In the summer months those who can afford to get out of Istanbul generally do. Last August my (then) pregnant wife, her mother and I drove down to the Mediterranean coast in a 1998 Honda. We were cruising along a dusty two-lane road at about 65 mph when a brand new customized black Porsche Cayenne appeared out of nowhere in the rear-view mirror. He must have been doing at least 110, and was flashing his high-beams, which, in Turkey, means to get out of the way. Being from Ohio, my instincts took over: I yield, wait a split-second for him to get about even with the back bumper, then slide my arm out the driver’s window with a fully-extended bird.
Although the indigenous “fuck you” hand-sign here is the thumb tucked between the index and middle fingers in a closed fist, Mr. Porsche SUV didn’t need a translator. I know this because he jerked his car right in front of us, slammed on the brakes and came to a complete stop in the middle of road. I slowly pulled past him on the right shoulder like nothing’s happened, but at this point he’s got his passenger window rolled down and is screaming about what he’s going to do to my mother. Then he flashes a handgun. My heart stops. I flinch and raise my hands in surrender. And just like that, he speeds off.
Lesson learned: flipping someone off in Turkey, even if it’s justifiable or done in the anonymity of urban life, could be the last thing you’ll ever do.
What was once written about the Hells Angels and their “belief in total retaliation for any offense or insult,” is true for a great number of Turkish drivers – and soccer fans and husbands and politicians.
In May of 2014 a university student was ordered to pay 7,000 Turkish Liras (about $3,200) to compensate 5-term Ankara mayor Melih Gökçek for the seemingly petty offense of insulting him on Twitter. Last month, a 16-year-old high school student was arrested and is presently facing a four-year prison term for insulting President Erdoğan during a political rally in Konya, at which he is reported to have referred to the “thieving owner of the illegal palace,” an allusion both to the December 2013 corruption scandal and to Erdoğan’s new 1,150 room compound.
It’s not just the youth who are targeted for the crime of insult. According to Hurriyet Daily News, Erdoğan’s son Bilal, who was also implicated in the corruption scandal, is believed to have personally filed charges against the opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu for “insulting remarks” he made while addressing Parliament. Whether it’s in traffic or in the highest echelons of political power, insults are not tolerated and are generally met with immediate retaliation backed up by the full weight of the law.
Remember Dick Cheney in Gulfport, Mississippi? He was unfazed by about as direct an insult one could imagine. He was holding a makeshift press conference in September 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when Ben Marble, a young physician whose home had been destroyed by the storm, walked over and, from about 10 feet away, yelled, “Go fuck yourself Mr. Cheney! Go fuck yourself!” Cheney was flustered, gave an awkward chuckle and tried to make a joke, and then resumed speaking. Marble went back to the ruins of his house, and although he was detained by the police for 20 minutes, no charges were filed.
This is not to say that Cheney, whose thoughts and actions directly caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, is somehow more admirable than a typical Turkish politician. But his lack of response to the verbal attack remains remarkable by comparison.
In his 1974 book, The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness, the sociologist Peter Berger presents a framework for coming to terms with these differing responses to insult. He writes, “The obsolescence of the concept of honor is revealed very sharply in the inability of most contemporaries to understand insult, which in essence is an assault on honor…In modern consciousness…insult in itself is not actionable [and] is not recognized as a real injury. The insulted party must be able to prove material injury.” For Berger, someone who insists on retaliating against a mere insult will likely be “negatively categorized…as neurotic, overly sensitive…or as the victim of a provincial mentality.”
Not only is the modern mind unmoved by insult, the crime of insult has largely disappeared from Western law. In their 2007 report, “Defamation and ‘Insult’: Writers React,” the International PEN Writers in Prison Committee notes that while “there are indeed laws in EU states penalizing insult to the state and officials…no-one has been imprisoned for under such legislation for decades, and successful prosecutions are extremely rare.”
On the other hand, the hypersensitivity to insult – whether it’s a head of state prosecuting a high school student for a political chant or a driver bringing traffic to a standstill over a middle finger – is based on a different mentality whereby the insult is an equal (if not greater) reason than material injury to seek legal or corporal retaliation.
The difference is instructive as we try to make sense of the recent terror attacks in France and of the disparity between their interpretations not just between the West and the East, but between the religious and the non-religious worlds – or, to put it differently, between the modern and pre-modern mind. For the former, the narrative of the Charlie Hebdo massacre is defined by the right to free speech; for the latter, the emphasis is on insult. And many of the discussions taking place in the West today are framed around whether Islam is the primary ideological source for terrorism and social oppression. In her recent op-ed piece in the Washington Post, Asra Q. Nomani writes that “Islam, as practiced from Malaysia to Morocco, is a shame-based, patriarchal culture that values honor and face-saving from the family to the public square.” That may or may not be the case – though it’s not just Islam. Pope Francis also condoned violence as a justifiable response to insult: “If [someone] says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch.” So much for turning the other cheek.
The reaction to insult remains key to understanding the pre-modern mentality. In nearly every critical characterization of Charlie Hebdo’s portrayal of a cartoon Mohammad, the offense is not described as blasphemy but as insult. For example, according to the BBC, the Algerian daily Echourouk stated that “It has become every Muslim's right today to file a lawsuit…over charges of insult...” Likewise, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu remarked that “Freedom of the press does not extend to insulting the prophet…publishing a cartoon that aims to insult the prophet is a clear incitement.” Pope (“What’d you say about my mama?”) Francis would agree.
There’s a mutual misunderstanding, as one person’s insult is another’s right to free speech. And just as the pre-modern mind cannot tolerate insult, modern consciousness cannot appreciate the power of an insult to provoke an immediate and often violent response. But Islam doesn't cause someone to kill as payback for drawing a cartoon any more than Catholicism causes someone to commit assault because someone said something about someone’s mother. Nor does religion cause someone to stop his car in the middle of the highway because someone flipped him off. The continued failure on both sides to appreciate the point means that the violence will probably continue. I’ll do everything in my power to prevent this, and keep my insults, and my fingers, to myself.
Jeff Howison is assistant professor of sociology at Yeditepe University in Istanbul and author of The 1980 Presidential Election: Ronald Reagan and the Shaping of the American Conservative Movement (Routledge 2013). He can be contacted at jeffrey.howison@gmail.com.