba’s win can be interpreted as the single most decisive arc in the future tone for UGTT operations in the Tunisian independent state.9 To fully comprehend the shifts that occurred in the UGTT post-2011 revolution, it is helpful to understand how the union changed after independence from France was achieved and how it operated in the authoritarian regimes of both Habib Bourguiba and Zine el Abidine Ben Ali. Much of the existing literature on the UGTT — particularly works written in or translated into English — focuses on the union’s role in Tunisia’s revolution and the broader

6 Hèla Yousfi, Trade Unions and Arab Revolutions: the Tunisian Case of UGTT. (New York ; London: Routledge, 2018), 4.

7 Michael J.Willis, Politics and Power in the Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco From Independence to the Arab Spring, (Oxford University Press, 2014 8 Ibid., 38.

9 For a broader discussion on Bourguiba and his actions as a political figure, see: Brown, L. Carl, “Bourguiba and Bourguibism Revisited: Reflections and Interpretation.” Middle East Journal 55, no. 1 (2001): 43-57. www.jstor.org/stable/4329581.

8 context of Arab Spring uprisings.10, 11, 12 For the scope of this study, however, it has been helpful to outline the nature of the UGTT pre-revolution and the ways in which its influence was both strengthened and limited by the authoritarian regimes under which it operated.

Issue 56 of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Review discusses the ways in which the UGTT was suppressed by both Bourguiba and Ben Ali in the article “Tunisia’s UGTT: Caught between struggle & betrayal.” The Bourguiba years held their fair share of conflict between the UGTT and the state, but in the ‘60s and ’70s the former was allowed significant autonomy. This autonomy subsequently led to clashes in which state violence was effected against the workers.13 A report in the 67th issue of the Middle East Research and Information Project journal on a UGTT strike in late January of 1978 describes this conflict: “A general strike called by the half-strong Union générale des travailleurs tunisiens (UGTT) was met with violence by the regime. Army, police and paramilitary units joined in a general offensive against the workers, leaving more than two hundred dead and hundreds more injured and arrested.”14 While this report contextualizes the importance and danger of protesting with the UGTT, it reveals looming disparities between the former and current images of the institution. Where a general strike would garner the response of state violence in 1978, today the same rejection of work is part of the sanctioned list of responses allowed by the government apparatus in response to any discontent with economic conditions.

Ali era:

This sort of conflict was not allowed to continue, however, in the Ben

“In 1989, Ben Ali’s regime imposed direct submission on the UGTT leadership, headed

by Ismail Sahbani, who collaborated in the implementation of neoliberal economic policies and fiercely fought the union left...The history of the leadership of the UGTT is a story of betrayal and maneuvering. From its support for Ben Ali’s candidacy in the elections of 2004 and 2009 to social welfare reform, from the implementation of 10 Lorenzo Feltrin, “Labour and Democracy in the Maghreb: The Moroccan and Tunisian Trade Unions in the 2011 Arab Uprisings.” Economic and Industrial Democracy 40, no. 1 (February 2019): 42–64. doi:10.1177/0143831X18780316.

11 Bassem Karray, “Proposals, Intermediation, and Pressure: The Three Roles of the UGTT in Tunisia’s Post-Revolutionary Constitutional Process.” Socioeconomic Protests in MENA and Latin America, June 2019, 123–44.

12 Mohamed-Salah Omri, “No Ordinary Union: UGTT and the Tunisian Path to Revolution and Transition.” Workers of the World 1, no. 7 (November 2015): 14–29.

13 “Tunisia’s UGTT: Caught between Struggle and Betrayal.” Anarcho-Syndicalist Review, no. 56 (2011): 22–23.

14 Nigel Disney, “The Working Class Revolt in Tunisia.” MERIP Reports, no. 67 (May 1978): 12–14.

9 neoliberal economic measures to their abandoning of the Gafsa UGTT activists, jailed during the 2008 uprising, when they limited themselves to a simple request for the release of the prisoners.”

This is where the ethos of the union is least convincing as it threw its weight behind the top-down neoliberalism of Ben Ali rather than attempt to continue grassroots or local efforts to achieve growth or improve conditions for workers.

The union is not monolithic. It is comprised of 24 regional unions, 19 sector federations, and 21 general unions with a total of around 750,000 members from all geographic areas of Tunisia.15 This regional component of diversity is a widely celebrated attribute of the union and one that is rare for many civil society organizations; this is why it is able to reach high levels of trust among the citizens. Even so, in the post-democracy era there remains the question of how much the UGTT can truly accomplish on behalf of the worker, especially when the country faces difficult economic conditions.16 It is often credited for “stabilization” post-revolution and the prevention of total state control by the Islamic party à la the 1979 Iranian revolution. In this way, it is viewed as a worthy representative of the Tunisian people based on its ability to uphold and protect the democracy that they were protesting for in 2011. However, the same economic symptoms which persisted before the 2011 revolution continue to exist today, so it remains to be seen whether authoritarianism is truly what was holding the UGTT back from effecting change for the workers of Tunisia.

METHODOLOGY

Overview This research is based primarily on interviews in addition to scholarly sources, some of which outline the history of Tunisia and the trade union movement and others that discuss the politics in post-revolution Tunisia. I conducted a series of four in-depth interviews with Tunisians living in Northern Tunisia during the fall of 2019. These interviews were conducted with two members of the UGTT as well as two non-members. Interviews conducted with members were completed in French/Arabic with the aid of a translator, while the interviews with non-members of the union were conducted in English. I was able to interview the members of the UGTT thanks to the connections of my professor, Mounir Khelifa, and my advisor, Rached Khali15 Hèla Yousfi, Trade Unions and Arab Revolutions: the Tunisian Case of UGTT, 1.

16 For an outline of these conditions in the era following the revolution, see: Rouissi Chiraz and Mohamed Frioui, “The Impact of Inflation After the Revolution in Tunisia,” Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 109 (January 8, 2014): pp. 246-249, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.12.453)

10 fa. My advisor also connected me with one of the non-member interviewees, a female master’s student who was enrolled in his graduate seminar. The questioning for the interviews done with members of the UGTT differed from the questions asked of non-members. The latter form of interview was largely to determine a sense of public perception, while the interviews with UGTT members sought to acquire institutional or official knowledge about the inner structure/working of the organization.

I was able to contextualize my findings based on a series of lectures attended in September and October 2019 via SIT’s academic program and the course Politics, Civil Society, and Migration in Tunisia. This course provided me with a broad historical background regarding the politics of Tunisia, specifically the forces that pushed the revolution in 2011 and facilitated the formation of government and order following the revolution. A program visit to the Forum Tunisien pour les Droits Économique et Sociaux (FTDES), a Tunisian NGO formed after the revolution to organize social and political movements, also aided me in understanding how the civil society sector is related to the UGTT. I utilized this visit in particular to inquire about the manner in which jobs are created and provided in Tunisia by the government with some UGTT influence.

The representative of the FTDES with whom we met was extremely helpful in providing this information examining the more tangible policies and actions of the UGTT. From this conversation, it seemed that FTDES faced a similar dilemma as the UGTT—though its history is much shorter— insofar as it created both an avenue for people to organize and a simultaneous entrenchment of the status quo which allowed and possibly encouraged this sort of sanctioned form of protest.

Concerns This study must not be taken as representative of the Tunisian public or be generalized to make assumptions beyond its scope. Rather, this study can be used to further general discussion on the efficacy of the UGTT and how it operates in the sociopolitical space of Tunisia’s democracy. There were multiple ethical concerns in conducting this research. Firstly, there was only a short timeframe to complete the interviews as well as a language barrier that made it difficult to recruit interviewees and/or set up times for interviews that would be convenient. Thus, I was reliant on existing contacts in the Tunis area to find possible interviewees, introducing bias in my sample in terms of region and, likely, social status. Further biases exist due to the fact that no Tunisians living in southern Tunisia were represented in this research, though some interviewees are originally from the south.

11 Research Findings I will present the interviews I conducted in two major parts: first, I will present the perspectives of those who were involved in the UGTT directly in order to give a deeper understanding of how the union operates. My primary goals during these interviews were (1) to understand the logistical aspects of membership and the structure of the union, and (2) to inquire about the political reach and aims of the UGTT from the perspective of a current or former member. Secondly, I will present the findings of my second set of interviews with those who are not directly involved in the union so in order to present a more general discussion of the influence and power of the UGTT even to those who are not directly impacted by it via membership. Ultimately, my aim during these interviews was to openly question the interviewees about their experience or thoughts regarding the UGTT from the perspective of a worker and/or citizen.

MEMBERS

Involvement The first two interviews were with Youssef Khelifa, a lecturer at the Higher Institute of Design of Tunis, and Tahar Labassi, a linguistics professor at the University of Tunis and also the former Chief of Staff of the Minister of the Department of Education in Tunisia. Khelifa had made a request to become a member of the UGTT in 2005; in order to join, he had to win favor in elections at the Higher Institute of Design. He was elected as a basic member in 2006. Khelifa was involved in the principal syndicalist sector of higher education and continues to work in this capacity as of the publication date of this paper. He describes his work with the union as generally low-maintenance with the exception of elections and periods of charged political climates, the zenith of these being the political climate during the 2011 revolution. Labassi had no official role in the UGTT at the time of the interview but had been involved at the highest levels of the organization since 2002. He became Vice Secretary General of the trade union of teachers and a member of the national council of trade union university teachers during his time of involvement before stepping down in 2014. He continued to work with the UGTT following 2014 as a consultant.

Perception Khelifa began by qualifying his view of his membership: it was beneficial “psychologically” but not “financially” (though he said that he enjoys it because of this reason).17 He highlighted the importance and power of the union: when we talk about what strikes or movements can take place, the UGTT is 17 Youssef Khelifa in oral interview with author, 4 October, 2019.

12 important because it can decide the influence, especially as it works with influential people in the government. Under the old regimes, the organization was not “too free to advocate for workers, but now, it is more free”18 to conduct its work. Before the revolution under Ben Ali and Bourguiba, there were acts of violence and armed, bloody conflicts between the UGTT and the state.

Now that democracy has been achieved, there is no longer this sort of conflict.

Khelifa lamented the fact that though the UGTT has more power, the workers of Tunisia are suffering more than they were before the revolution due to a host of economic reasons.

He discussed the ways in which there was “certainly a change [in the UGTT] especially with the new emergence of Islamist parties” post-revolution.19 Here he pointed to what he called the real function and strength of the UGTT: to defend and secure modernity for the country (he saw the new political Islamists parties as trying to “take Tunisia backwards”20). To Khelifa, the UGTT aims to protect and make a consensus between the Islamist parties and Modernist parties. This is why, he said, the UGTT worked against the Islamists after the revolution in order to stabilize the country. The UGTT supported many of the uprising movements at the time (populists, strikers), and so the government had to take it seriously due to the weight of the organization. They work with both the workers and the government, but from Khelifa’s point of view, the first objective is always to protect workers’ rights.

Labassi had a somewhat more critical perception of the UGTT, which he attributed to his former degree of involvement in, and now relative freedom from, the organization.21 He described the union as the only space where real politics was possible under the Ben Ali regime, though the institution was always committed to upholding the state. He admitted that today there is a question of whether or not the organization is actually a hindrance. He also described the nature of the UGTT’s negotiations with the government, which usually operate through ministers of various governmental departments.

These ministers would often sign an agreement with the UGTT that would purportedly meet the demands of workers; however, due to the high turnover rate of ministers, the union leadership knows that ultimately, the onus will fall on the successive minister and will likely not be upheld. He did not place all the blame on this pattern, however, noting that the government is under great economic pressure due to a lack of means. However, the UGTT faces pressure itself from the working class as the economic situation is worsening while the 18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Tahar Labassi in oral interview with the author, 12 October, 2019.

13 cost of living rises.

Labassi’s main qualm with the UGTT was in its failure— or as he called it, refusal— to change post-revolution. To him, changing means working as a trade union should work in a traditional democracy. He believed that the UGTT does not want to change because it is in a rather favorable position: it has an effective monopoly on unionism in the country.22 The government cannot give other trade unions many rights; the UGTT has intentionally created this hegemony in the social sphere so that only its own organization can win any favor in the eyes of the government. Labassi pointed to the UGTT’s failure to support the initial protests for the 2011 revolution which began in the south of Tunisia.23 The union was rather on the side of the government at the time.

However, the UGTT is also not officially part of the government.24 It plays a quasi-governmental role, and this is likely where it prefers to stay according to Labassi. He, however, believed that the union should embrace a role in national politics and move towards the path of official institutionalization on the federal level.

NON-MEMBERS

Involvement I interviewed Lassaad Bouattour, a civil servant working for the Ministry of Finance in Tunisia, and Rawe Khefi, a master’s student at the Université de Tunis el Manar within the Higher Institute of Human Sciences. Khefi had a background in unionism in her undergraduate years, though not through the UGTT. Neither had any direct relationship with the UGTT, meaning that they were not nor had ever been part of the union and did not know anyone beyond the level of acquaintanceship who was involved with the union.

Perception Bouattour outlined his major thoughts via a short history of the UGTT’s activity since Tunisia’s colonial period. He acknowledged it had a strong effect in the turn of independence. The syndicalist movement was threatening to colonial powers— this, according to Bouattour, is why Farhat Hached25 was assassinated, an act which immortalized the UGTT as a symbol/martyr for 22 As opposed to Morocco’s union format which follows the model of competitive unionism. See: Lorenzo Feltrin, “Labour and Democracy in the Maghreb: The Moroccan and Tunisian Trade Unions in the 2011 Arab Uprisings”, 45.

23 This was not the first time this siding has occurred: in February of 1984, during the “Bread Riots” caused by IMF-imposed measures to decrease agricultural subsidies, the postal service and education unions striked without UGTT approval, causing their organizers to be excommunicated from the union. Yousfi, 17.

24 As opposed to an established political party such as the Labour Party in the UK 25 Former leader of the UGTT during the independence movement

14 the national spirit.26 After independence, he noted, the Neo-Destour party and the UGTT viewed themselves as co-managers of the country— this led to some clashes, but this sharing of power was largely peaceful. Ben Ali was more authoritarian; Bouattour also emphasized that he was dealing with not only the UGTT, but the Islamic Tendency movement (MTI)27 as entities that were politically resistant to the state. Ben Ali would pick sides between UGTT and Islamists where it was convenient. Bouattour mentioned that around 1991, however, Ben Ali became more hostile towards the UGTT, insisting that the union would need to operate on his terms and even going so far as to choose its top directors.

Bouattour became most critical of the union when discussing the education sector. As a father himself, he remarked that the UGTT’s education sector union is “an enemy of any mother/father in Tunisia,”28 especially after mass strikes by education workers last year. He also said that today, the main way to get power is through the UGTT, while under Ben Ali similar benefits such as wage increases or job opportunities would come from membership in the party. Ultimately, he lauded the UGTT for its role in stabilizing the government post-revolution but believed that they should not take their activities too far in the political, as well as social, realm in order for the country to be able to grow economically.

Khefi held a significantly different view of the UGTT as compared to Bouattour, and even Labassi/Khelifa). As someone who has been involved in leftist political movements for years in Tunisia, she hesitated to refer to the UGTT with total positivity. She did echo some of the major sentiments: that the union was forced to conform to the state’s demands under Bourguiba and Ben Ali— though she mentioned that they were able to gain some power during the Bread Riots in which they faced violence due to the protests that they were involved in— and that generally the union has stood up for the people against the government, and they do not forget that.

However, she criticized the union for its failure to support the miners’ protests in Gafsa in 2008 and the initial seeds of revolutionary protests as well.

She praised its ability to prevent the Islamist parties from gaining too much power after the revolution and said that it was clearly committed to upholding 26 Though there has been no conclusive investigation, it is largely believed that the armed French organization La Main Rouge was responsible for the attack on Hached, whose death is commemorated every year in Tunisia. “Tunisia Urged to Reopen Hached Case.” News | Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera Media Network, December 27, 2009. https://www. aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2009/12/20091227135724498458.html.

27 See: Rory McCarthy, Inside Tunisia’s Al-Nahda (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).

28 Lassaad Bouattour in oral interview with author, 19 November, 2019.

15 the “Tunisian way of life”.29 Fundamentally, Khefi saw the UGTT as remaining more pro-government than pro-citizen following the revolution and criticized its passivity regarding politics particularly after the Quartet period of 2014.

For these reasons, she did not see the UGTT as becoming popular among her generation as a form of activism or movement.

DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS A certain repetition took place during the course of each interview wherein the interviewee would feel compelled to outline the history of the UGTT and Tunisia before beginning to describe their own perception of the institution and/or how they were involved. Each gave relatively the same story regarding Tunisia’s history since the colonial period, though each differed in their explanations of why certain movements proceeded while others failed (e.g. Gafsa riots in 2008 vs. the Kasbah protests of 2011). This pattern made sense— it is difficult to say what exactly the UGTT is or does without discussing its history. The past of the UGTT is precisely why it is such a valued institution in the Tunisian collective conscious today. Though all the interviewees had different political leanings, they followed some similarities in their beliefs, especially that the government must continue on a secular path and that the UGTT was helpful in this endeavor. Each was concerned by the threat of major Islamic political and social forces, the most prominent being the Ennahda political party which won the highest percentage of votes in the last parliamentary elections.30 The difficulty in assessing the UGTT is multifaceted. The organization has a long and diverse history which makes it difficult to tie itself to a coherent ethos over time, particularly due to the various treatment it has faced under multiple regimes and the various ways the union itself has chosen to act under these regimes. The aim is to attempt to accurately assess the union on both its own terms and on the terms that the people of Tunisia hold it to. To categorize it via a traditional left vs. right dichotomy or the basic movement of state actors as the abstraction of the citizenry would be a mistake.31 This would ignore the entire basis of the union as well as a larger critique of power from perspectives outside of the bipolar political field.

As some interviewees mentioned, the ability of the union has de29 Rawe Khefi in oral interview with author, 30 November, 2019.

30 Abdul L. al-Hanachi, “Tunisia’s First Legislative Elections Post-Revolution.” Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera Media Network, October 2, 2014. http://studies.aljazeera.net/en/ reports/2014/10/20141027409786296.html.

31 Sarah Chayes, “How a Leftist Labor Union Helped Force Tunisia’s Political Settlement.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 27, 2014. https:// carnegieendowment.org/2014/03/27/how-leftist-labor-union-helped-force-tunisia-spolitical-settlement-pub-55143.

16 pended on the environment around it. For Khelifa and Labassi, the UGTT is a strong, if not the strongest, Tunisian institution and should be strengthened in the democratic era in order to be even more effective. Labassi sees the natural route for the union as following the path to becoming a political party and taking on the responsibility and accountability that comes with governance rather than needing to negotiate due to their lower status of power as a civil society group. To Khefi, who identifies as a leftist, the UGTT does not do enough for the worker, and it is unclear at best whether the union is best-suited to take on the postmodern socioeconomic problems which the youth of Tunisia face distinctly.32 However, to Bouattour, the UGTT is too tyrannical in its measures to advocate for workers’ wages. It is these conflicting narratives that make it necessary to remove the lens of electoral politics in order to observe the kind of organization that the UGTT appears to be—it is unclear whether the UGTT can be objectively defined.33 My purpose was to explore the effect of power and proximity to the state in an effort to fight for workers via a union organization.

BARRIERS In addition to the aforementioned difficulties, if this research was to be continued and expanded, it would be helpful to be able to speak to current members of the executive board of the UGTT. This would allow for an additional level of perception which might be interesting to contextualize the union more directly. Further, it would be useful to gather perceptions from those outside of the Tunis area, particularly in regions such as Gafsa, Sidi Bouzid, Gabes, etc. where the 2011 revolution began and where the socioeconomic conditions differ. An increase in interviews with the inclusion of more demographics as well would aid this research. Moreover, in all such interactions, the presence of a reliable translator, or the personal development of Tunisian Arabic/French fluency, would be extremely important to reduce as much of the language barrier as possible. A translator would also be advantageous in the reading of sources and texts relating to the UGTT. CONCLUSION Though my collection of interviews were limited in quantity, they provided me with a wide range of perspectives on the UGTT. These perspectives 32 This points to the rising precarity in the Tunisian economy as a result of various governmental decisions and the impact of IMF loan conditionality. See: Rouissi Chiraz and Mohamed Frioui, “The Impact of Inflation After the Revolution in Tunisia,” Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 109 (January 8, 2014): pp. 246-249, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.12.453) 33 Yousfi’s Trade Unions and Arab Revolutions: the Tunisian Case of UGTT would likely go the farthest in this endeavor, at least in English-language sources.

17 should not be used to reflect the actual and exact sentiments of the Tunisian people towards the union but can be useful in a discourse regarding the UGTT and a broader discourse surrounding the ethics and efficacy of national unions. These interviews allowed me to develop a more extensive comprehension of how the union is perceived. The UGTT is in a unique position, whether viewed as a national union, political institution, civil society group, etc. However, in the post-democratic era, the UGTT does not seem to use its advantages to change the material conditions for workers— purchasing power is low and social unrest is high. This begs the question of whether it is a matter of will: is the union purposefully avoiding a more radical approach to maintain its power status, or does it believe that its current strategy is truly the most effective for its aims? These are vital questions that are highly relevant to the exploration and imagination of the realm of possibilities that the UGTT can either create for Tunisia or suppress.

WHERE IS THE SCREEN? Waltz with Bashir (2008) and the Displacement of Catastrophe

By JAMES MUSHABAC-LOWENS

A

ri Folman’s Waltz with Bashir (2008) ends with a startling leap out of animation and into documentary footage. The camera pans over piles of dead bodies and wailing widows. Facing directly into the camera a bereaved Arab mother excoriates the Israeli cinematographers: ‘film it, film it, where are the Arabs?’ (sawwaru, sawwaru, wein al-Arab?).

This essay scrutinizes the therapeutic function of Waltz with Bashir with a return to the psychoanalytic terrain of trauma. The film explicitly considers itself a kind of therapeutic act: for the director, for the viewers, for Israel itself. But what kind of therapy is this? The history of psychoanalysis presents two radically different approaches to the traumatic event: on the one hand the work of assimilation 1 and on the other hand, the work of dissolution.2 When trauma threatens the temporal integrity of the ego, analysis might move in either direction. The former restores and recuperates; the latter aggravates and accelerates.

At stake here is both the nature of the trauma and the nature of the cure—and, crucially therein, the function of the moving image. Raz Yosef has articulated perhaps the only scholarly consensus about the film’s final scene: it dramatizes the radical disjuncture between individual and collective experience opened up by the experience of trauma.3 Here trauma is a kind of non-experience, a kind of alienation—by extension, therapy must perform a kind of activation or revitalization. This schematization of trauma also necessarily reads into the woman’s question a kind of ‘play of mirrors.’4 The woman’s question reflects trauma back onto the traumatized in a kind of double-detachment: there is no encounter here, only the mutual recognition of absence.

But Yosef’s schematization rests upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the structure of trauma as conceived by Freud and elaborated by Lacan.

Yosef cites psychoanalysis; but what Yosef calls ‘trauma’ is not the trauma of psychoanalysis. Lacan’s psychoanalysis meets the ethical demands of trauma studies with terminological precision. If we are to follow Yosef into the psy1 Verhaege, Paul. Does the woman exist? From Freud’s Hysteric to Lacan’s Feminine (New York: Other Press, 1999), pp. 11.

2 Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 29.

3 Yosef, Raz. The Politics of Loss and Trauma in Contemporary Israeli Cinema (UK, Routledge: Taylor and Francis, 2011).

4 Stav, Shira. “Nakba and Holocaust: Mechanisms of Comparison and Denial in the Israeli Literary Imagination,” Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3, History and Responsibility: Hebrew Literature Facing 1948 (Spring/Summer 2012), pp. 96. Bloomington, Indiana University Press.

21 choanalytic dictionary (alongside the vast majority of scholarship on Waltz with Bashir), we’d be remiss not to meet the challenge of trauma (and the woman’s question) with our own theoretical rigor.

When Yosef writes about ‘trauma’ he unintentionally describes its opposite: ‘jouissance’ (enjoyment). ‘Jouissance’ is the necessary consequence of an intimate identification with the the structural ephemera of a signifying chain. ‘Jouissance’ simultaneously sustains the individual and nourishes the continuity of the social: it is both an individual and a collective experience.

Yosef describes this split—between the individual and the collective—but overlooks its eminently political function. Detachment can be a collective experience, especially in traumatized territory, in occupied territory. In the case of Zionist militarism an entire social fabric rests upon its political operability.

There does exist a way out, a secondary process, a detachment from detachment—trauma. For Lacan, following Freud, trauma gestures toward a radical presence: the presence of a disturbing kernel, the kernel of ‘the Real.’

This is far from Yosef’s alienation. This is direct, unmediated contact. A traumatic encounter presents a kind of ethical opportunity: through the structure of trauma—not ‘jouissance’—one might glimpse the radical contingency of a signifying chain and in so doing attenuate its inaugural violence (identification). Here we have not assimilation, but rather, dissolution—and it is precisely dissolution that the woman’s question demands.

But this is not the kind of therapy Waltz with Bashir provides. The film conjures a set of aesthetic innovations to continue to dodge and evade even as it seems to confront. Its therapeutic function as assimilation is inseparable from the distinct narrative capacities of film technology. Here again the question of trauma meets the ethics of representation: narrative, visual, theatrical, musical.

The film conjures a signifying chain to assimilate the trauma of Sabra and Shatila. The event becomes legible through a network of signification— through a series of visual cues and a series of citations. This essay scrutinizes this network. Section (1) addresses the function of color alongside the question of legibility. Section (2) engages the film’s network of citations, and in particular its references to movements in nineteenth-century European art and literature. Colors and citations perform a particular therapeutic operation irrespective of their author’s intention. They delineate an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside:’ they situate the ‘traumatic’ event in its proper place.

Shock and trauma are not coterminous—neither are pleasure and enjoyment. These are precisely the lessons psychoanalysis brings to bear on the study of images. If an image is readable it cannot be called ‘traumatic’—pain-

22 ful, perhaps, but not traumatic. Pain is not an ethical position.5 With the aid of theatrical spectacle pain becomes catharsis, a necessary and eminently social operation. This is the therapeutic function of Waltz with Bashir.

COLOR: YELLOW AND GOLD This particular color scheme appears in just three spaces: first, in the dream-sequence at the film’s beginning (a); second, in Folman’s recurring dream-sequence (b); and finally, at the film’s end, in its portrayal of the events at Sabra and Shatila (c). It functions as a kind of filmic ritornello: when the film goes golden-yellow, we enter the dreamscape, the space of ‘traumatic’ experience.

(a)

(b) Let us begin with the image at the center—Folman’s dream (b). The sequence occurs for the first time in the immediate aftermath of Folman’s conversation with another traumatized soldier—the sequence with the dogs (a).

Here we have a chain, from (a) to (b), and then eventually, to (c). It is precisely his reflections on (a) that bring Folman to (b).

It is as if the golden-yellow dreamscape is contagious. Looking out 5 Susan Sontag, On Photography (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2019).; Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003).

(c)

23 onto the ocean Folman turns his head slightly and the color palette shifts: a kind of golden-yellow light illuminates grey and rainy Tel Aviv—Tel Aviv looks just like the shores of Folman’s dreamscape Beirut (c). By the time the film reaches the third image (c) it has already prepared us to read Sabra and Shatila within the codified chain above: as hallucination, as unreal.

For Raz Yosef the world of ‘symbols and hallucinations’ in Waltz with Bashir marks the point at which collective memory and individual experience diverge. By emphasizing the subjective (hallucinatory) dimension of memories and experiences, Yosef explains, the film conjures an ‘atemporal zone… away from the continuities of national history.’6 Here Yosef draws upon Pierre Nora’s concept of ‘places of memory’ (lieux de mémoires): the film, like Nora’s ‘places of memory,’ stops time: it ‘escapes from history’ into the atemporal world of the museum, the monument, the symbolic ceremony and the festival.

These spaces qualify as ‘atemporal’ for Nora because they mark the place at which the past becomes crystallized—at which it becomes legible as separate, at a distance.7 Yael Munk echoes Yosef’s argument, but goes a step further: ‘being individual confessions of trauma, [the film] construct[s] a narrative limited to one single point of view… not… a point of negotiation between collective and personal history… but rather… an ultimate personal history in which the nation and the national are absent….’8 Munk and Yosef simultaneously misplace the ‘atemporal’ and wholly overlook its political function. Israeli Zionism conceives of itself as a Jewish return to history, the rectification of exile, of an original trauma. This particular narrative hinges upon distinction: it distinguishes between the ‘atemporal’ space of diaspora and the ‘historical’ territory of Israel post-1948.9 Is Folman’s yellow-and-gold then simply the space of the anti-national, a kind of ‘diasporic’ space of absence, of lack? For Munk and Yosef, the answer is yes—atemporal, anti-national, diasporic. Trauma, then, is an encounter with absence: in 6 Yosef, Raz. The Politics of Loss and Trauma in Contemporary Israeli Cinema (UK, Routledge: Taylor and Francis, 2011. Print), pp. 315.

7 Nora, Pierre. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire” Representations, No. 26, Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory (Spring, 1989), pp. 7-24.

8 Munk, Yael. “From National Heroes to Postnational Witnesses: A Reconstruction of Israeli Soldiers’ Cinematic Narratives as Witnesses of History,” in Harris, Rachel S. and Omer-Sherman, Ranen, Narratives of Dissent: War in Contemporary Israeli Arts and Culture, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013), pp. 314.

9 Munk unintentionally alludes to this distinction when he labels as ‘diasporic’ the ‘atemporal’ aesthetics of Waltz with Bashir (Munk 2011, 97). Yes, perhaps: but this does not amount to a ‘decline’ in memory or the ‘absence’ of a nation: it points rather to a particular place within ‘memory’ without which the nation does not exist. The incorporation of the ‘atemporal’ is essential to the act of nation-building: there is no ‘nation’ without ‘diaspora.’

24 this film, localizable to Folman’s ‘places of memory.’ But what kind of encounter occurs in these spaces? Trauma may indeed be such an encounter. But again, one can ‘encounter absence’ in two radically different ways: as a space already curved by absence or lack (assimilation), or as absence itself (dissolution). The former is Lacan’s ‘jouissance,’ the latter is Lacan’s ‘trauma.’

What Munk and Yosef miss is color—and not just any color, but a nexus of color we’ve been prepared to read very specifically. Yellow-and-gold is not ‘nothing;’ yellow-and-gold is something: something readable. It is against the film’s other color schemes that we must read the film’s final sequence: not as a separate space of ‘hallucination’ but, precisely by virtue of contrast, as a space of continuity with previous ‘dreams.’

We need only situate the space of ‘hallucination’ next to the space of ‘flashback’ to illustrate this point. In his first real flashback Folman remembers one particularly dangerous mission, in which his commanding officer charges him and his comrades with transporting dead bodies back to base. ‘Where should I dump the bodies?’ Folman asks. The reply: ‘out there, near that bright light’ (or gadol). When Folman and his comrades arrive at base camp they encounter not the golden light of traumatic memory but instead a harsh bright white against a greenish black. This is ‘real’, not a dream, but a flashback: ‘not a hallucination, nor my subconscious.’ This is the space of dead Israelis.

The film ‘dumps its bodies’ at another bright light at the film’s end, this time shot through with a familiar signifier of delirium. This is the site not of traumatic encounter with ‘the Real’ of mass murder. This is a prefabricated space into which we arrive well-prepared—not with the shock of an illegible image, but, paradoxically, with the relief of a return to the familiar.

If this is continuity and not rupture, then Folman’s Sabra and Shatila has a very precise political function—not to traumatize, but to assimilate.

Here again we might return to Lacan’s formulation, and to Yosef’s misreading.

25 To recapitulate: for Yosef the structure of trauma opens up a chasm between individual and collective experience. For Lacan, in contrast, this very gap is the divided subject—the subject is this separation, this chasm, and he experiences this chasm as ‘jouissance.’ What Yosef labels ‘trauma’ (detachment) is in fact the magnetic attraction of two inseparable poles at the sight of subjectivation.

For Lacan trauma operates more directly in the opposite direction: a traumatic encounter occurs when the divided subject glimpses the ‘Real’ outside, beyond, or beneath the symbolic order. This kind of encounter leaves intact neither the symbolic order nor the divided subject. ereWe might call the film’s final sequence traumatic only if it functions along these lines—if it dissolves, if it remains illegible. This does not occur. Color prepares us to register the film’s final scene in a particular way—Sabra and Shatila remains wholly within a codified symbolic space.

CITATION Folman screens Sabra and Shatila inside the yellow-and-gold space of Israeli ‘jouissance.’ But the vast majority of Folman’s film takes place outside the event itself. We have already glimpsed the visual code of the ‘outside’ in the space of bright light and dead Israelis. But this is just one example; and if our concern here is legibility then Folman’s outside demands its own meticulous treatment.

The film’s final ‘encounter’ with ‘the Arabs’ takes place through layers of mediation—in particular, the mediation of European art. The film dips into and out of various stylistic modes with diasporic virtuosity. Folman goes in search of lost time (for Sabra and Shatila) and finds along the way Europe and its many modalities. Visually, in one form or another Folman pays tribute to the Dutch Golden Age (a), to French Impressionism (b), and to Gothic horror (c).

26

(a)

(b) Let’s begin with citation (a), the Dutch Golden Age. Folman’s therapist delivers an encomium to memory and ‘memory takes us where we need to go:’ to Holland. Folman then pastes himself and his friend Carmi C’naan as moving silhouettes atop the placid provincial landsacpe. The contrast is stark: the painterly backdrop throws animated Folman and C’naan into stark relief. The backdrop might just as well come from Pieter Brueghel.

(Pieter Bruegel, ‘Hunters in the Snow,’ 1565)

(c)

27 Later on, ‘memory takes us’ to a French Impressionist garden in Beirut (b). There is a particular shade of green that appears only here, in gardens. In stark contrast to Folman’s Dutch Golden Age tribute, here Folman’s own animation fits seamlessly into the European school to which he pays tribute.

(Vincent Van Gogh, “The Poet’s Garden,” 1888) When Folman returns to Holland with a basket full of memories, the Dutch Golden Age backdrop assumes the Impressionist green of the Lebanese garden. Folman and his friend C’naan fit into the landscape perfectly. ‘I’m starting to remember,’ C’naan explains. As he begins to remember, the characters begin to assimilate to the European backdrop, reconciling two Israelis to both Impressionism and the Dutch Golden Age. Here it is recollection—as a kind of citation-synthesis —which situates the two men squarely in the present.

28 This is not simply Folman flexing the breadth of his artistic acumen by allusion. Citations are a kind of mediation. They are an invocation of memory, a way to contextualize or assimilate within the already known or the possibly knowable.10 Ironically, Folman cites European art to mark the point at which a ‘traumatic encounter’ ends and other kinds of experience begin—memory and recollection, for example. Citations separate Sabra and Shatila from both the present and the past. They separate Holland from Beirut. Sabra and Shatila is not French Impressionism, not the Dutch Golden Age, not Gothic Horror. It is its own, singular place—a space of yellow and gold.

Citations also separate witnesses from perpetrators. The film makes an abrupt shift into gothic horror directly on the heels of its placid moment of citation-synthesis. Folman litters the landscape with nearly every conceivable gothic cliché: empty jars, wandering men with flashlights, barren trees, a graveyard cross, black cats and crows, rats, a castle, eyeballs in jars, a man with a cleaver, a severed hand—the list goes on. Various shades of black and grey define the contours of items against a backdrop of radioactive yellow-green.

10 Barthes, Roland. A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1977).

29 Here Folman indiscriminately mobilizes tropes of the European gothic to separate Israelis from the barbarous bloodthirsty Phalangists, the proprietors of the ‘slaughterhouse.’ C’naan remembers the gruesome details of a Phalange torture chamber, the ‘slaughterhouse:’ ‘it was like being on an LSD trip. They carried body parts of murdered Palestinians preserved in jars of formaldehyde. They had fingers, eyeballs, anything you wanted.’

‘I’m starting to remember,’ says Carmi C’naan, as his animated body begins to match the green backdrop. And then the ‘camera’ pans out and finds Folman at his therapists, in Israel, no longer in the Dutch Golden Age or the era of French Impressionism, no longer with the German Baroque or the European Gothic. He has returned to Israel, to his therapist’s office, and it is precisely here that the chain of citations break down: ‘I’ve reached a dead end.’ He has reached the end of his European citations, that is to say, the end of European history. Folman’s therapist leads him there, to the ‘end’ of Jewish-European history—Sabra and Shatila.

Dutch Golden age artists attempted to meticulously render reality in its exactitude. Impressionists inaugurated modern art’s departure from ‘reality.’

But Impressionism departs only partially: away from the empirical and into the phenomenological, away from contours and distinctions and into the world of light and shadow. The movement loosens up its grip on contour and in so doing illuminates a world of impression, a world of movement and color.

30 This is precisely what happens when Folman’s film slips into yellow and gold. Folman’s Impressionist garden alludes to this ‘doubling’ of reality—into contour and shade, perception and memory, experience and trauma. When Folman reconciles Impressionism to the Dutch Golden Age at the moment in which Folman and C’naan ‘start to remember,’ shade and contour come together: here experience and memory for the first (and only) time begin to coincide. This, I argue, is the film’s apotheosis—not the film’s final scene. This is the moment an encounter with ‘the Real’ becomes possible—in other words, here for the first time we glimpse a glimmer of the ethical possibilities of trauma—not ‘jouissance,’ not the signifier.

‘STOP THE SHOOTING’ But here Folman relents. The film reverts to yellow and gold (to the signifying chain) at precisely the moment ‘the Real’ begins to emerge. The film retreats at the moment unmediated experience begins to ‘arise.’11 An Israeli general issues an order to the Arab refugees and the Phalangist perpetrators: ‘stop the shooting. Stop the shooting immediately…

Everybody go home. Go home, now.’ The general gives his order at dawn—the lighting is perfect—next to a tank that points directly at the camp.

The Arabs ‘go home’ to the camp, but the shooting doesn’t stop. Israeli journalist and war photographer Ron Ben Yishai follows close behind: ‘The Palestinians?’ - ‘Yes.’ - I said to my men, ‘we’re going in with them… with those women and children. We’ll see what happened in there.’ In the film’s final lines, Ben Yishai details exactly what he sees in the camp: “My eye caught a hand, a small hand. A child’s hand stuck out from the rubble. I looked a bit closer and saw curls. A head of curls covered in dust… it was a head, exposed up 11 Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 33.

31 to the nose. A hand and a head. My own daughter was the same age as that little girl.

And she had curly hair, too… courtyards… full of bodies of women and children…. We entered one alley, a very narrow alley… piled up to the height of a man’s chest with the bodies of young men. That’s when I became aware of the results of the massacre.”12

The camera follows Ben Yishai as he looks at the rubble and ‘catches’ a hand. Behind him the grieving Palestinian Arabs walk forward without looking.

Here the camera has the privilege to see its own daughters. The victims march on unable to look, while the Israeli journalist looks on with horror, unabashed.

The Israeli violence is twofold. First the IDF fires flares as their allies massacre civilians. Then the music stops and ‘the shooting’ continues. Here Israelis answer the woman’s question—’where are the Arabs?’ ‘The Arabs’ are here, on the screen.

AFTERTHOUGHTS There are two therapies and two screens—a screen to assimilate and a screen to dissolve. Waltz with Bashir provides the former; Sabra and Shatila calls for the latter—a revolutionary-ethical screen. This is precisely the point at which Ella Shohat concludes her seminal Israeli Cinema (1989): “True cinematic polyphony will emerge, most probably, only with the advent of political equality and cultural reciprocity… but until the advent of such a utopian moment, cultural and political polyphony might be filmically evoked, at least, through the proleptic procedures of ‘anticipatory’ texts, texts at once militantly imaginative and resonantly multivoiced. “13 12 Waltz with Bashir. Israel, Germany, France: Sony Pictures Classics, 2009.

13 Shohat, Ella. ​Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation​, (London; New York: I.B. Taurus, 2010).

32 Even in its earnest attempt to engage the problematics of traumatic memory Waltz with Bashir does not begin to approach Shohat’s ‘resonant multivocality.’ Thirty years after Shohat’s Israeli Cinema we might post the same question to Ari Folman, and indeed to Israel film. What do you anticipate?— that is, who are you, and where are you going?

MONUMENTALIZING ATATÃœRK: Izmir and the Construction of Turkish Identity

By DUNCAN RANDALL

T

here already has been an Atatürk Airport in Istanbul, and there are in many other places. It would be far more appropriate to give this one a new name,” Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said in justifying his decision not to transfer Atatürk’s name to Istanbul’s new replacement airport.1 Responding to this announcement, Turkish dailies spewed hearsay as to what name Erdoğan would choose. Some claimed it would be named after Fatih Sultan Mehmet, the 15th century Ottoman sultan whose Muslim armies conquered Istanbul and gained a foothold in Europe.2 Others proposed the name would be that of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the late 19th century sultan whose pan-Islamism is a major inspiration for Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP).3 More believed the president would in fact name the airport after himself. Officials such as former transport minister Ahmet Arslan proclaimed, “Why shouldn’t the airport be named after President Erdoğan, looking at what he has done [throughout his career]?”4 In the end, Erdoğan settled on “Istanbul Airport.” Yet even in doing this, he was not able to avoid controversy: opening Istanbul Airport on 29 October 2019, Erdoğan was Turkey’s first leader to celebrate the nation’s anniversary outside of the capital of Ankara.

This episode highlights the president’s perspective on how Turkish identity should be presented. Citing the stripping of Atatürk’s name from the airport, the rumored replacement of that name with the names of sultans, and the decision to celebrate republican founding day in the former Ottoman capital of Istanbul, observers claim that Erdoğan is attempting to replace the centrality of Atatürk and Kemalist symbolism with religious and Ottoman motifs.5 Yet despite the large amount of power Erdoğan has amassed, there still remain other forces in Turkey which continue to be at odds with his redefi1 Zülfikar Doğan, “Istanbul’s new airport likely to be named after Erdoğan, sources say,” Ahval News, October 28, 2018, https://ahvalnews.com/third-airport/istanbuls-newairport-likely-be-named-after-erdogan-sources-say.

2 Doğan, “Istanbul’s new airport likely to be named after Erdoğan, sources say.”

3 Yusuf Kanlı, “The name of Istanbul’s new airport,” Hurriyet Daily News, September 18, 2018, https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/opinion/yusuf-kanli/the-name-of-istanbulsnew-airport-136949.

4 Zülfikar Doğan, “Istanbul’s new airport likely to be named after Erdoğan, sources say,” Ahval News, October 28, 2018, https://ahvalnews.com/third-airport/istanbuls-newairport-likely-be-named-after-erdogan-sources-say.

5 AFP, “Turkey’s new Istanbul airport to be world’s largest,” France 24, October 29, 2018, https://www.france24.com/en/20181029-turkeys-new-istanbul-airport-beworlds-largest; Yusuf Kanlı, “The name of Istanbul’s new airport,” Hurriyet Daily News, September 18, 2018, https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/opinion/yusuf-kanli/the-nameof-istanbuls-new-airport-136949; Zülfikar Doğan, “Istanbul’s new airport likely to be named after Erdoğan, sources say,” Ahval News, October 28, 2018, https://ahvalnews. com/third-airport/istanbuls-new-airport-likely-be-named-after-erdogan-sources-say.

39 nition of what it means to be Turkish. This struggle over national identity is most prominent in the city of Izmir.

Though often overshadowed by Istanbul and eclipsed by the ever-expanding Ankara, the Aegean city of Izmir still maintains significant political, economic, and cultural influence in Turkey. Aware of this influence, Izmir’s leaders have not been shy in crafting the city’s own representations of national identity. By building increasingly large and visible monuments to Atatürk, they have extended the defining Turkish identity in Atatürk’s image. By looking at the location, construction, design, and impact of these major municipal constructions, this article will explore why these choices were made and how they contribute to the contested construction of Turkish identity. Izmir’s identity construction sits in stark contrast to other nationwide initiatives that challenge the republican, Kemalist legacy. This tension is discernible in Turkey’s city squares, its architecture, and its public monuments, reflecting a greater ideological battle. As increasingly divergent factions within Turkey fight over the nation’s ideological-political future, Izmir’s leaders are reinforcing their definition of Turkish identity and projecting it not only within their city but also far beyond its borders.

THE HISTORICAL BOND BETWEEN ATATÜRK AND IZMIR In order to understand why Izmir’s definition of Turkish identity is so tied to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the city’s unique historical relationship with the leader must be acknowledged. Without Atatürk, Turkish Izmir would not exist: he liberated the city from Greek military occupation in 1922. Viscerally, Izmir’s perception of what national identity means is intrinsically tied to its liberator. However, the city’s Atatürk-centric definition of Turkish identity is also the result of a subtler connection. As Turkey’s second city and largest port during the Ottoman era, Izmir was famously cosmopolitan. It was part of a greater Mediterranean trade network that brought regional diversity—Turks, Greeks, Armenians, English, Dutch, French, Venetians, and Jews all helped forge an urban identity for Izmir that was in tune with European ideological and social trends.6 The city’s distinct character famously earned it the name Gavur Izmir, or “Infidel Izmir,” from the Ottoman government in Istanbul.7 While Izmir’s cosmopolitan identity mostly vanished along with its minorities during the War of Independence, its Eurocentric cultural, political, and 6 Daniel Goffman, Izmir and the Levantine World, 1550-1650. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990), 145-146., Sedef Eylemer and Dilek Memisoglu, “The Borderland City of Turkey: Izmir from Past to the Present,” Eurolimes 19, (Spring, 2015): 175.

7 Sedef Eylemer and Dilek Memisoglu, “The Borderland City of Turkey: Izmir from Past to the Present,” Eurolimes 19, (Spring, 2015): 178, 176., Sibel Zandi-Sayek, Ottoman Izmir: the rise of a cosmopolitan port, 1840/1880 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012), 1.

40 ideological lean remained. This was due in large part to the fact that Atatürk’s European-inspired reform program reflected the city’s Ottoman era attitudes, facilitating their preservation and maintenance into the republican period.8 Because Atatürk was so instrumental to Izmir’s physical inclusion in the Turkish nation and its ideological character, it is no surprise that the city identifies so strongly with Kemalist ideology.

This paper does not intent to deemphasize the significant presence of Kemalist ideology and imagery in other Turkish regions and cities. It does, however, build its argument from the observation that in Izmir, this visual representation is unparalleled in its creativity, grandiosity, and visibility.

GAZI MONUMENT: A FOUNDATIONAL FOCAL POINT Many of Izmir’s monuments represent Atatürk as a wartime leader; his reconquest of Izmir was the deciding moment in the Turkish War of Independence.9 The Gazi Monument, erected in 1932, was the first of these. The statue is composed of two parts: a marble base designed by the Turkish sculptor Asım Kömürcü, and above it a bronze figure of an equestrian Atatürk designed

by Pietro Canonica, an Italian who had built statues for great leaders and cities all over Europe.10 The monument emphasizes Atatürk’s intimate connection with Izmir: the title of Gazi, an honorific title awarded for great military feats, along with the depiction of Atatürk in full soldierly regalia and on horseback, are references to his liberation of the city. The inscription on the base is even more direct, with a quote from Atatürk himself during his assault on Izmir: “Armies, your first target is the Mediterranean Sea. Forward!”11 Meanwhile, the conversation between the European-styled statue and its base, which was constructed with dark-red Ayfron marble from the heartlands of Midwestern Anatolia, offers a more nuanced attachment to Atatürk. Through this fusion of European and Anatolian artistic influences, the statue and its base comprise a visual representation of Turkish identity that is fundamentally a combination of “traditional” Turkish culture and Western modernity, a core of the Kemalist program.

To increase the statue’s reach, Izmir’s leadership worked to make it the focal point of the entire city. Working with the French Beaux Arts city planner René Danger, who was commissioned to help redesign the city in light of the 1922 Izmir Fire, a plan was devised to have the statue sit at the intersection of 8 Patrick Balfour Kinross. Atatürk, the rebirth of a nation. (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1965), 326.

9 Andrew Mango, Atatürk (Great Britain: Johny Murray, 1999), 435.

10 “A Day Full of History,” Visit Izmir, 2016, http://www.visitizmir.org/en/city-center/aday-full-of-history.

11 “A Day Full of History,” Visit Izmir.

41 a newly constructed 6-street axis and the Aegean Sea itself.12 At this intersection, a monumental plaza was created to be “the symbolic entrance to the city by sea.”13 As the Turkey’s second largest city at the time, the municipality took its first big step in defining what a republican Turkish city should look like— a definition that was centered on Atatürk.

BATTLE OF DULMUPINAR SILHOUETTES: THE GIFT OF LIBERATION Recently, other dedications to Ataturk’s military career have been constructed. The first of these is a massive silhouette commissioned by Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Aziz Kocacoğlu, a member of the opposition People’s Republican Party (CHP). It covers an entire side of Izmir’s eight story Metropolitan Municipality building, which sits right on the Aegean coast facing the Bay of Izmir. The second, part of a plant-based mural located on a major highway connecting the Bayraklı and Karşiyaka districts, also depicts an enormous silhouette of Atatürk. The depictions are similar in style and in impact— both share an infamous image of Atatürk which has great emotional meaning for the entire nation and especially for Izmir.

The image, stylistically similar to the American silhouette of soldiers raising the flag at Iwo Jima, depicts Atatürk strategizing at the Battle of Dulmupınar (the “Field Battle of Commander-in-Chief” in Turkish). For context, the Battle of Dulmupınar, fought against the Greeks, was the last major battle in the Turkish War of Independence, and ultimately led to the founding of the Turkish Republic as it is known today.14 Though the battle holds major significance for all Turks, its celebration as the August 30th “Victory Day” holiday is especially meaningful to Izmirians. Greek aspirations in Turkey were centered around the Megali Idea, or the goal of unifying Western Anatolia with mainland Greece in a greater, Byzantine-inspired, Hellenic nation. The most significant part of this plan was taking Izmir, which had long been a center of Greek culture, commerce, and intellectual thought.15 However, with Greek defeat at Dulmupınar, Turkish forces were able to push into Izmir with little resistance and finally liberate it after 3 years of occupation. Given this historical context, these images, just like other military-themed monuments in the city, present Izmir and Atatürk as one; for without Atatürk, there would be no Izmir. More broadly, they emphasize that the Turkish nation as it stands today would not exist without him, and therefore that republican Turkish identity is inextrica12 F. Cana Bisel, “Ideology and Urbanism During the Republican Period: Two Master Plans for Izmir and Scenarios of Modernization,” METU Journal of Faculty of Architecture, vol. 16, n. 1-2, 1996, 17-18.

13 Bisel, “Ideology and Urbanism During the Republican Period,” 18.

14 Andrew Mango, Atatürk (Great Britain: Johny Murray, 1999), 435.

15 Marjorie Housepian Dobkin, Smyrna 1922: the destruction of a city (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1988), 12.

42 bly linked to Atatürk and Izmir.

There was a telling controversy when Kocacoğlu, the mayor who made the decision to create the silhouette on the Municipality building, removed it before independence celebrations in 2016 and hesitated to put it back. The city erupted in anger, with even AKP officials like Deputy Chairman Bilal Doğan saying that by removing the silhouette, “in the most prestigious place of Izmir, where hundreds of thousands of people pass every day…[he] made a great disrespect to the people of Izmir.”16 Kocacoğlu wasted no time in returning it to the side of his building, where it remains today. This incident shows that while Erdoğan, AKP’s leader, distances Turkish identity from Atatürk, Izmir’s AKP officials act to the contrary, vehemently objecting when dedications to Atatürk are obstructed with in any way. This indicates initiative on the part of Izmir’s leaders from various political ideologies to protect Atatürk’s ideals and legacy as the face of the nation.

TREE OF THE REPUBLIC STATUE: THE KEMALIST CORE OF THE REPUBLIC While all three of the aforementioned dedications stress that Atatürk’s military legacy is critical to modern Turkish identity, other equally prominent monuments focus on how his political and social legacy is crucial to the nation’s understanding of itself. The first of these is the Tree of the Republic Statue in Gündoğdu Square, constructed for the 80th anniversary of the republic. Located on the Kordon promenade right on the Aegean, it consists of a white marble trunk and an iron top in the form of leaves. The trunk is made up of three parts. At the absolute base are Atatürk founding the republic, passing a new civil code (modelled after Switzerland’s) that granted women’s suffrage, and teaching the new Latin alphabet.17 On the second level, people are doing medicine and science, playing volleyball and soccer, producing elegant orchestral music, and laboring in industrial factories. On the third is text from the Turkish constitution, which was heavily inspired by France’s.18 These three entities, being part of the trunk, represent a foundational core of the republic fully that is based on the transformative reforms of Atatürk, without which an independent, prosperous, and modern Turkey could not survive. On top of the trunk are the leaves, made up of a cavalry driving forward, continuing to fight and protect the republic. The cavalry are the offshoots of Atatürk, his people, and his ideals, coming into the 21th century with as much vigor and conviction as in 1923. Constructed 80 years after that date, Izmir uses the monument to 16 “Atatürk’e saygısızlık ettin Kocaoğlu,” Yeni Asır, March 7, 2017, https://www.yeniasir. com.tr/surmanset/2017/03/08/ataturke-saygisizlik-ettin-kocaoglu.

17 Andrew Mango, Atatürk (Great Britain: Johny Murray, 1999), 550.

18 Özlem Kaya, “On the Way to a New Constitution in Turkey: Constitutional History, Political Parties, and Civil Platforms,” Freidrich Ebert Stiftung, October, 2011.

43 show that its dedication to the Republic, and the Kemalist values it was founded on, is as unwavering as ever. Constantly surrounded by people, whether young Izmirians relaxing on a Saturday afternoon or adults gathering for a political rally (as millions did for CHP presidential candidate Muharrem İnce days before the 2018 elections), the statue and its preeminence in the cityscape reinforce that only through the maintenance of Atatürk’s legacy will the tree, and by extension the republic, remain alive and healthy.19 ATATÜRK MASK: THE FACE OF THE NATION Though the Tree of the Republic is certainly one of Izmir’s most prominent monuments, its focus on Atatürk is small compared to others, with only the lower third of the trunk dedicated to the leader. The Atatürk Mask in Buca, Izmir faces no such problem. The tenth highest relief sculpture in the world, sitting at 42 meters (taller than Christ the Redeemer), the Atatürk Mask is a colossal mountainside relief of Atatürk’s head. Constructed alongside the relief was the National Struggle and 9th of September Museum, which officials say will give Izmir’s children “better opportunities to learn…what Atatürk has done.”20 Interestingly, this monument was approved by Buca District Mayor Cemil Şeboy, a member of the AKP. He was even prosecuted due to the amount of public funds he used for the project, which begs the question, why is an AKP mayor sacrificing his political career in order to build such a monument?21 Just as in the case of the silhouette on the Municipal Mayor’s building, it is clear that fierce bipartisan support remains for the continued construction of dedications to Atatürk, each seeming to outdo the previous. Quite literally, given that the monument is a massive bust of Atatürk, Izmir’s leaders are stressing that Atatürk will always be the true face of the nation. As in the previous scenario, the takeaway is that regardless of divergent trends in Istanbul or Ankara which seek to draw attention away from Atatürk’s legacy and towards Ottoman legacies, Izmir’s leaders will continue to display their own, Atatürk-centric national identity. In the words of Municpal Mayor Kocacoğlu at the opening of the Ataürk Mask, “The achievements of Atatürk and his fellow fighters should always shed light on our way…We must entrust the country to the generations that will adopt [his] principles and reforms.”22 19 AFP News Agency, “Rally in Izmir for Turkish President’s Main Rival Has Huge Turnout,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, June 22, 2018, http://www.rferl.org/a/turkeypresidential-campaign-ince-izmir/29313583.html.

20 “Buca’da, Milli Mücadele ve 9 Eylül Müzesi kuruldu,” Milliyet, September 19, 2009, http://www.milliyet.com.tr/buca-da-milli-mucadele-ve-9-eylul-muzesi-kuruldu/ege/ haberdetay/19.09.2010/1290808/default.htm.

21 Can Özlü, “İzmir›e 42 metrelik Atatürk dağı,” Hurriyet Daily News, September 12, 2009, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/izmire-42-metrelik-ataturk-dagi-12456206.

22 Özlü “İzmir›e 42 metrelik Atatürk dağı,” Hurriyet Daily News.

44 MONUMENT OF ATATÜRK, HIS MOTHER, AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS: FOLLOWING IN HIS FOOTSTEPS In line with that vision espoused by Kocacoğlu, the Monument of Atatürk, His Mother, and Women’s Rights suggests that Atatürk’s legacy of reform is inseparable from Turkish identity. Designed by Tamer Başoğlu in 1973 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Turkish Republic, it reaches 27 meters in height and consists of a number of white pylons that are held together by an iron ring. On this ring are murals of Atatürk, his mother Zübeyde Hanım (who, despite being born abroad, died and is buried in Izmir and whose legacy is claimed by the city), and Turkish women working in fields such as teaching, justice, or chemistry.23 A symbol of Atatürk’s dedication to the emancipation of women, whom he granted universal suffrage before many European nations did, Izmir uses the monument to argue that Atatürk’s advocacy for women’s rights is an inalienable embodiment of Turkish identity. While politicians in Ankara and Istanbul increasingly advocate for women to stay at home, and Erdoğan remarks that men and women are “not made equal,” Izmir actively renounces this patriarchal conception of Turkish values.24 In 2018, the city doubled down, making the Monument of Atatürk, His Mother, and Women’s Rights even more prominent by refurbishing the structure and adding 14.7 meters to its height.25 Vindicating Izmir’s intentions, the monument’s renewal project received two grand awards (Best Multi-Purpose Area of Use in Europe, Best Community Service) from the International Property Awards in London.26 By acknowledging Izmir among notable European cities, the awards legitimized the value of the city’s initiatives and affirmed to both domestic and international observers that women’s rights are at the core of what it means to be Turkish.

Not only adding height, the refurbishment also involved the installation of a small museum inside its base. Dedicated to pioneering Turkish women in politics, entertainment, the military, and even Sumerology, it was recognized by its commissioner, Karşiyaka District Mayor Huseyin Mutlu Akpinar, as “one

23 “The Monument of Atatürk, His Mother, and Women’s Rights,” T.C. Karşiyaka Belediyesi, http://www.karsiyaka.bel.tr/en/what-you-can-do/monuments-and-statues/ monument-of-ataturk-his-mother-and-womens-rights.

24 Mark Lowen, “Turkey election trip: Izmir looks West amid growing conservatism,” BBC, May 22, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32825242.

25 “Monument in Izmir receives two awards from England,” Hurriyet, October 30, 2018, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/monument-in-izmir-receives-two-awards-fromengland-138423.

26 “Monument in Izmir receives two awards from England,” Hurriyet.

45 of the most meaningful works I have done.”27 Four years prior, Izmir established the Izmir Women’s Museum, becoming the first city in Turkey dedicated to women. While this museum is not yet a top destination, the new museum at the base of the Monument of Atatürk, His Mother, and Women’s Rights is a popular gathering place in Karşiyaka, the trendiest residential district in Izmir.28 In the words of Akpinar at the museum’s opening, it would be a grand presentation “to both the people of Izmir and those coming from outside” of the “struggle with the [conservative] mentality that tried to destroy Atatürk”.29 CHP Parliamentarian Sibel Özdemir added that its spirit should be “kept alive in Anatolian cities [to] remind us again that we must protect our basic values and fight for them.”30 The monument’s refurbishment wasn’t simply a municipal beautification project, but a strong ideological statement that Kemalist rights, freedoms, and attitudes constitute the true Turkish identity, a statement which is increasingly becoming polarizing in light of current tensions sweeping the nation.

Speaking to this division, months after the monument’s refurbishment, 7,000 Izmirians gathered around the monument for Iftar, the breaking of the fast during Ramadan. At this dinner, Akpinar made a toast: “Iftar is the most important bridge…which directs us towards humanitarian values again in an age when people are going further away from each other.”31 He went on to say that the district, whose municipal emblem itself is a stylized depiction of Izmir’s most prominent monument, is a “symbol of all the values we need… [and] indicator of this attitude of ours.”32 Thus, the monument is a physical embodiment of how Izmir conceives of Turkish identity - indivisibly bound both to Atatürk, and his fight for women’s rights.

A SUCCESS IN IDENTITY BUILDING? Though the city’s leaders have certainly engaged in identity construction on a grand scale, it is important to consider how impactful this has been on the residents of Izmir. One way the effectiveness of these structures can be 27 “Karşıyaka’nın ‘Kadına Saygı Müzesi’ Açıldı,” Millyet News, April 11, 2018, http:// www.milliyet.com.tr/yerel-haberler/izmir/karsiyakanin-kadina-saygi-muzesiacildi-13133636.

28 Selin Önen “A Feminist Perspective on Women’s Museums in Turkey: İzmir Case,” Kültür ve İletişim, 2019, 22(2): 136., Noor Falah Ogli, “From Seeking Survival to Urban Revival,” Refugees in Towns, 2018, https://www.refugeesintowns.org/izmir.

29 “Karşıyaka’nın ‘Kadına Saygı Müzesi’ Açıldı,” Millyet News, April 11, 2018, http://www. milliyet.com.tr/yerel-haberler/izmir/karsiyakanin-kadina-saygi-muzesi-acildi-13133636.

30 “Karşıyaka’nın ‘Kadına Saygı Müzesi’ Açıldı,” Millyet News.

31 “Iftar for 7 Thousand People in Karşiyaka,” T.C. Karşiyaka Belediyesi, June 11, 2018, http://www.karsiyaka.bel.tr/en/news/iftar-for-7-thousand-people-in-karsiyaka.

32 “Iftar for 7 Thousand People in Karşiyaka,” T.C. Karşiyaka Belediyesi,

46 assessed is through their visibility; the more times a monument is seen and the greater role it plays in daily civic life, the greater success it will have in making a statement. Alsancak, Kordon, and Konak, where the Atatürk Monument, the Tree of the Republic, and the silhouette on the Metropolitan Municipal Mayor’s Building are respectively located, are the three most popular meeting places in the city.33 Meanwhile, the floral silhouette on the highway, the Atatürk Mask, and the Monument to Atatürk, his Mother, and Women’s rights are passed by hundreds of thousands of highway commuters daily. Additionally, almost all of these monuments are prominently located on the city’s Aegean coastline. Therefore, they are not only visible to those on land but to the tens of thousands who ferry across the Bay of Izmir each day for work, school, and pleasure. The monuments themselves are inescapable to anyone living in or visiting the city, and thus so too are the representations of identity they espouse.

Still, it is worth pondering just how relevant these ever-present, imposed images are to the Izmirians who pass them. While no doubt important to the city officials who brought them to life, for everyday citizens, they might be less meaningful. Though there are an abundance of civic gatherings, like the Iftar dinner, and political gatherings, such as the infamous İnce rally, that take place alongside these monuments, critics might argue that these are orchestrated by the authorities who created the monuments. But if this seems too formal to be indicative of a real impact, there also exists substantial evidence pointing to a consistent engagement with the structures in a more organic, casual manner. By looking up a geotag or hashtag of a district’s name, one can see thousands of photos of Izmirians of all ages and affiliations socializing, posing, playing sports, and even celebrating next to these monuments. Given that they are embedded into the fabric of the city and play a central role in the lives of all Izmirians, it is hard to imagine the monuments are irrelevant to their conceptions of national identity. Though citizens may not be actively contemplating their subtle messages on a daily basis, these structures are nevertheless informing their understanding of Turkish identity.

Furthermore, if the monuments did not truly contribute to the promotion of a Kemalist Turkish identity, it would be difficult to explain why they keep being constructed. The structures analyzed here were erected in 1932, 1973, 2003, 2009, 2015, and 2018, highlighting a consistent impetus by Izmir’s leaders to strengthen Turkey’s public face in the image of Atatürk. However, many critics of Atatürk’s monumentalization such as Esra Özyürek have noted that the construction of new and creative Atatürk monuments was common33 Personal Communication

47 place in the 1980’s and 1990’s all over Turkey.34 This construction was not locally driven, but the result of a federal mandate by the military government in response to increased Islamism and Kurdish terrorism. While this increased the visibility of Atatürk monuments in Izmore, those studied in this article were all constructed either well before or well after the military regimes of the late 20th century. They are also much larger and much more visible (and thus costlier) than Atatürk monuments in other cities. Furthermore, considering that the president’s views on Turkish identity are divergent from Izmir’s, it is clear that the city’s monuments are the result of their own municipal volition rather than national decree.

A BATTLE FOR THE FUTURE OF TURKEY Just because Izmir’s local leaders have erected numerous monuments that fortify Turkish identity in the image of Atatürk does not mean that this image is secure. Recent events occurring just over two hundred miles away from the coastal city highlight the fragility of these constructions of identity.

In Taksim Square, a “symbol of the modern republic,” Erdoğan has diluted the structural legacy of Atatürk by “develop[ing] the square in a way that proclaims the city’s Islamic faith and glorifies its Ottoman past.”35 For generations, the square had been defined by the Republic Monument, an ode to Atatürk and Turkish independence (designed by Pietro Canonica, the sculptor of the Gazi Monument), and the Atatürk Cultural Center, a multi-purpose cultural center and opera house which was considered a manifestation of the Kemalist republic’s “openness to Western values.”36 The square itself was a republican concept, brought into being in response to the dearth of public spaces that had defined Ottoman Istanbul.37 However, after massive protests erupted by the square in 2013 that challenged Erdoğan’s growing authoritarianism and infringement on Kemalist secularism, the president took it upon himself to impose his definition of Turkish identity onto the city’s most important public forum. The Atatürk Cultural Center has been leveled, a rebuild of Ottoman-era barracks is in the works, and Atatürk and the Republic Monument are now overshadowed by the hulking, Ottoman-inspired, Taksim Mosque, located just

34 Esra Özyürek, Nostalgia for the Modern: State Secularism and Everyday Politics in Turkey (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 98.

35 Carlotta Gall, “In Istanbul, Erdogan Remakes Taksim Square, a Symbol of Secular Turkey,” The New York Times, March 22, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/ world/europe/in-istanbul-erdogan-remakes-taksim-square-a-symbol-of-secularturkey.html.

36 Gall, The New York Times.

37 Patricia Alonso, “The new Taksim, or the defeat of public space,” Ahval News, March 11, 2018, https://ahvalnews.com/istanbul/new-taksim-or-defeat-public-space.

48 steps away.38 Once a representation of “liberal space and secularism,” Taksim Square has simply become another one of Erdoğan’s ideological interventions which seek to redefine Turkish identity.

Emphasizing the power Erdoğan’s new direction holds for the nation, these ideological interventions are now reaching Izmir. The city’s most notable construction project currently being undertaken is not another reinforcement of Atatürk-centric identity but is in fact a new 100 million lira mosque, which will have a capacity of 15,000 and boast the largest dome, in diameter, of all Middle Eastern and Balkan nations.39 When completed, it will be many times larger than any mosque that has ever been constructed in Izmir and offer a clear contradiction to the Kemalist monuments Izmir’s leaders have planted all across their cityscape. Ulu Mosque, as it will be called, is being funded by the Nevvar Salih İşgören Foundation, a charitable organization based in Izmir with close ties to Erdoğan.40 Though the money for the mosque came from the İşgören couple, the organization’s late founders, AKP Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım, a staunch ally of Erdoğan, led the project. Yıldırım and Erdoğan, along with the Directorate of Environment and Urbanization, a federal body, and the Governor of Izmir, a federal appointee (as opposed to Izmir’s Metropolitan Mayor, a locally elected official), worked in conjunction to get legal and judicial approval for the project, as well as necessary permits to appropriate the site.41 The initiative was executed entirely at the federal level, with no input or collaboration with local officials who no doubt would have rather seen the funds go to other, more pressing causes.

Izmir’s district and municipal mayors have stayed silent on the project and did not attend the mosque’s groundbreaking or its partial opening. This indicates a clear discrepancy between their own conception of how Turkish identity should be publicly embodied and the conception emitted by the towering Ottoman-style complex. Yet this feeling is not limited to the city’s political elites. Izmirian bloggers are calling the mosque a waste, a “pure show” which will become empty a mere month after its completion.42 Local guides are wondering why the money was not used to build a school, and whether

38 Alonso, “The new Taksim, or the defeat of public space,” Ahval News.

39 Tezcan Ekizler, “Ege Bölgesi’nin en büyük camisinin yapımı sürüyor,” Anadolu Ajansi, April 25, 2019, https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/turkiye/ege-bolgesinin-en-buyuk-camisininyapimi-suruyor/1462265.

40 “İzmir›in Ulu Camisi,” Nevvar Salih İşgören Vakfı, December 22, 2017, http://www. nevvarsalihisgoren.org.tr/izmirin-ulu-camisi/.

41 “İzmir›in Ulu Camisi,” Nevvar Salih İşgören Vakfı.

42 “nevvar salih işgören izmir ulu mosque,” ekşi sözlük, May 15, 2019, https://eksisozluk. com/nevvar-salih-isgoren-izmir-ulu-camii—6039851.

49 the stone used to construct it will fill people’s bellies in times of need.43 Clearly, many Izmirians are not content with the imposition of this new narrative that challenges the legacy of Atatürk that is so strongly reified in their city’s monuments. As Izmir’s leaders grapple with increasingly divergent forces that threaten their Kemalist narrative of Turkish identity, who knows what they will build next?

Gazi Monument - Alsancak - Photo by author

Atatürk Mask - Buca - Photo by author Monument of Ataturk, His Mother, and Women’s Rights - Karsiyaka - Photo by author 43 Google Reviews, “Nevvar Salih İşgören İzmir Ulu Camisi,” Google.

FROM THE STANDS TO THE STREETS: Çarşı and the Gezi Protests

By OWEN ZIGHELBOIM

O

n June 2, 2013, two protesters in Turkey’s Gezi Park riots hijacked an excavator which they used to drive back police water cannons. Photos of the spectacle were promptly uploaded to social media platforms, where members of the Çarşı football fan club transformed them into viral internet memes overnight. They named the excavator “POMA” (Police Control Vehicle), mocking the police’s riot control vehicles, the “TOMAs.”1 The memes were an attempt by the protesters to circulate updates corresponding to their well-known satirical style. They also introduce the Çarşı fan club’s crucial role in the resistance movement underlying the Gezi protests. Though often portrayed as an outburst of political fervor, the Gezi protests were actually a result of longstanding historical and political sentiment against the AKP-led Turkish government. As a result of these trends, Çarşı’s participation in the protest came as a shock to those who had accepted the club’s self-proclaimed anti-political identity. However, this paper explores the ways in which the group successfully engaged in politics and the Gezi protests, despite its established state of political isolation. Çarşı recognized the opportunity to execute its mission within a political framework which subsequently galvanized supporters to participate in the broader resistance. Despite the diverse ethnic and religious background of its members, the practice of game-day rituals prepared the group to effectively mobilize its supporters. Its universalist organizational structure made this mobilization possible, enabling grassroots contribution on the ground and in global media networks.

The 2013 Gezi Park protests sparked from the growing discontent with AKP’s neoliberal urban development policies. Endorsed as a key mechanism for economic growth, these policies involved the massive sale of public lands to private investors for commercial development. Gezi Park, one of Istanbul’s beloved and last-remaining green spaces, was set for demolition to make room for a new shopping mall. Environmental activist and human rights groups assembled in the park and in the adjacent Taksim Square in protest of common adversaries: Turkey’s ruling party, the AKP, and then-prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Their cause targeted Erdoğan’s micromanagement of public spaces and his regulation of private habits, including invasive construction projects and attempts to curb alcohol consumption. These grievances reflect a more general tension, one emerging from the administration’s excessive use of police violence, marginalization of minority groups, and repression of free

1 Turan, Ömer, and Burak Özçetin. “Football Fans and Contentious Politics: The Role of Çarşı in the Gezi Park Protests.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 54, no. 2 (March 2019): 199–217. doi:10.1177/1012690217702944.

53 speech.2 As a fan group of the Beşiktaş football club, Çarşı maintains a deep connection to the community to which its supporters belong. Çarşı translates to “marketplace” or “midtown,” alluding to the bars, cafes, and restaurants where members congregate during Beşiktaş game days. It exemplifies the group’s uniquely strong commitment to and identification with the Beşiktaş neighborhood in Istanbul. One Çarşı leader famously asserted: “You talk about being Beşiktaşli—being from Beşiktaş. I’m not from Beşiktaş; I am Beşiktaş. What’s Beşiktaş, if it isn’t me? A piece of dirt. Beşiktaş is people.”3

Despite the neighborhood’s mix of ethnically and religiously diverse residents, its dedicated support of the football club is globally recognized and attracts thousands of members to their ranks. Few people, however, could have predicted that this fervor would extend to Gezi Park. Estimates report that over 6,000 Çarşı members filled Taksim Square, one of the protest’s major hotspots.4 In addition to providing on-the-ground support, they leveraged their social media presence to make the protest international, spreading awareness and rallying support for the resistance. Their indispensable role in the movement would spark a larger conversation about the sociopolitical role of football around the world.

The stark positioning of minority rights and social justice groups who participated in the Gezi protests against the AKP government created a highly politicized arena for Çarşı to participate in. Accordingly, Çarşı’s appearance shocked many who understood the group to be removed from Turkey’s political dialogue. One founder declared, “We do not have a political stance, we are not affiliated with any political parties; our stance is being Beşiktaşlı.”5 As the popular phrase “Çarşı her şeye karşı” denotes, the group posits itself literally “against everything,” including “itself.”6 As another member put it, they are “allergic to the authorities,” noting the replacement of the letter “a” in Çarşı with 2 Susan C. Pearce. “Perfoming Pride in a Summer of Dissent: Istanbul’s LGBT Parades.”

In Istanbul: Living with Difference in a Global City. New Brunswick (N.J.): Rutgers University Press., 2018.

3 Elif Batuman. “The View from the Stands.” The New Yorker. The New Yorker, June 19, 2017. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/03/07/the-view-from-the-stands.

4 Mine Eder and Özlem Öz. “Spatialities of Contentious Politics: The Case of Istanbul’s Beşiktaş Neighborhood, ÇArşı Footfall Fandom and Gezi.” Political Geography. Pergamon, June 30, 2017.

5 Battini, Adrien, and Deniz Koşulu. “When Ultras Defend Trees: Framing Politics through Subcultural Fandom-Comparing UltrAslan and Çarşı before and during Occupy Gezi.” Soccer & Society19, no. 3 (July 2017): 418–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/14660970.2017 .1333673.

6 Turan. “Football Fans and Contentious Politics: The Role of Çarşı in the Gezi Park Protests.”

54 the universally recognized symbol for anarchy.7 Fundamental to the group is an aversion to any established regime—so much so that it facetiously rejects its own conception as an organized group.

But these accounts overlook the deep influence of political history in the development of Turkish football culture, and the circumstances surrounding the birth of Çarşı. The military coup of 1980 reinforced secular-nationalist priorities in the Turkish government, creating conditions where authoritarian institutions and neoliberal policies would flourish.8 The new state “used soccer to fill the vacuum left by politics” when political gatherings were barred as a means to cripple dissidents.9 This phenomenon can be described as a systematic, one-to-one parody of political consciousness—that is, civilians critique the record of soccer players instead of the record of parliament, or second-guess the coach rather than the minister of finance. In his view, sports have the power to absorb the same energies that people would otherwise spend on political debates.10 But does this theory apply to Çarşı? And if so, in what form? Çarşı’s historical development reveals an intimate linkage with the shifts and ruptures of Turkish society from the 1970s onward. Çarşı founders lived through a context of radical change. Many experienced their early childhoods and/or adolescences during the late 1970s, a period marked by street violence between opposing groups that identified ideologically with either the radical left or right. Perhaps more dramatic was the resulting 1980 military coup, leading to crackdowns on political associations. The military regime that assumed power following the coup, along with the neoliberal economic policies it implemented, starkly contradicted Beşiktaş’s historically mixed-class, progressive, heterogenous identity––it’s no wonder, then, that Çarşı’s founders were so resentful of the government.11 When the group was founded in 1982 to reinforce solidarity among the team’s supporters, the football terrace became “arguably the only public forum where opposition could be expressed.”12 Cem Yakışkan, one of the founders of Çarşı, reinforces this notion: “Çarşı was established in 1982 but its roots can be found in the late 1970s, during which we were a few teenagers growing 7 Ibid.

8 Simten Cosar and Metin Yeğenoğlu, “The Neo-Liberal Restructuring of Turkey’s Social Security System,” Monthly Review 60, no. 11 (2009): 38.

9 Batuman. “The View from the Stands.”

10 Ibid.

11 John McManus. “Been There, Done That, Bought The T-Shirt: Beşiktaş Fans And The Commodification Of Football In Turkey.” International Journal of Middle East Studies45, no. 1 (2013): 3–24. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0020743812001237.

12 Ibid.

55 up together in Beşiktaş, admiring our left-wing revolutionary brothers in the neighborhood. We were all BJK [Beşiktaş] fans. One day, we thought, why don’t we go to BJK’s games together, and since we spent most of our times here in Çarşı, we decided to call ourselves simply as the Çarşı.”13 Unsurprisingly, some members still take stances on highly politicized issues to this day. For example, they have displayed banners at games which present itself as “being against terrorism,” asserting its “indivisibility of the homeland,” and “praising the uncontested figure of Mustafa Kemal.” These slogans are frequently accompanied by political symbolism such as images of Che Guevara and the Communist Red Star, which are closely associated with the group’s leftist Kemalist background.14 Understanding how Çarşı can simultaneously claim a non-conformist identity and make political statements lies in the structure of Turkey’s political framework. The Turkish government retains a unitarian approach towards religious, territorial, and linguistic issues—it uses a national unity discourse to define the limits of legitimate political action. Thus, despite its anti-establishment and antagonistic characteristics, Çarşı frequently assumes a mainstream political stance to “[legitimize] their existence.”15 Tilly references this phenomenon in his discussion of “contentious performances,” which are defined by the learned and historically grounded ways of making claims on other people and on governments which “in the short run strongly limit the choices available to would-be makers of claims.”16 The legitimacy of these claims is often granted

by AKP, who exerts its influence by allowing political groups to express their opinions, while excluding its detractors as nonpolitical. Thus, Çarşı earns itself a seat at the table by exercising contentious politics while maintaining its non-political identity.

Similarly, Battini and Kosulu suggest that Çarşı participates in the subculture of “identity bricolage” alongside many other football fan clubs— the political stances of Çarşı are not contradictions but rather gaps between the use of symbols and their actual meanings. The concept of bricolage involves the appropriation of gestures that are given purpose during, rather than before, their use. In other words, the meanings and purposes associated with these tools become more flexible as they are shaped during the redeploy13 Eder. “Spatialities of Contentious Politics: The Case of Istanbul’s Beşiktaş Neighborhood, ÇArşı Footfall Fandom and Gezi.”

14 Battini. “When Ultras Defend Trees: Framing Politics through Subcultural FandomComparing UltrAslan and Çarşı before and during Occupy Gezi.”

15 Battini. “When Ultras Defend Trees: Framing Politics through Subcultural FandomComparing UltrAslan and Çarşı before and during Occupy Gezi.”

16 Tilly, Charles. Contentious Performances. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

56 ment process. Ultra-groups like Çarşı frequently appropriate symbols from politics, music, and pop-culture without considering their original meanings so that they can put them in a “new symbolic ensemble to convey a different message.”17 Thus, Çarşı can avoid defining its beliefs while also participating in highly politicized spaces like Gezi.

Indeed, Çarşı iconography often has several interpretations. In an interview, one member claimed that, while many teams revere Kemal, Beşiktaş loves him for his “most human” traits, such as the leader’s weakness for alcohol illustrated in the popular chant “In our father’s footsteps, we’ll die of cirrhosis.”18 The chant suggests that Çarşı endorses not only secular Kemalist politics but also accept the leader’s rough edges. Considering Çarşı as deeply sensitive to the human experience illuminates its involvement and profound impact in the Gezi protests. One of Çarşı’s co-founders, Yakistan, describes this sensitivity: “We don’t care whether you are an atheist or a devout person, but you will just have to fight against injustice… It is a kind of reflex for us; we react if we see unfairness, if we witness injustice.”19 Targeting police violence and government suppression of civil liberties, Çarşı saw a chance to act against perceived evil and unjust. The association of “good” and “bad” with differing political coalitions reinforced the opposition between the protesters and the government, forcing Çarşı into a more complex ideological battle. “We never actually intended to take sides,” explained a Çarşı member, “but we had to, when the police started using pepper sprays and water cannons.”20 Crucial to its involvement in the protests, Çarşı’s commitment to humanity is more than simple motivation—it is “ensemble of ethical codes” towards which its members gravitate, regardless of religion or ethnicity.21 A long poem titled “What is Çarşı?” describes this solidarity that trumps differences: “It’s the people in the stands: a doctor, a worker, a businessman, an illiterate street child, a professor. It’s the leftist, rightist, atheist, the pilgrim, the Muslim, the Armenian, the Jew, the Christian, who jump up and down, shoulder to shoulder, with tears in their eyes, shouting at the top of their lungs, “My Beşiktaş, my one and only darling!”22

From a cosmopolitan lens, this solidarity may be attributed to the 17 Battini. “When Ultras Defend Trees: Framing Politics through Subcultural FandomComparing UltrAslan and Çarşı before and during Occupy Gezi.”

18 Batuman. “The View from the Stands.”

19 Eder. “Spatialities of Contentious Politics: The Case of Istanbul’s Beşiktaş Neighborhood, ÇArşı Footfall Fandom and Gezi.”

20 Ibid.

21 Turan “Football Fans and Contentious Politics: The Role of Çarşı in the Gezi Park Protests.”

22 Batuman. “The View from the Stands.”

57 Çarşı fan’s ability to “switch codes,” overcoming mutually isolated existences in order to boost the team’s competitive advantage.23 This produces milieus of social promiscuity, spaces where individuals are liberated from communal belonging and cultural boundaries (Zubaida).24 It defies Turkish national identity, which includes and excludes people based on their ethnic background, by uniting them in spite of their pluralist composition.

This cosmopolitan solidarity largely extends from the neighborhood’s urban sociability. Game days highlight Çarşı’s role in constructing this sociability. Game days in Beşiktaş are almost carnival-like, where moments of everyday life and work in the Lefebvrian sense are intensified and excitable.

Though these “festivals” have a certain rhythm that runs against the usual flow of everyday life, each cycle renews and strengthens the community’s collective spirit.25 The Vodafone Arena—where the team plays its home matches—is walking distance from the part of town where fan club members socialize before and after games. On game days, Çarşı members are seen walking by the hundreds to and from the stadium.26 Integrating members from all walks of life, the group also socializes on game days at numerous local bars and cafes, such as the Elma and United pubs and cafés. Over the decades, this routine has created what Collins describes as an “interaction ritual,” where the physical space of the neighborhood and stadium becomes a catalyst for shared mood and focus.27 Out of this culture emerged a striking solidarity arising in the forms of symbols and emotional energy. Likewise, these rituals made a habit of building bridges, generating collective joy and action, and suspending social and emotional restraints28—a spirit later instrumental in Çarşı’s role in the Gezi resistance. Çarşı’s urban sociability enabled its members to communicate their shared experiences, which overlapped with grievances articulated by the resistance movement. Leading up to the Gezi protests, Beşiktaş was subject to the same intense commercialization and urban development pressures faced by many other Istanbul’s neighborhoods, or mahalles, in which urban spaces of belonging and familiarity develop and are subject to continual and deliberate reproduction.29 The reproduction of the Beşiktaş mahalle was affected by a wave of small business closures, the result of lingering debt issues and real estate buyouts by chain retailers.30 Real-estate developers and municipal agents conceptualized the neighborhood as a commercial hub. This idea starkly contrasts with that of long-time residents—who hold Mom-and-Pop shops, old cafes, and niche markets as essential to residential experience. Given the importance of game days and urban space in the neighborhood’s sociability, it is not difficult to imagine the community-wide criticism of commercialization.

This sentiment inspired grassroots action through the unique struc-

58 ture of Çarşı’s authoritative hierarchy. The Resource Mobilization Theory and Weber’s organization modeling demonstrate how Çarşı incorporated a progressive display of inclusion. The club has rallied unprecedented support for the protest by achieving a balance between two contending fields of thought: elitism—preserving the charismatic grace of a core group of chosen ones— and universalism, maintaining that those of a lower status be valuable parts of the organization.31 At its inception, Çarşı’s organizational structure was elitist: “Çarşı was a small group of men who lived nearby, knew the founders personally, and were willing to attend all games, sing passionately, and throw a few punches if challenged by rival fans.”32 Though they never expressed universalist pretensions, decades of organizational progression over shifted Çarşı to a more universalist position. Their traditionally left-leaning ideology formed strong preferences for democracy and inclusivity among all levels of the organization, which explains the relative absence of a fixed leadership and hierarchy.33 This distinction makes it difficult to tell how big Çarşı is, “how one becomes a member, or how the leaders, who aren’t called leaders, acquired their power.”34 Despite the risk of institutionalizing elitism through a “tyranny of the structurelessness” complex, Çarşı’s leaders successfully managed to diffuse the responsibility of strategy-making throughout the organization, empowering members to make decisions that align with the club’s values.35 This approach of inclusive decision-making was developed in part through design but also through commodification. The availability of Çarşı merchandise through online distribution allowed individuals from around the world to identify with the group. Additionally, it loosely manages the rights to its iconography and symbols which are used on platforms like social media and blogs to expand its influence.36 By leveraging its global network through the widespread presence of screens and media, Çarşı performed what Carney would call “participatory politics,” enabling its supporters to express and act on their political views in Gezi.37 This inclusive, universalist form was crucial for its participation in Gezi, 31 Battini. “When Ultras Defend Trees: Framing Politics through Subcultural FandomComparing UltrAslan and Çarşı before and during Occupy Gezi.”

32 McManus. “Been There, Done That, Bought The T-Shirt: Beşiktaş Fans And The Commodification Of Football In Turkey.”

33 Battini. “When Ultras Defend Trees: Framing Politics through Subcultural FandomComparing UltrAslan and Çarşı before and during Occupy Gezi.”

34 Batuman. “The View from the Stands.”

35 Eder. “Spatialities of Contentious Politics: The Case of Istanbul’s Beşiktaş Neighborhood, ÇArşı Footfall Fandom and Gezi.”

36 McManus. “Been There, Done That, Bought The T-Shirt: Beşiktaş Fans And The Commodification Of Football In Turkey.”

37 Josh Carney. “Projecting ‘New Turkey’ Deflecting the Coup: Squares, Screens, and

59 enabling Çarşı to have an impact without sacrificing its core philosophy.

Recognizing Çarşı as just another group that contributed to the resistance movement would overlook the unique historical and organizational qualities that explains its participation. Using identity bricolage to reconcile its paradoxical identity, Çarşı legitimized its participation in the protest without compromising its mission. It applied its game day rhythms to inspire collective action through urban sociability and ritual practice. Lastly, its structure mobilized its supporters though its inclusion and empowerment of lower-tier members. Çarşı provides an excellent example of an organization that managed to overcome its traditional limitations in response to a definitive societal moment. Its participation in the Gezi protests indicates the potential for groups to interact across different social spaces, empathize with a shared experience of its members, and effectively advocate for them when it matters most.

Publics at Turkey’s ‘Democracy Watches.’” Media, Culture & Society41, no. 1 (September 2018): 138–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443718803254.

Interview with Cover Artist Jude Hamze Can you tell us a little bit about your Lebanese background?

I was born in Beirut and that’s where I was raised for 18 years before I moved to Paris more recently. My mom is Palestinian. She lived her whole life in Jordan. My dad was born in Beirut and he lived there. That’s where they met. I was raised in the city. I never had a house in the village, never experienced life in the mountains.

I was always really in the city. So recently we bought an apartment in Metn, which is a city in the North. It’s next to the sea. It’s calmer and quieter than Beirut. I can’t really express what it’s like to be Lebanese – it’s a whole set of experiences, of moments, of feelings, and I think it’s what made me, me.

Can you tell us a little bit about your background in art? Specifically, how you got started as an artist and why you love it?

I got into art at a very early age. It’s something that’s been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, but it wasn’t something that I thought I should do. It was something that came quite naturally. It was something I was drawn to. I never thought “oh I want to start doing art.” It was just something I did naturally. I think it started as a way for me to express feelings or thoughts or ideas. It was easier than saying what I felt because I suck at expressing what I feel. So it was a way for me to transmit ideas or feelings in an easier way. As I got older, I started to realize that what I did had an effect on people. It made people feel things – sometimes literally, sometimes it’d piss them off, sometimes they’d like it. And so, I started to feel like it was a tool that I could use to touch people, to impact them, to scar them, in a way. To me, the fact that I can make people feel things, that’s what keeps me going, that’s what makes me want to create more art, because I love the way its feels. And, for me, it’s also a way to transcend, it’s a way to live forever. Once you touch someone, once you make them feel something,

that’s when they remember you, that’s when they’re changed.

What topics or themes do you tend to explore in your work?

I wouldn’t say there is a specific theme, but I feel like everything I do is a reflection of me.

Maybe what I see, what is going on inside my head, it might be my reaction to certain events happening where I am, or certain ideas I have.

It’s not a theme or a specific thing I create art about, it’s just … on paper or whatever medium I’m using.

How has your nationality/background influenced your art, specifically the piece we are featuring in the journal?

Throughout the whole revolution, the people in Lebanon, in general, are very high spirited. They are free people. They are always positive, always singing and dancing. The free spirit, happy-go-lucky vibe they have is what influences

me in my work, in my art. They are people who don’t overthink things, they follow what they feel. They are impulsive, they are spontaneous.

And that’s how I am with my art. This piece was exactly that. It was something I felt. It was anger, it was me being pissed with what I had read on the news and seen on TV. It might not be a very good attribute to have – being free spirited and not thinking about consequences – but it’s actually kind of cool because it’s what I feel on the spot. I don’t second guess my intuition in my work and that’s something I learned because I was raised in a place where people are like that. They are also very outspoken, very free. They say what they feel. They are not afraid to express themselves. That’s how I gain confidence. It pushes me to not be afraid to say what I want to say or to express what I want to express.

What inspired this piece in particular?

During the revolution, there were some people who were shot in the eye with rubber bullets by the police. And the way they were doing it was completely illegal; it was not the way they were supposed to do it. And some people lost their sight because of that. This anger and disgust that I felt, as well as the admiration I had for these people who lost their eyes – there were videos of them afterwards still saying they were going to continue going to the streets saying what they want and expressing themselves – that’s what made me create this piece: to say that even though you try stealing what we have, you are never going to be able to take our eyes off the goal. That was very inspiring to me and that’s what made me do this piece.

What are you up to now?

I moved to Paris in August and I am studying architecture here. I am still in my first year and I love it. Paris is so pretty. It’s very inspiring as a city. I am surrounded by art and new people who are free-spirited, who are open-minded.

I have very nice conversations with people I don’t know. It does inspire me for my art, but it also helps me grow as a person because it’s a very big change.

On a larger scale, what needs to happen for younger generations to become more aware of events in the Middle East, such as the revolution in Lebanon?

That’s a tricky question and that’s also something I see a lot with people in Paris. Whenever I speak to people my age, I realize they know nothing about where I came from, except for hummus and tabbouleh, which is not Lebanese.

So, it’s something that should be handled. I feel like social media is the only tool that can touch the younger generation right now. But I know that for us young people, at least, we have a very short attention span. We don’t like watching TV or reading the news. It’s boring. So I feel like what you guys are doing, the magazine, trying to touch people with art, that to me is the best way we can do that. I think by combining both social media and art, it would touch people in a way that wouldn’t be too much for them. Using art would be a way to instantly make them feel the thing we want to make them feel and spread the news without having to shove it down their throats.

63

Appendices Working for the worker - AVA ERFANI Appendix A: Interview Guide The following consists of the questions I used in interviews with members of the UGTT, though I also asked follow-up questions where I determined it necessary or helpful:

1. What does the structure of the UGTT look like/ how does it look for you?

2. How long have you been involved?

3. What is your specific role?

4. Who do you work with or meet with?

5. How does being in the UGTT help you (and are there any downsides)?

6. What are meetings structured as?

a. What are the goals?

b. To what extent is it focused on government relations?

c. To what extent is there a focus on local efforts or movements?

7. How has the institution changed in the era post revolution?

8. Did you work with the UGTT during the Quartet?

9. If possible, can you speak to any claims of corruption within UGTT? Or if there is no explicit corruption, is there any incentive for leaders to stall efforts at any point(s)?

The following questions were used as a guide for the interviews conducted with non-members of the UGTT:

1. What is your relationship to the UGTT? (Have you worked with the organization in any capacity in the past?)

2. What is your line of work/study?

3. Do any of your colleagues work with the UGTT?

4. If you have never been part of the union, have you ever thought about joining?

5. What is your perception of the UGTT?

a. In the union sphere, social sphere, political sphere, etc.

6. Do you think the union has changed post-revolution? If so, how?

64 Appendix B: 2014 Parliamentary Election Results

Source: al-Hanachi, Abdul L. “Tunisia’s First Legislative Elections Post-Revolution.” Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera Media Network, October 2, 2014. http://studies.aljazeera. net/en/reports/2014/10/20141027409786296.html.

65

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Lassaad Bouattour in oral interview with author. November 19, 2019.

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“Tunisia’s UGTT: Caught between Struggle and Betrayal.” Anarcho-Syndicalist Review, no. 56 (2011): 22–23.

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66 Review 129, no. 1 (01, 2006): 38-49.

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WHERE IS THE SCREEN? – JAMIE MUSHABAC-LOWENS

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