Belief Systems

Abstract

In my works, I want to reveal the inner depths of my subjective world as well as the social, cultural, and political geography in which we live. Thinking about the nation of Turkey conjures up all sorts of curious and exotic imaginations of the “other.” In the mind’s eyes of those who visit the country and among those who would wish to analyze various aspects of its sociological, political, and cultural dynamics, its straddling of East and West, Islam and Christianity, Europe and Asia, there is no other place like it on earth. Religious Turks, once the underclass of society here, have become educated and middle class over the last two decades, and are moving into urban spaces that were once the exclusive domain of the elite. The repeal of the scarf ban in the early 2000s has once again set the two groups against each other, unleashing fears that have as much to do with class rivalry as with the growing influence of Islam. While the public debate here typically revolves around Islam and how much space it should have in Turkish society—a legitimate concern in a country whose population is overwhelmingly Muslim and deeply conservative—the struggle over power is a glaring, if often unspoken, part of the tension between the two groups.