FIRAT YÜCEL
We often believe ourselves to be free and independent creators, taking pride in that notion. Yet, there is no denying how deep your decisions, ideas, projects, and dreams are shaped by the political climate surrounding us. The direction of the wind –or more tellingly, where it doesn’t blow– defines the limits of what we can do, especially for those who identify with the societal opposition. When we break down Turkey’s recent history into distinct periods, the constraints on creativity become even clearer: before and after the 1980 coup; before and after the Gezi Protests in 2013; before and –arguably– after the presidential decrees that led to the dismissal of thousands of public servants, including academics at universities; and before, during, and after the pandemic… All the issues that left their mark on a given period have seemingly been set aside, only to resurface –inevitably– later. Multilingual films have given way to unilingual ones, radical political imagination has been replaced by an emphasis on cultural embellishments, the idea of equality has been replaced by fraternity, and protagonists have been relegated to the role of side characters. The period has changed, some people were imprisoned, others remained free, and many projects were shelved… The subjects of these sentences are deliberately concealed.
This is how self-censorship works. Its very name contains a subject – “auto,” meaning “self” in Greek. As in “autobiography,” the story of one’s own life. As in “autonomy,” the act of self-governance. Yet, when we speak of self- censorship, the subjectis almost always absent. We refer to the climate, the era, the prevailing mood – but the person we are speaking of remains hidden. Rarely will anyone say, “I have practiced self-censorship.”
The Susma (Speak Up) Platform, which requested me to write this article, was established in 2016 to confront silence and censorship. It publishes an annual report titled “Censorship and Self-Censorship in Turkey.” Yet, despite the emphasis on self-censorship in both the platform’s name and the report’s title, actual instances of self-censorship are rarely documented. Self-censorship has a name but lacks a clear object; it compels a verb while evading a defined subject. Every sentence about self-censorship carries an unarticulated subject, one that remains implied.
But here’s one point of consensus: self-censorship dominates the landscape of political, audiovisual, and cultural production in Turkey today. In one of her first interviews following her release from eight years in prison, Gültan Kışanak said that the “climate of self-censorship” was among the first things she noticed, comparing it to the atmosphere that followed the 12 September 1980 coup. In fact, she had already begun reflecting on this while still behind bars. In her book “Firari Yazılar” 2 (“Fugitive Essays”), she writes: “The issue of censorship and self-censorship takes on entirely new dimensions in prison. You are constantly thinking about how to get your writing out. (…) You can defend your beliefs incourt by taking a risk, but when you write them down, you can’t get them out.” Kışanak describes a striking paradox: a moment when freedom of thought can feel more attainable inside prison than outside. Her words point to a kind of social retreat, one that keeps ideas formed in confinement from ever making it “past the prison walls.”
Self-censorship refers to an individual censoring, limiting, or categorizing themselves “in the absence of any direct or overt pressure.” It is the subject themself who voluntarily chooses to impose censorship without any official ban, decree, notice from the governor’s office, email, or other external forms of pressure. They blame “the times we are living in,” they blame “the government,” they blame “all the trouble that has happened to many others.” 3 However, in today’s Turkey, it is challenging to find cases that do not involve “overt pressure.” At most, we can speak of the ambiguity surrounding who enacts the censorship, and when. For example, who exactly was responsible for censoring the documentary “Kanun Hükmü” at the 60th Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival? Was it the organizers, the ministry, the judiciary, the governor’s office, the sponsors, pro-government trolls, or law enforcement? When exactly did the censorship occur, and does it have an expiration date? What is necessary for screening “Kanun Hükmü”?
Does it require a Constitutional Court ruling on a violation of freedom of expression? Or for the film to be officially registered? Or, simply, to be screened without police interference at any event? None of this is settled. Furthermore, censorship in Turkey often takes place during production, or even earlier, in the financing stage, through subtle, unprovable means. This might involve a phone call that disguises a threat as a “polite request,” a piece of advice, or even a suggestion.
Given this ambiguity, it becomes nearly impossible to determine whether any given case constitutes censorship or self-censorship. Additionally, when the source of censorship is ambiguous and may potentially be enforced by any government, corporation, or paramilitary group, self-censorship becomes a more intricate phenomenon. It moves beyond the question of whether the act is blatant, visible, or invisible; instead, it takes the form of a pervasive mood imposed on the individual. For this reason, self-censorship in Turkey today amounts, at most, to this: the fear felt by those who have not personally faced censorship (or who have neither paid a price for it, nor dared to). One example is treating the documentary “Yeryüzü Aşkın Yüzü Oluncaya Dek” (“Love Will Change the Earth”), which was censored by the Golden Orange festival committee in 2014, as though it were officially banned –even though it wasn’t– and overlooking the fact that it has since been screened multiple times at various venues without incident. In other words, self-censorship can equate to an inability to recognize the relatively free spaces that still exist while accusing those who make use of these spaces of “playing the hero” or “failing to grasp the circumstances.” It involves internalizing the state apparatus’s “pre-censorship” practices – which the Constitutional Court has ruled a violation of rights– and tailoring one’s work accordingly. In Turkey, self-censorship as a concept permeates the financing, production, and distribution of cinema. As a result, it is often framed as a moral issue, positioned somewhere between bravery and heroism. The issue is, on the one hand, overly personalized, and on the other, insufficiently examined through the lens of political subjectivity. Both its practice and the resistance to it lack a coherent political or strategic framework. This is the main reason why self-censorship continues to lacka clear subject, or a defined “self.”
Self-censorship, by definition, is not a tangible process; it is a practice often confined to the minds of creators, one they may be unwilling or unable to admit even to themselves. In his novel “Gece” (“Night”), Bilge Karasu captures the pervasive mood following the 1980 military coup. This atmosphere seeps into every household and mind. Thoughts like “They are taking people to prison, maybe I am next,” “What happened to others could happen to me,” and “I could draw the short straw, too,” echo throughout. But then comes the question emerging from some unexpected place, the central question that casts the color of night over Karasu’s novel: What if they don’t take me in? What if nothing ever happens tome? What if I spend all these years not doing what I want, not saying what I need to say, and nothing happens? How willI account for all that was left undone and unsaid, not to others, but to myself?
Oppression leads to isolation. It involves the state or corporate entities shutting down or restricting the activities of labor unions, collectives, associations, centers, and student clubs. It means budget cuts, strike bans, and a complete silence of once-active WhatsApp groups where we debated politics day and night being left alone in the cutting room with that decision which could make a lot of trouble for you. It means being left alone in the editing room, facing a decision that could land you in serious trouble.
If oppression is isolation, then the only way to address self-censorship — oppression turned inward— is by invoking its antidote: collective will. No one openly admits to practicing self-censorship. The subjects remain concealed. Self-censorship cannot be identified or documented. If there is to be reporting or compilation of statistics on this subject, many of us would likely seek answers to the questions raised in Bilge Karasu’s previously mentioned novel: Will more people suffer if we choose to speak out, or if we decide to stay silent? If we stay silent, will it eventually be our turn as well? Then, the same question arises again, lifting its head from the sand: What if it isn’t?
What if I continue living this way, enveloped in a comforting silence? What if I forget even the things I never said?
Perhaps one of our central questions is this: In a climate so dominated by fear, is there room for the fear of “what if nothing happens to me?” Can we speak of such a fear? Can it ever take on a collective form?
To answer this, we might need to move beyond the assumption that admitting fear equals a total absence of courage. Exposing our vulnerability may require a greater level of bravery. To reframe the question: Can an artist carve out a greaterspace for freedom by first acknowledging their lack of it? In classical dystopias, the paramount deadlock individuals face stems from forgetting the very fears that once defined their reality. The protagonist must rediscover these forgotten fears torealize that what seems normal or natural is, in fact, a construct of a broader system governed by fear.
To expand on this idea, if escaping from a dystopia requires rediscovering fear, then during times of increased oppression and violence, shouldn’t artists consider “what they can’t do and how they can approach it differently,” instead of merely saying, “I’ll just keep doing what I do”? Shouldn’t they ask themselves: Why did I shelf that project? Why couldn’t I finish it? Why did I stop midway? What motivated my actions instead of pursuing other options? And why didn’t I include that image in this book? Shouldn’t we be discussing what we did not –or could not– do, and why, at a time when home raids have become routine; documentary filmmakers are imprisoned for their work; screenwriters, cinematographers, and agents are arrested; public administrators instantly seize institutions built over years; audiences are detained at LGBTI+ film screenings; and the film industry fails to take a stronger stance to defend its participation in the Gezi Protests?
The “Görünür Görünmez” (“Visible Invisible”) video series by Altyazı Fasikül emerged from questions like these: What if, when creating art, we laid bare our hesitations, fears, and anxieties, not to mention the over-the-top bravery we later find embarrassing? What if we revealed the questions we posed in moments of enthusiasm or anger –only to delete them for being untimely– along with the letters, messages, and diary entries written in desperation or frustration, their recipients unknown; the endings we shelved for being too hopeful or too bleak; and the files we closed without hitting the save button? In short, can we restore the subject to self-censorship? And what would happen if we did?
Interestingly, a video named “Duvarlar” (“Walls”) serves as the unifying thread in the “Görünür Görünmez: Bir (Oto) Sansür Antolojisi” (“Visible Invisible: A (Self-)Censorship Anthology”) exhibition series, forging a powerful link between those behind bars and those on the outside. The video documents a form of protest in which prisoners assert their right to write and publish books by inscribing messages on their courtyard walls. I’m not sure how we arrived there, but at some point the glue holding theVisible Invisible collective together became –in Kışanak’s words– the act of “getting out” political prisoners’ own words to the outside world. The courtyard images in “Duvarlar” (“Walls”) link the six videos in the exhibition –“Tereddütler” (“Hesitations”), “Duvarlar” (“Walls”), “Eksik Belgeseller” (“Missing Documentaries”), “Sevgili F” (“Dear F”), “Çark” (“TheWheel”), and “Sevil”– into a cohesive whole. At the film’s end, an unfinished inscription reads: “Our right to publish books cannot be prev…”
Prisoners who write on courtyard walls are prosecuted by the state for “damage to public property,” which effectively recasts prisons as public spaces. Ideas forged behind bars must be “taken out” to the public. But the atmosphere beyond the walls is thick with self-censorship. This leads us to facing a new question: If the true barrier lies outside -rooted in the inertia of societal opposition or a communal presence that blocks change- then questions of what wecannot do, and how, become not just individual dilemmas but collective ones. Accordingly self-censorship is no longer simply about an artist’s personal freedom, courage, or fears. It defines the contours of political imagination, where it begins and where it ends.4
It is difficult for artists to let go of the myth of individual freedom. Doing so means accepting that we are not –and cannot be– truly free, and that our ideas may be even more imprisoned than those behind bars. Reinstating the subject (the “self”) into self-censorship is only possible through a collective process of empowerment. Only then can we begin to confront the true political fear –the fear of “what if nothing happens to me?”– and find a form of courage guided by that very fear.
1 “8 yılda ne değişti? Gültan Kışanak anlatıyor…” , İrfan Aktan ile DİPNOT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhLahL3lA34
2 Görülmüştür Kolektifi, “Hapishanede sansür ve oto sansür… Tutsak yazarlar anlatıyor…”, Firari Yazılar, Klaros Yayınları, 2021, https://gorulmustur.org/icerik/hapishanede-sansur-ve-oto-sansur-tutsak-yazarlar-anlatiyor
3 Yeri gelmişken Vikipedi ansiklopedisinde yer alan otosansür tanımını da aktaralım: “[A]çık bir baskı olmadan, başkalarının hassasiyetlerine saygı göstererek, herhangi bir makamın ve yetkili kurumun engellemesi olmadığı halde, kişinin kendi çalışmalarını (blog, kitap, film veya diğer anlatım araçları gibi) sansürleme veya sınıflandırması eylemidir.”
4 Türkiye’de gösterimi engellenen Sûr: Ax û Welat’ın yönetmenlerinden Zana Kibar, şu an Türkiye’de mevcut olan otosansür iklimini tarif etmek için Fransa’daki kuş avcılarının bir yöntemine atıfta bulunuyor: “Avcılar avlanmanın yasak olduğu dönemde, ormanın üstüne tel örgüler atıyorlar. Kuşlar bu tel örgülere takıla takıla yükseğe, uzağa uçmamaya alışıyorlar. Tel örgülerin sınırı gökyüzünün sınırı olarak zihinlerine kazınıyor artık. Av sezonu geldiğinde o tel örgüyü kaldırıyorlar. Kuşlar önlerinde bir engel olmasa bile, artık tel örgülerin belirlediği sınırları ve dolayısıyla avcının avlanma mesafesini geçmiyorlar, ötesinde bir tahayyülleri yok. Bizim durum da biraz öyle.” Sibil Çekmen, “Gökyüzünün Sınırı”, Zana Kibar ve Erhan Örs’le söyleşi, Altyazı Fasikül: Özgür Sinema https://fasikul.altyazi.net/seyir-defteri/gokyuzunun-siniri/