Arabs in Turkish Political Cartoons, 1876-1950 - (Contemporary Issues in the Middle East) by Ilkim Büke Okyar (Paperback)

About the Book

"Bèuke Okyar examines the development of Turkish national identity from the 1908 constitutional revolution to the inclusion of Alexandretta in 1939, using the lens of contemporary political cartoons. The book challenges the notion that ethno-religious stereotypes of the Arab are limited to the western dichotomy of the Other and seeks to highlight the importance of previously neglected colloquial Turkish sources"--

Book Synopsis

The emergence of Turkish nationalism prior to World War I opened the way for various ethnic, religious, and cultural stereotypes to link the notion of the "Other" to the concept of national identity. The founding elite took up a massive project of social engineering that now required the amplification of Turkishness as an essential concept of the new nation-state. The construction of Others served as a backdrop to the articulation of Turkishness -and for Turkey in many ways, the Arab in his keffiyeh and traditional garb constituted the ultimate Other.

In this nuanced and richly detailed study, Ilkim Büke Okyar brings the everyday production of nationalist discourse into the mainstream political and historical narrative of modern Turkey. Okyar shifts the focus of inquiry from the abstract discourses of elite intellectuals to the visual rhetoric of popular culture, where Arabs as the non-national Others hold a front seat. Drawing upon previously neglected colloquial Turkish sources, Okyar challenges the notion that ethnoreligious stereotypes of Arabs are limited to the Western conception of the Other. She shows how the emergence of the printing press and the subsequent explosion of news media contributed to formulating the Arab as the binary opposite of the Turk. The book shows how the cartoon press became one of the most significant platforms in the construction, maintenance, and mobilization of Turkish nationalism through the perceived image of the Arab that was haunted forever by ethnic and religious origins.

Review Quotes

Büke Okyar has crafted a work that is not only enlightening but also deeply vitally pertinent to grasping the intricacies of contemporary Turkish society and its identity formation.-- "Çetin Çelik, New Perspectives on Turkey"

With the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the emergence of independent Arab states, and the establishment of the Turkish Republic, the Arab emerged as the ultimate Other against whom Turkishness was defined. The author cleverly highlights this transformation through political cartoons and shows how the cartoon press made the republican elite's nation-building project accessible to the urban masses. Recommended.-- "Choice"

A magisterial work utilizing primary sources in the late Ottoman and early republican periods, Okyar has written the definitive book on the relationship between cartoons and national identity in Ottoman and Republican Turkey.-- "Umut Uzer, author of An Intellectual History of Turkish Nationalism"

Okyar makes an important contribution to more standard explanations of othering under the influence of Orientalism and modern nationalism. . . This book will resonate with the renewed attention to race in the broader scholarship and interrogations of racism in non-western societies.-- "Hasan Kayali, author of Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Second Constitutional Period of the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1918"

An original book using Turkish political cartoons in the Ottoman Turkish press, and a variety of other sources, to show how the Arabs were portrayed.-- "Feroz Ahmad, author of The Making of Modern Turkey"

About the Author

Ilkim Büke Okyar is associate professor in political science and International Relations at Yeditepe University.