While a new term for Erdogan will bring more challenges, Turkey will remain a crucial interlocutor for the EU on many issues, including migration, energy, and regional security, particularly against the backdrop of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Despite EU has clearly determined that Turkey under Islamist populist Erdogan has been less democratic and more authoritarian, the Union falls short of making serious warnings in this regard.
Turkey’s Islamist-populist president Recep Tayyip Erdogan beat his rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the chairman of the main opposition party CHP and the candidate of six-party opposition bloc in the elections held on Sunday. Despite the twin earthquakes that killed more than 50.000 people in early February, a looming economic crisis, and the deepening polarization, Erdogan managed to secure another five years at the helm of Turkey. Seemingly, his Islamist populism entrenched with authoritarianism paid off at the ballot box and enabled him to enter the third decade of his rule which means he will be ruling Turkey for a quarter of a century. While he received 52 percent of the vote, his challenger Kilicdaroglu got 48 percent.
The Turkish Parliament, whose members were elected in the first round of the vote on May 14, 2023, is deemed to be the most conservative-nationalist House in the hundred years of the Republic. Combined with increasingly authoritarian regime of Erdogan, the future does not bode well for almost half of the population who voted for the opposition. As BBC put it ‘the strategic NATO nation’ had chosen its path, most voters opting for a seasoned autocrat rather than an untested democrat in the form of Kilicdaroglu. While Kilicdaroglu stressed the need to revitalize the relations with the European Union (EU) – which is frozen for almost a decade – and revise the migrants deal that was agreed in 2016, Erdogan barely mentioned the EU in his election campaign. For Erdogan, the relationship with Brussels is run on a transactional basis.
For the first round of elections of May 14, the joint observation mission from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA), and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) found that the legal framework did not fully provide a basis for holding democratic elections. Frank Schwabe, head of the PACE delegation, underlined that Turkey did not fulfil the basic principles for holding a democratic election. “Key political and social figures are in prison even after judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, media freedom is severely restricted and there is a climate of self-censorship. Turkey is a long way from creating fair election campaign conditions,” said he. For the second round, Schwabe reiterated his position that the second round also took place in an environment that in many ways did not provide the conditions for holding democratic elections. Selahattin Demirtas, the former leader of the second largest opposition party, pro-Kurdish HDP is still in jail despite the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that he should be freed with immediate effect.
The election on Sunday was closely watched by European Union, US, the Middle East and Russia. The point was made by Baroness Cathy Ashton, the EU’s former foreign policy chief.
“What happens in Turkey in terms of its democracy and in terms of its place in the region has a huge impact on Europe, on Asia, and of course on all of the global issues that we’re all grappling with. So, it is really important,” said she. And the Economist, the British weekly announced on its cover that the Turkish election was the most important of 2023. “Most important, in an era when strongman rule is on the rise, from Hungary to India, the peaceful ejection of Mr Erdogan would show democrats everywhere that strongmen can be beaten,” wrote the weekly. There was hope if Erdogan could be defeated at the ballot box, it would send a message to all the populist authoritarian regimes across the globe.
Although it was not unexpected that Erdogan would use a populist discourse to demonize his opponents, what is surprising was Kilicdaroglu’s embrace of populist rhetoric right after it became obvious that the presidential election would go to a run-off on May 28. Kilicdaroglu who lost the first round of presidential elections by almost 5 percent of the vote immediately changed his course and employing an ethnonationalist strain, swerved right. He promised to send home millions of Syrian refugees and doubled down the nationalist tone in his rhetoric. According to an Al Monitor/Premise poll which was conducted between May 19-23 across Turkey, 71 percent of the respondents favored an imminent return of refugees. The economy and refugees stood out as the top two issues that the respondents deemed challenges for the country. To win the nationalist votes, Kilicdaroglu signed a protocol with the leader of the far-right Victory Party, Umit Ozdag. Ozdag proclaimed the return of the refugees as the number one priority for his party. The protocol promised to return all of the refugees within a year. Right after the first round of elections, Kilicdaroglu claimed Erdogan had brought 10 million refugees to the country and that number would increase if he would remain in power. Adopting a fearmongering style, Kilicdaroglu implied that ‘our daughters’ would not be able to go around safely if the Syrian and other refugees would stay in Turkey.
While Kilicdaroglu was busy in forming alliances with the far-right parties, Erdogan, too, was seeking to enlist the support of religious populist and far-right parties. Erdogan who won five parliamentary elections, two presidential polls and three referendums, this time around, felt he could be beaten by the opposition. Thus, he agreed to create an alliance with the Islamist New Welfare Party and the Kurdish Islamist Huda-Par (Free Cause Party). Huda-Par is essentially the political projection of Kurdish Hizbullah, an Islamist organization, unrelated to Lebanese Hezbollah, known for its gruesome murders in the 1990s. These two parties have declared that they want Turkey to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention and the repeal of the Law 6284 which basically provides protection for women against violence. Moreover, Erdogan went ahead to court far-right leader Sinan Ogan campaigning heavily on terrorism. In the large meetings which hosted tens of thousands of people, he showed fake videos that falsely implied his opponent Kilicdaroglu had links with outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Cultural Metamorphosis
Besides politics, Erdogan has successfully pursued a populist political ideology together with cultural populism. Erdogan’s authoritarianism is more than ballot box as he employs television and music, monuments and memorials that have been prime levers of a political project, a campaign of cultural ressentiment and national rebirth. As the New York Times reported it, this cultural metamorphosis reoriented national culture and promoted a nostalgic revival of the Ottoman past ‘sometimes in grand style sometimes as pure kitsch.’.
What Next With EU?
While a new term for Erdogan will bring more challenges, Turkey will remain a crucial interlocutor for the EU on many issues, including migration, energy, and regional security, particularly against the backdrop of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Turkey has applied EU back in 1959, was declared candidate in 1999 and started accession talks in October 2005. It is the longest history of a candidate country ever. It has been 18 years since the accession talks started however barely16 chapters out of 35 have been opened and only one chapter has been provisionally closed. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel together with the Greek Cypriots have been instrumental in blocking the accession talks. Erdogan’s authoritarian populist streak has also been pivotal in European Council’s decision to freeze accession talks in 2018. This is due to Ankara backtracking on democracy and civil liberties, particularly following the 2016 coup attempt (whose details are still murky), and tensions over developments in Turkish foreign policy. Included were Ankara’s naval operations in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, as well as Ankara’s Syria policy and Cyprus. In 2018, after a similar decision by the European Parliament, the EU froze the accession negotiations, although they were already comatose.
‘The EU’s serious concerns on the continued deterioration of democracy, the rule of law, fundamental rights and the independence of the judiciary have not been addressed. There was further backsliding in many areas,’ said the European Commission country report of 2022. On most democracy indexes, Turkey has gone down dramatically. According to World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in the beginning of May, Turkey together with Tajikistan and India dropped from being in a “problematic situation” into the lowest category and now ranks 165 out of 180. “Turkey jails more journalists than any other democracy,” said RSF. After Erdogan’s win of the presidential election, it will not be surprising if he tightens his grip on fundamental freedoms and on freedom of expression, in particular.
The relations between Turkey and EU have been transactional since almost 2013 when Erdogan embraced authoritarianism after a huge corruption scandal erupted implicating his son and several of his ministers. One of the milestones of this relationship has been the refugee deal of 2016 according to which Turkey would prevent the crossings of migrants to EU.
EU, without committing itself to any form of membership talks has openly called for ties based on mutual benefit. “The EU and Türkiye continued high-level engagement in areas of common interest such as climate, health or migration and security. This was in line with the EU’s offer to support a more positive dynamic in EU-Türkiye relations, expressing readiness to engage with Türkiye in a phased, proportionate, and reversible manner in a number of areas of common interest, subject to the conditions set out by the European Council. On energy, Türkiye continues to be an important and reliable transit country for the EU,’ said the country report of 2022. On the refugee deal, the EU has commended Turkey for hosting more than 3.5 million people.
EU has clearly determined that Turkey under Erdogan has been less democratic and more authoritarian, however, Brussels falls short of making serious warnings in this regard. “There are serious deficiencies in the functioning of Türkiye’s democratic institutions. During the reporting period, democratic backsliding continued. Structural deficiencies in the presidential system remained in place. Key recommendations from the Council of Europe and its bodies have yet to be addressed. Parliament continued to lack the necessary means to hold the government accountable. The constitutional architecture continued to centralize powers at the level of the Presidency without ensuring the sound and effective separation of powers between the executive, legislative and the judiciary. In the absence of an effective checks and balances mechanism, the democratic accountability of the executive branch continues to be limited to elections,’ remarked the country report.
This transactional nature of the relationship has been confirmed by the messages of EU leaders in the wake of the presidential elections. While the foreign policy chief Josep Borrell congratulated Erdogan and called for the continuation of relations based on mutual interest, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has invited Erdogan to Berlin without mentioning the serious backsliding on fundamental freedoms.
The world order has been rapidly shifting from a unipolar to a multipolar one. The battle over Europe’s future and the emerging new security architecture will have major implications for the EU and Turkey. As a major security, political and economic actor, Turkey will have a vital role in the future of EU. Thus, Brussels should craft a clear strategy to address dramatic deterioration of fundamental freedoms on the one hand and deepen relations with a view to revitalize the accession process, on the other.
Erdogan’s primary adversary is no longer the opposition, but rather the anticipated deepening of the economic crisis. A climate of uncertainty, compromised rule of law, and suspended democracy hinders substantial investments. The potential for democratic change could arise if the nation reaches a state of ungovernability, prompting conservative voters to transcend their historical reservations against secularists. Alternatively, the Erdogan regime may solidify its support base irreversibly by effectively managing the economy to prevent social upheavals, ultimately establishing a system where elections serve as mere symbolic displays.
By Savas Genc*
Under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a span of almost 22 years, Turkey recently witnessed an election in which the opposition had a chance of victory for the first time. In a nation grappling with an official inflation rate of approximately 80 percent, opposition leaders united to form an electoral coalition with the aim of securing success in the election. Hinging on the fervor of the masses to bring an end to the Erdogan regime, the opposition parties engaged in lengthy negotiations and crafted policies that pledged a restoration of the parliamentary system. By emphasizing the strengthening of democracy, an independent judiciary, and transparent governance, the opposition diligently conducted extensive public engagements over several months to instill confidence in the electorate.
In various independent international indices, Turkey has steadily witnessed a decline in terms of justice, democracy, media freedom, human rights, and corruption, progressively exhibiting an authoritarian trajectory. The opposition formulated its entire electoral strategy around the backdrop of economic distress, the repatriation of over 4 million Syrian and Afghan migrants, and the disintegration of a modern state along with its liberal democratic institutions. They presented a vision of a democratic system in alignment with European Union (EU) standards, incorporating merit-based recruitment schemes for public positions, and advocating for gradual repatriation of migrants through negotiations with the Assad regime in Syria and the EU. The opposition introduced an election program that was virtually flawless in its technical details and captivated the public with its competent cadre of seasoned politicians and academics.
Discussions on Opposition Candidate
The coalition of six opposition parties, having conducted thorough deliberations on the political and economic agenda to be presented to the electorate, deliberately deferred discussions regarding the presidential candidate during their gatherings for months. This cautious approach was adopted to prevent any potential disintegration of the electoral alliance. The criteria for a viable candidate were well-defined. The candidate would originate from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), the dominant party within the alliance, and would need to garner support from both Kurdish voters and conservative masses. Various opinion polling firms consistently indicated Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, as the candidate who best embodied this criterion.
Recognizing Imamoglu’s growing popularity and his strong prospects of winning the elections, President Erdogan took notice and, having faced defeat in Istanbul twice before, invoked judicial mechanisms. It became evident that Erdogan had exerted influence over the judiciary to impose a political ban on Imamoglu. On the day when the decision on the political ban was announced, CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who was anticipated to express support for Imamoglu, coincidentally had a scheduled trip to Germany. In the aftermath of the court’s verdict and the subsequent political ban imposed on Imamoglu, Kilicdaroglu, who had been contemplating a presidential candidacy, engaged in discussions of significance over breakfast with prominent figures from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a Kurdish party with close ties to the center. The Kurdish leaders conveyed their intention to field their own candidate if Kilicdaroglu chose not to run, citing concerns regarding the nationalist background of another potential contender, Mansur Yavaş, the mayor of Ankara.
Alliance Reaches a Critical Juncture as Kilicdaroglu Insists on Candidacy
Following Erdogan’s official decision to call early elections in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake on February 6, 2023, the opposition alliance initiated meetings with the objective of nominating a joint candidate. Kilicdaroglu successfully advanced the nomination process by offering each of the three smaller parties in the alliance a minimum of 10 parliamentary seats and a ministerial position. However, the Good Party (İYİ Party), which holds the second strongest position in the alliance and does not rely on the CHP’s support in the parliamentary elections, sought to halt this trajectory.
Meral Aksener, the leader of the Good Party, raised objections to Kilicdaroglu’s candidacy, citing doubts about his electability. Observing that her concerns were being disregarded, she issued a strongly worded press release announcing their departure from the alliance. This development shattered the hopes of opposition voters. Kilicdaroglu, who had made considerable headway in positioning himself as the preferred candidate for the Kurdish constituency, was taken aback by the fierce reaction of his nationalist partner. In the face of a vehement response from opposition constituents following the dissolution of the alliance, Aksener had no choice but to return to the negotiation table. Reluctantly, she declared their support for Kilicdaroglu’s candidacy, on the condition that the two mayors, Imamoglu and Yavaş, assume the role of vice presidents.
The Electoral Process
Kilicdaroglu embarked on the election with two formidable and popular vice-presidential candidates, resulting in a commendable performance. His campaign maintained a positive tone, refraining from responding to Erdogan’s provocations, while focusing on democratization initiatives. Conversely, Erdogan accused the opposition, which enjoyed Kurdish support, of being linked to terrorism. Employing deep fake videos, he asserted that banned PKK leaders were collaborating with Kilicdaroglu. The masses, initially distancing themselves from Erdogan due to the economic crisis, began to rally behind him again, fueled by concerns over Kilicdaroglu’s security policies.
The opposition was taken aback when Erdogan secured 49.4 percent of the vote in the first round. Their hopes of outpacing Erdogan and even winning the election outright were drastically altered as they entered the second round with a recalibrated strategy. Kilicdaroglu, in a bid to appeal to nationalist voters, who were crucial for securing their support, made a significant shift by signing a memorandum of understanding with the ultra-nationalist and anti-immigrant Zafer Party. However, this move disappointed Kurdish voters and dissuaded their participation in the elections.
The Factors Behind Erdogan’s Re-election
It is widely recognized that Erdogan does not possess the qualities of an intellectual politician. However, his remarkable ability to win elections and retain power for 22 years showcases his prowess as an election-winning machine. Faced with the looming risk of electoral defeat, Erdogan strategically relied on identity politics as his trump card. He tapped into the deeply held sentiments of nationalist and religious conservatives who view the Turkish republic, once controlled by secular elitist forces, as a cherished possession they are unwilling to relinquish. By portraying the opposition as godless, Erdogan positioned himself and his party as the safeguarders of the religious masses’ interests and achievements.
The primary fault line in Turkish politics lies in the clash between secular/modern and conservative/traditionalist voters. Despite the nation grappling with a profound economic crisis, erosion of judicial independence, curtailment of media freedoms, and the failure to address the immigration problem, the broad conservative electorate rallied behind Erdogan’s leadership.
Erdogan’s prospects of securing re-election appeared highly improbable merely a year ago, given the prevailing deep economic crisis, as indicated by numerous opinion polls. However, he resorted to political tactics aimed at enticing voters, including the liquidation of all foreign currency and gold reserves held by the treasury. Additionally, the early retirement law was passed, granting hundreds of thousands of citizens under the age of 50 the right to retire. By increasing the minimum wage above the inflation rate, Erdogan successfully garnered support from the Anatolian masses, where the cost of living is relatively lower. Moreover, Erdogan’s position was bolstered by Russia’s decision to postpone Turkey’s $20 billion natural gas debt until after the elections, while countries like Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia extended billions of dollars in loans to the Erdogan government through swap agreements, further consolidating his position of influence.
Erdogan’s Media Empire: An Unassailable Armada
Erdogan, leveraging his extensive media apparatus, has amassed an overpowering media presence that has transformed into an invincible armada. Through awarding substantial public tenders to crony companies, Erdogan’s administration effectively facilitated the acquisition of nearly all major media outlets in the country. For those private media outlets that could not be directly acquired, coercion tactics were employed to align them with a pro-Erdogan stance. Furthermore, the state broadcaster, TRT, funded by public resources, was fortified by the establishment of numerous television channels. During the electoral process, Kilicdaroglu, Erdogan’s opponent, was limited to appearing on a modest news channel, while Erdogan enjoyed the privilege of addressing the public for hours on 24 national news channels. Despite Kilicdaroglu’s repeated invitations, Erdogan refrained from engaging in a political debate on-screen, thereby obstructing his opponent’s visibility. By even impeding opposition advertisements on television through financial means, Erdogan effectively isolated Anatolian voters who relied predominantly on TV channels for news, limiting their exposure to a narrow political bubble.
The Election Turnout
In the context of the election, the opposition demonstrated its strength by securing victories in the metropolitan areas. However, Erdogan’s widespread support among the populace in the expansive Anatolian region played a pivotal role in determining the overall outcome. Through the formation of an alliance encompassing Islamist and nationalist elements, Erdogan exceeded expectations by attaining greater voter support. While Erdogan’s AKP party experienced a decline of 8-9 percentage points in votes, those who did not endorse his party redirected their support to other parties within his political alliance. In the second round, Erdogan, who narrowly missed a first-round victory, successfully gained the backing of his nationalist rival, Sinan Ogan.
The performance of Erdogan had a demoralizing effect on opposition voters, as the first-round results starkly diverged from the data projected by various polling companies. This perception of manipulated elections and the belief that their support for the opposition would be ineffectual led to a significant decline in voter participation during the second round. While the first round witnessed an 87 percent turnout, this figure dipped to 85 percent in the subsequent round. Remarkably, Erdogan maintained a 52 percent share of the vote, positioning himself to potentially govern uninterrupted for 27 years, coinciding with the centenary of the republic.
Erdogan employed strategies such as providing employment opportunities to the offspring of his party’s loyal supporters in roles such as teachers, policemen, watchmen, and salaried sergeant specialists in the Turkish army. Additionally, he bolstered the economic well-being of conservative masses by allocating tenders to his senior executives through his construction industry network. As aptly stated by Brezinski, “Just as oil is a decisive factor in Arab countries, the construction sector and real estate investments play a crucial role in Turkish politics.” Erdogan effectively generated jobs and wealth for substantial segments of the population through his wealth-sharing model centered around construction revenues. The masses, concerned about the potential collapse of the established order, disregarded the country’s institutional and economic crises, experiencing upward economic mobility under Erdogan’s leadership.
The Potential Success of the Opposition with a Different Candidate?
The question arises as to whether the opposition would have achieved success had they fielded a different candidate. In this context, it is crucial to examine Kilicdaroglu’s political track record, characterized by 17 prior unsuccessful attempts in general and local elections, during which he never ventured to challenge Erdogan directly as a candidate. Interestingly, Kilicdaroglu, confident in the prospects of his election chances amidst the deepening economic crisis and the earthquake’s impact, exhibited a reluctance to entertain discussions regarding alternative candidates. Seizing upon the political ban imposed on Imamoglu as an opportunity, Kilicdaroglu engaged in strategic deliberations with Kurdish politicians, aiming to obstruct Mansur Yavas, the mayor of Ankara, from pursuing candidacy. This particular course of action instigated dissatisfaction among opposition voters.
While it remains true that Yavas hailed from nationalist roots, it was precisely this background that rendered him a potential contender capable of garnering support from protest voters disenchanted with Erdogan. Multiple opinion polls consistently identified Yavas as the candidate most likely to secure victory against Erdogan in the initial round of elections. Yavas, with his history within nationalist parties, would have been well-positioned to effectively counter Erdogan’s accusations of association with “terrorists” and Kurdish support.
It is important to note that definitive assertions regarding Yavas’ victory over Erdogan cannot be made, given Erdogan’s prowess as an election-winning machine and his mobilization of state institutions to this end. However, it is reasonable to suggest that Yavas’ prospects of success would have been considerably higher compared to Kilicdaroglu, irrespective of the ultimate outcome.
The Future of Turkey Following Erdogan’s Re-election
Numerous political analysts and scholars contend that the recent election outcome in Turkey may represent the final opportunity for democratic reform. With another five years of governance ahead and parliamentary support, Erdogan aims to shape the opposition into a force that merely legitimizes his authority, akin to regimes observed in Central Asia.
Considering Erdogan’s advancing age and increasingly evident health concerns, he must also cultivate a new and trustworthy leader to safeguard his family’s political legacy. Similar to practices in Central Asian regimes, he may need to involve one of his sons or sons-in-law in politics, thereby paving the way for a future leadership transition and the preservation of his family’s influence.
In this process, Erdogan’s primary adversary will not be the opposition, which has encountered challenges in securing electoral victories, but rather the anticipated deepening of the economic crisis. Turkey currently grapples with significant debt, leading to borrowing at prohibitively high interest rates due to its credit default swap (CDS) scores. Although Erdogan managed to stabilize the exchange rate by injecting all available foreign currency reserves into the markets prior to the elections, attracting new investors to the country remains unlikely. A climate of uncertainty, compromised rule of law, and suspended democracy hinders substantial investments. The potential for democratic change could arise if the nation reaches a state of ungovernability, prompting conservative voters to transcend their historical reservations against secularists. Alternatively, the Erdogan regime may solidify its support base irreversibly by effectively managing the economy to prevent social upheavals, ultimately establishing a system where elections serve as mere symbolic displays.
(*) Dr. Savas Genc completed his doctoral studies at the esteemed University of Heidelberg and has been serving as a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Heidelberg since 2020, supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s PSI program. Prior to this, he held the position of Professor of International Relations in Istanbul, where he also served as an Erasmus Visiting Professor, imparting his knowledge to students at various European universities. Dr. Genc’s academic contributions encompass a wide range of research interests, including directing the “Research Center for Contemporary Civilizations” and leading notable projects such as “The Perception of Turkish Foreign Policy in the Middle East.”
After the election results, Erdogan is likely to feel vindicated, but being a vindictive populist, he will not forgive those who did not vote for him. In his celebratory speech, which was previously unifying and conciliatory in tone, he exhibited aggression, polarization, and securitization of the opposition. Despite his extensive efforts, 48 percent of voters remain “ungrateful” in his eyes. This narrow margin of victory makes him vulnerable and fuels his fury. Consequently, he will attempt to weaken the opposition both domestically and abroad.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent electoral victory in Turkey exemplifies the winning formula of populism in deeply divided and polarized societies. His authoritarian populism has effectively tapped into the fears, grievances, nostalgia, and hopes of the Turkish people, enabling him to consolidate his authoritarian regime. However, it is important to note that Erdogan’s success cannot be solely attributed to his populist rhetoric, especially considering the ongoing economic crisis in the country.
In addition to his Islamist populism, securitization of the opposition, manipulation, and fearmongering, Erdogan has also employed tactics of electoral authoritarianism and manipulation of electoral processes. Furthermore, he has greatly benefited from economic populism and neo-patrimonialism. Understanding Erdogan’s winning formula allows us to examine the predicaments Turkey currently faces and consider what Erdogan may do in the future to maintain his winning streak.
After explaining Erdogan’s winning formula, I will try to look at Turkey’s predicaments from the lens of this formula. Unfortunately, there is no good news for Turkey’s educated, Westernized sections of society, as well as Kurds, Alevis, and other political minorities. Erdogan’s approach tends to marginalize and oppress these groups, leading to their continued exclusion and marginalization in the political sphere.
Electoral Authoritarianism and Manipulation of Electoral Processes
Erdogan’s regime is characterized by electoral authoritarianism, where the playing field for opposition parties is heavily skewed, resulting in elections that lack both freedom and fairness. Despite the presence of opposition parties, Erdogan utilizes the full extent of state apparatuses, including security forces and the judiciary, as well as his own party’s massive machinery, which boasts 12 million members (around 20 percent of the country’s adults). Additionally, his control over approximately 90 percent of the conventional media and a powerful digital authoritarianism machine enables him to manipulate information and disseminate disinformation to undermine opposition parties.
Erdogan employs various tactics of electoral authoritarianism to ensure that opposition parties are unable to secure a majority of votes, serving primarily to create a façade of legitimacy for his authoritarian political system. These tactics include gerrymandering, restrictions on opposition campaigns, and the suppression of independent media. Furthermore, the counting of votes is under Erdogan’s control, and opposition parties lack the capacity to substantiate their allegations of election rigging. They are unable to address issues such as the significant increase in the number of registered voters, which has outpaced the population growth of Turkey over the past two decades.
Since 2018, the deteriorating state of the political system in Turkey has led to its classification as “unfree” by organizations like Freedom House. Despite rulings from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) advocating for their release, many democratically elected Kurdish mayors and parliamentarians remain imprisoned. Journalists, academics, and activists critical of the government face intimidation, imprisonment, and media censorship. This has transformed Turkey into one of the most repressive regimes for journalists in recent history.
While Turkey lacks significant oil reserves like countries such as Russia, Iran, or Saudi Arabia, it still needs to remain open to tourists, businesses, and investments from the West. As a result, the regime cannot fully suppress opposition parties and civil society, as they need to maintain the illusion of a competitive political landscape. However, in the end, the regime maintains control, ensuring that the house always wins.
Despite some semblance of political participation and limited space for opposition, Erdogan’s regime employs a wide range of tactics to consolidate power and undermine the principles of democracy, ultimately resulting in the erosion of civil liberties, media freedom, and the ability of opposition parties to challenge the ruling party effectively.
Islamist Populism, Securitization of the Opposition, Manipulation, and Fearmongering
Populism often seeks to create a divisive narrative that separates society into two distinct groups: “the morally righteous people” and “the corrupt elite” who allegedly deny the people their rightful sovereignty. This aspect is fundamental to Erdoganism, the ideology associated with President Erdogan. According to this ideology, “the corrupt elite” consists of the educated, Westernized, and secular segments of society, who are often referred to as “White Turks” and represent around 30-35 percent of the population. On the other hand, Erdoganists consider themselves as “Black Turks,” even though many elite members of the AKP (Justice and Development Party) have lifestyles aligned with the “White Turkish” segment.
Given Turkey’s current challenges in competing with the West, both culturally and technologically, Islamists in Turkey harbor deep resentment towards the West, blaming it for the issues facing the Muslim world. To cope with this, they turn to a nostalgic yearning for the glory of the Ottoman Empire and project it as a Pan-Islamist vision, aspiring for a future Sunni caliphate under Turkey’s leadership. This narrative often involves the propagation of various anti-Western conspiracy theories. According to this view, Western powers and Jews are perceived as determined to impede Turkey’s rise to leadership in the Islamic world, using diverse instruments such as the Kurds, Alevis, Gulenists, secular Westernized Turks, academics, journalists, NGOs, and human rights defenders within the country.
During election campaigns, dissenters and opposition figures are frequently demonized and labelled as traitors, terrorists, internal enemies, non-Muslims, fake Muslims, hypocrites, deviants, or supporters of the LGBT community. Erdogan capitalizes on creating and perpetuating crises to instill fear among Sunni Turks and position himself and the AKP as the sole saviors capable of protecting the country and Islam.
By promoting this narrative and generating fear among his Sunni Turkish support base, Erdogan seeks to present himself and his party as the only reliable protectors of the nation and Islam. This approach helps to solidify his power and maintain a significant level of control, particularly through the marginalization and vilification of dissenting voices and opposition groups.
Economic Populism and Neo-Patrimonialism
Erdogan’s populist approach extends beyond politics and spills over into economic populism as well. Throughout his time in power, Erdogan has implemented various social welfare programs and policies aimed at assisting economically disadvantaged individuals. This strategy not only helps those in need but also cultivates loyalty among his supporters.
One way Erdogan maintains this loyalty is by providing neo-patrimonial public welfare, which can be seen as a form of “charitable patronage.” This involves the redistribution of public resources and the granting of preferential access to public jobs, healthcare, and housing. However, these benefits often come at the expense of marginalized ethnic, religious, and political groups who do not align with Erdogan’s agenda.
What sets Erdogan’s approach apart is his careful presentation of these benefits. He and his party have strategically framed them in a way that portrays the source of these benefits not as the state, taxpayers, or future generations burdened with loans, but rather as coming directly from the merciful and benevolent AKP and Erdogan himself. This messaging resonates particularly well with Erdogan’s Sunni Turkish pious support base.
Furthermore, thanks to the AKP’s extensive party machinery, they have a deep understanding of the demographics of each street and village. This knowledge enables them to target their assistance effectively and maintain a close connection with their supporters. As a result, even amidst economic crises, Erdogan’s supporters continue to appreciate him, while those from non-AKP backgrounds and educated middle classes often find themselves overwhelmed by the challenges.
This dynamic is evident even in regions devastated by natural disasters such as earthquakes. Despite clear failures in addressing these crises, Erdogan and his party have not faced significant repercussions at the ballot box. This can be attributed to the continued support from his loyal base, who remain steadfast in their backing of Erdogan despite any shortcomings or failures.
Erdogan’s populist neo-patrimonial economic model extends to his approach to interest rates as well. Despite the prevailing orthodox wisdom in economics, Erdogan argues that lower interest rates will lead to a decrease in inflation. He also invokes Islamic principles, stating that interest is considered haram (forbidden) in Islam. Many people perceive his stance on interest as stemming solely from his Islamist beliefs. However, there is a patrimonial populist dimension to this approach.
Firstly, it is worth noting that many of Erdogan’s associates and close allies are involved in the construction sector. This sector plays a significant role in Turkey, as they continually build houses to accommodate the country’s growing population. By keeping interest rates low, Erdogan enables his cronies in the construction industry to sell houses, while simultaneously catering to the desires of his supporters, who mainly come from lower-income backgrounds and aspire to own homes.
This policy of maintaining low interest rates benefits his cronies in the construction sector by stimulating housing demand. Simultaneously, it weakens the overall economy and has adverse effects on the middle class. While this policy serves the interests of his supporters by allowing them to afford housing, it comes at the expense of the broader economy and harms the middle classes. As a result, the middle class, who are not necessarily Erdogan’s core supporters, experience a weakening of their economic standing. This indirect wealth transfer through state policies contributes to the erosion of the middle class, consequently weakening the opposition as well.
By implementing such economic policies, Erdogan is not only pursuing his own interests and those of his cronies but also undermining the strength of the middle classes, which poses a challenge to his opposition. Ultimately, this strategy helps consolidate his power by weakening potential sources of dissent and opposition.
Overall, Erdogan’s economic populism, combined with strategic messaging and a strong support base, allows him to maintain political control and keep his voters loyal, even in the face of challenging circumstances and criticism.
What Does Erdogan’s Winning Formula Mean for Turkey’s Future?
After the election results, Erdogan is likely to feel vindicated, but being a vindictive populist, he will not forgive those who did not vote for him. In his celebratory speech, which was previously unifying and conciliatory in tone, he exhibited aggression, polarization, and securitization of the opposition. Despite his extensive efforts, 48 percent of voters remain “ungrateful” in his eyes. This narrow margin of victory makes him vulnerable and fuels his fury. Consequently, he will attempt to weaken the opposition both domestically and abroad using the methods described earlier.
His vindication and vindictiveness will work against the opposition, dissidents, and minority groups. Erdogan will continue to attack and suppress Kurds, Alevis, “White Turks,” Gulenists, and others. He will intensify his narratives about Western crusaders, Jewish lobby, and portray LGBT individuals as enemies of the Turkish people, labeling dissenters as traitors and terrorists.
Erdogan’s electoral authoritarianism and manipulation of electoral processes will persist without restraint. He may establish new so-called “opposition” TV channels and newspapers or capture existing ones to create a loyal opposition media. Additionally, digital authoritarianism will increase, aiming to curtail the influence of social media.
Due to growing repression and the negative impact of his economic populism and neo-patrimonialism on the educated middle classes, many educated Turks and Kurds will choose to leave the country, resulting in a brain drain. “White Turks,” fearing a fate similar to that of Gulen Movement supporters, whose businesses, properties, and homes were seized by Erdogan regime and transferred to AKP supporters, will transfer their wealth to Western nations.
To compensate for the decreasing population numbers and simultaneously decrease the opposition’s vote share, Erdogan will increasingly grant citizenship to Sunni Arabs, Afghans, and Pakistanis, not only in Turkey but also in Western countries and even in their countries of origin. Leveraging his party machine, Islamist pro-AKP NGOs abroad, and a trusted network of Muslim Brotherhood affiliates, these new citizens will be carefully selected.
Yilmaz, Ihsan & Shakil, Kainat. (2023). “Gender Populism: Civilizational Populist Construction of Gender Identities as Existential Cultural Threats.” Populism & Politics (P&P). European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). May 24, 2023. https://doi.org/10.55271/pp0023
Abstract
In the Islamist version of civilizational populism, the emotionalbacklashagainst the rise of secularism, multiculturalism, progressive ideas, and ‘wokeness,’ has been skillfully employed. While for the populists, populist far right and civilizational populists in the West, usually the Muslims are the civilizational other, we argue in this article, in the Islamist civilizational populism, the list of civilizational enemies of the Muslim way of life also includes feminists and LGBTQ+ rights advocates. Gender populism is a relatively new concept that refers to the use of gender symbolism, language, policy measures, and contestation of gender issues by populist actors. It involves the manipulation of gender roles, stereotypes, and traditional values to appeal to the masses and create divisions between “the people” and “the others.” This paper looks at the case study of gender populism in Turkey, where the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been in power for over two decades. The AKP has used gender populism to redefine Turkish identity, promote conservative Islamism, and marginalize women and the LGBTQ+ community. The paper also discusses how gender populism has been used by the AKP to marginalize political opponents.
In minimal terms, populism is conceived as a unique set of ideas, one that understands politics as a Manichean struggle between a reified will and sovereignty of the morally pure people and a conspiring elite (Hawkins et al., 2018: 15). In addition to this vertical dimension, populism’s horizontal dimension posits the Manichean binary opposition betweeninsiders and outsiders, whereby the outsiders, who may even be citizens, are regarded as foreigners, if not internal enemies, based on their identities. In some cases, these demonized individuals and groups are seen as internal extensions, agents, puppets and pawns of foreign conspiring forces and institutions such as the European Union (EU), “the Jewish lobby,” and extremist Islam. All these are seen as threatening the people’s security, identity, and way of life. In these manifestations of populism, the binary is based on not just national differences but an imagined civilizational enmity (Brubaker, 2017). This type of populism has been dubbed as ‘civilizational populism’ (Yilmaz & Morieson, 2022a; 2022b).
Populism is involved in interpretative processes that lead to intense emotions (Salmela & von Scheve, 2017; 2018). It paints the events, in-groups, and out-groups in certain light (such as harmful vs. beneficial) that precipitate sharp emotions in the audience (Brady et al., 2017; Graham et al., 2011). Emanating from structural (national and international) as well as affective foundations, populism has been effective in speaking to the deep emotions of the masses. It mobilizes people against other groups and/or the state by generating feelings of belonging, love, passion, fear, anger and hate (Morieson, 2017; DeHanas & Shterin, 2018; Yilmaz, 2018; 2021).
In the Islamist version of civilizational populism, the emotional backlash against the rise of secularism, multiculturalism, progressive ideas, and ‘wokeness,’ has been skillfully employed. While for the populists, populist far right and civilizational populists in the West, usually the Muslims are the civilizational other, we argue in this article, in the Islamist civilizational populism, the list of civilizational enemies of the Muslim way of life also includes feminists and LGBTQ+ rights advocates.
What Is Gender Populism?
Much like the highly contested definitional parameters of populism, there is no singular definition of the term ‘gender populism.’ It is a rather new combination that has peaked the interests of academics since the mid-2010s. Gender populism is essentially the use of gender symbolism, language, policy measures and contestation of gender issues by populist actors. For instance, both left- and right-wing populist groups in many Western communities have expressed a need to “protect” their countries, specifically women, from the “illiberal” or “conservative” influences of migrant groups. They profile migrant men as a security threat or as “groomers” and some countries have taken issue with women’s choice to wear a headscarf (Hadj-Abdou, 2018).
At the same time, it is not uncommon to see a huge wave of resistance from right-wing groups reading gender roles. These groups aim to “restore” traditional gender roles which leads them to marginalize feminist directives and disapprove of the LGBTQI+ movements (Agius et al., 2020; Roose, 2020; Gokariksel et al., 2019).
This first stream of literature shows how gender populism helps in the creation of an ideal people or “the people” as opposed to “the others” based on what they consider deviance from their relative gender norms. This also intertwines with the idea of civilizational populism because it gives an image of a utopian dream society or urges people to revert to “the golden era” e.g., the promotion of traditional roles for women (Sledzinska-Simon, 2020).
Gender populism also helps in creating the image of populist leaders in many cases (Ashwin & Utrata, 2020; Löffler et al., 2020; Eksi & Wood, 2019; Roose, 2018). The leader is not only pure from the corruption of conventional “elite” politicians, but he is also a strongman. The populist demagogue is constructed as a ‘strongman’ who can keep threats a bay and take ‘tough decisions’ (Roose, 2022; 2018). Zia (2022) notes that in Pakistan and India, Imran Khan and Narendra Modi present their ‘strongman’ images and vitality as part of their gender populism. Similarly, Eksi and Wood (2019) discuss how both Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan through symbolic (language and body language) present themselves as a mixture of strongmen but at the same time fatherly figures to guide “the people.”
Studies of female populist leaders show that gender plays a critical role in shaping the image of the leader in the eyes of “the people.” In France, Marine Le Pen’s gender populism constructs her as a mother saving the country from the cultural threats posed by ‘the others’ and her comparison to Jonah of Arc makes her the ‘brave hero’ who needs to act against threats such as migration (Geva, 2019; Sayan-Cengiz & Tekin, 2019).
Effeminization of the Elites and Dangerous Others by Populists
The literature on gender populism also points out that gender populism is used to marginalize “the others” or “the elite.” One of the most common manifestations is the effeminization of ‘the elites’ and ‘the others’ by populist leaders (Agius et al., 2020; Ashwin & Utrata, 2020; Löffler et al., 2020; Eksi & Wood, 2019; Roose, 2018).
By contrasting “feminine” political opposition, populist leaders contrast them with their “strong” image to gain credibility in the eyes of voters. For example, in the Philippines, the former President Rodrigo Duterte, is known for this ‘tough man’ acts and imagery while he uses terms such as “bitches,” “son of a bitch,” “chicken-hearted,” “sissy” and “idiots” to address all those who oppose him (UCA News, 2019; Bonnet, 2018; McKirdy, 2016).
In short, gender populism manifests in various forms and is highly determined by contextual factors. It helps in the creation of “the people,” the populist leader/party, and “the others.” Simultaneously, it adds layers to the idea of an “ideal” society and is frequently used to marginalize both civilian and political opposition to populist forces. In a nutshell, it adds a layer to the divisiveness of populism using gender as the focus.
Turkey’s AKP: A Case Study of Gender Populism
Turkish women rallied in Istanbul to protest proposed anti-abortion laws by then-Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on June 18, 2012 in Istanbul, Turkey. Photo: Sadık Güleç.
In Turkey, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been in power for over two decades. These two decades have been marked by political as well as major social transitions. This has been a phase of reengineering Turkish citizens from a Kemalist identity to an Erdoganist one: an Islamist, militarist, civilizational populist, neo-Ottomanist citizen and a staunch follower of Erdogan’s personality cult (Yilmaz, 2021; Yilmaz & Shakil, 2021).
At the heart of this recreation of Turkish identity, people and homeland gender has taken center stage. This makes the case of Turkey quite important to understand gender populism. Given the heated debates around the 2023 general elections, various hues of gender populism have emerged which this article will discuss along with the party’s past recorded use of the phenomenon.
The first signs of AKP’s populism were via the means of gender populism in 2007 when the party was contesting to secure its second term. To maintain its support, AKP positioned itself directly in a clash with the Kemalist principles of modernization which had previously barred women from wearing headscarves in public offices and educational institutions (Yilmaz & Shakil, 2021). At that time, AKP predominantly represented Muslims and the future (possible) first lady wore a headscarf which was unprecedented in the republic’s history. AKP presented itself as a defender of women’s rights as it sought to reverse the headscarf ban. This led to a mass protest by the Kemalist elite especially on social media which was dubbed “a digital coup” and in-person rallies “Republican Rallies.”
To counter this Kemalist resistance, AKP did not simply make this a matter of right of choice for women, but it constructed the issue as a Manichean binary between Islam and the West, Western ideals being imposed by the Kemalists (Yilmaz & Shakil, 2021). This overtly ‘human rights issue’ was, at its core, the beginning of the populist Islamist ideology of AKP. Erdogan in 2013 led the country to abolish this ban as he announced in the parliament, “We have now abolished an archaic provision which was against the spirit of the republic. It’s a step toward normalization.”
But this “normalization” is towards Islamist ideas of gender roles. For instance, during the 2010s on several occasions, the then Prime Minster and now President Erdogan expressed gender conservatism. In 2014 during an international summit,he said, “You cannot make men and women equal,” […] That is against creation. Their natures are different. Their dispositions are different.” He also accused feminists of not understanding the idea of “motherhood.” He also openly said Muslim families should not use birth control, “I will say it clearly … We need to increase the number of our descendants.” He added, “People talk about birth control, about family planning. No Muslim family can understand and accept that. As God and as the great Prophet said, we will go this way. Over the years he has glorified the role of mothers and demonized the idea of a non-traditional women, for example, he said, “A woman above all else is a mother.” He has also called women “half workers” and labelled childfree women “deficient.” His exact quote for this instance reads, “A woman who rejects motherhood, who refrains from being around the house, however successful her working life is deficient, is incomplete.”
In 2021, during a meeting with various officials from the EU, Erdogan ignored the head of the Union, Ursula von der Leyen, and left her standing while all the other men were seated on chairs. In a later comment, von der Leyen noted, “I am the first woman to be President of the European Commission. I am the President of the European Commission, and this is how I expected to be treated when visiting Turkey two weeks ago, like a commission president, but I was not […] Would this have happened if I had worn a suit and a tie? In the pictures of previous meetings, I did not see any shortage of chairs, but then again, I did not see any women in these pictures either.”
These are not just simple comments by an elected official, they have real-life consequences for women in the country. Since AKP’s ascend to power, the rights of women have greatly suffered in the country compared to its European counterparts e.g., an increase in violence against women. Due to the growing discontent in 2015, following the murder of a woman, a social media and in-person campaign featured men wearing skirts to show solidarity with women who were being brutally attacked for wearing “Western attire” or were increasingly being subjected to violence without any state efforts to curb them.
A direct policy consequence of this growing disregard for women’s safety is the historical pull out of the country from the Istanbul Convention in 2021. The Convention was designed to ensure pathways of seeking safety in case of domestic abuse by providing not only legal support but ensured victims safe places to reside when feeling from violent partners. AKP and its ultra-conservative alliance argued that this convention was hurting family values or was a hurdle in traditional ways of family law even though the murder rate of Turkish women rose from 66 women being killed in 2002 to 953 in 2009 which is an increase of 1400 percent. Erdogan and his party scraped this crucial form of protection by simply saying, “We will not leave room for a handful of deviants who try to turn the debate into a tool of hostility to our values.”
In addition to Erdogan, over the years various AKP officials and allies have issued highly contested remarks about women and their rights. For instance, in 2014 former Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc publicly on national television advised women not to “laugh in public.” Arınç has also told Nursel Aydoğan, a member of the Turkish Parliament from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), to be quiet because she is a woman. He said, “Madam be quiet. You, as a woman, be quiet.” On a state-sponsored television program, Omer Tugrul Inancer an Islamist religious leader, said that it is a shame for pregnant women to be out in public. Turkey’s Finance and Treasury Minister, Nureddin Nebati, while discussing economic factors clearly stated that women should not or are not “suited” for “heavy work.” He defended his stance by saying, “Women are the crown of our heads, the medicine for our hearts. We do not care about some extremist and ideological discourses. Our values, this civilization and beliefs already order us to be sensitive about women. We just need to understand it. The enrolment rate in school for girls increased to 97 percent. The number of female MPs increased from 4.4 percent to 17.5 percent [under the AKP government]. The participation rate of women in the workforce has increased.”
After over a decade of gender populism, women from within the party and from other opposition parties are open to sexist attacks within the parliament and also by citizens on online social media platforms. Arrest patterns since the 2016 mysterious coup attempt show that women along with dependent children and babies in thousands have been arbitrarily arrested because of their alleged involvement with what the government terms “terrorist” organizations. Women face a greater brunt of state-sponsored violence because they are harassed during “strip searches,” separated from their dependent children and infants, and at times are arrested because of the alleged crime of their husbands.
Religious Turks was marching in an anti-LGBT demonstration in Şanlıurfa, Turkey in October 2022. Hundreds of people attended the protest with signs that read “Protect your family and your generation.” Photo: Hakan Yalçın.
Another gender dimension of AKP’s populism has been directed at the LGBTQI+ community. As early as 2013 the group has been repeatedly targeted by the party. In the country, there are no laws that criminalize or legalize the community but in recent years with the growth of Islamist views, state-led persecution and hate crime towards the community has escalated.
One of the most prominent waves of opposition to AKP took place in 2013 in the form of the Gezi Park protests. The protests began as a peaceful denunciation of AKP’s gentrification of public spaces in Istanbul and soon turned into a violent spectacle due to police brutality. After the death and injury of several peaceful protests and mass rioting, the Gezi Park protest fiasco was framed by the AKP as a ‘foreign’ attempt to curtail Turkey’s progress (Yilmaz, 2021).
It was after the mass protests and their violent aftermath that AKP directly targeted the LGBTQI+ community by barring the Pride Parade under the guise of security. Since 2015, the state has actively tried to stop the parade but rather than security concerns the parade is framed as a ‘threat’ to Turkish culture and society as well as a foreign agenda to ‘mislead the youth.’ Nearly a decade after Erdogan has blamed ‘deviant’ youth for causing unrest and rioting over the years. In 2021 during a mass protest at a higher educational institute, the President Erdogan again blamed the group and said, “You are not the LGBT youth [to his followers], not the youth who commit acts of vandalism. On the contrary, you are the ones who repair broken hearts.” In 2022 he hinted at introducing legislation to criminalize LGBTQI+ communities in Turkey and he justified these actions by saying, “Can a strong family have anything to do with LGBT? No, it cannot. … We need a strong family. … Let’s protect our nation together against the onslaughts of deviant and perverted currents.”
Turkish Interior Minister, Suleyman Soylu called the LGBTQI+ community a “propaganda of a terrorist organization” in 2022. He also added, “There is cultural terrorism. The propaganda of a terrorist organization tries to make people forget their values, their religion, unity, parental love, and family loyalty. It is exactly Europe’s policy, exactly America’s policy of divide and rule.” He added, “What will happen? They will bring LGBT to Turkey. Forgive me, men will marry men, women will marry women. It just suits (the main opposition CHP leader Kemal) Kilicdaroglu. What a shame. It lacks all values. They are trying to create a policy based on an understanding that will alter almost all our values so that they can win the hearts of the Europeans and the West.”
The 2023 elections have sadly become a showcase of homophobia by AKP. Various AKP electoral candidates along with Erdogan have weaponized gender populism. They have attacked and accused the opposition coalition as supporters of ‘un-Islamic’ and ‘Western agendas’ because they supported the LGBTQI+ community and at times AKP has attacked the opposition by labelling them as ‘gay’ or ‘LGBT’ to construct them as weak, alien and loyal to the West.
In 2023, during a re-election campaign Erdogan said, “In this nation, the foundations of the family are stable. LGBT will not emerge in this country.” He went on to say, “Stand up straight, like a man: that is how our families are.” He contrasted this by publicly accusing Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the alliance opposition leader, of being gay, as Erdogan at a rally said, “We know that Mr Kemal is an LGBT person.”
During the period the LGBTQI+ community has been demonized as a threat to “family” and a ploy of the West, which according to AKP, represents “deviant structures” and stands as a symbol of a “virus of heresy.” At the same time, political opposition is not only targeted for its support for the community, but they are emasculated by being labelled as part of the community.
Conclusion
While the 2023 presidential and general elections hold political significance for all those in Turkey, for women and the LGBTQI+ community these elections directly impact their future existence. This wave of Islamist reengineering of society, under the AKP regime, has changed the country’s social fabric. Women are increasingly left without state support when at their most vulnerable while top ministers and officials are openly issuing sexist comments and remarks. The Turkish idea of womanhood has undergone extensive change. Motherhood, virtue, and modesty are new parameters where those who oppose these traditional confines are constantly demonized, marginalized, or demonized. Similarly, the LGBTQI+ community, which enjoyed a relatively obscure existence, has become the front of a cultural battle. Their existence is seen as a direct existential threat positioned by the West to the Turkish ‘traditional’ values.
These are not merely instances of the state being simply sexist or sexism being displayed by elected parliamentarians. It is rather a marriage between populism and gender conservatism which has fed AKP’s civilizational populism. It is a layer of populism that helps in the creation of “the others” and “the people” while remaining a useful tool to discredit the political opposition also called “the elite.” It also gives a threatening face to the ‘crises’ under the guise of being a threat to family and the way of life, making it quite simple and relatable for many. In essence, gender populism also feeds off the sentiments of the masses, it is not purely created by populists.
The election results do matter, but what is worrying is the toll gender populism has taken on the Turkish social fabric. Its attempts to redefine gender roles have been met with opposition but at the same time have found a home in various quarters of society. This means a possible clash of narratives and further polarization in society which emanates gender-based hatred towards women and LBGTQI+ individuals might continue.
Funding: This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [ARC] under Discovery Grant [DP220100829], Religious Populism, Emotions and Political Mobilisation.
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Our collective history offers stories of war, resistance, intolerance, and perseverance. ECPS’ Never Again initiative prompts us to look back at these memories of conflict and democratic backsliding so that we, citizens, can be better informed of their causes and realities. A wealth of research has highlighted how mainstream media, i.e., TV, film, radio & news, have shaped the collective memory of these conflict narratives. However, as media technology evolves rapidly, the research studying collective memory must evolve with it.
The Collective Memory Through Online Games (COMTOG) project has emerged under this Never Again initiative to showcase the educational and social potential of serious, transformative gaming (video games, LARPs, tabletop roleplaying games) relaying the realities of conflict through a nuanced, well-researched, and empathetic lens. COMTOG is set to publish a series of interviews exploring the research process, artistic direction, and dissemination of these conflict-centred games. The game creator’s insights are included in interviews alongside the experience of diverse experts in the field (i.e. historians, policymakers, activists), thus creating a resource improving historical serious games’ ability to aid active remembering.
Moreover, serious gaming can provide the population with an immersive experience that can be used for educational purposes such as raising awareness, boosting ethical values, and preserving collective memory. Existing research has found their integration into educational programmes promising and positively impactful. We aim to understand how serious games discussing and portraying the victims of the conflict were researched and developed to stimulate interest in creating similar kinds of games.
Bury Me My Love is a game about distance. It is a game which places front and center relationships between humans, how they interact, and what drives people to take a leap into the unknown and risk their lives in the hope of reaching safety. The eponymous phrase, ‘Bury Me My Love,’ is an Arabic expression to take care roughly meant to signify, “don’t think about dying before I do.” The game is inspired by but does not tell, the real-life story of Dana, a Syrian woman having left her country in September 2015.
My Memory of Us is a narrative-driven puzzle-adventure video game developed by Juggler Games. The game is set in a fictional version of Poland during World War II and tells the story of a young boy and girl who must navigate through a city that has been divided into two parts: one for Jews and one for non-Jews. The game features hand-drawn art, puzzle-solving, and stealth elements, as well as a unique memory-manipulation mechanic that allows players to change the past to solve puzzles and progress through the story. The game received positive reviews for its story and art. Overall, My Memory of Us is a touching and emotional game that tells a story of friendship, love, and survival during a war.
Luc Bernard’s The Light in the Darkness is a narrative-driven, educational game about the Holocaust written by a survivor of the 1942 Vel’ d’Hiv’ Roundup. It tells the story of a working-class immigrant family of Polish Jews in Vichy France during World War II from before the occupation up until the Vel’ d’Hiv’ Roundup. The game conveys the painful, tragic, real-life stories of Jews in vivid detail and helps to keep them alive in the hearts and minds of generations to come by teaching their stories in ways that will help others learn and help humanity avoid repeating its worst mistakes. Directed by Bernard, The Light in the Darkness can not only educate future generations but also inspire game developers to create video games about one of the darkest periods in human history.
Path Outis an example of a successful game that employs its format to express the consequences of conflict effectively. The autobiographical adventure game recounts the story of a young Syrian man’s life before the war when the war started and how he had to flee his home country in the wake of the Syrian uprising and civil war. The game was created by Vienna-based production company, Causa Creations, in collaboration with its refugee protagonist, (now called) Jack Gutmann. The game’s playful yet honest tone has been very well received by players and critics alike and has even been adapted into a teaching aid by the UNHCR for lessons on refugees and migration.
To win another term as President in Turkey, incumbent Islamist populist Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been forced into externalizing and magnifying his populism, portraying not domestic enemies as ‘elites’ that defy the will of the people, but rather shadowy, non-identifiable international forces as the true elite that the Turkish people must struggle against. Thus, with his new nuclear reactor, “people’s car” and drone carrier ship, Erdogan portrays himself as the tough, macho leader the Turkish people require to stand against the international elite oppressing them at every turn.
Turkey holds its next presidential elections on May 14, 2023, and for the first time in two decades Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s long reign as Turkish President appears to be faltering, as opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu mounts a serious challenge to his rule. Turkey’s poor economic performance, largely the result of Erdogan’s unorthodox economic policies, has contributed to the decline in support for the Turkish leader. Equally, Erdogan’s apparent ill health, which has led him to appear via video link at events he would ordinarily attend in person, has led to growing concerns that he is ailing and no longer capable of running the country. To counter these issues, he and his supporters have sought to build the image of the President as a macho and virile populist who is the only one capable of protecting the Turkish people from their foreign ‘imperialist’ adversaries and leading the country toward a bright future. In contrast, Erdogan’s rival Kilicdaroglu, is portrayed as a physically weak and elderly man, often in domestic environments which can be associated with housework. This image is meant to communicate that Kilicdaroglu is not a worthy candidate as he cannot stand up to the shadowy international ‘elites’ who seek to undermine Turkey’s economy and diminish its power in the world. Part of this campaign involves the creation of memes, a trend encouraged by Erdogan’s online communications staff, who post images of the President on his official Twitter account appearing ‘tough’ and ‘in control’ and dressed in military clothing.
When the Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) first won power in 2002, he promised his party would govern as ‘Muslim democrats,’ return power to the Turkish people, negotiate an end to the brutal conflict with Kurdish militant groups, and to seek membership of the European Union. More than twenty years later, the AKP has established itself as the authoritarian dominant political force in the nation, marginalizing its rivals and removing them from the military, bureaucracy, and media.
Yet, despite Erdogan’s overwhelming power, polling consistently shows him trailing – albeit only by a small margin – CHP leader Kilicdaroglu in the battle to become Turkish president. Erdogan’s declining popularity among Turkish voters is chiefly the result of the failure of his economic policy, which saw him demand the Turkish Central Bank lower interest rates, a decision which, unsurprisingly, precipitated a period of high inflation. Inflation pressures have damaged Turkey’s economy by vastly depreciating the value of the Turkish lira, weakening Turkish purchasing power, and forcing Turkish businesses to spend more repaying foreign loans. The political result of Turkey’s growing economic problems is a tremendous loss of support for the AKP and Erdogan in Turkey’s major cities. For example, in June 2019 Erdogan’s candidate in the Istanbul mayoral election was soundly defeated by the opposition CHP candidate. No non-AKP candidate had won a mayoral election in Istanbul for a quarter of a century, this result has demonstrated the growing discontent with Erdogan’s Presidency and in particular with his handling of Turkey’s economy.
Erdogan and his supporters, however, have not given up on winning another term as President. In the year leading up to the 2023 Presidential election Erdogan unveiled a number of projects intended to diminish the growing public impression of him as a man losing control of the country’s economy. Rather, Erdogan, ever the canny populist, sought to remake his image into that of a powerful, tech savvy, modern leader in total control of his nation’s destiny, yet as someone who always has the interests of his poorest citizens in his mind.
For example, in 2022 Erdogan unveiled the first electric car produced in Turkey, the TOGG, which he promoted as the “people’s car.” TOGG is heavily promoted by Erdogan, who has used taxpayers’ money to fund its production and in turn used it as a symbol of the modern, technologically powerful Turkey he claims to be building. However, the car is likely to be prohibitively expensive, and it is difficult to imagine how the average Turkish citizen could afford to drive this “people’s car.” This has led some commentators to credibly accuse Erdogan of using the car to win another term in office, and to suggest that the project – so intertwined with Erdogan – will inevitably fail if Erdogan is not re-elected.
In an even more obvious attempt to portray himself as leader of a great military power and defender of Turkey, Erdogan in April 2023 unveiled what may be the world’s first armed drone carrier ship, the multi-purpose amphibious assault ship TCG Anadolu. The ship, now moored in front of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, was described by Erdogan as a demonstration of his government’s defiance of “imperialists” and “interest lobbies”, insofar as it was built locally and from mostly Turkish materials. Erdogan also claimed that the opposition CHP “couldn’t have” built the ship, implying they were beholden to foreign imperialists and other anti-Turkish interest groups. In contrast, Erdogan claimed he was interested only in defending the interests of the Turkish people.
Also in April 2023, Erdogan unveiled Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, built with Russian assistance. While Turkey’s relationship with several other NATO countries has been strained by Erdogan’s decision to maintain close relations with Russia, Erdogan appears to see cooperation with Putin as vital to his nation’s – and his government’s– interests. The nuclear power plant, the culmination of an agreement signed with Russia in 2010, provided Erdogan with another opportunity to portray himself as a strong leader providing for his people, and defending their interests. In this case, the nuclear power plant was described to the public as a way of giving the Turkish people greater autonomy through energy self-sufficiency. Moreover, Erdogan described that power plant as helping create a “Century of Türkiye” for the nation’s youth, who he claimed would benefit most from the construction of the reactor and two others planned. Intriguingly, Erdogan did not personally attend the unveiling of the reactor. Rather, the President was too ill to attend in person, and instead he and Putin appeared via video conference at the opening ceremony, perhaps undermining Erdogan’s attempt at using the power plant to burnish his credentials as a strong leader protecting Turkish interests from foreign adversaries.
Erdogan’s supporters have naturally sought to help their leader win another term in office. Cognizant that their leader is in danger of losing office, AKP supporters and operatives have been hard at work creating memes intended to portray Erdogan as a tough and powerful leader who hears the voice of the people and acts always in their best interests. When on May 2, 2023 Erdogan’s Twitter feed posted an image of him dressed in air force clothing and wearing aviator sunglasses, as if he were about to fly a fighter plane, his dutiful supporters began constructing memes based on the image. For example, one prominent Erdogan supporter on Twitter with more than 150,000 followers, tweeted out the image with the caption “Tayyip Erdogan is today’s Abdulhamit,” referring to the last Islamist Ottoman sultan (r. 1876-1909) who held real power over the failing Empire. These media strategies are used to show Erdogan as a leader who is representative of all Turkish people but at the same time, he is powerful enough to bring Turkey to its former glory on the global scene. In contrast, another tweet by the same user showed the same image of Erdogan juxtaposed against a photo of Kilicdaroglu sitting in what is presumably his own kitchen, holding up an onion to the camera. The caption reads “kidding aside, who would you vote for?”
Another popular meme contrasted the image of a virile and powerful Erdogan against a ‘weak’ looking Kilicdaroglu sitting at a table in a white singlet, eating a meal on his own. Discussing the image first tweeted by Erdogan’s Twitter feed, journalist Sevilay Yilman remarks upon the curious decision to portray Erdogan as a powerful military leader, when Erdogan himself sought to end the military tutelage that plagued Turkey throughout much of the 20th century. The photo, she argues, reminds voters that Erdogan may have ended secular-nationalist military tutelage, but that he subsequently inaugurated an even more insidious and all-encompassing form of military tutelage. Indeed, the photo seems to be telling voters that Erdogan has now supplanted the military leaders of the past, and that Turkey remains a deeply militarized nation rather than one ruled by civilian leaders.
Why, then, would Erdogan promote himself using images of this kind? The answer lies in his ever-present desire to promote himself as a populist savior of ‘the people.’ To win power, Erdogan – in an era in which the Turkish economy is crumbling, relies more and more on personalistic rule, and by portraying himself as the chief defender of the Turkish people from their ‘imperialist’ (i.e., American, European, Zionist, international banker) enemies, and from domestic collaborators with imperialists (i.e., the CHP and their allies Kurds and Gulenists).
If in the past Erdogan has sought to make Turkish people feel nostalgic for the glory of the Ottoman Empire, he now attempts to portray himself as leading the Turkish people toward a bright future in which they build and drive their own cars, become energy self-sufficient, and command the waves with their own home built armed drone carrier ships. In doing so, they can effectively thwart the destructive desires of unnamed ‘imperialists’ who hate Turkey and its people.
It is interesting to consider how, for decades, the literature on populism has predicted that populists, once they formed governments, would fail to win office on successive occasions because, first, populists could never deliver on their promise to ‘save’ the nation and give all power to ‘the people’ and, second, because once in government they would automatically lose their ability to portray themselves as fighting governing ‘elites.’ The AKP has proven the populism theorists wrong by ruling for twenty years as populists. They have done this largely through the construction of a personality cult around Erdogan himself, and his portrayal as a mighty protector of Turkey, who loves his nation and defends it from its ‘elite’ enemies. However, having vanquished domestic elites long ago, Erdogan and the AKP now portray shadowy foreign forces as an international ‘elite’ that despises Turkey and its people, and Erdogan as the only man capable of defending Turkey from imperialists. The CHP, once the ruling party of Turkey, is reduced in these circumstances to a local collaborator with these foreign ‘dark forces’ attempting to destabilize Turkey and prevent the flourishing of its people.
Erdogan’s self-portrayal as a macho military leader thus at once seeks to strike fear into Turkish citizens, by reminding them that they are in some way at ‘war’ with foreign imperialists, foreign NGOs, the ‘interest rate lobby,’ and internal collaborators with these groups, but also attempts to reassume voters that Erdogan is ready to meet these enemies in combat. In a similar way, as the economy falls apart around him, Erdogan seeks to reassure voters that he is fully in charge, and the nation’s economic woes are the product of foreign forces attempting to undermine Turkey. It is striking, then, that in order to win another term as President, Erdogan has been forced into externalizing and magnifying his populism, portraying not domestic enemies as ‘elites’ that defy the will of the people, but rather shadowy, non-identifiable international forces as the true elite that the Turkish people must struggle against. Thus, with his new nuclear reactor, “people’s car” and drone carrier ship, Erdogan portrays himself as the tough, macho leader the Turkish people require to stand against the international elite oppressing them at every turn.
The image of Erdogan dressed as a fighter pilot and the Turkish navy’s new flagship and technological tour de force, the TCG Anadolu, perhaps best represent Erdogan’s 2023 presidential campaign strategy of portraying the President as a mighty Sultan protecting his people from foreign threats. Evoking in his supporters’ nostalgia for the Ottoman Empire, but also feelings of hope for a similarly glorious future in which the Turkish people – and not foreign imperialists – are the authors of their own destiny, Erdogan uses his new ship as a symbol of his defiance of foreign ‘elites’ and ability to defend his own people. It is a strategy that may well be working. For example, one Erdogan supporter, Necati Tan, is quoting as saying “This warship is our national pride” and that with its unveiling “The president has brought back the glory of the Ottoman Empire.”
Will the carefully crafted image of himself as a tough, militaristic leader who, through technological innovation and a drive toward economic and energy self-sufficiency, is saving the Turkish people from the largely imagined foreign forces attempting to undermine Turkish power be convincing enough for the Turkish people to give him another mandate? How commonplace these sentiments are remains unknown, but the result of the May 14 elections will tell us much about Erdogan’s success of this strategy and his ability to distract voters from the collapsing economy.
Funding: This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [ARC] under Discovery Grant [DP220100829], Religious Populism, Emotions and Political Mobilisation.
(*) Ana-Maria Bliuc is a social and political psychologist who joined Psychology at the University of Dundee in 2019. She has a PhD in Psychology from the Australian National University, and prior to her current appointment she held academic positions in Australia at Western Sydney University (2016-2019), Monash University (2012-2016), and the University of Sydney (2006-2012). Her research examines how people’s social identities influence their behavior in a range of contexts including health, environmental (climate change), and socio-political (collective action and social change). More recently, she has focused on research on online communities looking at how collective identities and behaviors are shaped through online interactions. This research has been conducted in online political communities (mostly far right and white supremacist) and online health communities (recovery from addiction). Dr Bliuc’s received funding from the Australian Research Council, and she has published in a wide range of high-quality international journals such as Nature Climate Change, WIREs Climate Change, Computers in Human Behaviors, and Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.
Yilmaz, Ihsan & Morieson, Nicholas. (2023). “The Impact of Civilizational Populism on Foreign and Transnational Policies: The Turkish Case.” Populism & Politics (P&P). European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). May 5, 2023. https://doi.org/10.55271/pp0022
Abstract
The Justice and Development Party (AKP), an Islamist and populist political party led by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has increasingly incorporated what we term civilizational populism into its discourse. This article examines civilizational populism in AKP discourse, especially in the discourse of its leader Erdoğan, and finds it to be an important element of AKP discourse and ideology. The article also examines the impact of civilizational populism on Turkish domestic and foreign policy under AKP rule. The article finds that the AKP has increasingly, and especially since the 2013 Gezi Park protests and the mysterious coup attempt in 2016, construe opposition between the Turkish ‘self’ and the ‘other’ not in primarily nationalist terms, but in civilizational terms, and as a conflict between the Ottoman-Islamic ‘self’ and ‘Western’ other. Furthermore, the article finds that the AKP’s domestic and foreign policies reflect its civilizational populist division of Turkish society insofar as the party is attempting to raise a ‘pious generation’ that supports its Islamizing of Turkey society, and its neo-Ottoman imperialism in the Middle East. Finally, the paper discusses how the AKP’s civilizational populism has become a transnational phenomenon due to the party’s ability to produce successful televisions shows that reflect its anti-Western worldview and justify its neo-Ottoman imperialism in the Middle East.
Scholars observing the AKP transformation describe the party as increasingly defining Turkish identity not in a narrowly nationalist or ethnonationalist manner, but in religious and civilizational terms (Hazir, 2022; Uzer, 2020; Yilmaz & Morieson, 2022). Language describing a clash between civilizations in AKP discourse is not difficult to find. Turkey, according to Erdoğan, is “heir” to Islamic civilization, and has called upon the people of his nation to rejuvenate Islamic culture, claiming that this duty not merely of government but also general “society, the business world, NGOs, universities, people of arts and culture” (Erdoğan, 2017).
This paper argues that a civilizational turn in Turkish politics analogous to the civilizational turn in European and American populism identified by Brubaker (2017) Haynes (2017; 2020), Morieson (2023) and Yilmaz and Morieson (2022; 2023a) has taken place. Brubaker, for example, describes how right-wing populist parties in north-western Europe are increasingly constructing “the opposition between self and other not in narrowly national but in broader civilizational terms” (Brubaker, 2017: 1191) (i.e. between the Western and Judeo-Christian ‘self’ and the Islamic ‘other’). Haynes (2017; 2020) finds that a similar present in populist discourses in the United States, particularly within the Trump Administration and its supporters. According to Yilmaz and Morieson (2022) “In the 21st century, across a variety of democratic political contexts, ‘civilizationism,’ a political discourse that uses a largely religious classification of peoples in order to define national identity, has become a significant component of populist political rhetoric.” Yilmaz and Morieson (2022), drawing on Mudde’s definition of populism (2004), argue that “civilizational populism” is “a group of ideas that together considers that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people, and society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’ who collaborate with the dangerous others belonging to other civilizations that are hostile and present a clear and present danger to the civilization and way of life of the pure people. Is there, then, evidence of this ‘civilizational populism’ in Turkey, an in the form of the AKP led government? Moreover, what role does civilizationism play in AKP discourse? And is civilizationism evident in Turkish domestic and foreign policy?
Civilizational Populism in Turkish Domestic Politics
What is civilizationism? Civilizationism, or the belief that the world can be divided into several civilizations, has been present in political discourse across the world for decades. For example, Samuel P. Huntington’s (2000) famously argued that post-Cold War politics is defined by civilizational identities, and that the nations of the world can be divided into several clashing civilizations, often possessing at their core a single dominant state (i.e. the United States is the ‘core state’ of Western civilization). This interpretation of post-Cold War politics arguably influenced American foreign policy throughout the 2000s. Populists in the West also adopted ‘clash of civilizations’ narratives. Across a number of European nations and in the United States, civilizationism entered populist discourse as a reaction to the rise of Islamist terrorism in the 2000s, “large-scale immigration from the non-West to the West resulting in rapid demographic change, the deindustrialization of much of Europe and North America” (Morieson, 2023), and the dominance of “a new cultural politics” that “emerged around difference and identity” and thrived within the neoliberal environment despite its origins on the political left (Robertson and Nestore, 2022).
A civilizational turn in populist discourse was first observed by sociologist Rogers Brubaker. Brubaker (2017: 1193) identified a number of right-wing populist parties in North-Western Europe who, he wrote, “reconceptualized in civilizational terms …the boundaries of belonging and the semantics of self and other.” The ultimate causes behind the civilizational turn, according to Brubaker (2017), is the growing presence of Islam in Europe and the perception among many Europeans that Muslims pose a threat to Europe’s Western and Christian identity. Other scholars have identified a similar civilizational turn occurring in populist political discourse in many other Western nations, including in the United States, Hungary, and Italy (Haynes, 2020), Germany, France, Greece (Kaya and Tecmen, 2019) and Poland (Morieson, 2023). Other scholars now find that civilizationism has entered populist discourse beyond the West (Yilmaz & Morieson, 2022; Shukri, 2023; Gamage, 2023; Saleem, 2023) including in many Muslim majority democracies and hybrid regimes (Hadiz, 2018; Mietzner, 2020; Yilmaz et al., 2022).
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s supporters listening to his speech in Balıkesir, Turkey on April 6,l 2017. Photo: Thomas Koch.
In the Muslim majority world, Turkey is home to an influential and powerful populist party, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which incorporates civilizationism into their discourse in several important ways. In this section we first discuss the role of civilizationism in the AKP’s ideology – Erdoğanism – and its populist division of society into three groups: ‘the pure people,’ ‘corrupt elites’ and ‘dangerous others,’ and attempt at constructing a new desired citizen and ‘pious generation. Following this we describe the role of civilizationism in the AKP’s domestic politics, and the manner in which the AKP frame its repression and authoritarianism as a defense not merely of the Turkish nation, but of Islamic civilization and the ummah. Finally, we discuss the role of civilizationism in the AKP’s foreign policy discourse and discuss how the party justifies its military intervention in Syria and its attempts to increase cooperation between majority Sunni Muslim nations as part of its responsibility as the core state of Islamic civilization and heir to the Ottoman Empire.
Civilizationism is an important element of Erdoğanism, manifested in its glorification of the Ottoman Empire, and its claim that Turkey is “the legitimate inheritor of Ottoman legacies and power, the leader of the Islamic world, and the protector of Palestine (Hintz, 2018: 37, 113). Erdoğanism combines Turkish nationalism with Islamism and neo-Ottomanism, and the result is an eclectic ideology that asserts that majority Muslim nations ought to come together for mutual protection against an aggressive West and as a civilizational bloc led by Turkey. The belief that a ‘clash of civilizations’ is occurring between the West and Islam is a critical component in the AKP’s construction of ingroups and outgroups in Turkey. The AKP portrays itself as defending pious Turkish Sunni Muslims (or the ummah) from their enemies: morally corrupt secular ‘elites’ and dangerous non-Muslim ‘others’ alleged to be working with Western powers to dismember Turkey and destroy Islam.
The AKP has attempted to create the distinction between ‘the people’ (ummah) and their enemies (non-ummah), and to portray themselves are protectors of ummah, in a number of ways. The mysterious coup attempt in 2016 provided the AKP with an opportunity to ‘prove’ that its opponents were dangerous enemies of the Turkish people and Islam. The Gülenists were subsequently branded terrorists by the government, which claimed that they were working with Western powers to destroy Turkish democracy (Taş, 2018). Shortly after the coup attempt Erdoğan remarked “This coup attempt has actors inside Turkey, but its script was written outside …unfortunately the West is supporting terrorism and stands by coup plotters” (Reuters, 2016). Erdoğan furthermore claimed that the coup was a “gift from God” that allowed him to expose all of Islam’s and the Turkish people’s enemies within the country (Şik, 2016; Ak, 2022). Thus, the AKP portrayed the coup as part of a wider conflict between Islam and its enemies: Gülenists and other “perverters of Islam” within Turkey and the West. Furthermore, Erdoğan portrayed himself as acting in the name of God to protect the Turkish people from their enemies.
The AKP’s response to the coup included attempts to re-educate the Turkish people and to raise an Islamist ‘pious generation.’ This ‘pious generation’ is taught the key ideas of Erdoğanism, including the glorification of the Ottoman Empire and conservative Islamic values in Islamized schools and state-controlled mosques. Erdoğan and his party also encourages Turkish Sunni Muslims to perceive “non-Turkish Muslims, such as Kurds and Lazes, …and non-Muslims, such as Christians and Jews” as enemies (Yilmaz, 2021: 58). These minority groups are now part of the AKP’s ‘unwanted citizens,’ a group consisting of people involved in the Gülen movement, journalists critical of the government, human rights activists, and opposition political parties critical of AKP regime (Yilmaz, 2021; 2018). Furthermore, these groups and individuals are increasingly portrayed by the AKP as “traitors” who do the bidding of foreign “dark forces” trying to “destabilize Turkey” (Yilmaz, 2018). This categorization is intended to help Erdoğan both a sense of a common community in the ummah, but also fear and hatred of non-ummah, including Kemalist ‘elites’ who wish to return to the secular nationalism of the 20th century, and non-Sunni Muslim minorities, Gülenists, and non-ethnic Turks.
Another important element in the AKP’s attempt to raise a ‘pious generation’ and revive Islamic civilization has been its use of the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). Under AKP rule, Diyanet has been transformed from a body created by Kemalists to encourage Turkish Muslims to accept, through a programme of social engineering involving control of the texts of Friday sermons, fatwas, and education, the new Turkish Republic and its secular constitution, to an instrument of the AKP itself. The AKP, throughout its period in power, increasingly staffed Diyanet with AKP supporters (Yilmaz, 2018; Aşlamacı & Kaymakcan, 2017). As this occurred, Diyanet used its authority to support the AKP’s political agenda and feed the growing cult around Erdoğan, who the body portrayed in sermons as a pious Muslim who was liberating Turkish Muslims from secular authoritarianism.
The AKP installed two successive pro-AKP and staunchly Islamist Diyanet leaders, Ali Erbaş and Mehmet Görmez, who sought to perpetuate Erdoğanism and help the AKP construct a ‘pious generation.’ Görmez sought to perpetuate Erdoğanism and demonize the West by declaring that Muslims should not enjoin ‘Western’ traditions such as celebrating the New Year. According to Görmez, “No one can say it is right for the pagan culture and consumption culture, converging with hedonism, to create a corrupt culture over our children and teens, especially if all those are joined by things like Christmas, pine tree, gambling, drinking, lottery and such forth, that will move a human away from himself and his God to create a tradition that will corrupt the society” (Korkmaz, 2015).
In making such statements Diyanet officials are not merely attempting to prevent Muslims from partaking in Christian rituals but attempting to frame both Christian religious rituals and entirely secular activities such as celebrating New Year’s Eve and playing the lottery as corrupt and inherently Western, and therefore as a foreign threat to the Turkish people. Erbaş, Görmez’s successor, in his inaugural address called for Turkish people to “work harder than ever to deliver the eternal and everlasting messages of the God and his Prophet to the humanity which flounder into the clamp of secularism and valuelessness” (Parlamento Haber, 2017). Later, during a sermon upon the converting of the Hagia Sophia museum into a mosque, Erbaş held a sword and spoke from the minbar in imitation of an Ottoman Sultan, and in what was likely a calculated affront to Christians and Turkish secularists (Hurriyet, 2020).
Friday sermons in Diyanet mosques are also used to perpetuate Erdoğanism, especially insofar as the sermons portray Turkish Sunni Muslims as part of a global ummah forever threatened by non-Muslim enemies, and by Gülenists and others false Muslims who pervert the religion, and whose corrupt activities are ultimately the product of the West attempting to create conflict among Muslims. These efforts have become increasingly pronounced since the 2016 attempted coup (Yilmaz et al., 2021). These sermons, which name no specific enemy, imply that the West is attacking the Muslim ummah, and attempting to destroy Turkey “the flagbearer of the Muslim Ummah” (Yilmaz et al., 2021). Even when Muslims attack other Muslims Diyanet – reflecting AKP ideology – frames the conflict as the result of Western attempts to divide the ummah. For example, a Friday sermon delivered on October 4, 2014, claimed that “By looking at the conditions the believers live in, it should be known how the power centers [i.e. the West] gather strength through the blood of the believers and how the brotherhood of faith that makes believers closer to each other is attacked and damaged and turned into fighting, violence and hostility” (Yilmaz et al., 2021). Each of these sermons re-enforce Erdoğanism insofar as they portray the world as riven by clashing civilizations in which the Muslim ummah is forever threatened by the West, and in which Turkey –the core state within Islamic civilization and heir to the Ottoman Empire – is the particular target of Western attacks. Equally, the sermons portray conflicts between Muslims as the product of Western attempts to weaken Islam, rather than the result of political, economic, and cultural differences between Muslims themselves.
Erdoğan has also attempted to portray the damage caused his party’s unorthodox economic strategies, which have brought the nation close to economic ruin in the 2020s, as part of an economic war waged on Turkey by the West, which he claimed was attempting to bring “Turkey and its people to their knees” (Voice of America, 2018). Contrasting the pious Muslim values supposedly shared by his followers with Western consumerism, and in an effort to rally support for his economic policies following the dramatic decline of the value of the Turkish lira, Erdoğan told the Turkish people to remember that “if they [the West] have their dollars, we have our people, our God” (CNBC, 2018).
Civilizational Populism in Turkish Foreign Policy Discourse
Ethnic Uighurs are seen during a protest against China near the Chinese Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on December 15, 2019. Photo: Shutterstock.
The civilizational turn in Turkish populism is present in AKP rhetoric on Turkey’s foreign relations, where it has two purposes. First, the AKP often presents foreign conflicts to their domestic audience as part of a ‘clash of civilizations’ between Islam and the West, in which Turkey is targeted by Western powers because it is the leading nation within Islamic civilization. However, the AKP is also driven by a mixture of Erdoğanism and national self-interest, and its foreign policy is the product of the intertwining of Turkey’s new identity as their heir to the Ottoman Empire are protector of the ummah, and the government’s desire to increase Turkey’s power.
As a result of the Islamist belief in the decline of American power “the AKP had desired to pursue a more ‘independent’ foreign policy as a regional hegemonic power and demoted its foreign policy with the West to transactionalism” (Bashirov and Yilmaz, 2020). Thus, since its rule was threatened by the Gezi Park protests in 2013 and the 2016 failed coup, the AKP has attempted to maintain transactional relationships with Western countries while also using a discourse in which the West is portrayed “as the ‘other’ of Turkey” (Kaliber & Kaliber, 2019).
By “invoking the glories of the Ottoman period, the AKP has engaged in a (neo)imperial project” (Taş, 2022a) which has caused Turkey to become deeply invested in Middle East geopolitics. Turkey’s involvement in the Middle East is “unmatched” in the Republic’s history, and “along with the country’s drift away from its Western orientation in the 2010s” demonstrates how the AKP’s ideological divergence from Kemalism has altered both its domestic and international politics” (Taş, 2022a). Following the Arab Spring, and in an attempt to restore the glory of the Ottoman Empire and reinvigorate “Pax Ottomana,” Turkey “pursued a maximalist, regional-hegemony-seeking” foreign policy in the Middle East, calculating “that the authoritarian regimes in the region would sooner or later crumble through the Arab uprisings, paving the way for the rise of Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood) offshoots across the region (Taş, 2022b). Yet when the Muslim Brotherhood and its associated political parties were banned or marginalized following the failure of democracy across the much of the Middle East and the re-establishing of secular authoritarianism, the AKP continued its neo-Ottoman foreign policy with an even “more hawkish tone after the siege of Kobani in 2015 and, more pronouncedly, the 2016 abortive coup” (Taş, 2022b).
Erdoğan’s ‘clash of civilizations’ rhetoric is echoed in Diyanet’s Friday sermons. For example, a sermon delivered on December 9, 2016, argued “Because of the ambitions and power struggles of the hegemonic powers in our region, the Islamic lands are falling into ruins” (Yilmaz et al., 2021). A Friday sermon delivered in January 2018 asked listeners the rhetorical question: “Isn’t the greed of global powers the cause of the bloodshed and suffering in our geography?” (Yilmaz et al., 2021). Another argued that “What happened in the Islamic geography today clearly shows the point reached by those who try to destroy our women, children, lives, values, history, culture, and civilization. In Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, the unity of the ummah, the honor of the nation, the respect of the country has been trampled” (Yilmaz et al., 2021). Although the foreign nations attacking Muslims are not mentioned, these remarks suggest that Western powers are conspiring to divide Muslims and destroy their civilization, and in this way they echo anti-Western remarks by Erdoğan and other AKP officials. Diyanet sermons have also encouraged the faithful to believe that Turkey is the defender of all people who suffer oppression. On October 11, 2019, for example, a sermon told argued that “Just as in the past, today, too, our nation will continue to be the remedy for the remediless people, be there for those people who has nobody by their side and be the hope and safe haven for the victimized and the refugees” (Yilmaz et al., 2021).
Civilizationism within the AKP’s Transnational Populism
Turkish TV series Ertugrul Ghazi (Dirilis: Ertugrul in Turkish and Resurrection: Ertugrul in English) is an international hit, but it has found unprecedented acclaim and fandom in Pakistan, where it is broadcast in the country’s national language (Urdu) by the state-owned Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV).
Yilmaz and Demir (2022) suggest the AKP is attempting to win support from and perpetuate Erdoğanism within the 3.1 million strong Turkish diaspora and the wider and far larger European Muslim population. Like early secular nationalist Turkish governments, they argue, the AKP “have also tried to use the Turkish diaspora to foster a positive image of Turkey while trying to prevent undesired ideologies spreading among them and thus influencing Turkey’s domestic politics” (Yilmaz and Demir, 2022). However, rather than promoting secular nationalism within the diaspora, the AKP has “reengineered the position of ideologically proximate conservative-nationalist diaspora Turks, as loyal allies that would help Turkey extend its legitimacy and soft power beyond its borders and to produce a new state-centric identity” (Arkilic, 2021: 591). Furthermore, the party “has tried to mobilize its loyal diaspora against the dissidents abroad. It has also invested heavily in its diaspora policies and has created new institutions to reach out to the transnational diasporic spaces occupied by Turkish-speaking communities, especially in the West, and to proactively engage with the Turkish diaspora” (Yilmaz and Demir, 2022).
Yilmaz and Demir (2022) contend that “This policy shift has also been reflected in the state’s diaspora definition,” in which “YTB (Yurtdışı Türkler ve Akraba Topluluklar Başkanlığı – Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities), in its Strategic Plan 2019–2023, included members of non-Turkish Muslim communities who are not from Turkey in its diaspora definition as ‘related communities’” (YTB, 2019: 7). Yenigun and Adar (2019) argue that the AKP is using a variety of institutional tools, including Diyanet and Turkish media, to ‘validate Turkey [as the] leader of the Muslim world and patron of the Muslim masses worldwide.’ These include “formal institutions such as the Diyanet’s overseas organization (DITIB, Diyanet İşleri Türk İslam Birliği – The Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs) and its mosques,” but also Turkish embassies and consulates and other “state institutions that work with Turks abroad and related communities (YTB, Yunus Emre Enstitusu, Maarif, and others).”
The AKP also operates or funds “country-specific organizations operating in Western Europe” including the Union of European Turkish Democrats (UETD) and the Turken Foundation which “was established jointly by the pro-AKP TÜRGEV (Türkiye Gençlik ve Eğitime Hizmet Vakfı – the Turkey Youth and Education Service Foundation),” and also the “Ensar Foundation in the US and the UK operate for the purpose of transnational populism” (Yimaz and Demir, 2022). Diyanet plays a vital role transnationally in reproducing the AKP’s ideology. An analysis of Diyanet Friday sermons delivered under AKP rule concludes that “the interests of Turkey are weaved in by using identity-creating elements” (Carol and Hofheinz, 2022: 18), suggesting that promoting Sunni Muslim unity under Turkish leadership is a key element of Diyanet’s messaging. Indeed, in order to spread the message of Sunni Muslim unity under Turkish leadership, “Diyanet has organized conferences and visits and sent out delegations to disseminate the Islamist civilizational populist narrative of the AKP regime” including “the Diyanet organized the First World Muslim Minorities’ Summit in Istanbul” in April 2018 (Yilmaz and Demir, 2022).
Finally, the AKP has also sought to perpetuate Erdoğanism, and especially the notions that Islam is under attack by the West, and that globally Muslims must unite under Turkish leadership on the grounds that Turkey is the heir to the glorious Ottoman Empire, to a worldwide audience of Muslims via television. (Yilmaz and Demir, 2022). Pan-Islamism and the glorification of the Ottoman Empire have become important elements in popular Turkish television programs during AKP rule over Turkey (Özçetin, 2019a: 247). According to Çetin (2014: 2477), the AKP politicizes television dramas by using as a means of: “(1) dealing with contemporary political issues, (2) settling accounts with the past, (3) neo-Ottomanism, and (4) piety and the Islamic worldview.” Turkish dramas, then, “disseminate the AKP’s narrative of historical and contemporary in-groups and out-groups” both within Turkey across the Muslim world (Yilmaz and Demir, 2022; Çevik, 2020: 177). For example, Dirilis (Resurrection) and Payitaht (Abdulhamid, the Last Sultan are historical dramas that attempt, at times, to find parallels between the Ottoman past, in which the Ottoman Empire came into conflict with the Christian West and other non-Muslim civilizations, and Turkey’s present (Yilmaz and Demir, 2022).
Within these dramas, Muslims are portrayed as threatened by “Crusaders, the Templars, the Mongols, Byzantium and their contemporary successors such as the EU, the US and the Jewish lobby” (Yilmaz and Demir, 2022). At the same time, the dramas frequently present opponents of Islamism and the AKP within Turkey as “collaborators and pawns of these external enemies” (Yilmaz and Demir, 2022; Özçetin, 2019b: 947). Throughout these series Muslims who act as guardians of Islamic lands from Christians and Jews – and against false Muslims who secretly collaborate with Muslims’ enemies – are portrayed as heroes (Yilmaz and Demir, 2022). Within these television dramas, as in Diyanet sermons to a domestic and transnational audience, the AKP – to borrow a phrase from Brubaker (2017) – construes opposition between ‘self’ and the ‘other’ not in primarily nationalist terms, but in civilizational terms, and as a conflict between the Ottoman-Islamic ‘self’ and ‘Western’ other.
Conclusion
The AKP’s civilizational populism impacts Turkish domestic and foreign policy in a variety of ways. Domestically, the AKP have attempted to perpetuate their rule by raising a ‘pious generation’ who glorify the Ottoman Empire and wish to rejuvenate Islamic civilization within Turkey. As part of this project, the AKP has not only altered the school and university curriculum to reflect their ideology, but has greatly enlarged the budget, scope, and direction of Diyanet to encourage Turkish Sunni Muslims to believe that the AKP is protecting them from internal and external enemies who hate Islam and wish to destroy Turkey. The AKP and Diyanet portray Western culture and Christianity as corrupting influences on Turkish Muslims and admonish believers to cease celebrating so-called Christian holidays including New Year’s Eve. Equally, the AKP has sought to encourage Turkish Muslims to think of themselves as part of a great Islamic civilization through their opening of a museum glorifying Islamic civilizations and through his call for everyone in Turkey to “make efforts to build and revive the civilization while thinking over the culture” (Erdoğan, 2017).
The AKP’s civilizational populist turn has also impacted Turkish foreign policy. Erdoğanism, as an ideology, defines Turkey’s role in the world as leader of the ummah and successor to the Ottoman Empire, and possessing many of its responsibilities to the ummah. As a result, AKP ruled Turkey plays an especially active role in Middle East geopolitics. After the Arab Spring, the Turkey began to attempt to achieve the AKP’s goal of “reinvigorating Pax Ottomana” and “pursued a maximalist, regional-hegemony-seeking” foreign policy, believing that American power was growing weak and that the secular authoritarian regimes in the Middle East were at an end. However, Turkish foreign policy is also constrained by the region’s other powers, and by the world’s sole superpower, the United States. Thus, rather than acting to consistently protect the ummah from non-Muslim aggression, Turkey has instead sought alliances with European nations such as Hungary, remained in NATO despite Turkey being the only non-Western, non-Christian member of the alliance, and re-established full diplomatic relations with Israel. Equally, Erdoğan has remained quiet on China’s abuse of Muslims in Xinjiang, despite evidence of Muslim Uighurs being interned by the hundreds of thousands in concentration camps where they face secular ‘re-education.’ This suggests that the AKP and Erdoğan remain pragmatic actors and will not act rashly to protect Muslims’ interests when the result might be contrary to Turkey’s national interest. Finally, the AKP is spreading its ideology within both the Turkish diaspora and the wider European Muslim population via a variety of organizations and through popular television series. In this way, the party attempts to move its ideology beyond Turkey’s borders, in an effort to convince diaspora Turks and Sunni Muslims in Europe to perceive themselves to be part of an aggrieved ummah facing constant attacks from the West, and Erdoğan and the AKP as the leaders of the ummah.
The AKP has increasingly, and especially in reaction to the Gezi Park protests and 2016 attempted coup, construed opposition between ‘self’ and the ‘other’ not in primarily nationalist terms, but in civilizational terms and as a conflict between the Ottoman-Islamic ‘self’ and ‘Western’ other. Furthermore, the party has achieved repeated electoral success by portraying its opponents as anti-Muslim and therefore illegitimate and morally bad and portraying the party’s mistakes as the result of foreign anti-Muslim forces intervening in Turkish politics and attempting to destroy Turkey’s economy and society. Finally, despite the AKP’s success in framing Turkey’s economic and social problems as the result of Western attempts to oppress Muslims globally and prevent Turkey from flourishing, Turkey’s increasingly poor economic performance has caused the party to lose support. The May 14, 2023, general elections will therefore test the AKP’s ability to perpetuate its rule via an anti-Western populist narrative.
Funding: This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [ARC] under Discovery Grant [DP220100829], Religious Populism, Emotions and Political Mobilisation.
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“Saving multilateralism and democracy under global power transition and rising authoritarian populism,” by Věra JOUROVA (The Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency –Previously the European Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality).
Panel -I-
Multilateralism: The Past and the Future
Moderator:Aline BURNI(Policy Analyst on International Relations, Foundation for European Progressive Studies, Brussels).
“How international law enables great power domination and great power competition and what can be done about it,” by Mattias KUMM(S.J.D. Harvard, Research Professor for Global Constitutionalism, WZB Berlin Social Science Center).
“Mini-literalism in the Indo-Pacific as an alternative to multilateralism and bilateralism? The role of public support and populism,” by Werner PASCHA (Prof. of Economics, Duisburg-Essen University, Institute of East Asian Studies-IN-EAST).
“On the new paradigms of cooperation in the rising world of multiplexity in countering populism,” by Richard CLARK(Associated Professor, Department of Government, Cornell University).
Panel -II-
Power Shift, Multiplex World, and Populism
Moderator: Emilia ZANKINA(Interim Vice Provost for Global Engagement, Dean, Temple University Rome).
“Cooperation regimes and hegemonic struggle: Opportunities and challenges for developing countries,” by Sara CARIA(Research Professor at The Center for Public Economics and Strategic Sectors at the Institute of Higher National Studies).
“The Chinese perspective of multilateralism, power transition, and the so-called new world order,” by ZHANG Xin (Associated Professor, School of Politics and International Relations, Deputy Director/Center for Russian Studies, East China Normal University, Shanghai).
“In pursuit of Xi Jinping’s dream world order: The case of the BRI,” by Ibrahim OZTURK(Professor of Economics, The ECPS Senior Researcher and the University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of East Asian Studies).
Panel -III-
The ‘New Globalization’ and Countering Populism
Moderator:Helmut WAGNER(Professor of Economics, Fern Universität in Hagen).
“Economic populism and sovereigntism: The rise of European radical right-wing populist parties,” by Oscar MAZZOLENI (Political Sciences, University of Lausanne).
“Populism or embedded plutocracy? The emerging world orders,” by Michael LEE (CUNY-Hunter College, New York).
“Chinese ‘hub and spoke’ – multilateralism and the notion of populist economic policy,” by Marcus TAUBE(Professor of East Asian Economics/China, Mercator School of Management, Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST), Duisburg-Essen University).
Closing Keynote Speech
“Multipolar globalization, learning curves and populism,” by Jan Nederveen PIETERSE(Mellichamp Chair and Distinguished Professor of Global Studies & Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA).
Closing Remarks
By Naim KAPUCU(Pegasus Professor, School of Public Administration & School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs, University of Central Florida).
The saying often goes that history repeats itself. However, this is not entirely accurate. It’s people who repeat history. Not necessarily because they fail to learn from it, but rather because they refuse to learn history’s important lessons. And if too many people fail to learn from past mistakes, it will only have negative consequences for society. That is why we, as an intelligent species, need to be able to spread awareness about conduits of racism and hatred across Europe. But how can this be achieved? Through learning more about the theory and practice of preventive justice, there are several things a country can do.
ByMaureen van der Kris*
Only a few years ago, during the refugee crisis of the 2010s, it looked a lot like Muslims were the Jews of the twenty-first century. Islamophobia reached new highs due to terrorist attacks from ISIS, which also sparked hate crimes against innocent Muslims fleeing from ISIS (vander Taelen, 2016), as well as inciting hostility and tensions towards Muslims living around the world. Then COVID hit, and hate crimes seemed to be redirected at the East Asian community (Aziz, 2020). In 2023, the new generation is witnessing what their predecessors before them had lived through: blatant antisemitism is retaking the spotlight (Simsek, 2022).
The saying often goes that history repeats itself. However, this is not entirely accurate. It’s people who repeat history. Not necessarily because they fail to learn from it, but rather because they refuse to learn history’s important lessons. And if too many people fail to learn from past mistakes, it will only have negative consequences for society. That is why we, as an intelligent species, need to be able to spread awareness about conduits of racism and hatred across Europe. But how can this be achieved?
Through learning more about the theory and practice of preventive justice, there are several things a country can do. Measures of preventive justice are imperative to make sure populism cannot gain momentum and take over the political and legal structures across Europe as it did in the 1940s. This essay will explain how preventive justice can help us establish a risk-averse society and what these terms mean.
What is preventive justice and how does it work?
In most cases, preventive justice is simply a concept. It entails calculating the risks of harm, before any harm has occurred and taking measures against the would-be perpetrators (Ashworth et al., 2013). It establishes a system that can make people accountable, and thus prevent potential corruption and any other crime that can violate democratic values. Elements of preventive justice exist within criminal law. Many modern criminal law systems are centered around judging and punishing criminal acts and incorporate some preventive measures. For instance, for certain crimes, a crime attempt would be as illegal as committing a crime. These crimes vary across Europe, but the consensus is if the nature of the crime is severe, even an attempt will be punished more severely compared with other criminal attempts (Kelk & de Jong, 2019).
The criminalization of an attempt to commit certain crimes can be considered a function of preventive justice. This simplified version explains how preventive justice works in the criminal law system, but how does it help a democratic society? It is argued here that it can help in many ways -but these need to incorporate the political and criminal justice system to produce practical solutions. One of these problems is the supposedly thin line between freedom of speech and discrimination.
Pulling the reins on democracy
The line between freedom of speech and discrimination is not very thin at all. For far-right populists, the line doesn’t exist at all, and they promote that their discriminatory ideas can only be seen as freedom of speech. This freedom of speech, they argue, has to be protected at all costs (Pennacchia, 2020). The hypocrisy of that statement will not be discussed here, but it is relevant to note the way it has led to cases of domestic terrorism. In France, for example, a Kurdish community center in Paris was attacked by an active shooter just before Christmas. It was reported that this incident was resulted in three civilian deaths, and the attacker had formerly been charged with a hate crime in the previous year (NPR, 2022). It seems that he felt safe enough to repeat his actions in the current political climate of France and is an example of the danger and progression of hate speech cloaked as ‘free’ speech.
These incidents could have largely been prevented by limiting what constitutes as freedom of speech. One may claim that this is the opposite of preserving a democratic society. Still, history has proven time and time again that having no limits on certain democratic principles will result in populists using those exact principles for their benefit and to undemocratic ends, as seen in the case of the rise of Hitler. Due to the lack of limitations on unacceptable speech, Hitler had the freedom to use his hatred for Jewish people as a campaign point (Wilde, 2020).
Although hate speech and hate crimes were regulated more strictly after WWII (i.e. by Germany banning the Nazi flag), there are still discussions about the line between freedom of speech and discrimination. Technically, the criminalization of specific insults is a good start. However, the burden of defining what counts as a discriminatory remark, an insult, falls on the judges. Judges could be very strict when handling lawsuits, as they have been during the Wilders trial in the Netherlands. The Wilders trial concerned a statement made by Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders during a rally in the 2010s. Wilders asked his supporters if they wanted “more or fewer Moroccans” in the country, to which they responded by cheering “less, less, less!” The Moroccan community, in response, sued Wilders for his discriminatory remarks and racist mobilization. The Dutch supreme court responded by charging Wilders with spreading hate. However, the court also stipulated that hate speech had no associated intent to act (Wilders v. Plaintiffs, 2009).
The result of the hearing disillusioned some people in the Moroccan community, as Wilders’ specific statements were not considered when judging the case. Some contended that Wilders’ party should have been abolished after that statement. Ethically, one can request a more severe punishment after such incidences of racism. Legally speaking, it is much more complicated.
Preventive justice in the courtroom
In most Western countries, judges can only punish a suspect according to the material principle of legality. In many EU countries, this has been defined as the Nulla poena sine lege principle, or “no punishment without law.” It means a political party cannot be declared illegal and abolished for maintaining an ideology harmful to a democratic society without legal codes. It also means that a judge cannot declare that a statement constitutes an illegal insult when the verdict is riddled with violations of aspects of the legality principle. One of these aspects is prohibiting an overly extensive interpretation by a judge. For example, if the suspect has discursively targeted a person of color, this can be interpreted as an illegal insult under ideal circumstances, but the suspect cannot be charged with a hate crime. This would be different if the suspect used a racial slur to insult the person of color (de Hullu, 2021).
Laws that prevent hate crimes and the strict interpretation of these laws in accordance with the legality principle can work very well. But there are also cases in which laws have an adverse effect stemming from discriminatory policies, which should be illegal. Take the Dutch surcharge, for example. This so-called libertarian policy is aimed to combat fraud committed by people not legally entitled to childcare allowance. However, the policy culminated in a nationwide scandal. It used a self-learning algorithm to identify fraud and, in the meantime, asked inspectors to have much stricter and limiting judgement on childcare allowance specifically for individuals with a foreign last name. Following the outrage, the Dutch government resigned in 2021. However, from 2018 onwards, people have been suffering due to the racist nature of the Dutch surcharge policy (NOS, 2020).
The law does not exist in a vacuum. Democratic practices and a working legal system depend on society, political accountability, and social support. Here I want to add to my discussion the kinds of social context that can help create a safe space for all and a flourishing civil society.
Living in a ‘risk-averse society’
According to German sociologist Ulrich Beck, a risk-averse society can be described as a society in which legal systems actively try to prevent the risk of certain crimes being committed (Beck, 2003). So, a risk-averse society supports the ideals of preventive justice. Preventive justice can establish the socio-legal infrastructure of a risk-averse society and vice-versa. Some speculate that preventive justice can establish foundations for a risk-averse society. Yet a risk-averse society might undermine democratic values (Barone, 2022).
This would only be true if preventive justice is rooted in unrealistic fears and undemocratic practices. Like the two faces of the Janus or a fire that can both cook or burn, the concepts and ideals of preventive justice or risk-averse society can yield either positive or negative results depending on if they are in the hands of well-intentioned or selfish people. The dilemma of what counts as liberty, if it has limits, if so, how to develop policies that protect freedoms without violating principles of democracy remains a big question, which motivates us to do more theoretical and practical discussions about how to establish a safe space to realize the ideals of preventive justice and a risk-averse society.
Conclusion
In an age where war crimes and injustice make us question the degree to which our civilization has actually evolved, the question is not whether we want to be risk-averse; we do not have a choice. This is strikingly clear when we acknowledge that nuclear power has become a staple of everyday discussions in newspapers, making us believe the doomsday is coming. The choice that falls upon us all is between whether we want to live in a society where the freedom to say whatever we want risks supporting the rise of far-right populism and encouraging hate and even violence. To keep our democracies afloat, we must invest in forming risk-averse spaces and use preventive justice to our advantage. Only then can we fight populism effectively on a more significant level and prevent the atrocities from history being repeated.
(*) Maureen van der Kris is studying Law at Utrecht University (UU) in the Netherlands. She is in the second year of her bachelor’s degree and at the very start of her legal career. Before joining ECPS, she wrote articles for the members’ magazine of Ad Informandum, the student association for criminal law at UU. Her main interests are women’s rights and preventive justice, while her favorite university subjects are international- and criminal law. As she has been personally confronted with various criminal offences during her childhood. Her goal is to become a criminal judge. She aspires to work at the Dutch supreme court or the ICC one day.
Tusor, Anita.(2023). “COMTOG Report on ‘The Light in the Darkness’.” Never Again Initiative. European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS). April 12, 2023. https://doi.org/10.55271/rp0038
Video games can be used to counter extremist ideologies by highlighting the dangers of hate speech and promoting tolerance and understanding. This can be done through educational games and by incorporating messages of inclusivity and diversity into the gameplay and storyline.Holocaust education through video games make people to learn about the events of the Holocaust more interactively and engagingly. It allows players to experience the stories of individuals who lived through the Holocaust, better understand its impact on the world and make connections to present-day political events, and understand what democracy is and why it is crucial to protect it.
By Anita Tusor*
Introduction
Luc Bernard’s The Light in the Darkness is a narrative-driven, educational game about the Holocaust written by a survivor of the 1942 Vel’ d’Hiv’ Roundup. It tells the story of a working-class immigrant family of Polish Jews in Vichy France during World War II from before the occupation up until the Vel’ d’Hiv’ Roundup. The game conveys the painful, tragic, real-life stories of Jews in vivid detail and helps to keep them alive in the hearts and minds of generations to come by teaching their stories in ways that will help others learn and help humanity avoid repeating its worst mistakes. Directed by Bernard, The Light in the Darkness can not only educate future generations but also inspire game developers to create video games about one of the darkest periods in human history.
The player experiences every step the government took to oppress Jews in France from different characters’ points of view and sees how NPCs (side characters) react differently towards the player before and during the occupation. The gameplay is a mix of adventure games without any choices affecting the story. This artistic decision is to simulate the lack of control that Jews experienced during the Holocaust and to remain faithful to the truth.
Although this free-to-play game is still in early access, and an educational mode will be only available at full launch for use in classrooms, if someone would prefer to watch the story instead of playing it, Luc Bernard has provided a full playthrough on his Youtube channel.
With the recent rise in antisemitism and people forgetting that the Holocaust was not that long ago, the game highlights the importance of collective historical memory of mass tragedies and shows what hate can lead to. Since our Never Again Initiative’s goal is to establish a dialogue between past and present by investing in tools that raise our collective historical consciousness, the present report discusses video games as well as other tools like the Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre’s projects and Dr Alexis Lerner’s Jews by the Number course and her work with Liberation75.
This report aims to demonstrate how video games such as The Light in the Darkness can effectively raise awareness of historical events and promote the preservation of historical memory. The semi-structured interviews conducted for this purpose had the following key themes: (1) youth radicalisation and its platforms, (2) contemporary antisemitism, (3) online hate and gaming, (4) historical memory of the Holocaust; and asked crucial questions as (1) how we can learn from the dynamics of past conflicts which are casting light on threats to democracy today, and (2) what tools do we have to educate the youth about the Holocaust and to counter online hate.
As part of the The Collective Memory Through Online Games (COMTOG)Project’s goal to bring together different but complementary voices of the field, four individuals were interviewed about the game, The Light in the Darkness and its adjacent subject matters. Luc Bernard is the Co-Founder & Executive Director for Voices of the Forgotten and the director, creative and art director of the game, The Light in the Darkness. Étienne Quintal and Daniel Collen are researchers from the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre, who are responsible for the Online Hate Research and Education Project (OHREP) and Hatepedia project of the Centre. Finally, Dr Alexis M. Lerner is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the US Naval Academy who has surveyed North American youth about the Holocaust and antisemitism.
Gaming and the Holocaust
Over 15 years, Luc Bernard has developed an original idea to create a video game that would teach the history of the Holocaust to a new generation who cannot listen to the testimonies of a decreasing number of survivors. Knowing the story of his maternal grandmother, who looked after a kindertransport child, he had detailed knowledge of the atrocities of the Holocaust. He also had a growing concern that the impact of the Holocaust was being progressively minimised and education about it increasingly ignored. Therefore the objective of his video game is to get the audience curious to learn about the Holocaust again and to remember those who are forever lost. The Light in the Darkness can be considered an educational and remembrance project targeting mainly teenagers and anyone who would like to play it.
WWII games are often criticised for being solely created for entertainment purposes and not being accurate. The representation of war and the way most games glorify conflict while neglecting the victims’ perspective, especially first-person shooter games, is commonly criticised and has been mentioned by all four interviewees. Alternatively, some games avoid the mention or existence of tragedies that came from historical conflict. In this way, these games contribute to misshaping and misconstruing the collective memory of the period.
Bernard’s game does not shy away from the subject matter and shows the player all the steps leading up to the deportation of French Jews. It starts with the failed Évian Conference, which addressed the problem of the high number of Jewish refugees who wished to flee the Third Reich and ends with the Vel’ d’Hiv’ Roundup, when the ‘unwanted’ refugees of France (foreign Jewish families) were mass arrested and later deported by the French police in a joint operation between German and collaborating French administrators. Not many know today that it was not the Nazis who rounded up the Jews (including 4000 children) in Paris but the French Vichy-government.
Regarding the artistic direction of the game, the director elaborates that animated film is viewed as the best format to tell stories and has a worldwide appeal, as studios like Pixar have proved it. Bernard has decided to go with the French comic book style since France has already published comic books on the Holocaust, confirming that animation/comics are able to transfer serious subjects. “If it were too realistic, it would discourage certain audiences, but animation has a more general allure and can convey emotions very well.” At the same time, the game shows real-life footage, photos and survivor’s testimonies to bring back some of the ‘realisticness’ of the subject, making it all the more powerful.
Accuracy and realism were key for this game. One interesting choice made by Bernard is that the game intentionally does not contain choice-based mechanics to simulate a “lack of control” feeling to emulate the powerless experience during the Holocaust. Instead, the game is more about the story and witnessing these dark times through the eyes of the family to humanise the victims and show the kind and heroic actions of those around them. In the game, you play as multiple characters, and you get to experience hatred and antisemitism (even as a child); you are fully immersed. There are a couple of choices, but the story won’t change “as everything was a bit of luck,” as explained by Bernard.
The music adapts well to the mood of the game and follows its narrative but carefully retains overly emotional tones to make the right impact. At the round-up scene, we can hear a dark-toned version of the French national anthem ‘La Marseillaise’ which represents how the government has betrayed its own citizens by deporting them and sending them to their death; a small detail which can make a great impact on the audience.
In the interview, Bernard states, “In a way, every country is responsible for the Holocaust who refused to help and accept refugees, including the United States” (the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.). The European population went along with the Holocaust. “This is left out of history; you don’t see it in movies or games. In the US and France, people think they did well during WWII.” Although the French government has apologised, and French cinema, in general, tackled the subject with respect, the far-right still does not admit the responsibility of Vichy France in the Holocaust (Sayer, 2018; Mcdonell, 2017). This affects Holocaust survivors on a financial level, too, as they cannot claim compensation and live in poor socioeconomic conditions. Furthermore, there is a danger that Holocaust education might change if the far-right comes to power in France.
“When you study the Holocaust, you cannot be anti-refugees.”
The project’s intention has changed over time as rising antisemitism and white supremacy in the US has gained public attention. Educating people about the damage hatred can do becomes one of the focus points. Luc Bernard was determined to show where racism can lead us.
He warns that (1) Holocaust distortion is more dangerous than denial as it’s more accepted, even amplified through the use of digital tools, and (2) when there are no more survivors left, it’s likely going to be a turning point in the rise of Holocaust denial – something which we are already experiencing. In fact, in the US, Holocaust denial is “constitutionally protected free speech” because of the First Amendment, and there is no law against it or criminalisation of the promotion of Nazi ideology or any form of hate speech (Germain, 2022). Therefore recent years’ statistics showing a growing number of young people having distorted or deficient views of the Holocaust is not surprising (Claims Conference, 2020;Pew Research Center, 2020). To address this problem, Bernard proposes to be at more cultural and social places (Twitter, TikTok) to reach wider audiences as many first encounters the Holocaust because of pop cultures like movies or social platforms like TikTok.
In addition, most people in the world are not living close to Holocaust museums or archives, so getting them curious about the topic in the first place is the main goal of the game. People living in underprivileged areas from lower socio-economic strata can benefit the most from projects like The Light in the Darkness. In rural or urban classrooms, the game can be easily introduced as it is quite short (1-1.5h of playtime) and/or students can play it on their own as well as it has minimal requirements to run. This is reflected in Dr Lerner’s experience as well. The Assistant Professor believes that video games can address tragic events like the Holocaust; and games with historical settings and ethical considerations strictly taken into account can function as effective educational tools.
All four of Lerner’s grandparents are Holocaust survivors; learning about the Shoah at home was natural for her, and many Jewish people acquire their knowledge about it through their family members first, as well as later in schools. “However, in Canada and in the majority of US states, genocide education is not yet a curricular requirement. While some teachers introduce Holocaust education through history or literature, many students first encounter the Holocaust and other state-sanctioned and systematic mass murders through non-traditional sources, such as comic books, social media accounts, video games, and television shows,” (Lerner, 2021: 9). Her research with Liberation75, a Survey of North American Teens on the Holocaust and Antisemitism found that 40 percent of students learnt about the Holocaust outside of the classroom on social media and 11percent of these students reported to have met with the Holocaust through video games. It is important to highlight that the age of responders was, on average, between 11 and 14 because one of the issues is that those video game players, the target demographic, are usually looking for entertainment, violence and aggression, so using video games to teach about tolerance can be complicated. Further questions we must ask are: In these games, are you saving a group of people, and if you do so, what does it imply? Are students seeking these games out on their own or is it part of the curriculum?
Lerner used video games in the classroom in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which was found to be effective for college students who thoroughly enjoyed it. In the world of Holocaust education, new learning modalities are essential and opening for newer, more robust approaches -including video games- around the topic is much needed.
Both Daniel Collen and Étienne Quintal, researchers of the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre, had positive views on Luc Bernard’s game: “I am excited for The Light in the Darkness most importantly because it does not just address the setting in a very meaningful way, not just as an atmosphere but as a main theme. And focuses on story over action and knowledge over entertainment, making it a much more accessible game to recommend. A game which is free and runs on school laptops is the best choice since top-end hardware and the latest generation of consoles are not widely available.”
The development of the game, The Light in the Darkness, relied on extensive background research, including consulting survivors and double and triple-checking every detail. Although big Holocaust organisations were careful to support projects like this given the sensitivity of the subject and some museums remained hard to approach, the Shoah Foundation (which helps similar projects) allowed access to its archives along with Yad Vashem, which provided extensive support for the game’s creator. “We had access to things on Yad Vashem’s website, and also on the US Holocaust website, but no official help. However, people at the US Holocaust Museum have given me advice not officially,” Bernard said.
Just the development of the story took one year. To balance between personal stories and larger history, multiple survivors’ stories were melted into one story. Bernard has chosen to depict a Polish immigrant family who had integrated well into French society by the end of the 1930s, a profile describing the majority of Jewish families who were rounded up in 1942. Despite their integration effort, they were never entirely accepted; they remained the ‘others’ and the first to be deported. This experience of ‘otherness’ connects the history of the Holocaust with contemporary populism, which has achieved electoral success in the last decade in Europe while running on a platform of exclusionary policies. Actors like Orban in Hungary, National Rally in France, and Fratelli d’Italia in Italy utilise divisionary rhetoric, and their intolerant ideologies have been successful in inciting conflict between different cleavages in society while the memory of Europe’s authoritarian history remain fairly distant and passive as we forget the efforts required to keep authoritarianism and fascism at bay.
Stories like The Light in the Darkness are important because, as Bernard reminds us:
“We never talk about the lives of Jews during WWII; we only talk about their death. We need to humanise them.”
Video games are an excellent platform for this. It has a multi-generational appeal; it can change the world as these games can reach anyone. They are interactive, live on longer and are more timeless and immersive than television. On the other hand, the gaming industry has a huge responsibility as the biggest media industry of our times. Yet subject matters like the Holocaust are being ignored, and “this ignorance is the worst on the field,” according to Luc Bernard, who believes one possible explanation behind this is the fact that in the United States, Jews are not considered traditional minorities, the Holocaust is viewed as a white on white crime and the American audience does not understand racism, particularly European racism the same way as the European one.
Collen and Quintal also see the educational potential of serious games but highlight that movies and books are more commonly understood to be useful for preserving collective historical memory. Video games are less reliable platforms as they require a computer and internet connection which is not available for everyone. Moreover, some video games do not have cutscenes, and sometimes players skip these cinematic scenes, which makes the experience much more specific for the individual than watching a movie and can affect the level of immersion. Nevertheless, as time goes on, video games are likely to be adopted for historical memory projects due to their uncovered potential and broad appeal. All together, serious historical games might be more attractive for students than traditional classroom materials.
The Neuberger Centre has also studied the depiction of concentration camps in video games, especially in the Wolfenstein: The New Order game. Although WWII games, in general, rarely address the Holocaust, as an anti-fascist game, Wolfenstein at least tried to touch on the subject by including a segment inside a forced labour camp. According to Collen, “depictions of labour camps are not achievable for video games in a way it is really resonating with people emotionally and teaches them historically.” However, indie games (games created by independent developers) are on the rise and with these games comes a new market. As teachers and parents realise that there is a gap in knowledge and awareness about Holocaust education, and many of them have not caught up with new technologies, the need for games boosting society’s collective historical memory is on the rise.
Online Hate, Radicalization and Modern Antisemitism
Gaming has many positive economic, health, social, and psychological benefits that are often overlooked (ADL, 2019;Schrier, 2019). For adults, video games can provide a unique medium familiar and engaging to them and “can be used to deliver [empathy] training at scale” (Kral et al., 2018: 1). While for younger demographics, prosocial and interpersonal video game play was related to greater social satisfaction, peer support, and prosocial behaviour, which led to increased well-being, whereas violent video game play was related to increased school bullying, and lower social satisfaction and prosociality. Secure attachment was related to increased empathic concerns and higher levels of prosocial and interpersonal interactions in video game use (Shosani et al., 2021). Online gaming has also been particularly beneficial during the COVID-19 pandemic when people have had to endure prolonged periods of social isolation. Players have reported positive experiences such as forming new friendships, feeling a sense of belonging to various communities, discovering new interests, and gaining insights about themselves (ADL, 2019). Nevertheless, new challenges continue to arise as technology advances, and associated risks must be considered. These include online hate, radicalisation and contemporary antisemitism.
The intersection between gaming and violent extremism has become a growing concern in recent years. As stated in the EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report by Europol (2021: 90), there has been a growing trend of using video games, gaming platforms and forums, as well as gamer channels to disseminate right-wing extremist propaganda and to spread their ideologies (Suraj, 2021). One of the most notorious examples is using online gaming platforms to recruit young people into far-right extremist groups. In these instances, individuals are drawn into gaming groups that espouse extremist views and then gradually radicalised through exposure to hate speech, propaganda, and violent imagery.
Another concern is the use of video games by extremist groups to train their members in combat and tactical skills. Some far-right groups have created custom-built games that simulate real-life combat situations, which are then used to train members in tactics and weapons handling, while certain radical groups created exclusively antisemitic games. Luc Bernard pointed out that some of the white supremacist terrorist attacks in the US and New Zealand are examples of successful radicalisation through the latter tactic, while other commercially successful games themselves have been criticised for promoting extremist views or perpetuating harmful stereotypes. For example, games that allow players to assume the roles of terrorists or play out scenarios involving extremist violence can be seen as normalising these behaviours and beliefs.
Lastly, gaming adjacent online platforms are also utilised by violent far-right extremists and white nationalist movements. This is why Luc Bernard has refused to release his game on Steam, where white supremacists could openly express their ideology, call for violence and deny the Holocaust for a long time with little repercussions (see in detail Vaux et el.,2021). Daniel Collen explained, “Steam has a problem (see in detail ADL, 2020), and it is a quite difficult problem to address as in gaming history Steam – up until recently – was ‘too big to fail.’ Gamers might have a bit more influence to protect themselves from hate speech over newer platforms like Epic. But we will see how it develops over the next 5-10 years because, sadly, improvements are happening slowly, especially on large platforms.”
In addition, gaming adjacent places (like Steam, Twitch or Discord) are not only used by hate movements but “a lot of their propaganda, a lot of their memes are even discussing or referencing games.” Therefore we see that video games are important to these groups and play a significant function in how these movements operate. Gaming and memes are considered mediums of ‘fun’ and ‘cool’ compared to traditional propaganda, and they offer a low threshold to interact with extremist ideas (Fielitz & Ahmed, 2021). Quintal and Collen have studied internet memes in detail and created a Guide to Online Hate, which helps to identify the symbols, terms, characters, and themes that often appear in the expression of hatred, online and off.
Hateful memes are found on all major social media platforms. Quintal talked about the Hatepedia project and its importance in detail: “Memes are considered the form of modern political pamphlets. People might not understand its political aspect and function, just find it funny.” They have conducted on and offline research since there are a lot of cross-references between both. The Neuberger Centre also organised public workshops to promote critical thought and teach people about digital literacy, the features of social media, and how memes can promote online hate. “We also point out how to differentiate between what we see and what it truly means. Hateful memes use a veil of humour to hide their intention and meaning,” stressed Quintal.
Regarding misinformation and hateful propaganda, one side is dedicated to protecting the truth; the other does not. We need to be able to learn about the tactics of hate movements. Recognise how they use humour to cover up their wrongful and harmful messages. Humour can have a political function, and the other side has a vested interest in you not being aware of their intentions in order to convince you of ‘their truth.’
The gaming community is vulnerable. It’s a ‘home’ for far-right radicals; they effectively mobilised for a long time, relying on online communities more than offline ones. Collen explained the evolution of this persuasive strategy in detail: “Since the beginning of developing video games, these games were mainly promoted for young men. So when the modern men’s movement formed its identity along with different hate activists, video games were a natural choice to rally around. Young male gamers were given the narrative that women players were taking away the identity which was theirs, and it worked. For example, Pac-Man was designed to increase the market size for video games by appealing to women in particular, drawing them into the game rooms that had in some ways seemed forbidding to female players or to opposite sex couples. Misogyny was at the root of a lot of things they believed in, and it acted as a catalyst for other types of hate.”
Regarding harassment, what we see on gaming platforms, there is a bullying aspect behind it to keep those spaces exclusive to men. Hate groups tend to attack subcultural spaces to grow their ranks. “That is true for a number of different communities we have studied,” reveals Quintal. Gaming spaces tend to be majority male, but the issue goes beyond identity; hate movements and hate-promoting individuals are not only focusing on gaming places but adjacent, surrounding places as well.
They understand the rituals of gamers. For instance, gamers like to listen to music or stream videos while they are playing and many of the very popular -if not the most popular- hate speakers are using streaming platforms or are making music videos to get into the ears of players who are vulnerable as they are focusing on entertainment more than critical thought. As the Online Hate Research & Education Project manager, Quintal, explains: “People will be listening to this information not realising the political nature of the speeches, just internalising it in a way that completely disarms you to the message and its intent.”
Fighting Hate Effectively
In response to these concerns, some gaming companies have taken steps to combat extremism on their platforms. Theseinclude measures such as banning users who engage in hate speech or promoting positive values such as diversity and inclusivity within their games. Nonetheless, the intersection between extremism and gaming remains a complex issue that requires continued attention and vigilance.
Both Collen and Quintal emphasised the importance of culturally appropriate solutions since hate groups know how to reach out to the youth; they understand their “social bubbles and language.” At the same time, there exists a disconnection in language and culture between teachers, parents and children which helps far-right hate groups to reach younger gamers. This generates a cultural need to create educational video games that are attractive to younger generations.
Overlap between gaming communities and hate movements is targeting the former’s demographic. They are increasingly successful at reaching younger and younger audiences. Quintal talked with teachers who brought up the issue during workshops. But “we have hard evidence/data in the Canadian context as well; young people are disproportionately represented in hate crime statistics. This is very concerning. We need to reach young people in real life and in virtual places they inhabit. And instead of listening to racist hate speeches on Twitch or DLive, we should make sure that players are listening to something more healthy, appropriate, enriching, and fun. Games should also be not only enjoyable to play but accurate and informational,” stresses the researcher of the Centre.
Among the solutions, both Dr Lerner and the Neuberger Centre’s researchers agreed that there are new lesson plans and simply listening to the feedback of teachers and students. The Canadian Holocaust Centre’s first Evergreen presentation addressed the relationship between TikTok and the Holocaust and how content creators discuss and educate about the Holocaust – whether they are accurate or aim to misinform. This included hate propaganda and videos made for youth which tried to normalise holocaust denial as part of a radicalisation process and misinformation which was made for other reasons. TikTok was chosen because of requests from teachers and parents received by the Centre. They had fears and anxieties about how their students and children navigate on the platform. Moreover, teachers were also asking about video games and platforms like Roblox, which allows users to create their own games, making gaming and social media the two most burning concerns for online hate, radicalisation and modern antisemitism.
Quintal also mentioned that “Fighting hate in the context of video games is not necessarily a classroom task, but, when it comes to gaming culture and anti-racism in general, I think these are things we should not just react to. We should not only teach children how to fight hate, fascism and racism, but we should teach about fighting hate as a thing we should all be doing. What hate movements did quite well, unfortunately, is to treat games like Roblox and Minecraft, which are not necessarily racist or hateful, as their playground where they ‘can live their fascist fantasies’ and create alternative societies where holocaust denial is accepted.” The researcher stresses that the opposite should be done as well. “We should encourage children to be anti-fascist in the classroom but outside of it as well in the online space. The values thought should be displayed outside of the classroom.” This gamification in the classroom, however, is challenging as a lot of the games are not appropriate for educational purposes. “We have to be anti-hate even when hate is not in front of us because that is how we build a society which is better for everyone in the long run.”
Dr Lerner talked about the relationship between holocaust education and intolerance. Due to her work with Liberation75, she helped to develop a survey to monitor holocaust education and examine what students knew ahead of a two-day virtual conference called Education Days, organised by Liberation75, based on their secondary school curricula and after this training. Her other course, Jews by the Numbers, enabled students from all fields to utilise data science in Jewish Studies. Students learned to build datasets from archival material from the USC Visual History Archive and form their own arguments based on data. “Historical archives were traditionally used to help people make sense of what happened to the Jews. Today it is not necessarily the archives we rely on as there was a major turning point: now we think more in numbers, using data science.” Dr Lerner paid special attention to the ethics of doing research. “Jews were reduced to numbers, dressed off their humanity. We must avoid making this mistake.” This problem at the crossroads of data science, statistics and Jewish studies was also addressed in her paper, which helps develop statistics courses for students in non-quantitative fields (Lerner & Gelman, 2022).
The emergence of antisemitism stems from the continuous reinforcement of prejudiced beliefs, unfounded speculations, and inaccurate knowledge regarding both conventional and contemporary forms of hostility. It is of utmost importance to distinguish between the diverse expressions of antisemitism and adapt the strategy to address each one appropriately (Bjola & Manor, 2020). In the media, there are lots of catchy headlines; Lerner mentions Unz’s (2012) allegations that Jews are overrepresented at Ivy League universities in The American Conservative, but when we look into the numbers behind these headlines examining its legitimacy using data science and accurate statistics, the titles turn out to be a harmful clickbaits which are designed to provoke an emotional response from the reader, such as fear, outrage, anxiety or prejudice, often at the expense of accuracy or truthfulness.
People react to emotional experiences, and this is why until now, survivor’s testimonies have been effective. But as survivors are passing away and no longer alive, it is a major question of how we continue to build that emotional connection and reaction to the subject. One of the resolutions is what the Shoah Foundation did through their iWitness program, “which is kind of a version of a video game” since you can interact with it and ask questions. Dr Lerner suggested that this program could be developed into a video game integrating the Holocaust. Another idea is to discuss the topic in depth: it cannot be just a one-off classroom discussion. “We need to see the connection between the Holocaust and the rally-around-the-flag effect and decaying democracy, heightened polarisation and how regimes like the Third Reich come about. It has to be integrated into the curriculum and used as a teaching tool to educate about other subjects, e.g. what it means to be a democracy.”
Conclusion
With the expansion of its market, quality, and audience, COMTOG aims to uncover video games’ potential to raise historical consciousness. The discussions in the interviews of the present report have demonstrated how serious educational games such as The Light in the Darkness can be relevant in the context of Collective Historical Memory, promote it and stimulate empathetic emotions and interest in players. Moreover, the report connected issues such as online youth radicalisation, contemporary antisemitism, online hate groups, memes and gaming to the historical memory of the Holocaust, showcasing how relevant the Shoah is for the upcoming generations.
Holocaust education through video games allows people to learn about the events of the Holocaust more interactively and engagingly. It allows players to experience the stories of individuals who lived through the Holocaust, better understand its impact on the world and make connections to present-day political events, and understand what democracy is and why it is crucial to protect it. Arguments about why using video games as an educational tool for the Holocaust can be controversial were addressed during the interviews, as mainstream games may trivialise the events that took place. However, when designed and executed properly, like The Light in the Darkness, these games can be an effective way to educate people about the Holocaust and its impact on society.
Video games can be used to counter extremist ideologies by highlighting the dangers of hate speech and promoting tolerance and understanding. This can be done through educational games and by incorporating messages of inclusivity and diversity into the gameplay and storyline. Overall, video games can be a powerful tool in the fight against antisemitism when designed with an educative purpose, well-researched, and ethics are considered. Video games can help create a more empathic, progressive and compassionate society by promoting education, representation, inclusivity, and community engagement.
ECPS’ Never Again initiative and COMTOG project
Our collective history offers stories of war, resistance, intolerance, and perseverance. ECPS’ Never Again initiative prompts us to look back at these memories of conflict and democratic backsliding so that we, citizens, can be better informed of their causes and realities. A wealth of research has highlighted how mainstream media, i.e., TV, film, radio & news, have shaped the collective memory of these conflict narratives. However, as media technology evolves rapidly, the research studying collective memory must evolve with it.
The Collective Memory Through Online Games (COMTOG) project has emerged under this Never Again initiative to showcase the educational and social potential of serious, transformative gaming (video games, LARPs, tabletop roleplaying games) relaying the realities of conflict through a nuanced, well-researched, and empathetic lens. COMTOG is set to publish a series of interviews exploring the research process, artistic direction, and dissemination of these conflict-centred games. The game creator’s insights are included in interviews alongside the experience of diverse experts in the field (i.e. historians, policymakers, activists), thus creating a resource improving historical serious games’ ability to aid active remembering.
Moreover, serious gaming can provide the population with an immersive experience that can be used for educational purposes such as raising awareness, boosting ethical values, and preserving collective memory. Existing research has found their integration into educational programmes promising and positively impactful. We aim to understand how serious games discussing and portraying the victims of the conflict were researched and developed to stimulate interest in creating similar kinds of games.
(*) Anita Tusor is a recent graduate of the Double Master’s Program of King’s College London and Renmin University of China in Asian and European Affairs. She also holds a M.A. in Applied Linguistics and a B.A. in Hungarian and Chinese Studies. Previously, she has worked with different think tanks and is currently working as a Research Assistant at the ECPS and the International Institute of Prague. Anita’s research interests include the processes of democratisation and de-democratisation, populist constitutionalism, political parties and their systems, and foreign malign influence operations.
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