KING OF BELGIUM (OR BELGIANS)

 

 

In Turkey, you witness a sudden  transformation in people who see themselves as “modern, enlightened, and pioneering” and who may indeed be ahead of society in many respects at  the moment the topic turns to east of Turkey.

According to them, our Kurdish, Eastern, separatism and autonomy issues have no parallel anywhere in the world. No other country has experienced what the Republic of Turkey has gone through on this matter. They challenge the official narrative in almost every field, but when it comes to this topic, they don’t even tolarate their own father’s son ( a Turkish proverb) for the red line drawn with a thick marker.

I call this “the great success of the Cold War”. The Cold War managed to etch an “othering” template into the minds of even those under 40 — passed down from their fathers — that leaves no room for doubt among those over 40. The Cold War was the peak of othering and enemy-making.

In Turkey, the fairy tale “This Winter Communism is Coming” was repeated so relentlessly  from mosque to barracks, school to bank that even after the Berlin Wall fell, minds built virtual walls and could still imagine the “other” beyond them.

The easiest definition of that “other” was someone whose language or if not, whose religion  was different. Turkey, as a successful(!) marble producer ( a nationalist definition of society was not mosaic but marble)  largely saved itself from those with a different religion through roughly 50 years of effort. But those with a different language still continue to exist in the country.  Just like in Spain, Ireland, Canada, or Belgium.

Sorry, did you say Belgium?You mean the one which has a distrcit called   Emirdağ  ( a small district of Afyon city whose people moved Belgium relentlessly that some Belgians think Emirdağ is an another country) ? Right in the middle of Western Europe. The cockfighting arena of Europe.

Does it seem reasonable to you that a country which didn’t even exist until 1830 ; a society so intellectual that it chose its name from Caesar’s era and mythology  has been split like a watermelon along linguistic lines, right from its center, even from  its capital?

Of course, the issue isn’t whether these events seem reasonable to you.The issue is people’s demand to speak the same language as their mothers which was one of the fundamental reasons for their existence in this world.

Even though the main theme of the film The King of Belgium is Turkey, it was shot in 2016.  Probably because of the 15th July chaos, it took at least 8 years for it to enter my radar.  (King of the Belgians (2016) is a Belgian mockumentary comedy directed by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth. )

The highest representative of the Belgian Monarchy in 2016 ie the King himself comes to Turkey for a holiday and PR purposes. He brings a model of Brussels’ iconic Atomium, and the “Mini-Europe” section will be inaugurated at Miniatürk.

While cruising on a boat on the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, sometimes napping, sometimes observing his surroundings, our King also draws inspiration from Atatürk’s words “Either Independence or Death” at Miniatürk.

The film is shot in the “mockumentary” style. We are essentially watching the making of the King’s “so-called” documentary. The calm journey of the five-person Belgian royal team  a seasoned journalist/cameraman and two male and one female advisors is shaken by bad news from home.

The Walloon residents of Belgium’s francophone region, i.e., the French-speaking Belgians, have declared independence. Their reason is one single word: We’re fed up.

The King wants to return home immediately, but a once-in-a-thousand-years cosmic storm upends all plans. Not only is flying home impossible, all communication is paralyzed. Turkish security units, acting more royalist than the king in a midnight express style, try to isolate the King in a hotel to protect him while his country is slipping away.

The King finds a solution by joining a Bulgarian folklore troupe returning home and heading to the Balkans. This Balkan journey  passing through Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and instead of Italy, Albania  turns into an awakening and self-discovery journey for the representative of the monarchy.

Turkish police, chasing the King to prevent damage to our national reputation after his secret escape from the country, are evaded with the help of Karakoncolos creatures. He gets drunk on apricot rakia. Dark memories of the Bosnian war resurface. He becomes a jury member in the village’s “best yogurt” contest. He befriends blind children. Finally, while returning to his country by limousine from the Albanian coast (which he thought was Italy), he has becomes a different person. And he gives the documentary maker permission to broadcast everything so the whole world can see what happened.

The film does not tell whether the King managed to reunite his country. In reality, no matter how angry and fed up the Walloons were, they did not actually leave Belgium. But it is clear that pretending the problems don’t exist means nothing. You cannot even imagine such a film being made in Turkey. Yet sensible and self-confident societies do not shy away from confronting their problems. They can even mock them. Shall we say “our turn next”?

PS

I watched this wonderful film as if it were the cinematic version of Dutch journalist Geert Mak’s book In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century. I strongly recommend the book to those interested . It is a travel book that spans from diplomacy to history.