Rethinking Transnational Men: Beyond, Between and Within Nations, eds. Jeff Hearn, Marina Blagojevic and Katherine Harrison, New York; London: Routledge, pp. 204-218

Nationalist Reactions and Masculinity Following Hrant Dink’s Assassination:

Reconfigurations of Nation-States and Implications for the Processes of

Transnationalisation

Nurseli Yeşim Sünbüloğlu

University of Sussex (United Kingdom)

Introduction

There does not seem to be much dispute about the fact that processes of

transnationalisation have profoundly affected the political, economic, and social

restructuring of the world. Simply put, transnationalisation refers to the

interconnectedness between countries and peoples through the global reach of

transnational capital as well as through the intensified mobility of people and ideas across

national boundaries. Out of the processes of transnationalisation, a new form of

sovereignty is being constituted with new norms, legal and administrative apparatuses

and hierarchies as Breny Mendoza (2002) has stated. This new form of sovereignty has

had, and will have considerable impacts on the cultural, political, and economic terrains

of nation-states. Although there are arguments that the processes of transnationalisation

have undermined the power of nation-states, as Hyun Sook Kim and Jyoti Puri (2005)

have emphasised, states are also constantly re-imagined, reconfigured, and even

strengthened. In this chapter, I aim to show that the processes of reconfiguration of the

nation-state are profoundly gender-inflected; in other words, at the core of such processes

are hegemonic practices and definitions of masculinity. I analyse hegemonic practices

relating to one particular form of Turkish masculinity in the context of a specific incident

that reveals certain elements of contemporary nationalist discourses in Turkey.

The case study upon which this chapter is based concerns the assassination by a

young nationalist of a Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor, Hrant Dink, in 2007.1

Following Meltem Ahıska (2010, 187), who argues that “the logic of hegemony is best

understood through its crises in history,” I treat this incident as a crisis of hegemony in

which the particular form of its reaffirmation in this case can be observed. To this end, I

concentrate in particular on those ‘public’ and media reactions to Dink’s murder which

focused on the religion and ethnicity of the parties involved, and which, in my view, draw

attention to hegemonic constructions of Turkish masculinity currently underway in the

nationalist context.2 However, my starting point is the role of the legal background in

which those nationalist reactions nestled with the aim of showing the more structural and

institutional grounding for the popular nationalist reactions. To further highlight this

point, I include an example of the symbolic affirmation of Dink’s murder by some state

1 Hrant Dink was assassinated in Istanbul, in front of the building of the newspaper where he worked on January 19, 2007. Ogun Samast, then 17, was arrested as the murder suspect on his way to his hometown. In his initial statement Samast admitted to committing the crime. Later, Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, the latter of whom was found out to have been a police informant, were arrested on charges of plotting Dink’s assassination and instigating Samast to commit the crime. The Hrant Dink murder trial began at the Istanbul 14th Heavy Penal Court on July 2, 2007. The trial of 18 suspects including Samast, Hayal, Tuncel, and 6 police and gendarmarie officials, the latter on charges of negligence of duty, is still continuing. 2 In this chapter, my focus is limited to some aspects of the nationalist backlash following the assasination. However, the incident has a broader significance, as Meltem Ahıska has suggested, for “exploding the continuum of history and making the debris of past crises in Turkey surface” (Ahıska 2010, 190). Ahıska argues that the incident evoked discussions related to the foreclosed Ottoman past and the violent historical conflicts with the non-Muslim populations, Armenians being one such population. I wish to thank Ömer Turan for pointing out this reference to me.

officials in an informal way. Through this case study, I explore which (groups of) men

are involved in hegemonic practices with an emphasis on the interplay of ethnicity, class,

and gender relations of power.

In this chapter, I am mainly interested in relating processes of transnationalisation

to the ways in which gendered power structures are constructed and operate in national

contexts – in this case in Turkey –, and how these structures work to produce gender,

ethnicity, and class exclusions. I argue that attention to the gender reconfigurations

integral to processes of nation-building and the attending nationalist discourses helps

provide a better understanding of transnationalisation as a gendered and classed process.

Hegemony of the Nation-State and Masculinity

Nations, using Benedict Anderson’s (1983) apt phrase, are imagined communities. This

form of collectivity requires constructing and constantly reproducing bondings among the

members of the nation, the majority of whom have no in-person contact with one another

in daily life. As feminist analyses of the modern state and nationalism have shown,

gender norms are the core constitutive elements in the construction of such bondings, the

major result of which is to maintain men’s privileges in general (e.g. Pateman 1988).

Obviously, not all men enjoy an equal share of those privileges, nor is it the case that all

women are totally deprived of them. Intersections of gender, class and ethnicity, among

other factors, contribute to construction and functioning of power relations within which

the bondings are constructed. In understanding the complexity of power relations, the

Gramscian concept of hegemony has been particularly useful and it has been deployed

extensively in gender research, especially in relation to masculinity.

The concept of hegemony enables an exploration ofthe specificities of the

workings of power relations since it “always refers to a historical situation, a set of

circumstances in which power is won and held” (Carrigan et al. 1985, 594). Drawing on

hegemony in analyses also makes it possible to grasp the dynamics of power relations

because the construction of hegemony “is not a matter of pushing and pulling between

ready-formed groupings but is partly a matter of formation of those groupings” (Carrigan

et al. 1985, 594), which underscores the constructive role of hegemony. As different

political, economic, and/or social circumstances may necessitate different types of

bondings, hegemonic definitions and practices serve a common ground to accommodate

such differences. However, some features related to the workings of hegemony are more

structural and their role is less likely to change, such as gender relations – in particular,

relations between men and the state. The relationship between men/masculinity and

hegemony, following Jeff Hearn, “seeks to address the double complexity that men are

both a social category formed by the gender system [which involves hegemony] and

dominant collective and individual agents of social [and hegemonic] practices” (Hearn

2004, 59). These practices of men with both discursive and material aspects lead to

“forming and reforming hegemonic differentiations among men” (Hearn 2004, 61).

Focusing on hegemonic differentiations among men requires research that is also able to

foreground race/ethnicity and class, and account, in some ways, for the complicity and

consent of differently-located men to hegemonic power structures operative at both

national and transnational levels, as well as in relation to different global and regional

processes involved in the construction of gender relations.

Various actors are involved in the processes of negotiation and the upholding of

hegemony, but I will limit my focus to two them: the state and the media. The state, not

as a fixed entity but rather as a mechanism operating through a series of processes, has a

crucial role in hegemonic practices along with various other political actors. Since the

state is also the main organiser of gender relations within its ‘gender regimes’ (Connell

1994), several gender norms necessarily underlie the practices involving state

apparatuses. The role of the media as the second major actor in my analysis relates to an

important aspect of hegemony which is that it “involves persuasion of the greater part of

the population, particularly through the media, and the organization of social institutions

in ways that appear ‘natural’, ‘ordinary’, ‘normal’” (Donaldson 1993, 645). The

construction and reproduction of consent enables hegemony to work through dominated

groups in order to establish and maintain the domination of the ruling class. As an earlier

form of media, print capitalism substantially contributed to spreading the nationalist ideas

and the notion of national identity to a wider circle as Anderson (1983) has suggested.

Compared to its historical function in the construction of nation-states, contemporary

media has a more profound and instantaneous effect on people in the dissemination of

normative definitions and practices by means of heroised figures. In the following

section, I look into the role of the state and the media in (re)producing the nationalist

reactions to the murder of Hrant Dink by paying particular attention to the related

elements of ethnicity, class and masculinity.

Hrant Dink’s Murder and the Nationalist Reactions

The legal aspect of the case

The case of Hrant Dink’s murder provides illuminating insight into the involvement of

the state both formally and informally as well as the active involvement of a large

number of people in the process of redrawing the ethnic boundaries of the nation. In order

to unravel the role of the state in the reproduction of the national identity in this instance,

I will first explore the role of the legal apparatus of the state in the murder. The notorious

Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which penalises so-called insults against

‘Turkishness’ (later changed to ‘Turkish Nation’), lays bare the way in which the state is

involved in defining the ‘ideal citizen’ with ethnic references through its legal system. It

is significant that the state, by means of this article, reifies the concept of ‘protection of

the nation’ and justifies any actions serving this goal by implicitly encouraging such

actions. In the background to the Dink murder were the law suits based on this particular

article and the ways in which these law suits were presented to the public mainly by the

mainstream media. The trials and the media coverage of them constituted a major driving

force leading to collective reactions against writers, journalists and intellectuals (Hrant

Dink being one of them) who were being tried based on this article and therefore seen as

‘the enemies of the Turkish nation’.3 This atmosphere revolving around the notions of

‘fragile Turkishness’ and ‘its enemies’ accounts for the statement of Yasin Hayal, who is

being tried on charges of instigation of the murder: “Long live the nation. I am so much

at peace about what I have done” (Radikal daily newspaper, January 25, 2007).

Article 301 plays an important role in keeping alive the discourse of ‘defending

the nation,’ which functions as a ‘call-to-duty’ for the male citizens. Especially with the

3 Can Açıksöz points out how the outside of the courtrooms during these trials became a site for (at times violent) protests by ultranationalists including disabled veterans and martyrs’ families and how, in this process, Dink, among other dissident intellectuals, became the “surrogate victim” replacing Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK (Açıksöz 2011, especially 207-213).

Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) accession to power in 2002, a tendency towards

fetishisation of the law, or certain articles to be more precise, has increased and this has

been related to Turkey joining the European Union.4 Opposition to the AKP has claimed

that it is necessary for Turkey to follow strictly the principles of constitutional state and

has argued that similar articles (to Article 301) currently exist in the penal codes of some

European countries. It can be observed that the on-going process of joining the European

Union has served as a justification for nationalist interpretations of the law. As Nergis

Canefe has argued, on account of the article in question “banal nationalism in a legal

framework has permeated the daily life of society as an incontestable discourse and

legislative power has induced this rather than the judiciary power, contrary to the usual

course of actions. And for common people, it is no more than a detail regarding

governance” [my translation] (Canefe 2007, 93). It is worth noting that on Internet

forums many people who defined themselves as nationalists referred to the accusations

directed against Dink during his trial as the cause of his murder (Aktan 2007). The legal

aspect (i.e. Article 301) thus functioned as the justification for the murder, which came to

be regarded as ‘inevitable’ by the nationalists.

The role of the political parties

Most of the political party leaders assumed a leading role in expressing and spreading

nationalist statements directed against the symbolic slogan denouncing Dink’s death:

“We all are Hrant. We all are Armenians” which promptly became the focal point of

4 Having been an associate member of the predecessors of the European Union (EU) since 1963, Turkey applied for formal membership into the EU – then European Community – in 1987. Turkey was recognised as a candidate for full membership in 1999 and since 2005, the negotiations have been underway. Partly because Turkey’s long record of human rights violations figure as a major obstacle to full membership,

attack of the nationalist reactions (Cetinkaya 2007). This points to the need to employ a

broader scope in the analyses of state actors as this case shows a certain level of

consensus between the state and other political actors in the making and publicising of

the ethnicity-based definition of normative citizenship. One of the first politicians to raise

an objection to the anti-nationalist attitude adopted in the funeral procession5 was Şevket

Kazan, the vice chairman of the Happiness Party (Radikal daily newspaper, January 30,

2007). Having formerly been a Minister of Justice, Kazan sets a telling example of how

state and civil politics represented by political parties share similar views with regard to

defining the boundaries of the nation. Kazan, who referred to the “We all are Armenians”

slogan as “sucking-up”, was among the first to utter the counter-slogan, “We all are

Mehmet [a common Turkish male name]. We all are Muslims”, which aptly summarises

the nationalist reactions. Following the Happiness Party, four other political parties,

namely the Grand Unity Party, the Nationalist Movement Party, the Right Way Party, and

the Labour Party, as well as the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself raised

similar objections. Although the Prime Minister’s tone was milder in his criticism that “it

would have been better if the protesters had not said ‘We all are Armenians’” [my

translation] (Radikal daily newspaper, January 30, 2007), his statement nevertheless

shared similar concerns to the more overtly expressed nationalist protests.

The counter-slogan, “We all are Turks. We all are Mehmet,” whose impact was

enhanced by means of newspaper headlines and banners on the streets prepared by

nationalist parties and soon adopted by masses has two significant implications. First, as

most discussions about democracy and lawfulness are at some point linked to the EU accession process. 5 An unexpectedly large crowd – more than 200,000 people – joined the funeral procession of Dink, carrying posters that read: “We all are Armenians”. It has been suggested that both the large number of people and this powerful slogan fuelled the nationalist reactions.

Doğan Cetinkaya noted, it brings to light the fact that ethnicity is the sole determining

factor in defining ‘Turkishness’ (Cetinkaya 2007, 103-104). The counter-slogan

establishes ‘Mehmet’ and ‘Hrant’ as mutually exclusive categories implying that ‘Hrant’

falls out of the national boundaries since he is not one of ‘us’. The second important point

is the very choice of the ‘counter-name’. Mehmet, the Turkish equivalent of Tommy,

seems to be a deliberate choice in that it alludes to the armed conflict against the Kurds in

the south-east of Turkey. The name, by means of connotation, involves Kurds, the major

ethnic ‘other’, in the matter, as one ethnic exclusion is followed by another almost as a

reflexive reaction.

Popular nationalist reactions

Political party representatives were soon joined by the masses in outcry about the ‘pro-

Armenian’ protests against the assassination. A white woollen hat, which the assassin

was wearing at the time of the incident, became a symbol of the nationalists’ approval of

the murder. This tacit approval was particularly demonstrated by crowds in football

stadiums. Beside the widespread appearance of the white woollen hats on football

supporters’ heads, banners reading “We are Turks. We are Mustafa Kemal” were

unfurled. Also, it was reported that during a football game, an announcement was made,

proclaiming that “Supporters who do not cheer for our team are Armenians” (Radikal

daily newspaper, January 30, 2007). The role the stadiums played in demonstration of the

nationalist reactions is closely related to the role of sports in the construction of

normative masculinities (Connell 1995). As well as military service and war, certain

sports games create distinctive spaces for establishing a specific kind of male bonding.

As Berrin Koyuncu and Hilal Onur (2004) argued, the collective activism producing this

male bonding has a particular component, which is violence directed against other men.

Violence, the culmination of the collective activism, is justified by the perceived threat

that is claimed to be evoked by ‘other’ men. Through the bonding formed among men

who commit violence, hegemonic definitions and practices of masculinities are

sanctioned and reproduced. In a similar vein, Ann McClintock (1997) points out that, in

the context of nationalism, (gendered) violence is usually a constitutive element in the

construction of collective identities. As can be observed in the nationalist reactions

occurring in the football stadiums, ‘ideal’ supporter behaviours pertain to normative

masculine identity intertwined with the nationalist identity, and symbolic violence is

directed mainly against the men of the other ethnic groups – in this case, especially

Armenians. However, demonstration of violent behaviour is not necessarily limited to

one ethnic identity. Indeed, in the football match between Malatyaspor (the football club

of the city where Hrant Dink was born) and Elazıgspor (the football club of a city in

Eastern Anatolia), some Elazıg supporters shouted “Armenian Malatya” and the response

to that was “PKK out!” (Radikal daily newspaper, January 30, 2007). It is worth noting

that both groups endeavoured to ostracise each other on the grounds of ethnicity.

Kurdish, PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), and Armenian identities are intermingled, and

are at once placed in the category of ‘threatening elements against Turkey’.

Sports games were not the only occasion in which nationalist sentiments were

manifested. In line with what they usually do, popular figures in the music industry

played an important role in conveying the related hegemonic definitions in this particular

case. One example highlights this role quite clearly. The song entitled “Don’t make any

plans”6 by a well-known singer, Ismail Turut, gained popularity by expressing a profound

anxiety about the ‘foreign elements’ in general and about the impact of the assassination

on the region in particular. The predominant theme of the lyrics expresses concern about

the ‘conspiracy against the motherland.’ As ‘the identities of the conspirators’ are

revealed in the lyrics, it becomes evident how extensive the group of ‘our enemies’ is.

Americans, Russians, Armenians, and more generally Christians are identified as the

enemies of Turks and more specifically of the people of the Black Sea Region. The

significance of this particular region is that it is where the assassin’s hometown is

situated, and the city (his hometown) itself is associated with a strong nationalist identity.

Except when they direct threats against the ‘enemies,’ the lyrics address a

particular male model - one that would make any sacrifice to protect the ‘motherland-

under-threat.’ Especially in times of political conflicts, ethnocentricism is intensified,

which has profound gender implications. Joanne Nagel uses the metaphor of sirens to

explain the meaning of the ‘love of nation’ for male citizens (Nagel 1998, 252). The

definition and content of the duty of protecting the motherland implicitly suggest the

definition of the ideal male citizen. Nationalist politics which frequently invoke such

duties are one of the most important arenas in which ‘true manhood’ is realised and

6 Don’t make plans; you can’t execute them in the Black Sea/Double-crossing [also means being a whore]

and lies are not welcomed in the Black Sea/Johnnies [Americans] or Russians! Don’t set up ambushes/Separatism isn’t worth a damn, not in the Black Sea/Stop tolling (church) bells or being Armenian/No one in the Black Sea buys this/They might say whatever they want [there is a word play here; one of the words is the name of Hrant Dink’s murderer]/Fatiha and Yasin never end in the Black Sea [Yasin is a male name and the title of a Koranic verse and it also alludes to Yasin Hayal]/Justify your honour, reputation, and your life/No one betrays their nation in the Black Sea./If one betrays his nation, he is destroyed straight off [also mean gets killed]/The sun of Turk and Islam never sets in the Black Sea/With this strength in us, no matter if you are a relative of Bush/None of you is worth a penny in the Black Sea/It is obvious that you are holding grudge against us/You are not powerful enough to cause chaos [my translation].

proved.7 A striking fact about this call-to-duty is that it is generated within a discourse

that refers to the so-called pre-modern relations and obligations of kinship rather than the

rhetoric of the ‘modern’ relations between the state and the citizens, although modern

masculinity defines itself in opposition to pre-modern masculinity (Connell 1994, 150).8 I

suggest that in this case ‘modern’ refers to middle- or upper-class urbanites whereas the

use of a ‘pre-modern’ discourse is particularly aimed at addressing lower-class or

underclass men living in rural areas or slums in big cities. It can be argued that the use of

references to pre-modern kinship obligations functions as a way to make lower-class men

identify more closely with nationalist causes. I treat this example as particularly

indicative of the way in which modern nation states configure themselves using the

seemingly incompatible discourses of both modernity and pre-modernity/tradition. I also

argue that dichotomous constructions of the modern/pre-modern are enormously

influential when it comes to constructing hegemonic Turkish nationalist masculinities.

This influence accounts for the existence of the several videos broadcasted on

YouTube and on Samast’s Facebook page which was started by his ‘fans’ to celebrate his

deed. Different versions of the video are available on the Internet; however, all have the

same recurring images including the pictures of the assassin and Mustafa Kemal, funerals

of the soldiers of the Turkish Army who were killed while fighting against the PKK, the

Turkish flag, a map of Turkey, guns, Koranic verses and scenic views alluding to the

Black Sea Region. These images embody the religious, political, and cultural codes with

which nationalists identify themselves. This example underscores the fact that the

7 For example, when distinguishing male citizens from female citizens, “Enoch Powell argued that a woman should not pass on her citizenship to her child because ‘nationality, in the last resort, is tested by fighting’” (Pateman 1989, 50).

Internet has provided the masses with an easily accessible public space where

disseminating and sharing information are relatively easier and more influential

compared to the conventional media. This has led the nationalist reactions to be

expressed in relatively more unrestrained ways.

The state’s tacit affirmation of the murder and the role of the media

The final example I will analyse provides insight into the process of heroising the

assassin and the state’s symbolic affirmation of the murder. Ogun Samast, after

committing the murder, was caught in a coach terminal on his way to his hometown. A

few days later, some photographs and later a mobile phone shooting were released by the

media (Radikal daily newspaper, January 30, 2007). In the photographs, the police and

the gendarme officers who caught him are seen taking‘souvenir photographs’ with

Samast before he was taken to the police station. Also in the photographs, Samast is

holding a Turkish flag in front of a poster on which it reads “The soil of the motherland is

sacred. It cannot be left to its fate,” a statement by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding

figure of the Turkish Republic. The statement adds a dramatic tone to the photograph by

giving the impression that it refers to the borders of the country although it is actually

concerned with soil in an agricultural sense. This mise en scéne is a telling example of

how meaning is manipulated through appropriation of national symbols. In addition to

this, the photographs reveal the ambiguous and conflicting involvement of the state in the

case. On the one hand, security forces carry out their duty by catching the suspects

responsible for Dink’s death. On the other hand, the same officers unofficially and

8 For the paradoxical relationship of the nation-state to the concepts of modern and pre-modern in Turkey,

symbolically convey a message of affirmation of the murder. This seemingly conflicting

attitude, following Kim-Puri (2005), is hardly a sign of weakness on the part of the state.

Such ostensible inconsistencies, along with a series of problematisations best exemplified

by the discourse of motherland-under-threat, constitute an important part of

governmentality.

The mainstream media played an important role in legitimising this symbolic

affirmation of the murder by the state by way of some influential journalists arguing that

the police officers taking pictures with Samast should not be considered a case of

misconduct. The chief editor of Hurriyet, a newspaper with a very high circulation, and

under whose logo it reads “Turkey belongs to Turks,” offered a different point of view by

likening the police officers to hunters (Hurriyet daily newspaper, February 3, 2007). With

this comparison, the photographs gained a completely opposite meaning which eradicated

any reference to support for the murder by the state. According to Ertugrul Ozkok, the

chief editor, the officers were simply proud that they had caught their ‘prey’ and the aim

of the photographs was to celebrate their success. Ozkok went on to argue that the

footage (seen by him along with some other journalists but not publicly circulated),

recorded on one of the officer’s mobile phones supported his conviction (Hurriyet daily

newspaper, February 9, 2007). The hunting metaphors used by him and later by an

anchorman, Mehmet Ali Birand, on an evening news programme with a considerable

rating share emphasise how profoundly the masculine references are inflected with the

perceptions of the state and components of its apparatuses.

see Kandiyoti 1997.

Some Implications of the Case Study for Transnationalisation

Although it may not be very usual to focus on an incidence of upsurge in nationalist

sentiments in relation to transnationalisation, Dink’s murder, I suggest, has some bearing

on the phenomenon especially in terms of the tension between the relative stability of

identities or subject positions mainly associated with nation-states and the immense

mobility, fluidity, and non-territoriality as products of transnationalisation. In accordance

with the two poles of the tension, two major tendencies can be observed in the literature

related to transnationalisation. One side of the debate points out that such extensive

developments in the domains of transportation and information have been witnessed that

“moving groups and individuals [have come to] constitute an essential feature of the

world” (Appadurai 2000, 325). Among others who understand contemporary spatiality in

terms of deterritorialisation, Arjun Appadurai contends that “primordia (whether of

language, or skin color, or neighborhood or kinship) have become globalized”

(Appadurai 2000, 329). What has started to dominate instead is “a variety of complex,

post-national social formations” (Appadurai 1996, 167). With the term postnational,

Appadurai argues that nation-states have increasingly less monopoly over the formation

of subject positions and allegiances, a fact which, for Appadurai, accounts for the

obsolescence of nation-states. This view treats transnationalism as a way forward from

nationalism and the nation-state, which has been defined as “the last refuge of ethnic

totalitarianism” (Appadurai 1996, 159). However, on the other side of the debate, this

approach, in general, is seen as another example of the long list of binarisms (Ong 1999).

In fact, the two (nationalism and transnationalism) are regarded as “mutually constructed

expressions of the ‘global’” (Roudometof 2009, 313). It has also been argued that a new

type of nationalism that is transnational has begun to emerge (Kastoryano 2008),

indicating the intertwinement of the two processes. Although there is a certain degree of

valorisation of mobility, fluidity, and transgressing of boundaries, Meyda Yeğenoğlu

suggests it is only possible to do so by focusing the attention “solely on diasporic

communities or localities in First World spaces” and ignoring that, for the underclass of

the global South, claiming rights and benefits of citizenship within the framework of

nation-state is indeed part of resistance (Yeğenoğlu 2005, 106). Thus transnationalisation

is as much about global flow of capital (and accompanying restrictions mainly for the

underclass) as it is about the mobility of people and ideas which may have more

liberating resonances.

Yeğenoğlu bases her argument mainly on the case of the Kurdish community who

live in the slums and who are radically marginalised or excluded from the frameworks of

the nation-state largely on the basis of their ethnicity as well as their marginalised

position in the global market economy. Therefore, for this group of people, “their search

for stable and long-lasting roots within the existing perimeters of the nation-state” is

mostly about claiming a share in the economic resources (Yeğenoğlu 2005, 105). My

case study is concerned with another group of underclass people who are in no better

position economically yet who can enjoy their privileged Turkish ethnicity. In this case it

is more to do with gaining social capital and reifying ethnic and religious bondings,

which are exclusively for men,9 working through hegemonic practices and definitions of

masculinity. It can be argued that economically disadvantaged groups of men within a

nation-state take quicker and at times more violent action when they believe ‘cultural and

9 For an example of the exclusion of immigrant women from gaining social capital in Canada, see Gardiner

national values’ are at stake. It is the nationalist discourse that creates and maintains the

illusion that lower class and underclass men have as much access to economic resources

by virtue of their ethnic identity, although in fact their share in material resources is very

limited. This symbolic granting of access can explain why certain men are addressed

when a call-to-duty is in question and also why certain men are lured by the ’sirens’ and

take part in often violent actions in the name of the ‘honour of the nation’. It seems to be

a way to accomplishment and even a certain extent of fame as the case of Samast shows.

In the formation of this symbolic bonding as presented in this case study, a complex

network of actors in the state, political parties, and the media take part, and the process is

well integrated in the everyday life practices of men through sports, music, and etc. This

could be read as an illustration of what Kim-Puri (2005) have argued; due to the current

economic system, the governance of nation-states has become quite dispersed enabling

the reproduction of states’ power at more micro levels and that this reconfiguration of

power strengthens nation-states, contrary to predictions of their demise. States not

holding a major position within the global power structure can be said to adhere more to

their ethnic and religious codes when reconfiguring themselves, and the affirmation of

such codes often leads to exclusionary actions as my case study reveals.

In addition to the impact of the global economy, it is important to take into

consideration the historical, political, and specific economic context in which the

processes of transnationalisation vis-à-vis nation-states take place. In Turkey, along with

general factors such as the global flow of capital and neoliberalism, more specific factors

contribute to the processes of reconfiguration of the nation-state, including the concerns

Barber 2006.

of the Kemalist bureaucratic elites about losing political power and Turkey’s position vis-

à-vis transnational organisations, the most influential of which is the European Union.

These two factors are usually dealt with by invoking a discourse of the ‘nation being

under threat’ by nationalist circles. In the nationalist discourse, the existence of threat

requires redrawing of the national boundaries with an emphasis primarily on ethnicity

and religion. As the example of the pop song (Don’t Make Any Plans) shows,

consolidation of Turkish identity is carried out through a process of defining it against a

series of ‘threatening’ identities, brought together under the category of ‘the West’. The

historical background of the somewhat tense relationship with ‘the West’ and Turkish

modernisation can best be understood by consideringthe modernising Kemalist elites of

the early 20th century who aimed to consolidate an official identity compatible to and

competitive with, but different from, European models of the nation state. Europe, often

referred as ‘the West’ in modernising discourse, was taken as the example of reaching the

goal of ‘civilisation’, but this relationship at the same time induced a strong fear of

“superwesternisation” (Mardin 1974), a term which refers to the fear of losing the

‘essence’ of Turkishness. The metaphor illustrating ‘the West’ as a seductive woman was

not uncommon in the late 19th century press, which distinctly emphasises that the

relationship with ‘the West’ as the model of modernisation has been gendered right from

the beginning.

Decline of power over the control of internal economy (but gaining a new form of

power through establishing global alliances) leads to disorder in existing hegemonic

gender relations. As Hearn has pointed out, “global and regional transformations, such as

Europeanization, as through the European Union, may be part of the changing hegemony

of men” (Hearn 2004, 65). In the context of these changes and processes, analyses of

ethnic conflict prove to be fruitful in understanding the construction of hegemonic

definitions of masculinity. The reason for this is that the instability regarding the

boundaries of the nation-state is perceived as being closely related to the instability of

hegemonic masculinity. It is this parallelism which makes it easier to mobilise men to

take part in collective actions. Such challenges shaped by global forces and local

concerns often result in a reaffirmation of “local gender orthodoxies and hierarchies”

(Connell 1998, 17). In the case I have analysed, the reconstitution of hegemonic gender

definitions is carried out with a strong emphasis on the existing ethnic and religious

hierarchies.

The ‘spatial’ aspect of this reconstitution of gender order also provides valuable

insight into the ways in which the reconfigurations of nation-states are developed vis-à-

vis transnational dynamics. The nationalist reactions, as mentioned above, occurred in

‘conventional’ spaces such as stadiums and streets as well as “non-places” (Mendoza

2002, 300) such as the Internet, in which transnational politics and history are built. The

use of the Internet by the nationalists to spread their views is especially significant in the

sense that the same means of communication is considered very effective in constructing

allegiances transcending national boundaries. One important point regarding nationalists’

use of web forums is the high level of violence. In his work, Hamza Aktan (2007) shows

that strong expressions glorifying dying and killing for the country in general and in

particular the assassination of Dink were frequently used. It appears that the anonymity

facilitated by the Internet is the key to why violence is expressed more overtly. Further

analysis of the ‘convergence’ concerning different utility of space can unravel the extent

to which the dynamics of reconfigured nation-states and transnationalisation are mutually

constitutive.

As I have noted above one pitfall related to my case study is the risk of treating

nationalist constructions of masculinity in Turkey as purely the effect of ‘local’ or

‘cultural’ norms. Therefore, both taking into account the material inequalities between

nation-states and linking constructions of Turkish masculinity to wider frameworks of

power are important.10 However, it would be equally misleading to think that nationalist

reactions (in general and in the case of Dink‘s murder) emerge(d) solely in response to

global power structures. The unexpectedly high number of people who participated in the

funeral procession, the intensity of the denigration of murder by non-nationalist circles,

and especially the slogan, “We all are Armenians” deconstructing the assumed

naturalness of one’s ethnicity constituted a challenge to nationalist conceptions. Of the

two competing discourses, nationalism was the one which attempted to evoke – and was

successful in doing so to some extent – a process of reconstitution of ethnic boundaries of

the nation-state in relation to hegemonic practices and definitions of masculinity.

Conclusion

The assassination of Hrant Dink is a useful case for analysing the involvement of various

political (different state institutions, political parties, the law, and journalists) and ‘non-

political’ (individual and collective practices of groups of people) actors (although not in

the same potency11) in the hegemonic practices of men and the role of the various means

10 There is also the issue that nationalism is not specific to peripheries. For examples from the western context, see Roudometof 2009. 11

A useful concept for making sense of the involvement of the masses is “designated agency”, which

of media through which the then 17-year-old assassin and his accomplices were

represented as hegemonic ‘cultural ideals’. This representation was particularly

constructed to appeal to young lower or under class men as an attempt to compensate for

their limited access to economic resources of the nation-state. The class element in my

analysis reveals the ways in which hegemonic masculine identity constructions can

operate in relation to a ‘dominated’ group of men in terms of their economic class, who

can actively take part in carrying out hegemonic practices when their ethnic identity is

prioritised in the making of their group identity.

In the context of this particular case, the recurring elements of the hegemonic

definition of masculinity include nationalism, Islam, military, duty to protect the

‘motherland-under-threat’, and violence against the ethnic Other(s) in achieving this goal.

It is important to point to the existence of an effectively mobilising nationalist vocabulary

pertaining to hegemonic masculinity. It seems that there is currently no equally effective

set of elements to establish bondings on a transnational level. As Pheng Cheah argues,

“the world is undoubtedly interconnected, and transnational mobility is clearly on the

rise. However, one should not automatically take this to imply that popular forms of

cosmopolitanism already exist” (Cheah 1998, 36). The violent act which led to Dink’s

death can mistakenly be considered as the result of an individual initiative, which would

be disregarding the profound power relations entrenched in the structure and dynamics of

the state as well as among states on a global level. Highlighting these power effects is

important for understanding transnationalisation processes, especially considering the

argues that masses do not act independently from existing structures. For a discussion of the designated agency of women in the process of nation-state building, which is based on Franz Fanon’s argument, see McClintock 1997.

reciprocal relations between the European Union and Turkey.

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