Our image in the eyes of Westerners

Sunday, May 7, 2006

A reader of mine wrote in from Germany: Please, when giving interviews to Western journalists, try to be a little more careful. As it is, they are already judgmental about us; at least let our intellectuals not darken the image of our homeland in the eyes of the Westerners. Tell them positive things about us!

  A reader of mine wrote in from Germany: "Please, when giving interviews to Western journalists, try to be a little more careful. As it is, they are already judgmental about us; at least let our intellectuals not darken the image of our homeland in the eyes of the Westerners. Tell them positive things about us!"

  As a nation, our image in the eyes of Westerners is our deepest and most unhealing wound. It is not our actual flaws, but how these flaws are perceived from the outside that bothers us. We were taught this phrase when we were young: "An arm can be broken but stays hidden in a sleeve." Even when our arms do break, we want them hidden by our sleeves. It for this reason that, in our relations with the West, we have to stop so frequently to freshen up our makeup. And when someone from among us messes up that makeup, we immediately label them a "traitor" and question their nationalism. There is a general understanding in Turkey that "those who love their country will not criticize it." We are up against the idea that "you must defend your country like a robot, in a rote manner, and without criticism."

  Every Turkish youth who goes abroad must face the concept of the "walking nation." In short, it is a matter of "representation." The real question at stake is not your own personality, or your individuality, but the collectivity you belong to, or the nation you are responsible for representing. What this really boils down to is a "state of belonging." Your habits from daily life, your ways of eating and drinking... Even the most ordinary little detail can be turned into a label for an entire nation of people in the eyes of others. Let s say you love loads of spice in your food; you look and see that those who have been observing your habits have turned this personal choice of yours into a generalization, "Turks eat lots of spicy foods." Of course, this is nothing but a light example. Imagine the effect on judgments with an example of truly bad behavior. Maybe every nation falls victim to these sorts of generalizations, but very few of them have then embodied the chronic "representing a nation" idea that runs amok among us.

  The Turks living abroad do not sway from their courses, though, in trying to "straighten out our image," carrying out this duty as unofficial envoys. In their relations with neighbors, in their friendships, even in terms of how they meet and greet the people in their daily lives… In our way of thinking, being a foreigner means, above everything else, a matter of "image." Protecting how we look from the outside has become a reflex motion for us. Being Turkish means constantly being on the lookout for how you appear from the outside and constantly rearranging oneself. Of course, these small rearrangements are not the same thing as really "straightening things out." The desire to "represent the nation" is far from the desire to actually effect any change. No matter how good the intent, these rearrangements are only superficial in the end, and what we are doing is slapping foundation on our individual faces to cover Turkey s real wrinkles in the international arena.

  What a shame that democracy, I mean real democracy, is tied not to surfaces but to structures. You can powder surfaces all you want, but it won t help if what lies beneath the surface is rotten. Our work should be with actual structures and not surfaces. Our dealings need to be with existing mentalities, not images. The interesting aspect to this all is that, if only we could rescue ourselves from this "image" problem, setting sail forward into the EU process and the accelerating processes of democratization and reforms, not only the contents and structure of our political system but its appearance, too, would straighten out by themselves.