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Turkish nationalism

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Turkish nationalism is the political ideology which glorifies the Turkish people, developing in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire with the Young Turk revolutionaries. Following the collapse of the empire, Turkish nationalism sought to establish a wholly Turkic state consisting of the Turks and, in some branches, other Turkic peoples.

Sun Language Theory

The Sun Language Theory (Turkish: Güneş Dil Teorisi) was a pseudolinguistic nationalist theory which claimed that all languages were derived from a single, proto-Turkic language. Popular (and even part of the Turkish school curriculum) in the 1930s, it was used to justify the purging of Kurdish language and culture from the Turkish identity,[1][2][3][4] ultimately leading to the rise of Kurdish nationalism and ethnic violence in the country in the late 1980s.

Censorship

Turkish nationalism is heavily mixed with censorship in the country. Article 301 of the Turkish penal code upholds that the public denigration of the Turkish people and government requires a prison sentence of six months to two years. It has subsequently been used to imprison anyone who criticizes the country's political history and climate. The most common accusations of "insulting Turkishness" are the public acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide, though this has not always been successful. One example is the novel The Bastard of Istanbul, dealing with a fictional Armenian-American character's research into her family history, leading her to Istanbul during the genocide. The novel's author, Elif Şafak, was taken to court but was acquitted there and in the appeal court.

External links

References

  1. Have Xenophobia and Racism Become Mainstream in Turkey?
  2. Diasporas and Homeland Conflicts: A Comparative Perspective, Bahar Baser, page 55.
  3. Prison Narratives from Boethius to Zana, P. Phillips.
  4. Ethnicity, Class, and Nationalism: Caribbean and Extra-Caribbean Dimensions, Anton L. Allahar, page 217.