Pop Stars Sexuality Sparks Debate

homosexual," says ultra-nationalist legislator Mehmet Gul for Turkey's

leading pop star, Tarkan.

The remark by Gul, of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), has sparked a

heated debate on a series of controversial issues such as sexual

preferences, national values and religious beliefs.

Gul might have thought that his remarks would gain him sympathy in a

country where traditional values still count. And the confrontation

initially seemed normal since Gul is known for his notoriety during the

civil strife of the late1970s when he claimed to be defending conservative

values.

Refusing to be bullied, Tarkan hit back at Gul. "I am also a

nationalist," he says. "I will settle the matter in court."

A few days after criticising Tarkan, Gul appeared on the 'Kanal 7'

television channel assessing the religious purity and moral integrity of the

popular Minister of Economy Kemal Dervis.

"Dervis is a dishonorable man," Gul said, bluntly. "Further, his mother

is a non-Muslim, and he is also a Mason."

In just two days Gul, like an elephant in glasshouse, tore down all what

his Prime Minister Devlet Bahceli had done to clean up the image of their

party, stained by blood and intolerance in the three decades of violence

during 1970-2000.

The public response in favour of Tarkan might provide a hint on how

swiftly popular values have changed in Turkey in just a decade.

In 1994 Tarkan's singing career nearly came to an abrupt end after

enraging his fans by carelessly uttering the now famous, "Cisim var,

agbi..." ('I've gotta pee, man.') -- before scampering off-camera.

But a year later, in a brilliant public-relations coup, he ditched his

pop image and staged a one-man special TV show in which he only sang revered

Turkish classics to widespread public acclaim.

His public relations exercise was interrupted a couple of years later

when Tarkan angered Turkish conservatives again, this time by refusing to

serve the compulsory 18-month military service. He fled to Germany. For that

single act of defiance, he was stripped off Turkish citizenship in April

1999 -- and publicly disgraced.

It didn't seem to have troubled him much, though. In fact, he quickly

found a new audience and began performing in Europe, to wildly adoring fans

there. His Euro-fans say his music is the perfect mixture of Western

originality and Turkish romanticism. And they just love his "great, sexy

voice, and fantastic dancing." Plus, say fans of both sexes, he is "soooo

good-looking."

He even received a prestigious 'Cannes Music Award' for his blockbuster

hit Simarik ('Spoiled').

Tarkan was born in Germany in 1972 and lived there until he returned to

Turkey to study music in 1986.

By 1993 Tarkan - who never used his surname publicly - was already a star

both at home and overseas. His second album Acayipsin ('You're

sensational!') sold more than two million copies in Turkey and 700,000

copies in Europe - a first-time-ever feat for a Turkish performer.

In 1997, after a three-year break, Tarkan released his third

Turkish-language album - and on the tour that followed, he filled the

Hippodrome in London, the Bataclan in Paris, and the Arena in Berlin. When

the album's single was released, it reached No. 3 in France-and No.1 in

Belgium and Germany.

Turkish public and the media aspiring for international celebrity at the

threshold of European Union have sided with the internationally reputed

pop-singer and turned their backs on the ultra-nationalist Gul.

"Who is that Gul, what has he done for this country. But Tarkan is a

celebrity who represents Turks in a positive way everywhere in the world. We

are proud of Tarkan and Galatasaray football-team," says Ali Coskun, a

waiter in an Istanbul restaurant. "I do not care if he is a homosexual or

not."

Ironically, in the past five decades among Turkey's most popular singers

homosexuals and transvestites have played a prominent part. Turkey mourned

for a week for Zeki Muren, a classical Turkish music singer, who had never

denied his homosexual preferences, when he died in 1998. Bulent Ersoy, the

doyen of the classical singers today, had started his singing career as a

male before undergoing operation to change his sex to a female in 1980 and

banned from singing for a while by the military rulers of the 1980s.

To tone down public anger, MHP leader Devlet Bahceli reportedly advised

Gul to join a parliamentary group now visiting the Australian city of

Melbourne to distance himself from public exposure.

Tarkan's mother Nese Tevetoglu has denied claims that her son is

homosexual. "Tarkan is a pure boy. Why are they disgracing my son?"

Tevetoglu said, urging "Gul to apologise."

On his part, Tarkan has neither accepted nor denied the claims, but

adopted a more universal stand that "sexual preferences are not a matter of

public debate". Tarkan's stand has gained him support from among Turkish

intellectuals who generally believe pop-music is not a matter of art, but

entertainment.

"I would be more than happy to be ruled by those deemed by Gul and his

fellow nationalists as dishonorable, non-Muslim and mason," says Mine

Kirikkanat, a columnist for the Radikal daily newspaper in Istanbul. "If

Mehmet Gul is a heterosexual I wish and I pray Tarkan is a

homosexual."(END/IPS/EU/CR/nm/mn/01)