THE REPRESENTATION OF THE POOR IN ISLAMIC TV SERIES: THE CASE OF "BEŞİNCİ BOYUT"

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THE REPRESENTATION OF THE POOR IN ISLAMIC TV SERIES:

THE CASE OF "BEŞİNCİ BOYUT"

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF

MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

BY

YUNUS YÜCEL

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR

THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN

THE DEPARTMENT OF MEDIA AND CULTURAL STUDIES

FEBRUARY 2016

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Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences

Prof. Dr. Meliha AltunıĢık Director

I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts.

Prof. Dr. Necmi Erdoğan Head of Department

This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts.

Prof. Dr. Necmi Erdoğan Supervisor

Examining Committee Members

Prof. Dr. Necmi Erdoğan (METU, ADM) Assist. Prof. Dr. Özgür Avcı (METU, ADM)

Assist. Prof. Dr. KurtuluĢ Cengiz (Ankara Uni, SOC)

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I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work.

Name, Last name: Yunus Yücel

Signature :

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ABSTRACT

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE POOR IN ISLAMIC TV SERIES:

THE CASE OF "BEŞİNCİ BOYUT"

Yücel, Yunus

M.A., Department of Media and Cultural Studies Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Necmi Erdoğan

February 2016, 235 pages

The question of poverty which is a result of capitalism is one of the biggest problems in the world and Turkey; and one of the best ways in order to understand the relation between dominant Islamist ideology and capitalism is to search how dominant Islamist ideology sees the question of poverty.

This thesis, tries to explore how the question of poverty is encoded and how the poor is represented in BeĢinci Boyut which is one of the Islamic TV series. In order to show that the role of Islamist discourse in the representation of the poor in BeĢinci Boyut and the intersection points between Islamist discourse and capitalist ideology are examined. In that regard, it can be said that dominant Islamist ideology in Turkey is structured by capitalism while defining social, economic and political problems.

While, BeĢinci Boyut re-defines the question of poverty theologically; it is possible to say that this definition is an Islamic zed, naturalized and individualized version of the question of poverty which has many resemblances with the definition of poverty done by dominant ideology.

Keywords: Islam, ideology, representation, poor, poverty

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V

ÖZ

ĠSLAMĠ TELEVĠZYON DĠZĠLERĠNDE YOKSULLUK TEMSĠLĠ:

"BEŞİNCİ BOYUT" ÖRNEĞĠ

Yücel, Yunus

Yüksek Lisans, Medya ve Kültürel ÇalıĢmalar Programı Tez Yöneticisi: Prof. Dr. Necmi Erdoğan

ġubat 2016, 235 sayfa

Yoksulluk dünyada ve Türkiye'de kapitalizmin sebep olduğu en büyük problemlerden biridir ve egemen Ġslamcı ideolojinin yoksulluğu nasıl gördüğü; egemen Ġslamcı ideoloji ile kapitalizm arasındaki iliĢkiyi anlamanın en önemli yollarından biridir. Bu çalıĢma, Ġslami televizyon dizilerinden biri olan BeĢinci Boyut dizisinde yoksulluk sorununun nasıl kodlandığını ve yoksulun nasıl temsil edildiğini açığa çıkarmaya çalıĢmaktadır. Bunu göstermek için, BeĢinci Boyut dizisi içerisindeki yoksulluk temsilindeki, Ġslami söylemin rolüne ve Ġslami söylemin kapitalist ideoloji ile ortaklaĢtığı noktalar incelenmektedir. Bu anlamda, kapitalizm Türkiye'deki egemen Ġslamcı ideolojinin sosyal, ekonomik ve politik problemlere bakıĢının kapitalizm tarafından belirlendiğini söyleyebiliriz.

BeĢinci Boyut yoksulluk sorununu yeniden tanımlasa da, bu tanımın egemen ideoloji tarafından yapılmıĢ yoksulluk tanımı ile birçok benzerlikleri olan bu tanımın ĠslamileĢtirilmiĢ, doğallaĢtırılmıĢ ve bireyselleĢtirilmiĢ bir tanım olduğunu söyleyebiliriz.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Ġslam, ideoloji, temsil, yoksul, yoksulluk

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1. Objective of the Thesis

This thesis is an examination of the representation of the poor in the TV series BeĢinci Boyut (Fifth Dimension) which is one of the Islamic¹ TV series and broadcasted in STV² (Samanyolu TV-The Milky-Way TV) and STV is also an Islamist media. The first episode of BeĢinci Boyut was broadcasted in January 11, 2005 and the series continued as 140 episodes.

The last episode of the TV series was broadcasted in October 19, 2009.

Today, its repetition episodes are broadcasted all days of the week in daytime. Islamic TV series became popular through the end of the 90s and the first Islamic TV series "Sırlar Dünyası" is shown in Kanal 7 (Channel 7) and then other TV channels such as STV, Star TV or Show TV started to broadcast Islamic TV series but these TV series except in Islamist channels never reached an important success. In these TV series besides the wonders and "magical" events, social issues like poverty, unemployment, homelessness or being unhealthy were shown. So, in this thesis, it will be tried to explore how the question of poverty is encoded in BeĢinci Boyut and representation of the poor in BeĢinci Boyut will be examined. In other words, I will try to show the characteristics of representations of the poor in

1 It should be mentioned here to make a clear definition of the concepts of Islamic and Islamist is beyond of the limits of this study. However, I use the concept Islamicto define cultural products to mention their contents are simply determined according to Islamist worldview. In other words, Islamist cultural products should be seen and understood as a part of Islamist ideology. Throughout this study, the concept of Islamic should be read with the concept of Islamist with this meaning.

2 This channel was closed in 2015 by cancelling broadcasting frequency of the channel by the the decision of TURKSAT. As it is known, STV is known with its closeness to Gülen community and because of the fight between Gülen Community and the government, the government took desision to close some chanells of this order and STV was one of them.

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BeĢinci Boyut."What is the role of Islamist discourse in the representation of the poor in BeĢinci Boyut and in this representation is there any intersection between Islamist discourse and capitalist ideology?" is the main question of this thesis. I will search the answer of the question if there is any dominant message transmitted to the audience because cultural products are work of arts in which ideology is encoded. It is obvious that cultural, political and economic realms depend on each other but at the same time it can be said that each of them is relatively autonomous.

In this thesis, my claim is that in the representation of the poor in BeĢinci Boyut Islam is used in order to define the question of poverty and in doing so; the question of poverty is Islamicized, naturalized and individualized.

Besides, all these definitions are compatible with neoliberal ideology.

The question of poverty which is a result of capitalism is one of the biggest problems in the world and Turkey; and one of the best ways in order to understand the relation between dominant Islamist ideology and capitalism is to search how dominant Islamist ideology sees the question of poverty. In that regard, I believe that dominant Islamist ideology in Turkey is structured by capitalism while defining social, economic and political problems. I will show that how BeĢinci Boyut defines the question of poverty; in other words it is possible to find an Islamicized definition of the question of poverty which has many resemblances with the definition of poverty done by capitalist ideology. It is possible to find an individualized and theological discourse on poverty in BeĢinci Boyut but at the same time it is possible to witness "images of the poor".³ In that regard, the question of poverty is defined compatible with capitalist ideology and at the same time capitalist

3 What I mean while saying "images of the poor"is that in BeĢinci Boyut it is possible to find stories of the people who have no money, no home, no work or no food to eat. It is also possible to find such stories of the people who die because of the hunger or people who are fired and cannot find a job for a long time in daily life with a quick search in news. This is not an argument about what is "real" and "reality" or an investigation of "does BeĢinci Boyut reflect the stories of the people who are actually as it is?".

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ideology is reproduced in BeĢinci Boyut through the representation of the poor.

Hobsbawm defines three kinds of poverty. The first one is social poverty which implies inequality and low income. At the same time, social inequality means that the poor live by depending on others, feeling inferiority and also they are being exploited. This kind of poverty can be seen as lack of wealth. The second kind of meaning of poverty is pauperism (fakirlik-sefalet). Pauperism simply implies that the poor live under the minimum living conditions and the poor is the one who does not have conditions to maintain his life. The last category is moral poverty and it is hard to separate moral poverty from social poverty and pauperism (1969:

398-9). But, the important thing here is that Hobsbawm says for moral poverty "In stratified societies several values of poverty will normally coexist; for example, it will be a "shame" or a punishment for sin for some of a cause of pride for others, or both at the same time" (1969: 399). In the case of moral poverty, poverty can be thought with moral and religious values in some societies. Such a combination of poverty with religion can also be seen in BeĢinci Boyut and in this thesis my aim is to explore how the question of poverty is presented through religious perspective.

In the literature related to poverty, it is seen that most of the studies are social policy oriented (Erdoğan 2011a: 31). These studies focus on to offer social policy suggestions to state institutions or international institutions such as World Bank or UN and the main focus of these studies is that how the number of poor can be decreased or how the living conditions of the poor can be improved. Such an understanding is important to show that the mainstream perspective related to poverty sees the question of poverty an economic problem rather than a political problem (Çiğdem 2011: 207-9).

Even though poverty can be defined in terms of economic concepts, poverty is the result of political decisions and for that reason economic definition would be a deficient definition. Such a perspective is important for showing its ideological position. In other words, such a perspective is important to

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hide the political decisions and the economic structure led to the question of poverty and sees poverty as a problem in terms of "governance". In other words, the question of poverty is a social issue to keep under control rather than a social issue to solve.

It can be said that such a perspective is mostly affected with neoliberal ideology and such an ideological stance can also be found in Turkey.

Erdoğan states that after the neo-liberal transformation of Turkey, two main discourses about poverty can be mentioned. The first one sees poverty as a problem of individual laziness and in that regard for this perspective poverty is nothing other than "garibanizm". The second discourse is produced by Islamists and nationalists in Turkey and they try to use discourse of poverty as a part of their aim in order to be politically dominant in society (2011a:

30). While social policy studies see the question of the poverty as in the form of “governance” of the poor, these two discourses mainly see the question of poverty as an individual problem. It is important to assert that the analogy between social policy studies and the discourse produced about the poor and both of them are mainly structured by neoliberal ideology. So, this study aims to investigate the role of neoliberal ideology in the representation of the poor in BeĢinci Boyut.

Although it is not directly related to this study, Oscar Lewis uses the term of

"the culture of poverty" to separate his understanding from general discourse of poverty which sees the poor as: "…shiftless, mean, sordid, violent, evil, and criminal…" (1966: 19). According to him, the culture of poverty is:

… A subculture of Western society with its own structure and rationale, a way of life handed on from generation to generation along family lines. The culture of poverty is not a just a matter of deprivation and disorganization, a term signifying the absence of something. It is a culture in the sense of traditional anthropological sense in that it provides human beings with a design for living, with a ready-made set of solutions for human problems, and so serves a significant adaptive function. (1966:

19)

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This does not mean that the culture of poverty is a universal feature of the poor which transcends national boundaries and can be seen in everywhere.

It should be mentioned here that the first definition tries to understand the poor with moral concepts such as "mean, evil, violent". As discussed above, in the case of "Garibanism" again a moral perspective is dominant. Besides, if we follow Lewis' separation here; the first understanding of "the culture of poverty" mostly implies a discourse produced by "others". For this study, in the case of BeĢinci Boyut, it can be said that we encounter with the first understanding; a discourse produced about the poor by the non-poor. So, this study aims to show which moral codes are used to define the poor and the culture of poverty in the representation of the poor in BeĢinci Boyut and the role of Islam for defining these moral values. It can be said that the problem of poverty and the poor are represented in other cultural products in Turkey and for this thesis a short discussion about these cultural products is important to make comparison and further analysis.

1.2. A Short Discussion of the Representation of the Poor in Turkish Literature and Cinema

It can be asked that does examining popular culture products give us the chance to understand in which we live? Siegfried Kraucer examines low-budget popular movies and asks that "But is it really society that manifests itself in sensationalist film hits?" and answers the question as yes.

He continues "There is no kitsch one could invent that life itself could not outdo" (1995: 304, 2011: 251). Kraucer states in that way or another way every bad, cheap story, movie have something related with "real" of society.

This is also true for popular cultural products in Turkish cultural history such as YeĢilçam movies or Kemallettin Tuğcu stories with keeping in mind BeĢinci Boyut. These cultural products also carry "real" of the society.

However, this does not mean that these products simply represent the "real"

as it exists. BeĢinci Boyut and other Islamic TV series were born in the medium in which the poor is hardly seen as the hero of the story and the

"voice" of the poor is hardly heard. However, the poor and the question of

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poverty was a popular theme in literature and cinema until the 1980 coup d’état. For example, YeĢilçam movies were one of the cultural products in which the opposition between the poor and the rich was narrated. For this thesis, to make comparison between these cultural products and BeĢinci Boyut, we need to mention general features of representations of the poor in literature and cinema.

With the westernization movement in Ottoman Empire, the gap between

"ordinary" people and bureaucratic elites increased. Also, after the law of heritage (miras hakkı) was legalized, the gap between ottoman bureaucratic elites and the people (halk) increased. Berna Moran expresses this situation as such:

The disunity between ruling and ruled class which was apparent before the westernization movement was able to be removed time to time due to the Islamic ideology and its connective role in daily practices that is pointed out above. However, it could be argued that the westernization deepened this disunity and damaged the unity between upper and lower classes via weakening the community life. (2009: 23)

In the first generation of the novels of Tanzimat Era during Ottoman Empire, the main theme of the novels was the opposition between East and West. In these novels, the opposition between richness and poorness was narrated over the themes West and East. In these novels, the separation of society with respect to class positions was narrated by using cultural themes and moral values. Ahmet Mithat's "Felatun Bey and Rakım Efendi", Recaizade Ekrem's "Araba Sevdası" or Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpınar's "ġık"

were the examples of these novels. Ömer TürkeĢ says for these novels:

While ottoman writers used the conflict between the good and the evil as a symbol in order to emphasize the conflict between the west and the east, the good and the evil was also embodied in the female body and in the conflict between the richness and the poverty. The cost of corruption of European rentiers by means of splitting off from the traditions is the wealth they lost.

(2001: 135)

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In these novels, the poor was always the one who respected traditions, lived according to Islam and was not corrupted and degenerated. However, the ones who were the supporters of the West were always seen as corrupted and degenerated. So, in these novels the class contradictions were narrated over cultural and moral values; the poor were represented as the one who had high moral values.

The same situation was also seen in the novels of the Republican Era. In the Republican Era novels, the rich were presented as the owner of Westernist values or the rich were those who tried to speak in foreign language, who hate from ordinary people and traditions. For example, Peyami Safa's novel

"Fatih Harbiye" or Yakup Kadri's "Kiralık Konak" can be seen examples of this narration. In these novels, same character typology can be seen too. The sharp separation of the place; on the one hand we witness traditionalist neighborhood life with high moral values; on the other hand a corrupted lifestyle and people who almost do not have any moral values. The important thing for us is that firstly, in these novels the opposition between the rich and the poor was narrated with binary oppositions. Secondly, these antagonisms were narrated through cultural values. In other words, in these novels class contradictions were represented as being modern or traditional, having moral values or not. The contradictions between the rich and the poor were seen but these were narrated over cultural and moral values.

However, in "Village Novels" (Köy Romanları) the question of poverty was narrated and the places of the story in these novels were not urban places;

the story passed in the villages. In these novels, the "ağa" was put against the poor who were the peasant; however in these novels contrary to YeĢilçam movies, a consensus was not seen between the poor and the rich.

In the 1960s, YeĢilçam movies were one of the most popular cultural productions. In these movies, the antagonisms between the rich and the poor were not so much different from the contradictions between them in Republican Era novels. YeĢilçam movies had typical features of

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melodramas and in these movies; the poor were represented with this high moral values. Maktav says about YeĢilçam movies:

… The woman overcomes her poverty only by the virtue of her beauty, devotion, innocence and honor; while the man does it by the virtue of his handsomeness, bravery, pluckiness and by possessing all male values… The poor heroes of popular Turkish movies are the ones who are the "transcendental heroes"

because even though they are poor, they live "a life beyond the poverty". This phenomenon of beyondness leads the spectator to understand poverty as a 'value' rather than a problem. And the richness itself is not approved as long as the wealthy character of the movie harms the poor character which shows that moral norms are always associated with lives of the poor. (2001: 165) In these movies, the poor were identified with the good and high moral values. Also, the poor in these movies represent traditional values; the poor like the ones in the novels of late Ottoman Era and Republican Era was not corrupted and degenerated on the contrary to the rich. In these movies, it can be said that symbolically the poor was placed in a higher place than the rich.

However, in these movies the reasons of poverty were never questioned and poverty was never seen in its socio-political context.

Besides these movies and novels, poverty had been always narrated in literature and cinema until the 1980s. Also, in arabesk movies the clash between the poor and the rich can be found, too. In these movies, similar to YeĢilçam but not exactly the same, the poor were represented as the one who had high moral values. But, I think the most impressive narrator of being poor were Orhan Kemal in literature and Yılmaz Güney in cinema. In their work of arts, poverty and being poor are pictured as a result of capitalist relations. Güney and Kemal are important to show that a different contextualization of the question of poverty is possible and for this thesis the representation of the poor in BeĢinci Boyut and the products belong to these artists have completely opposite feature which will be discussed below.

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However, the 1980 coup d’état led many changes in Turkish society. After the coup d‟état, it was hard to find cultural products in which the problems of being poor was narrated with a few exception such as "Küçük Emrah"

movies or "Ceylan" movies but still these products remain few with compare to the period before the 1980s.⁴ For example, Ahmet Altan explained the reason why he did not narrate the story of the poor with these words: "Experiencing a love affair freely is not something that poor people can do in that era in Ottoman and even in today's Turkey. In order to uncover the richness of emotions, you need a certain sort of power" (qtd. in TürkeĢ 2001: 154).

The story of the poor and the troubles that the poor experienced was narrated by Islamic TV series and these TV series and Islamist Charity shows became the place in which the poor was seen other than horrible news. In this news, the poor were seen as the killer, the thief i.e. an object of fear. Contrary to this news, Islamic TV series and Islamist charity programs were the popular culture products in which the poor were represented positively.⁵

Examining these TV series is important to understand cultural and political transformation of Turkey. Erdoğan says:

(The romanticism about the poor) appears as a part of the search for the hegemony of Islamic and nationalist discourse.

Here, most of the time, contrary to what is presented, what is the case is not the organic and political bound and the mobilization that is established with the poor/oppressed side; but rather, the political unconscious and symbolic transaction of the nationalist-conservative discourses of the psychopathology of the holiness of being oppressed. (2011a: 30-1)

4 Also, in the 1990s and the 2000s, the poor can also be seen in cinema in the movies such asTayfun Pirselimoğlu's "Rıza", "Pus", Nuri Bilge Ceylan's "Üç Maymun" and Zeki Demirkubuz's movie "Masumiyet".

5 It should be noted that by this ways the poor were made a part of spectacle, an object of looking at.

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So, this thesis is important to show Islamist ideology in BeĢinci Boyut on the issue of poverty by examining the representation of poor in BeĢinci Boyut. After, neoliberal transformation of Turkey, and also Islamists are the actor of this transformation, such an examination will show the relation between neo-liberal transformation and the relation between Islamist ideology in BeĢinci Boyut and the neo-liberal transformation.

1.3. Literature Review

After the rise of Islamist movements after the 1990s, an increase in the number of cultural products can be seen but it should be noted that most of them belong to televisions. Contrary to that situation, while the studies focus on Islam in Turkey has increased, with respect to works examining Justice and Development Party and Islam, studies examining Islamist cultural products are very few. Also, it is possible to find scholarly works which examine the role of Islam through labor process. For example, Yasin Durak's work "Emeğin Tevekkülü" (2012) focuses on the role of religion in the relation between the employer and the employee and show how religion is understood in a divergent way by the employer and the employee. Also, KurtuluĢ Cengiz's book "Yav ĠĢte FabrikalaĢak!" (2013) or ġennur Özdemir's work "Ġslam ve Sınıf" (2014) examine the development Islamist bourgeoisie. However, these studies mostly focus on the relation between economic realm and political realm. But I use studies focus on Islamist parties or raise of Islamist bourgeois to provide my thesis background. Even though I do not refer these directly, these studies are beneficial for me to understand the transformation of Islamist parties and ideology.

On the other hand, some scholarly works focus on Islamist cultural products but these studies do not construct a relation between economic, political realms and cultural realm. For example, Kenan Çayır's study (2008) is a comparison of Islamist literature which belongs two different periods. Çayır focuses on the Islamist novels in the 1970s, which were called as "Salvation Novels (Hidayet Romanları)" and the Islamist novels written during the 1990s. Çayır examines the transformation of the Islamic movements by

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looking novels and he simply says that Islamist discourse changed from a collective discourse to a new discourse which defends individuality. In that regard, Çayır offers that a new Muslim subject was born but Çayır does not consider the changes in political and economic realm. In that regard, his analysis bounded with cultural realm and tries to read the transformation of Islamic movements from the concepts of culture such as East, West, hijab, new identities etc. Contrary to Çayır's work, I try to explain Islamist discourse in BeĢinci Boyut not only by looking the transformation of Islamist ideology in Turkey but also a relation with the transformation of Turkey and Islamist discourse.

Besides as said above, Islamist charity shows are one of the programs in which the poor are represented. Aysel Çamur's master thesis (2004)

"Charity Programmes: Representations of Poverty in Turkish Television"

and AyĢe Bedir Akçelik's master thesis "Televizyon Programlarında Yoksulluğun Temsili: 'Kimse Yok Mu'" (2010) are the studies focusing on the representation of the poor in Islamist programmes. Both of these studies examine the role of Islamist discourse and technique in the representation of poverty.

Besides, Çağlar Enneli in his study "Televizyondaki Ġslam ve Gündelik Hayatın Siyaseti" (2010) examines the role of Islamic TV series in daily life and also he focuses upon how these TV series are perceived by the audience by making a field research in Ankara with people in different classes. In this study, firstly Enneli defines Islamic TV series as melodramas and analyses these TV series by using melodramas' character structure. But, while melodramas are secular narrations, it is hard to define these TV series as melodramas because of role of religion in the narration. Such identification misses the foundational role of the wonders and miracles in these TV series.

But, as a result of his field research which aims to show how the different class groups receive these Islamic TV series, Enneli says that subaltern classes watch these TV series while comparing the stories of the TV series with their daily life; on the contrary to subaltern classes, upper classes

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question the realism in the narration. Research object of Enneli's study and mine can be seen as same but our perspectives are totally different. While Enneli tries to understand how people perceive these TV series, I focus on ideological character of the Islamist discourse in BeĢinci Boyut. My aim in this study is to show the role of Islamist discourse in the representation of the poor and show the relation between capitalist axiomatic and Islamist discourse by examining BeĢinci Boyut.

As I said, there is not much study examining how Islamist cultural products see the question of poverty and the poor, in that regard this study will be a direct contribution which the main focus of the study is the poor. Also, this study may be helpful scholars who want make comparisons between Islamic TV series and other cultural products such as melodramas or other TV serials.

1.4. Theoretical Framework

In BeĢinci Boyut, the role of religion is a dominant factor to structure general discourse of the TV series. It would be a misleading, simplistic and reductionist analysis to say that BeĢinci Boyut is a manipulative TV series because of the religious feature of its narration.

Such a proposition simply means that BeĢinci Boyut "tricks" people especially the poor by using Islam. Firstly, such a perspective misses the role of religion in the organization of life and secondly, it misses the relation between ideological feature of the representation and the ability of the representation to define the represented object; these two points should be clarified for our study.

Young Marx wrote in "Hegel's Critique of Philosophy of Rights" as

"Religion is opium of the people" (1970: 1). But, I believe that it is important to clarify the meaning of these words to determine our position of analysis for this thesis. At first glance, these words mean that religion is a manipulative and repressive tool to repress subaltern classes but Marx says more than that. First of all, Marx, before using these words in the same

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paragraph says that: "Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions" (1970: 1).⁶ These words are important to show that religion can be the language of the subaltern classes to utter their pains and unhappiness in this world. Marx just offers to criticize religion by understanding historical and political conditions rather than criticizing religion theologically. But should such a critique be a metaphysic and theological critique? According to Marx, the answer of this question is no and he says:

It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. …Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics (1970: 1).

Besides, according to Freud in the case of religion, the power of religion lies in its affectivity of illusions (yanılsama). For Freud, illusion is not a mistake, it is not necessary that illusion contradicts with reality (qtd. in Benslama 2014: 48). Benslama says "Illusion is a force, a force tied to a very ancient desire that aims at its fulfillment by renouncing any endorsement from reality." (2009: 22, 2014: 48). For Freud, the force of religion stems from illusion and illusion is the force of the desire; in other words illusion for Freud is the motive for human being to act. However, in

"Civilization and Its Discontents" Freud says for religion:

"Even religion cannot keep its promise. If the believer finally sees himself obliged to speak off God's' inscrutable decrees", he is admitting that all that is left to him as a last possible consolation and source of pleasure in his suffering is an unconditional submission" (1962: 32, 2014: 44).

The intersection point of Freud's and Marx's analysis is that they both focus on material conditions to understand the role of religion. In Marx, while

6 In the case of Liberation Theology in Latin America, Christianity became the language of the poor people to reflect their revolt.

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social and political conditions are important, in Freud we see a psychoanalytic perspective to grasp the reason why people see religion as a support in their lives. Within this perspective, I will try to understand how religion is compatible with the ruling class' ideology. But, for our study the question of religion whether is a myth or truth is an unimportant question; in this study, the role of religion is limited to the boundary of how religion can be understood through social practices.

Also, for this study a Marxist critique of religion should be critique of social order and politics and ideology of ruling class and uneasiness of the individuals presented in BeĢinci Boyut should be understood as uneasiness stemming from material deprivation. For a more sophisticated analysis, we should analyze the role of religion in the narration and to do that firstly we should answer the question of "how ideology works".

In "German Ideology" Marx and Engels state: "The ideas of ruling classes are in every epoch the ruling ideas i.e. the class which is the ruling material force is at the same time its ruling intellectual force" (1998: 67). These words clearly indicate that those who have material forces of production also control means of mental production. In other words, cultural production -which presents "reality" compatible with dominant ideology and meaning is produced in cultural productions by the system of representation- depends on material production.

Hall says that "Representation is the production of the meaning of the concepts in our minds through language" (1997:17). But, "The main point is that meaning does not in here in things, in the world. It is constructed, produced. It is the result of a signifying practice -a practice that produces meaning, that makes things mean" (Hall 1997:24).

Media products in capitalist societies do not reflect or express what is happening in the society but on the contrary these products redefine "the reality" not merely reproduce it (Hall 1982:63-4). In that regard, in media products - this can be a news report; a piece of music, a TV series or a

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novel- an active work of selection and restructuring can be seen. Hall says

"Definitions of reality were sustained and produced through all those linguistic practices (in the broad sense) by means of which selective definitions of 'the real' were represented" (1982:64). Representation in that regard is not just a reflection or reproduction of reality as it is but more than that. Representation reconstructs reality again and produces discourses on the thing which is presented. Ideology can be seen in this very construction of reality because it has to be related with "real". For example, Abercrombie says for police series "The police series perform their ideological work by portraying social conflict in a realistic way but by ignoring deeper contradictions; conflict is transposed fictionally from one place to another"

(1990: 206). What I mean is that for our study BeĢinci Boyut, the TV series does not present imaginary problems of the poor; it presents "real" problems of the poor which everybody can see in daily life, newspapers or elsewhere such as being unemployed, lack of money, being unhealthy because of lack of medicine and insufficient nourishment, and being homeless. A similar perspective can be found in Hall. By referring Marx, Hall says that

"…ideology works because it appears to ground itself in the mere surface of appearance of things, in doing so, it represses any recognition of the contingency of the historical conditions on which all social relations depend" (1982: 76).

However, for our study the concept of "appearance" has a key importance because it can be used to explain the meaning of the concept of "the real in representation" or "the real in representation of the poor in BeĢinci Boyut".

What I mean is that the real belongs to the representation is related with appearance as Marx reminds us and discussed above. Representation has to have a connection with the represented object and in that way the audience;

the listener can construct the relation between the representation and the represented object. For example, in the case of the representation of the poor, BeĢinci Boyut never presents the one who has factories and lives in a luxury house as the poor. So, the concept of "real" implies the similarity

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between the represented object and representation. So, when I use the concept of the "real" for BeĢinci Boyut I just mean that there is a similarity between the appearance of the representation in a media product and the thing represented. So, for our case, BeĢinci Bout‟s ideological character is not a result of its religious feature or a result of its manipulative role; on the contrary it produces its discourse on the surface of the appearance of things by using religion it redefines and represents the represented object.

The key point in that regard is to question the function attributed to the concept of discourse. Foucault says that

…In every society the production of discourse is at once controlled, selected, organized and redistributed by a certain number of procedures whose role is to word off its powers and dangers, to gain mastery over its chance events, to evade its ponderous, formidable materiality. (1981: 52)

Hall also asserts that "It is important to note that the discourse in this usage is not a purely a 'linguistic' concept. It is about language and practice. It attempts to overcome the traditional distinction between what one says (language) and what one does (practice)" (1997: 44). In that regard, Foucault's explanation about discourse is not just a linguistic definition;

furthermore, discourse is the knowledge which is produced through practices. Discourse cannot be thought separately from practices and for this study; the concept of Islamist discourse implies some practices which led to production of TV series not only about the poor but other subjects as well.

In that regard, the practice -production of TV series- presents knowledge i.e.

a specific kind of knowledge to its audience and presents this knowledge as

"truth"; for our case the truth of Islam. These two aspects give us a general impression about how we should examine our research subject. First of all, it is more important for us to analyze the material conditions which led the usage of Islam and Islamist discourse as such. In that regard, I will examine the meaning of the discourse which BeĢinci Boyut presents us rather than the message transmitted in BeĢinci Boyut is compatible with Islam or not.

Also, as I said above, BeĢinci Boyut produces a discourse about the poor

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and the problem of poverty; it redefined these concepts again. So, I will try to explore the meaning of this discourse.

1.5. Method of the Study

In this thesis, discourse analysis method and ideology critique have been used to examine the representation of the poor in BeĢinci Boyut. Van Disk sates that "… critical discourse analysis is understanding the nature of social power and dominance" (1993: 254). In other words, critical discourse analysis method is used to explain how the produced discourse is used in power relations between the ruling and ruled class. In other words, the aim of critical discourse analysis is to expose the role of the discourse for the power relations. I also used ideology critique methodology to explain how ideology works in the text of BeĢinci Boyut. For some texts, ideology may be clear to discover and discuss its ideological side but for some texts it may not be clear. It can be worked as a hidden mechanism of the text; the political stance may not be clear as much as the first one. In that case, I focused on what is hidden in the text and I tried to explore the hidden meanings. Throughout this study, I used these two methods together and below I will explain some concepts to make my perspective more clear.

I just started my study with a basic concept. My basic concept in the beginning of this study was the representation of the poor; and as discussed above, in this thesis my aim is simply to explore the meaning of these representations in BeĢinci Boyut with "a critical perspective" and the meaning of the critical should be expressed for further discussion. Santiago Castro-Gómez, by referring Horkheimer in his article comparing traditional and critical cultural theories, says:

The first (traditional) refers to a set of propositions whose legitimacy lies in their correspondence to an object already formed prior to the act of its representation. This radical separation between the subject and the object of cognition turns theory into an act of pure thought and the theoretician into an unbiased spectator who limits himself to describing the world

“as it is.” This notion of theory, which considers the object

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under examination as a set of facts and the subject as a passive element in the act of cognition, is identified by Horkheimer as

“traditional.” In contrast to this notion, he distinguishes a second one, which he calls “critical theory.” Unlike traditional theory, Critical Theory assumes that both science and the reality it studies are a product of social praxis, which means that the subject and the object of cognition are socially preformed. The object is not just there in front of us, waiting to be apprehended, nor is the subject a simple recorder of reality. Both subject and object are the result of very complex social processes, and therefore the main task of Critical Theory is to reflect upon the structures from which social reality and the theories that seek to explain it, including, of course, Critical Theory itself, are constructed. (2001: 139)

Gomez's long but brief explanation can also be used to express my methodology. Firstly, for the case of representation, representation presents itself as mere reflection of the object. So, as in the case of traditional theory, representation defends its "objectiveness" by assuming that elimination of the role of the subject. So, even though the objects of Gomez's discussion and mine are different, the arguments of the traditional theory and representations are the same: Traditional theory and the general idea which shapes the concept of representation claim that they are "objective" and

"neutral". In the case of traditional theory, it states that the knowledge about the research object is objective simply because in the process of the production of the knowledge, the subject has no role. In the case of media products, this idea can be transformed as such: Media products reflect reality as it is because for this perspective, the screenwriter, the director, the actor has no direct contribution and camera just shows the reality as it is and the director or cameraman are just people who hold camera. However, for both, the separation of the object and subject is enough for objectivity. But, critical theory opposes this argument by saying object and subject are the products of social practices and processes. In other words, critical theory expresses that there are always social practices and processes which give birth the object and the subject. This argument can be adapted to my study as such: Poverty is the result of social structure and practices; representation of the poor can be seen as the proof of these social relations which lead the

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question of poverty. For such a study critical perspective means to explore the meaning of the representation of the poor while the representation tries to hide them. So, it is obvious that for a critical study the important point is not only the object but also the social structures and practices which are behind the object. Now, we reached two different concepts to be analyzed for the representation of the poor until now a result of discussion: The first one is as the object -the representation of the poor in BeĢinci Boyut- and the second one is the social processes and practices lead to these representation.

In that point I want to make a discussion about a paint which is discussed by Foucault in "Les Mots et les Choses". Foucault argues the meaning of the painting of Diego Valesquez, "Las Meninas" (1656) in terms of subject and representation. This painting is quite famous in Western history of painting which creates an argument between reality and illusion. Hall expresses Foucault's discussion as such: "Foucault argues, through this complex inter- play between presence (what you see, the visible) and absence (what you can't see, what has displaced it within the frame). Representation works as much as through what is not shown, as through what is" (1997: 59). And this idea can be improved; representation works as much as through what is not said, as through what is said. So, for my analysis the thing what is not said and what is not seen can be thought as the social practices and processes. So, in the case of representation the analysis should be two layered. In the first layer, the analysis should focus on what is shown and what is said i.e. In other words, I will search the meaning by examining shown and said but meaning cannot be limited to the boundary of shown and said. The second layer of my analysis will focus on what is missing in the scene; in other words what is not shown and not said.

In that regard, I should explain how I organize my text practically. First of all I watch the episodes then I separate those which subject the question of poverty and present the poor as the hero of the story. Secondly, I categorize the common themes and concepts between the episodes which are important for the representation of the poor. Then, I focused on the conditions in

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which the images of the poor are shown. I pick up the words, phrases said about the question of poverty and the situation of the poor and lastly I also search the one who says these words. These are done for showing the

"objective" character of the text with by using critical discourse analysis which simply aims to show the power relations organize the discourse. And then, I focus on the social practices and processes, the worldviews which are implied by these representations. In this way, I show that what is seen and not seen; what is said and not said.

BeĢinci Boyut has 140 episodes and I watched more than 60 episodes of the series randomly and I chose 30 of them for discussion. While choosing the episodes related to the question of poverty, these conditions are considered:

Firstly, I search for that the story of the episode is directly related about poverty and poverty is represented both in discursively and visually in the episode. Secondly, I chose the episode if the events of the story are constructed as a result of being poor. The reason why I made such a choice is that in this way I try to escape imposing my perspective on the discourse of the series about poverty. In that manner, I search the people who are defined as the poor in the series. Other than these episodes, three episodes have been chosen for specific purposes. These episodes are "Cemile", "Dede Torun"⁷ and "Marid".⁸ "Cemile" is about the Alevi issue in Turkey, the tension between Alevi and Sunni communities. The story of "Dede Torun"

focuses the repressions of Islamists in February 28 period. Lastly, "Marid"

is story of Evil; the story narrates the struggle between the Evil and God.

This story is important because it warns Muslims about the battle between God and Evil. These three episodes are important to show variability of the stories treated in the episodes. Apart from that, I choose the episodes

"Terörist Çocuk", "Gazi", "ġehit", "Dağın Arkası" and "Asude Kadın"

because these episodes are directly related with Kurdish Issue and as matter

7 This episode is adopted from the story of the movie "Büyük Adam Küçük AĢk".

8 This episode is adopted from the movie "The Omen".

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of fact they are "pure" presentation of Turkish-Islamist Ideology. Besides, these episodes contain the issue of poverty and this creates a possibility to construct a relation between nationalism and poverty.

1.6. Organization of the Chapters:

All in all, in this thesis I try to show the meaning of the representation of the poor in BeĢinci Boyut. I begin this chapter with a short discussion about Islam, poverty and charity. In this part, I examine how the Qur'an regulates the relation between the poor and the rich; and then I present some examples how the rich in Turkey use Islam to naturalize the class differences between the rich and the poor. It is obvious that Islamist movement started to rise up in the middle of nineties but at the seventies Islamist directors and writers started to produce Islamist work of arts. I focus on the representation of the poor in these products and at the same time I will examine the trace of the idea of "holly synthesis" in these products. My aim in this part by examining Islamist cultural products is to show general character of Islamist products.

In that regard, a continuum between these products and BeĢinci Boyut can be found and in that way I will provide a background to my analysis.

In the third chapter, I will begin my discussion to examine the foundation of Islamist media in Turkey. With the rise of Islamic movements, an Islamist bourgeoisie was born and this bourgeoisie used its capital for the purpose of Islamist parties by establishing media institutions. In these media institutions, Islamic TV series were born. So, in this chapter, I will show common points of BeĢinci Boyut with Islamist TV series and also the differences. And, then I will examine some important themes in BeĢinci Boyut such as the representation Islamic worships, the representation of poor woman as a villain character and nationalist ideology of BeĢinci Boyut.

I examine these themes because these themes are important to show the large extend of story spectrum of Islamic TV series.

In the fourth and five chapters, the representation of the poor in BeĢinci Boyut will be discussed. In the first one, I will focus on how the poor is

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represented in BeĢinci Boyut and how being poor is defined in BeĢinci Boyut. While, the poor is shown in material deprivation conditions, being poor is defined by using an Islamist discourse. Also, I will discuss the representation of the rich because BeĢinci Boyut offers an ideal society in which the rich and the poor live together peacefully as in the classical melodrama YeĢilçam. So, while BeĢinci Boyut defines the problem of poverty by using Islamist discourse, it also gives some duties to the rich for this ideal society. In that regard, I will look at how the contradiction between the rich and the poor is represented in BeĢinci Boyut. After this chapter, I will focus on what BeĢinci Boyut promises to the poor. I will search the role of Islamic salvation for the poor and Islamic punishment mechanisms in BeĢinci Boyut. I will assert that Islam is presented as a moral guide to the poor in BeĢinci Boyut, and I will show what will happen to the one who acts according to this morality and the one who does not behave according to this morality. Therefore, I will discuss the themes of patience and revolt in this chapter. Lastly, the theme of charity will be discussed and I will offer that charity is presented as the Islamist promise in BeĢinci Boyut to the poor compatible with general Islamist discourse.

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CHAPTER 2 POVERTY AND THE POOR IN ISLAMIST CULTURAL PRODUCTS

All Abrahamic religions, in their birth took the support of people who were oppressed and the poor such as in the struggle between Moses and Pharaoh, Jesus and Jew priests and lastly in Islam; the struggle between the poor and the dominant groups in Mecca. Naguib Mahfouz's novel “Children of Gebelawi” (2010) or Ali Shariati's “Religion versus Religion” (2014) can be seen as a narration of religion and also as a struggle between the weak and the powerful. The question of poverty is a main issue for all Abrahamic religions. For example, according to Christianity "It is easier for a camel to enter into the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God" (Matta 19:24, Marcos 19:25, Luka 18:25). These words clearly express that how Christianity sees the problem of the difference between the poor and the rich. Besides, this difference has an important place in Islam too. So, firstly the issue of how Islam sees the question poverty will be discussed and how the rich tries to normalize the class differences between the rich and the poor by using Islam in Turkey shortly. And then, I will examine Islamist cultural products in Turkey and I will analyze the representation of the poor in these cultural products such as Islamist novels, cinema and charity programs. These products are important to show how Islamist morality structures the narration of the literature, cinema and charity programs and this morality is also important for the question of poverty as will be shown below which is valid for BeĢinci Boyut also.

2.1. A Short Examination of the Poor and the Rich in Islam It can be said that all heavenly religions start with an opposition to inequalities, oppression, injustice and this starting point was their purest

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form because they have not been used as a deception tool (Shariati 2012, Shariati 2014 see also Güler 2011a and Eliaçık 2011). The verses in the Qur'an also say that the first opponents against religion are the rich. For instance, in the verse “Never have We sent a warner to community without those among them who were corrupted by wealth saying 'We do not believe in the message you have been sent with.' They would say, 'We have greater wealth and more children than you, and we shall not be punished.' Say [Prophet], 'My Lord gives in abundance to whoever He will and sparingly to whoever He will, though most people do not understand” (Sebe' 34/34-6).

Moreover, in the verse “Ornaments of Gold (Zuhruf)”, “Whenever We sent a messenger before you to warn a township, those corrupted by wealth said, in the same way, 'We saw our fathers following this tradition; we are guided by their footsteps.'“ (43/23) Within this perspective, Ahmad Dallal says

“Islam is a religion of absolute equality”(2004: 13) which tries to destroy the difference between the poor and the rich, the women and the men, the disabled and the healthy. However, all Abrahamic religions lost this identity with their institutionalization in process of time.

Güler defends that the Qur'an is mostly interested in metaphysics and morality and by the help of the information of these realms, the Qur'an tries to find solutions to juridical, economic, and political problems (2011b: 46).

Therefore, Islam like other heavenly religions includes the idea of how the social world should be along with its metaphysical side. The inequality between the poor and the rich is also a subject which the Qur'an regulates.

Although there are many verses in the Qur'an about the rich and the poor, it is hard to find a definition who is the poor or the rich and this will lead opposite interpretations of the Qur'an and Islam while explaining economical and social problems.⁹

9Especially, such different interpretations can be seen between "Islamic socialists" such as Shariati, Eliaçık or anti-capitalist Muslims in Turkey and Islamist bourgeoisie or Gülen's movement (Buğra and SavaĢkan 2015).

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The Qur'an clearly explains the idea that the actual giver and the receiver is God, all possessions belong to God, supposing ownership in possessions is one of the biggest sins, which means assuming himself equal to God. The Qur'an has strong messages about rich people's arrogance and it has verses about this situation that can be read as a warning. In all the verses which criticize the arrogance of rich people, the rich are those who forget the source of their richness and those whose desire for possession is stronger than their faith. Therefore, these verses have two implications: The first one implies that the rich forget to share and spend in God's cause for their possessions and get arrogance is a great sin. The second one is that, these verses imply that richness and poverty are the results of God's will (2/247;

3/181; 28/76-9 and 81-2; 47/38; 57/23-4). God's will in this world is that all possessions should be spent in his Cause (infak) and money, gold and silver should not be used to dominate the poor. Therefore, Islam and the Qur‟an clearly object to the inequalities between people by saving money or gold and emphasize that people who do not obey this rule will be punished severely.¹⁰

However, the Qur'an preaches patience to the poor. Like richness, poverty is a result of God's will and revolt to God's will, similar to arrogance because of richness, is another sin. Poverty is not something to be scared of and God will reward them for obeying His rules and trusting to His will like in the story Tevbe 9/28. It is obvious that God commands believers to continue to maintain their devotion and not to question God's will and God will enrich people as a result of believer's devotion. The other point about the poor in the Qur'an is related to the temporality of this world and the life in this world is a preparation for afterlife. Therefore, this life, life in this world is nothing more than a trial. God examines people to see who have fidelity to Him and who do not. In that regard, being poor or rich takes its sense with

10The verse "The Story (Kassas)" is one of the best examples of this situation. In this sura, the story of Pharoah's destruction because of his arrogance is narrated. The punishment of Pharoah is used to give a message to believers who is actual giver.

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respect to religion. The rich is examined whether he spends his richness in God's cause or not and the poor is examined whether he shows patience or not. According to the Qur'an, God's knowledge or wisdom is not something comparable to human knowledge or wisdom and people cannot know God's purpose. The economic, social and political differences between people as said are results of God's will and believers of Islam should obey God's will and show patience for this situation. Even though the Qur'an accepts hierarchy among people in social realm, Islam also preaches cooperation and solidarity. Also, according to Islam society is an organism whose different parts work for each other and protect each other from evil. Even if charity is encouraged in most places in the Qur'an, charity does not resolve the problem of poverty. It makes poverty sustainable for people and makes them to be gratitude to God for protecting them. The discourse of charity in Islam legitimates power of the dominant classes on the dominated classes and the emphasis on equality becomes insignificant. Güler says that to destroy the dominated and domination relation, it should be given more than enough as a charity to the poor and this is the real moral action. Also, such a morality is suitable with Islam (2014: 36).

According to Çiğdem, the poor and the rich are not defined clearly in the Qur'an and after defining the rich and richness, poverty can be understood in the Qur'an. Besides, in mystique and sufi interpretations of Islam, poverty is exalted and poverty is not something to be complained. The uncertainty in defining the poor makes poverty an individual and occasional problem and charity becomes the solution of this individualized problem (2011: 214-15).

The ambiguity in the definition of the poor and the rich in Islam lead many different interpretations and in Turkey many different understandings of Islam can be seen. However, I want to show here how Islam is used to normalize the difference between the rich and the poor which is also valid for BeĢinci Boyut.

For example, Islamist business elites apply prophet's life and the Qur'an to legitimate their actions, further; they use these sources to produce subaltern

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classes' consent. In the 1990's, MUSIAD's publications and Gülen's preach such as preach about earning money or being rich were used to legitimate Islamic capital. In that regard, earning money was presented as earning nationally.¹¹ A Hayekian conceptualization of market which organizes itself through self-regulation with an Islamist discourse was defended by Islamist bourgeois. Besides Islamist businessman uses Islam; gives the examples of Medina market or prophet's merchant identity and his richness¹² to explain such a market (Buğra and SavaĢkan 2015: 193-4). Also, using the merchant life of the prophet is important for MUSIAD to show being rich in Islam is a normal and legitimate situation. In that way the difference between the poor and the rich can be legitimatized by using Islam.

The same discourse can be seen in Gülen's preaching and books; also Gülen's perspective about earning money, being rich, and the poverty is not different from the Islamist business elites‟ or AKP's thoughts. For example in 1979 Gülen says that about workers:

In a society of peace, the patron stands by the worker on his food, his clothing and his all justifiable wishes. The patron makes the worker eat what he eats, wear what he wears like a family member and he does not burden a work which is over for the worker‟s strength. The worker as well is stands by the work, the patron; he does not have any hostility toward his patron and he is on the way of respect and effort. When he works best, wears himself out in a cold sweat; he knows that he is applauded by the world of the exalted, so, he performs from the heart. (qtd.

in Erdoğan 2012c: 58)

Elsewhere, Gülen defends paternalism clearly by saying that “The boss and the worker are the different organs of the same body. According to Islam, there is no clash between them” (2009 qtd. in Buğra and SavaĢkan

11We see that such a discourse is used by Islamist businessman in Konya (Durak 2012: 34- 7)

12For example, through ASKON members such a word is used: "The life of the prohpet an exemplary life for the members of ASKON" (Buğra and SavaĢkan 2015: 194)

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE POOR IN ISLAMIC TV SERIES: THE CASE OF "BEŞİNCİ BOYUT"

ABSTRACT

ÖZ

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 2

POVERTY AND THE POOR IN ISLAMIST CULTURAL PRODUCTS