Turkish culture is interesting on very many
levels. A culture born out of the history and tradition of the Ottoman Empire,
only to be brought into the modern 20th Century in the wake of the first world war by one man, Mustafa Kemal, known as
Ataturk. Turkish culture exemplifies the best characteristics in this one man.
Hard working, industriousness, caring, communal; all of these terms could be
used to describe peoples of Turkish orgin.
Culture
is defined by Judith N. Martin and Thomas K. Nakayama as “learned patterns of
behavior and attitudes shared by a group of people” (Martin & Nakayama,
2013, p.88) While it is true that the 70 million people who make up the
population of Turkey are as diverse as a population can be; they are all tied
together by common orgins and common histories that make them stand out amongst
their neighbors to the east and to the west, Asia and Europe. As a whole,
cultural identities play a large part in the definition of Turkish culture.
Turkish peoples have an unmatched sense of community that shines through in
their day-to-day activities. Many are devout Muslims, meaning that religious
identity plays a large part in how they interact with one another. At the same
time they feel strong ties with their respective regional and class identities,
but they are always tied together by one united national identity.
Almost
all Turkish people would tell you that their most important historical moment
was the founding of the Republic on the 29th of October, 1923. From
that moment on for about 15 years until his death, the man they call Ataturk
led a revolution in Turkey. He industrialized the nation, he westernized the
nation and he created a Turkish nation able to go toe to toe with the major
powers of the world in the 20th Century. Perhaps what sets Ataturk
apart from the other leaders in the same part of the world at that time was his
ability to separate national and religious identities. However, in recent times
we have seen a regression of sorts in this aspect of Turkish culture. The
current Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has attempted to undo what
Ataturk established all those years ago; he has used the implementation of
religiously motivated policies to win over the poor and the uneducated, who
make up over 50 percent of the population. In Erdogan’s case many know he is a
poor leader but he keeps getting re-elected to his position because the
majority of Turks in the eastern part of the country as well as those that live
in the central areas are uneducated and those are the exact people Erdogan aims
to please. So, whenever you see people in Turkey rioting in the news, just know
that it is not because some park got closed, it is because they are against
Erdogan.
To
study this group I will use an Interpretive Approach. I want to understand why
Turkish people do what they do. To do this I will perform several interviews
with many Turkish people at the university. I will look to discover how they
see themselves on an individual as well as on a general cultural level. I will
ask them questions to learn what they perceive to be their gender, age,
religious, class, regional and personal identities. In addition to this I will
use Qualitative methods to look at participants through the lens of Hecht’s
four identity frames: personal, enacted, relational, and communal. I will do
all of my research by respecting the people I am studying, presenting myself
face-to-face, and looking, listening and then speaking.
Works Cited
Martin, J. N. (2013). Intercultural Communication in Contexts
(Sixth ed.). New York, New York: McGraw-Hill.
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