Militarism, Nationalism and Masculinity in "Ittifak"

Erinc Seymen's work "Ittifak" transforms hegemonic categories of sex, gender and sexuality that limit identities with heteronormativity and maintain the patriarchal system of society through the expression of bodies on a flag as a possibility for resistance and subversion in the matrix of nationalism and militarism.

Nationalism legitimizes itself by transforming everyday life, and the nationalist strategy is normalized and reproduced through the consumption of the transformed space by its participants. Reproduction of strategy can obviously be seen on the bodily performances of the daily discourse consumers, those who experience institutional power even in micro relations. Seymen's works provide us with a skeptical approach to analyze the normalized abnormal everyday power relations. Body is a surface on which values and social norms are written. Power operated through and on bodies, behaviors and pleasures to control the social norms that are determined by hegemonic masculinity; thence our bodies are normalized within a regime of disciplinary control against any kind of grammatical mistakes. According to Foucault, discourses create regulatory spaces in which identities and bodies are formed, reinforced and reproduced. Discourses are used as a mean to maintain and secure social control over conceptions and practices in gender and sexual identification to guarantee that identities are appropriated to heteronormativity.

Nationalism and its vital tool militarism, as an outcome of a straight mind. Both nationalism and militarism realize themselves in everyday activities of performers, who have proper bodies to keep the hegemony of heteronormativity. Military is one of the mini theaters of punishment within the territories of sacred nation state. Development of discipline is the main formulation of domination in those two spheres. Discipline created a whole new form of individuality for bodies, which enabled them to perform their duty within the form of military organization. Military discipline created docile bodies that are ideal for warfare. The artist's video “Performance for a Poem” shows us the absurdity of a docile body that is directly and indirectly controlled and manipulated by the institutions. Properly speaking, it is a declaration of a male hysteria that escapes from the unconscious mind after a dictated combination of the pathetic rites of passages from adolescence to adulthood either of a man or a nation.

All the discomfort, distress and in Seymen's works is a consequence of intolerance against and provocation of the other, who rejects the submission to the ultimate power owner; therefore the artist's three works is an internal confrontation and a confession for the viewers. To understand his work Ittifak I am going to give some references about the strategies of nationalism and militarism in Turkish society.

Modern structures construct their own patriarchies; nationalism's proper citizens are the overacted masculine bodies of the national army, indeed. Although it is fictitious, the citizen army is an important myth that creates a sense of equality between heterosexual men. In this mythical homosocial place men are invited to identify themselves with the state and are given to authority to exercise control over the other bodies. Altinay argues that the foundation myth of Turkish nationalism is the idea of “military nation”. In Turkish history military has regarded as a school that teaches the codes of masculinity and nationalism. You learn how to use your body and the main military posture, “esas duruş”, to complete your task, to kill, to fight or to fight as a docile body. On the one hand you experience discipline through your body by internalizing the surveillance ; on the other hand you experience it on your body by the legitimate use of violence as an everyday activity, as a part of system that is normalized. In military, ordinary people turn into nationalist citizens that are ready to fight for the enemy.

Militarism and nationalism need conformity that cannot allow for any deviance or difference and a gender ideology that needs men who internalize their roles as warriors so much that they are willing to obey the rules. As any kind of occupier and aggressive mentality, militarism and nationalism are organized within a socially constructed masculinity that is defined by discrimination and humiliation of others, and the most marginalized others are non-heteronormative actors. As Sedgwick states that, any society that is governed by patriarchy could impose a kind of ideological terror on its male members. This ideological or psychological force is open ended and there is no theoretical limit on how much force will be used, similar to physical force of military. Thus, nationalism and militarism feed each other in Turkish society, and they are mutually interdependent on the base of ideological terror. Nationalism as a form of governmentality, realizes and maintains itself through the mythical threat of being invaded either by the foreign enemy or the enemy within. Borders of a nation is strictly defined and the meaning of nationalism is coded within those borders. The fear of invasion leads to exaggerated set of activities, offensive efforts of brave, aggressive and strong bodies to prevent being passively invaded or emasculated. When a nation is insecure about its unity, or homogeneity then the strategy chooses to be preemptively over militarized to protect itself.

Mythified theory of nationalism and militarism controls the practices of actors, but there is not a complete subordination to the myth, to the strategy in de Certeau's terms. The relations between power, domination and subordination are not quite clear cut. Disciplinary mechanisms of the strategy are not internalized as a whole. Bodies are invaded by the strategy but they are still able to act through anti-disciplinary tactics (alternative performative acts). Individuals seek alternative creative ways to resist strategies imposed on them and create personal spaces within the strategized. Actually, this black flag, as a tactic, empowers an interactive queer community.
A flag represents identification and in generally this is an identification with independent nations. If national narratives or values determine the color(s) of the flag then it becomes easier for us to make a crucial statement about the black flag and the bodies on it. In contrast to the red and white, or flesh and blood, this black flag could be interpreted as the determination of the unfits, who are ignored and stigmatized with psycho-sexual problems. It is the alliance of the non-heteronormative identities and lifestyles, and this alliance negates the oppressively taught structures and institutions that are taken for granted. Thereby, the flag and alliance could be read as a desire of and maybe an attempt for another homeland, where there is no hierarchy.

Seymen's work denaturalize the heteronormative categories and change the internalized social conceptions and performances, which are historiacally and socially constructed. According to Sedgwick, intense male homosocial desire as at the once the most compulsory and most prohibited of social bonds but this queer work deconstructs and transforms experiences, repetitive acts and understandings of sexuality and subjectivity through the manipulation of performances to eliminate the prohibiton. In Seymen's work two people perform beyond the definition of normal, and they are not imitating the certain roles that are imposed on them by society. In that light, they are unmasking the institutional power and reinvent their bodies through anal eroticism and discover their secret femininity without reenacting the main military posture.

Seymen challenges the phallic imago of the nation of militant masculinity, and enables us for a reconfiguration of the incoherent plurality of bodies. Also coexistence as a single body in the work, redraws the unstable boundaries of heteronormativity.

Bibliography
Case Studies – Erinç Seymen : “Portrait of a Pasha”, “Performance for a Poem”, “Ittifak”
ALTINAY, Aysegul. “Myth of the Military Nation: Militarism, Gender, and Education in Turkey” . Palgrave, 2004
CERTEAU, Michel de. “The Practice of Everyday Life”. Berkeley : University of California Press, 1984
FOUCAULT, Michel. “Discipline and Punish: The Birt of the Prison” London : Penguin Books, 1991
SEDGWICK, Eve Kosofsky. “Epistemology of the Closet.”. Berkeley : University of California Press, 1990
SULLIVAN, Nikki. “A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory”, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003

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Response paper #1: Ferdinand de Saussure

Linguistic construction creates our perception of reality in general through the speech that we reiterate in everyday life. Since language shapes the ideas and makes them ready to be expressed, thought is ordered by language, and thus Saussure argues that thought can not exist without language. Social reality is not something given but is constructed through the structure of language then analyzing any referent to the sociality could let to understand the ordered unity in the complexity.

One of the principal contributions of Saussure to our understanding of language is his observation on the constructive character of language. Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure stands out in the development of structural linguistics and structuralism in various fields. In the heterogeneous mass of linguistic phenomena Saussure defines an observable homogeneous subject matter, to constitute a systematic unity. He analysis the structure of the language with a differentiation between two elements namely, parole, actual usage of language and langue, underlying system of language. Since he is interested in language as a system, key unit of the system is the basic element the sign itself; and the meaning of any linguistic sign is found in the arbitrary association of two parts: Signifier - psychological imprint of sound, Signified – concept. Hence, the meaning of a sign is only arbitrarily linked to the sign itself, and the meaning does not derive from the sign itself, nor from the thing it stands for. The important feature of a sign is that it should differ from other signs that it should contrast with them. This idea of difference is the relation that creates the value of the sign, which is determined by the whole system of signs used within community. Additionally, Saussure examines language as a mean for thought to be expressed as sound, as a link, thus he states that the spoken form of language alone constitute the object. He asserts that our spoken words are immediately tied to our presence, whereas with writing we may not be present to accompany our words, and so writing is simply a means of representing speech.

To sum up, my theoretical critique is going to be about the relations of difference between signifier and signified the lack of individual influence on the construction of the structural differences, and inferiority of writing. The language of the community makes us to think, interpret in a certain way; indeed language is seen as a solution to meaning in a dynamic and chaotic world because language is based on negations (binary oppositions?) that provide a sense of order where order may not actually exist. Although the totalization of differences and abstractness of signifier and signified produces the positivity- the concrete meaning in its dialectical nature, this process eliminates the importance of individual actors to search for meaning. Hence our perceptions of reality are determined by structures of language, sources of meaning are the sets of oppositions, not the individuals’ experience of meaning. Isn't it a kind of submission to the authority of the structure of the language? On the other hand if the speaker, the individual can not construct the value of the word, if s/he is not the center or the source of meaning; then how can we accept that the presence of the speaker guarantees the value of the sign without the act of writing.

My opinion is that, in the Saussurean theory, the complexity of the world or the meaning can only be solved by the creation of slashes; these slashes promotes fixed, final meaning and draw rigid boundaries between definitions of the oppositions. So within the boundaries language makes possible certain ways of looking at the world and lead people to reach an absolute, final meaning that is encoded between binary oppositions. I am going to try to explain my second critique about Saussure's theory practically that is experienced in everyday life, by emphasizing the ambiguity of “Gender and/or Sexual differentiations, stigmatizations” that we face with.

“Dividing up all sexual acts under the opposite categories is not a natural given
but a social-historical process.” (Sedgwick, p.xvi)

How could we understand the deeper meaning behind human sexuality? Binary oppositions limit freedom and understanding, especially as related to sex, sexuality and in general to gender; and those oppositions sustain themselves in normatively heterogeneous structure. Heteronormativity legitimizes and maintains itself through the continual enactments of gendered roles within a given social, familial or legal rules. In the act of performing the conventions of reality by embodying those fictions to our actions, we make those artificial conventions appear to be natural and necessary for the order.

Saussurean linguistic theory does not provide a sufficient answer to the complexity of the dominant forms of sexualities and gender. As a simple example, femaleness does not produce femininity and maleness does not produce masculinity. What about the gender ambiguous people - female&lesbian masculinities (Tomboys&Butches), female to male transsexuals, or male transvestites- who do not fit the strictly defined boundaries of male and female that create a third space within binary oppositions? In what terms those identifications related with Gender- a set of signifiers, and its structural units (female- femininity and male- masculinity)? Could we equate high heels to vagina or mustache to penis?

“Why do not we have multiple gender categories and real life non male and non female
options for embodiment and identification?” (Halberstam, p.20)

When we look at the “sign” Maleness, what could be regarded as signifiers - psychological imprint of that socially – historically- culturally fixed sign? One of the most and the strongest signifier of maleness is “Masculinity”. How does masculinity promote itself, is there only one and single form of masculinity or could we talk about multiplicities? Masculinity can not be reduced down to male body and its effects. Masculinity in society inevitably evokes notions of power and privilege, and as a result, internalized relation between maleness and power emerges as the dominant form of masculinity. Masculinity is interpreted as the outfit of males within the culture, however masculinity is multiple and that far from being about men, the idea of masculinity engages, inflects, and shapes everyone. Therefore, we could say that masculinity is not the property of male bodies. Actually, in order to reflect that male masculinity as the real thing female masculinities are the rejected parts of dominant masculinity.

Saussure saw order and stability in the language systems; however language is something disordered and unstable. Since different context give words different meanings, the centered language system can not have a constraining power over people that Saussure think it does. Thereby as Derrida suggests we should extend Saussure’s understanding of language as a system of differences, arguing that meaning is not stable and always postponed; so it can never be finally fixed. To conclude, if a sign can only be altered by a change in the relationship between signifier and signified then Butler's analyze on performing signs / gender roles in different or complex ways by marking in-between situations is going to be an alternative reading-writing of the language on the gender theory. The truth can be so relative and these binary oppositions can exist together; and masculine females and/or feminine males are the important examples of this unification.

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