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)
