Erdoğan: We reject community pressure that standardizes cultural climate

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Jan. 24 that they reject the community pressure which was imposed for many years causing the “standardization” of the cultural environment of Türkiye.

“We do not accept ideological approaches that confine art to certain patterns and certain impositions. We reject the community pressure, which has taken our culture and arts community captive for many years and standardizes Türkiye’s rich cultural climate,” he said addressing the “Culture and Tourism Ministry Special Awards” ceremony.

“As we get rid of the neighborhood pressure based on ideological solidarity, we see that our world of culture, art and ideas has become more diversified, liberated and more at peace with the values of the nation,” the president said.

Just looking at the successes of Türkiye’s cinema and TV series industry at home and abroad in recent years clearly reveals what kind of “barrenness and backwardness the neighborhood pressure has condemned the country to,” he emphasized.

A society is as strong as its depth, wealth and accumulation in the field of culture and art, it is permanent, it is resistant to the attacks it is exposed to, he noted.

The permanence of gains in defense, economy, military, diplomacy and other fields also depends on culture and art, Erdogan said.

“Even though the societies whose cultural and artistic life was not developed enough, they were advanced in military and economic terms, they died out in a short time like a straw flame. Nations with a rich culture, an original and deep understanding of art, artists who will give direction and encouragement to society, intellectuals and people of heart, have always managed to rise up again and be reborn from their ashes, no matter what they live,” he stated.

These awards are important in terms of encouraging the youth and promoting the values of Türkiye and across the world, the president said. Any sincere work that is appreciated and rewarded paves the way for further works and heralds further projects, Erdoğan added.

Stressing that it is only by upholding the legacy and works of artists that one can express his/her respect for arts and artists, President Erdoğan stated that both the Presidential Grand Awards and the Ministry Special Awards acknowledge, on behalf of the state, the unique place the people of arts and culture hold in the nation’s heart.