As modern Turkey is a state governed by the principles of law overseen by the civic powers vested in both the Parliament and the president, we should fully trust our judges and their impartiality, too. Some cases, however, deserve more public scrutiny than others, in particular if the culprits are not your average combo of local bank robbers but an entire sponge-like network of coup plotters.I once wrote in this paper about a disillusioning fact taken out of immediate post-war West Germany -- the Persilschein phenomenon; it implied that a rather large number of former civil servants were re-hired in post-war Germany despite the knowledge of their passive support for Hitler until the fall of the Third Reich in 1945. Why? There were simply not enough experienced bureaucrats around to run a town hall or a region. "Schein" refers to an official piece of paper and "Persil" was the leading German detergent brand at the time. I then continued by writing about Turkey and that there may be a time where national forgiveness is required as not all passive supporters of past military interventions obstructing the free flow of democracy can possibly be banned from public life forever. Various categories could be used from active to passive to forced to comply. Here is where the comparison ends: Turkey is no post-war Germany.
When I heard about some of the most recent arrests of academics in an unfolding Turkish investigation everyone refers to as the Ergenekon case, I was neither amused nor surprised but uncomfortably reassured of a certain feeling I have with regards to the state of the academic world here in Turkey.
One of the biggest surprises awaits the curious spectator upon evaluating the contributions made by Turkish universities to modernizing society and advancing the right to free expression; in many instances the correct terminology would better read "non-contributions." I am not talking about the fact that over time Turkish women were allowed to master "men's professions" or started wearing white kittels at work as a sign of their male and ill-conceived emancipation. I am not writing about a specific discipline, either. What concerns me is that whereas in most democracies universities are the hotbeds of unconventional wisdom and young citizens awaiting their eagerly anticipated entry into society after having flirted with a fair overdose of Che Guevara-inspired, flower-power, post-materialistic idealism, Turkish universities and their students seem to be fundamentally different. I do not normally write about myself in this column but let us just assume that I have by now acquired a fair amount of "insight" into the Turkish academic world.
Despite having met great colleagues and worked and published with some of them including for Springer in New York, I have come so far as to say that other -- and probably too many -- universities should be taken out of the equation when it comes to fast-tracking Turkey's European Union accession. I have worked with leading Turkish businesspeople, met with political activists whose ideas I may not share but at least they do have ideas, had meals with Turkish factory workers, enjoyed conversations in café-bars with Turkish men about which horse is going to win the next race in İzmir and would -- if I had to decide about this imaginary price -- award the top spot for honesty and entrepreneurial spirit to a Turkish greengrocer and family man plying his trade far away in the beautiful Turkish countryside. The only place or rather set of places where I encountered anti-EU sentiment and a sensational backward looking spirit was indeed in the lobbies and hallways as well as the classrooms of some -- but of course not all -- Turkish universities. Worse than that, I fear a complete generation of ill-equipped graduates trained by similarly inadequate lecturers will neither add value to advancing Turkish society nor help to create a positive image of present day Turkey in Europe and beyond.
I always suspected that a clandestine criminal grouping such as Ergenekon would infiltrate schools and universities -- there are no better locations than these to spread one's treacherous propaganda. Universities have large amounts of money at their disposal. While some academics complained about the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey's (TÜBITAK) Charles Darwin-crisis society and over decades allowed Turkish universities to steer away from promoting democracy at all costs -- now which matter is more serious?
I have this sinking feeling that many "mis-leading" academics have been at least "passively but knowingly" supportive of past military interventions as well as the emerging Ergenekon network. Besides, any coup plotter worth half his money would have realized that if the universities are not in synch and 1 million students take to the streets, any coup would be over at once. So one could assume that the academic world was a prime target for Ergenekon and its predecessors from day one unless, of course, the academic world was not a target but one of the cradles itself?
Turkish society must urgently exercise more control about who runs their universities and who can open one. The state must take on board the provision of inspiring youngsters to aspire. Knowledge is not neutral -- knowledge must advance democracy. It is perhaps the last but at the same time biggest roadblock within Turkey itself to getting ready for EU membership.
