Ö1: Bayan Yanı

Über sich selbst lachen können

Satiriker haben in der Türkei oft das letzte Wort. Das musste schon vor 100 Jahren der humorlose Sultan Abdülhamid einsehen, der für seine große Nase bekannt war. Weil er über sein Aussehen keine Witze vertrug, ließ er das Wort Nase ganz verbieten. Vergeblich. Was nicht gesagt werden durfte, wurde dann mit umso mehr Begeisterung gezeichnet.

Dass jetzt auch türkische Frauen ein Satiremagazin herausgeben, kann nur einen Besucher aus dem Westen wundern. Denn schon bisher hatten die rund zwanzig regelmäßig erscheinenden Satire-Magazine viele weibliche Mitarbeiter. ‚Bayan Yani‘, so der Name der neuen Zeitschrift, versteht sich nicht als Kampforgan, sondern als Anstoß dazu, über sich selbst zu lachen: Unser einziges Kriterium ist: Wir müssen selbst darüber lachen, während wir es zeichnen, sagt Betül Yilmaz, eine der Jüngeren in einem Redaktionsteam von 19 Frauen. Ich denke: Wir sind genau die gleichen Menschen wie unsere Leser. Wenn ich lache werden die es wohl auch komisch finden…
Eine Familiensache…

Die liebste Zielscheibe der Satirikerinnen sind Frauen, die äußerlich selbstbewusst und modern wirken, aber doch die Denkweise der türkischen Männerwelt an ihre Kinder weiter geben. Manche Comics sind ganz einfach schockierend. Da ist ein Mann zu sehen, der mit einem Messer auf eine Frau losgeht. Von allen Seiten kommen Leute, die ihn besänftigen wollen. Doch als sich herumspricht, dass es sich um die Ehefrau handelt, sagt einer der Umstehenden achselzuckend: Ach so, eine Familiensache: Es sind eigentlich unsere Leserinnen, die von uns verlangen, dass wir das Thema Gewalt gegen Frauen behandeln, sagt Raziye Icoglu, die eine geschriebene Kolumne beisteuert. Es wäre schön, wenn wir damit wenigstens ein bisschen etwas bewegen könnten.
Grenzen ausloten

Das Thema Familie ist in der Türkei, heute wieder mehr denn je, hoch politisch. Die Partei von Ministerpräsident Erdogan will die traditionelle Familienform mit mindestens drei Kindern zur Norm machen. Und Menschen, die sich für eine andere Lebensform entscheiden, werden von Regierungsseite auch gerne verspottet. Darf man sich in einem türkischen Satiremagazin auch über religiöse Fragen lustig machen? Eigentlich gibt es kein Thema, das man nicht behandeln darf, sagt Betül Yilmaz, aber bei manchen Dingen sollte man gewisse Grenzen beachten. Wir versuchen, während wir arbeiten, keine Selbstzensur zu üben, und uns erst nachher zu fragen, ob die eine oder andere Zeichnung unbedingt sein muss.

Der Prophet kommt jedenfalls in der ersten Ausgabe des neuen Satire-Magazins nicht vor. Und auch das Gesicht des Ministerpräsidenten sucht man vergebens. Er hat Satiriker, die ihn in Tiergestalt gezeichnet haben, mehrmals geklagt, ist aber beim Höchstgericht mit seiner Beschwerde abgeblitzt. Wieder einmal hatten also die Satiriker das letzte Wort.

Quelle: oe1.orf.at

The debut issue of the comics-heavy magazine, dedicated to International Women’s Day on March 8, takes on serious and timely topics such as violence against women and the recent sexist comments by two well-known Turkish journalists. But the founders say they don’t want to focus only on women’s concerns.

“These issues are so little mentioned in the press, but we still don’t want to only cover them,” well-known cartoonist and “Bayan Yanı” contributor Ramize Erer told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. “We want to show that women can be opponents of the system too. We want to talk about everything using our own voices.”

Though the women behind the magazine seek to set “Bayan Yanı” apart from its male-dominated predecessors – from the first Turkish comics magazine, “Diyojen,” to the world-famous “Gırgır” and modern publications such as “Leman,” “Uykusuz” and “Penguen” – they welcome men’s involvement as well.

“Turkey actually has a lot of powerful women cartoonists, and we want to bring them forward,” said one of those men, founder Tuncay Akgün, a famous cartoonist. “Women’s magazines are known to be sidelines for the fashion and cosmetics industries; ‘Bayan Yanı’ will tear down those borders.”

The name of the magazine, which translates literally as “the seat next to a woman,” refers to a common practice in Turkey: When a woman buys a single ticket for long-distance bus travel, she is assigned a seat next to another woman. Those seats are called “Bayan Yanı.”

“As a person who loves long-distance travel, buying a ticket is the most stressful part,” wrote Melda Onur, one of the writers for the new magazine. “When making a phone reservation, if you ask for a single ticket, the seller asks, ‘Is it for you?’ Then you get a seat next to another woman. Even with Internet reservations, the bus companies split the seats into blue and pink ones.”

“By naming the magazine ‘Bayan Yanı,’ we protest this treatment and also say that the magazine is from women’s perspectives,” Feyhan Güver, one of the comic artists for the publication, told the Daily News.

Whose language?

That perspective is not always a feminine one, however. “I get criticism for writing in a masculine tone, but I don’t think women should have a different style just because of their sex,” said Duygu Sarı, who writes a column for “Bayan Yanı” and contributes to “Yeni Harman” magazine.

“My language is closer to that of men’s; perhaps this is because I have been reading comics since I was 12 and this is what I am used to,” said Sarı.

Andaç Gürsoy, who has been drawing comics for 22 years, said drawing comics is physically demanding and therefore is not for every woman. “It is physically consuming. You have to have strong arm muscles to draw for so long,” she said. “My hands and feet get swollen from sitting for so long.”

According to Levent Cantek, who has written several books on the subject, Turkish comic books and magazines are completely based on male jargon.

“Until the 1960s the use of photography was very little, so many publications used the female body and eroticism to gain a higher circulation,” he told the Daily News. “Humor naturally feeds from forbidden areas such as sex and slang. But I don’t understand how these magazines can be critical opponents while having such an understanding of humor.”

“I am not against talking about sex, but it is a vicious cycle to make [the work] just about relationships or draw women characters who win men over through their sexuality. Even female comic artists do that. I hope ‘Bayan Yanı’ can change that,” Cantek said.

Women vs men?

Founder Akgün is not the only man involved in the new magazine, which also has male cartoonists drawing for its back pages. When asked if this goes against the publication’s principles, cartoonist Erer said the founders did not want create an us-versus-them dynamic.

“We were always the decorations in comics made by men and now we have male artists working with us. We don’t want to be seen as if we are against men. They are also great artists and we are lucky to have them,” Erer said.

Writer Cantek, however, said decreasing the number of men involved with “Bayan Yanı” would be more true to the magazine’s nature.

“I think having this magazine is a wonderful opportunity,” he said. “But for now it looks like a magazine of women artists’ works, put together. They would really have a political approach if they decreased the number of men and formed a permanent team of women.”

A brief history of humor magazines in Turkey

Greek Ottoman Teodor Kasap published the first Turkish comic magazine, “Diyojen,” in 1870. Since then, hundreds of publications have followed, but few of them made their mark on history.

One of the most notorious was “Markopaşa,” a weekly comic magazine published between 1946 and 1950 that was well known for its satirical commentary on politics. The magazine was banned, censored and closed several times by the government and had to re-start seven times under different names.

The highest selling Turkish comic magazine was “Gırgır,” which was published in 1972 by Oğuz Aral, a legendary Turkish cartoonist who influenced the generations that came after him. The magazine had the slogan “Gırgır puts an end to life struggles, heartaches and husband-wife quarrels: Gırgır cures all!” Between 1981 and 1985, it reached a circulation of 1 million, becoming the third-best-selling comic magazine in the world.

According to Tan Oral, a comic artist who also writes critiques on the art of comics, after the 1980 military coup, Turkish comics went on the decline and only recovered in the 1990s. Today there are close to 20 active humor publications.

Turkish comic magazines are known for their close ties to politics and satirical language. According to writer Levent Cantek, this shows how comics are related to journalism.

“If you only talk about politics and current events, you really put a limit on humor. Actually, current Turkish comics only deal with politics on their cover and first two pages, but they still call themselves active political voices,” he said.

Quelle: hurriyetdailynews.com