“We don’t want them to walk naked on the sacred soil of our country in the blessed month of Ramadan,” declared a Turkish Islamist group that calls itself the Anatolia Muslim Youth, posting on its Facebook account last week. They claimed they had a responsibility to stop “such perversion” as the LGBT Pride parade, scheduled to take place on 26 June in Istanbul. The Islamist daily newspaper Yeni Akit, which frequently runs homophobic articles – including, earlier that week, one about the Orlando massacre – gave them its full support.
Religious fundamentalists were not the only ones openly targeting the LGBT event, which has been held since 2003 with increasing support and visibility. The Alperen Hearths, a far-right youth organisation that has links to the ultranationalist Great Union party, instantly joined this malicious campaign. “We are not responsible for what will happen beyond this point,” they announced at a press conference, adding: “Degenerates will not be allowed to carry out their fantasies on this land.”
In a normal, pluralistic democracy such words would be regarded as hate speech, with the state taking the necessary steps to protect its minorities. But Turkey’s AKP government has long turned its back on liberal democracy.
Shortly after these threats were issued, the government announced that it had “cancelled” the Istanbul Pride march. Everyone knows that this translates to a ban. Instead of punishing the aggressors and creating a safe environment for a peaceful march that is a basic civil right according to the Turkish constitution, the government chose to punish those who had been threatened.
Such was the growing popularity of the event that in 2013 more than 100,000 people participated. But last year authorities appeared to attempt to suppress it, as police dispersed the crowd with rubber bullets and water cannon. Istanbul Pride is not only important for Turkey’s LGBT community, but is also a beacon of hope across the Middle East with its message of overcoming homophobia, sexism and misogyny.
Attempts to clamp down on such freedoms, and the rise of everyday totalitarianism in Turkey, are extremely worrying. Last Friday a listening party for the new Radiohead album in the district of Cihangir – one of the most bohemian parts of Istanbul – was attacked by a group of fanatics, one of them reported as shouting “I’ll kill all of you.”
Claiming they were offended by people drinking beer in the holy month of Ramadan, they damaged the shop hosting the event and assaulted people with sticks and broken bottles. The next day photos of the South Korean owner crying in front of his shop went viral. When people gathered to denounce the incident, there were reportedly skirmishes with the police once again.
Meanwhile the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said that both the attackers and the attendees of the listening party were in the wrong. “Those who do not respect the sensibilities of their own nation and city and those who respond to this with an undemocratic reaction unfortunately overshadowed our hospitality with the brawl they started.” Nothing could be more dangerous than when the authorities claim that a group of young people who gathered to listen to music are just as guilty as a violent gang of extremists who terrorised them.
There is no doubt that Turkey is a homophobic country: the 2011 World Values Survey found out that 84% of Turkish respondents did not want to have LGBT neighbours. But there is also a great deal of hypocrisy. Zeki Muren, who was one of our most beloved and most famous music icons for decades and referred to as “Turkey’s David Bowie”, was gay. This week, while LGBT protesters were being teargassed on the streets, Erdoğan attended a celebrity dinner that included Bülent Ersoy, a popular singer and transgender celebrity, on the guestlist.
There are many in Turkish society who adore gay musicians and actors from afar but cannot bear the thought of having a gay relative. And that is what the LGBT movement today is daring to do: challenge this collective hypocrisy. That is why the backlash is so visceral and vicious.
Istanbul Pride activists have announced that they will go ahead and hold the parade on 26 June as planned. One of their most powerful slogans is now echoed everywhere: “Have you ever seen a transsexual in Turkey die a natural death?” In a country where the United Nations has expressed serious concerns about its anti-LGBT violence, we all know what the answer is.