Turkey Criticizes Reports on Disney+ Scrapping ‘Ataturk’ Series

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Facts

  • Turkey's ruling AK party criticized a reported decision that Disney+ won't broadcast a documentary about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk — the founder of modern Turkey — on its streaming service. Ankara's broadcasting watchdog said it was probing the reports in Turkish and Armenian media.1
  • Disney+ planned to release the documentary as a six-part period drama series originally billed for broadcast on Oct. 29 to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey. Turkish officials have claimed that Disney+ pulled the documentary due to pressure from Armenian activists.2
  • Activist groups accused the documentary of "glorifying genocidal Turkish dictator Mustafa Kemal Ataturk." Politicians from Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's ruling AK Party called the decision "shameful" and "disrespectful."3
  • Disney+ confirmed on Wednesday that it would not be airing the series but stated that the show had been picked up by its sister company FOX, adding that the move was a routine commercial programming decision “in line with our revised content distribution strategy.”2
  • Armenia has claimed that around 1.5M ethnic Armenians died in massacres or death marches during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. While the events are widely viewed by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century, Turkey denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.4
  • Ataturk is revered in Turkey for establishing the republic in 1923. Armenian activists argue that the latter stages of atrocities were overseen by Ataturk once he took office.5

Sources: 1Reuters, 2POLITICO, 3Middle East Eye, 4Al Jazeera, and 5Washington Post.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by The Armenian Weekly. There is no denying that genocidal rhetoric toward Armenians and other Christian minorities in Turkey is a deep-rooted aspect of the country's political history and culture. Though Ataturk is beloved in Turkey, he was a brutal dictator who killed hundreds of thousands. Disney+ and other platforms should think carefully before airing this series.
  • Narrative B, as provided by TRT World. Disney+'s hasty decision to pull the Ataturk documentary demonstrates the harmful power of the Armenian lobby in the US. There is vital missing context about the migration flows and geopolitical conditions that occurred during the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The father of modern Turkey should not be slandered.