(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
through an economic package was adopted at the end of the period but this package could be
implemented after the junta in 1980. The real turning point for Turkey was the
implementation of this economic package.
The political situation of 1970s was not a pleasant one as well. The whole 1970s were a
period of political instability. The lifespan of governments could be measured only in months
towards the end of the 1970s. Turkey had experienced major problems in foreign policy
besides instability in internal policy. Turkey’s assault on Cyprus in 1974 ended in an arms
embargo on Turkey by its NATO allies, which in turn further upset internal political
instability. The end of the period was marked by the crisis experienced during the presidential
election.
It is not difficult to predict that the result of the above picture will be a social crisis. Turkey of
the 1970s witnessed an atmosphere of social chaos involving strikes, boycotts, political
struggle with deaths, student movements, sectarian conflicts, unsolved murders etc. all of
which represented the conflict between leftist and conservative politics (Ozdemir 2002;260-
286). In short, Turkey in the 1970s had an economy headed for bankruptcy, and an
atmosphere of political and social chaos drifting towards a civil war and ended up with the
junta in 1980 (Ahmad 1995;248). With the junta, civil administration was deposed from office
and a military government was established, curfews were imposed, political parties, trade
unions, associations and similar organisations were all closed down and their activities were
prohibited and extensive arrests and trials took place (Cankaya 2003;164-166). The main
reason for all these practices were to ‘ensure national unity and integrity’ (Ahmad 1995;225).
The first film came out at the end of such a process.
The second film was made in 2006 as a product of the second half of the 1990s and the first
half of the 2000s. Turkey’s economy in this period is characterised by economic crises
experienced every few years, loans obtained from IMF and stand by negotiations, substantial
devaluations in each economic crisis, and passage to floating rates. Sufficient investments
were not made in education, health and public works sectors by indicating inadequate
allocations as reason.
In the same period another political instability was seen, though not in the same proportions
as in the 1970s. The country was generally ruled by coalition governments and early elections
were called. The central debate in this period was whether the military will or civil will should
be prioritised. The reason for this might be terrorist activities that began in the 1980s,
accelerated in the 1990s and reached irksome proportions in the 2000s but could not be solved
yet. The country also faces substantial foreign policy problems arising from the neighborhood
with the Middle Eastern countries that are often at war with one another.
In this period, people of the country are beset by feelings of uncertainty and future anxiety
created by political murders targeting intellectuals and journalists, regional terror that
occasionally targeted big cities and omnipresent economic crises. The general public
psychology involved a mistrust of political and bureacratic administrators, a feeling of
forlornnes and desperation.
All of the governments of the period pointed to full membership to European Union as the
solution of these problems and presented this as the essential target of their government and
hence the country. However, more than 40 years of constant efforts to enter European Union
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