Cultural Drivers of Radicalization

Turkey/D5.1 Country Report May 2021

Abstract

This report aims to analyze the cultural drivers of radicalization connected to the I-GAP index (injustice, grievance, alienation) with a focus on the mainstreaming of radicalization through digital channels in Turkey. It takes anti-refugee attitudes towards the Syrian population as a key component of contemporary radicalization in Turkey. The report specifically asks how social media communication mainstreams racism beyond the social cleavages and polarization.

The report builds on a debate about the key elements of contemporary radicalization 
in Turkey. The media landscape in Turkey has been polarized historically, reflecting the government-opposition competition; and the mainstream media has frequently been used by previous as well as current governments with a vilifying discourse on politically constructed others. Anti-refugee attitude forms a valuable example in this respect, as it has become a new battlefield of political competition in recent years. While the pro-government media frames refugees as victimized brothers in religion as the ruling party portrays its policies as a success, opposition tackles the issue on grounds of social and economic ramifications for the local population. The contemporary media landscape reflects such polarization.¹ However, with the extension of the stay of the Syrian migrants in Turkey, anti-refugee attitude expanded beyond partisan belongings and acquired a cross-cleavage dimension. In such a context, this report traces how social media mainstreams anti-refugee attitude 
beyond political polarization. We presume that the opposition media’s anti-refugee 
attitude is affiliated with the issue ownership; therefore, the detection of the anti-refugee attitude in the pro-government media provides potentially more insights into the mainstreaming of racism despite the official framing of the refugee issue of victimized brothers in religion. Hence, we analyze two videos produced by a pro-government media organisation, Ahsen TV. In this way, we explore our argument that even pro-government media mainstreams racism against the refugees despite the officially stated government policy doing otherwise and despite the fact that the government accuses the opposition of taking a racist stance against the Syrians in Turkey.

The two videos analyzed dated July 28, 2019 and March 4, 2020 are produced for two occasions: the decision of the Istanbul governorate to repatriate the Syrians in Istanbul to the cities they originally registered on arrival; and the government’s decision to remove the control over the Greek border for the passing of the refugees. We find that the official discourse of religious solidarity fails to convince the people, Syrian and Turkish alike. In other words, polarization appears as a dominant aspect on the videos and their comments. Polarization is nurtured by the feelings of injustice, grievance, and alienation. The injustice, grievance, and alienation in the videos, however, are mostly voiced by the locals rather than the refugees. In fact, the mediated message implies that refugees are the root cause of injustice, grievance, and alienation. The Syrian respondents on the video are deliberately chosen as young able-bodied men “who should have fought at the war in Syria”, contributing to the mythmaking around the refugees and mainstreaming racism beyond social cleavages, without directly criticizing government policies. Viewers also observe how the videos steal the voice of the refugees with leading questions, statements likely to be deliberately left unsubstantiated, and even those accusing other refugees rather than the government policies.