128. Today in 1920s Turkey: 18 December 1926 (Wireless Radio Technology with Civilizational Message)
English
We Are Listening to All of the Melodies of the World with the New Wireless Telephone Receiver
Karagöz: How is it, my Hodja? Look as we sit in Istanbul we are listening to sounds from Germany, France, England, and Russia. And while we speak here they are listening to it in Germany and France. What do you have to say about this affair?
Hodja: I call this civilization, son, civilization. What can you do, we only recently understood these advantageous things. From now on the country’s ulema are those who know the new disciplines and sciences. Now are the ones who pray?
Türkçe
Yeni Telsiz Telefon Altı ile Bütün Dünyanın Ahengini Dinliyoruz
Karagöz: Nasıl Hocam, bak İstanbul’da otururken Almanya’dan, Fransa’dan, İngiltere’den, Rusya’dan ahenk dinliyoruz. Sonra biz burada konuşurken Almanya’da, Fransa’da, dinliyorlar. Ne dersin sen bu işe!
Hoca: Medeniyet derim oğul, medeniyet. Ne yaparsın, biz bu iyilikleri yeni yeni anladık. Bundan sonra memleket uleması, yeni ilimleri, yeni fenleri bilenlerdir. Biz artık duacı?
Comments:
This illustration was featured on the back page of an issue of Karagöz from 1926. Placed in a nondescript interior space, the image shows a group of people gathered in a semi-public room while listening to the large, conspicuously placed tube on the right. The imposing apparatus belongs to a radio receiver box (and not a gramophone — the device usually associated with the protruding funnel). The crowd of seventeen people consists of dapper men in suits, fashionable women, and several turbaned members of the ulema or Muslim religious clergy. It is also customary for Karagöz, the magazine’s namesake shadow theater character to make an appearance in most illustrations. True to that model, Karagöz can be seen on the bottom row, the second person from the right (identifiable by his voluminous, fluted hat).
Here, with his back turned to the reader, Karagöz is engaged in a conversation with one of the religious clerics at the event. The nature of their conversation is no mystery as it is transcribed in the text below the image. The tone of the fictional conversation between the two characters reveals the persuasive objective of the piece (text and image). The wireless radio receiver around which the crowd is seated is, naturally, the subject of the discussion. Following a brief explanation of the device, including a list of the European countries whose “sounds” are now audible in Turkey, Karagöz uses this gathering as an opportunity to introduce the new technology to more conservative members of the community, represented by the senior religious scholars, who were often suspicious of new technologies, especially those imported from abroad (i.e. Euro-America). In response, the moderate Hodja of the dialogue concedes the technological achievements of “(modern) civilization” (medeniyet). Moreover, he reassigns the position of intellectual leadership, traditionally held by the scholarly ulema class to “those who know the new disciplines and sciences.” Concurrently, he demotes the role of religious clerics from thinkers and teachers to mere prayer-reciters.
It was not uncommon for discussions about adopting new technologies to be reduced to binaries of supportive and oppositional opinions. The ulema were often singled out by modernists as a group that rejected new technology without considering its full potential and benefits. This illustration uses Karagöz as a cultural lubricant. Through both text and image he brings disparate parts of society together to collectively witness the wonder of music playing from far-away lands. In this way, the picture functions to normalize and even create “buzz” or anticipation toward technology among its readership, who may or may not encounter it in their own lives. As such, “popular demand” can become the ultimate spreader of new and useful things.
Originally published at https://steemit.com on December 18, 2018.
