What I call cultural imperialism is when a country becomes dominant over other societies by presenting its values, lifestyle and world of meaning as universal, without using military or political force. The main issue here is not what people will think, but the gradual determination of what they will consider valuable. This is why, in my opinion, cultural imperialism is one of the most enduring forms of domination, because it works through consent, not coercion.
The result of this is very clear: Over time, society puts its own language, its own aesthetic understanding and its own story on the back burner. What is local is seen as worthless and what comes from outside is seen as superior. This is not just a cultural change; it creates a loss of self-confidence, weakens the way of thinking and renders people passive. A society that cannot produce its own world of meaning accepts it as normal to live in a world built by others. This is the biggest damage of cultural imperialism: People move away from being themselves without realizing it.
We saw this functioning most clearly after the Second World War. A powerful field of attraction was established through cinema, music, consumer culture, TV series, social media and daily life patterns. The American way of life was presented as free, modern and normal. This was not an invasion. No one was forced. But people voluntarily began to aspire to this world. This is what is called soft power.
Soft power is the power to influence without coercion. It works not with tanks and soldiers, but with culture, language and aesthetics. People want to be like you because they admire you. They think it is their own choice, but in fact they act within the world of meaning you have established. This is why soft power is much more permanent than hard power. The soldier withdraws, the gun falls silent, but the cultural impact remains.
France did it with its language, Britain with the media and academia, Japan later with popular culture. What distinguishes countries is not whether they produce culture, but whether they can do so without losing their own culture.
This is precisely why I find it important to compare Japan and Turkey, because both countries have experienced intense Western influence. Both were under pressure to modernize. But Japan carried out this process by negotiating with its culture. It did not copy what came from outside. It reproduced it with its own aesthetics, its own language of expression.
It is no coincidence that today anime, manga, Japanese cinema and literature are so influential around the world. Japan has not only preserved its culture; it has produced it, transformed it and presented it to the world. For them, culture is not folklore or a tourist attraction; it has become a living and strategic space.
In Turkey, on the other hand, contact with Western culture was often not a self-confident exchange. The local was considered backward and the outsider progressive. This idea was internalized over time. As a result, culture ceased to be a vibrant field to produce; it turned into either nostalgia or a showcase.
I see this most clearly in music today. The fact that rap music has become so dominant in Turkey cannot only be explained by young people's search for a language of objection. It is also the rise of stereotypes imposed by the global culture industry over the local one. In its birthplace, rap was about poverty, discrimination and class injustice. In our country, it is often consumed as an imitation language of anger, detached from this context.
But the folk song was the rap of this land. It told of migration, poverty, injustice, rebellion. Today, it is not a coincidence that the folk song is withdrawn from daily life and compressed into nostalgia, while rap is considered universal and modern; this is a matter of cultural hierarchy.
The same is seen in language, TV series, advertisements and social media. English songs are prestigious, Turkish lyrics are considered local. American aesthetics are seen as cool, local expression as old. This transformation, which extends from clothing to body language, from sense of humor to outlook on life, shows how quietly and daily cultural imperialism operates. The problem is not listening to rap; it is the devaluation of the local and the acceptance of the imported as natural and superior.
It is also necessary to put the concept of modernity in the right place here. Being modern is not about Westernization or breaking with tradition. Being modern is the ability to manage change. It is the ability to reinterpret tradition without fighting with it, to filter what comes from outside without imitating it. Modern societies change but do not drift.
I should also say that this issue is not abstract for me. I was really happy that my eighteen-year-old son Ata, who was raised with awareness and has an interest in history and politics, filled New Year's Eve not with popular tunes but with the accumulated narratives of this geography, folk songs and historical stories. This was not nostalgia. It was a conscious choice. It was promising to see that one can move forward without giving up one's own culture in the name of being modern.
For me, cultural imperialism is not destiny. But standing against it is not possible with bans. It is necessary to take one's own culture seriously, to produce it, to keep it alive and to explain it in today's language. Japan did this. It did not deny itself.
It is not about being modern.
It's about being yourself and staying in the age.