Apoorvanand - By conferring a doctorate on Erdogan, Jamia is celebrating a regime that attacks academic freedom
NB: This is an atrocious decision by the Jamia authorities and will further worsen the climate of authoritarianism in India and the world. Erdogan is a communal dictator who holds intellectuals in utter contempt. He has ferociously attacked academics and journalists; against whom he launched a witch-hunt last July, closing over 100 newspapers and media outlets. Turkish intellectuals have denounced his regime as a dictatorship, whose elite is informed by a mix of neoliberal economic policies and political Islam. Apoorvanand rightly asks us to remember the smear campaign launched against Jamia and Aligarh Muslim University by those who hold power today. As Chomsky reminds us, it is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak truth and expose lies. Jamia is lowering its status as a university by honouring Erdogan; and it is good that some of its alumni are protesting.
Meanwhile Erdogan enjoys a warm welcome from the government and corporate organisations: DS
Meanwhile Erdogan enjoys a warm welcome from the government and corporate organisations: DS
The decision of New Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia
university to confer an honorary doctorate on Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan is extremely disturbing. The fact that he is not an academic is not the
basis for the protests against the decision: there have been numerous occasions
when personalities who are not professional academics have been recognised by
universities for their work. Around the world, actors, business persons,
journalists, writers and politicians have been honoured by universities for
their achievements. This is done on the
premise that they have chosen excellence as their pursuit and have made the
world more humane through their work. These are the two values universities
seek to inculcate in a society: excellence and humanity.
The university seeks
to teach young people to do things with perfection. Success cannot be a matter
of chance: things have to be done methodically. Training in method is important
for scholarship. Even more important is the love or passion for the work that
has been chosen as vocation. We gain our individuality at universities but also
learn that knowledge cannot be created in isolation.
Universities value
these principles and go out of the confines of their campuses to invite people
who embody them. They seek to make them exemplars for their young scholars.
This is the reason for the Dalai Lama or cricketer Rahul Dravid being honoured
by universities. These people have made the world a better place, more
beautiful, inviting and exciting. They give young people reason to believe in
the possibilities of life. The business of scholarship or knowledge is also a
quest for this possibility.
Education purge: No doubt, Erdogan is
also a successful man. He is the head of a state. He has just secured for
himself a mandate from
the people of Turkey that gives him sweeping powers and makes it possible for
him to be their dictator. However, under
Erdogan, scholarship and the creation of knowledge has become a risky business.
Under his leadership, Turkey has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for students, teachers and researchers. After thwarting a coup attempt in July, Erdogan ordered a crackdown on schools and universities (along with institutions in several other sectors, including the military, media, civil service, police and judiciary) on suspicions of having links with Fethullah Gulen, an exiled Islamic cleric living in the US whom Erdogan believes was behind the coup.
Under his leadership, Turkey has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for students, teachers and researchers. After thwarting a coup attempt in July, Erdogan ordered a crackdown on schools and universities (along with institutions in several other sectors, including the military, media, civil service, police and judiciary) on suspicions of having links with Fethullah Gulen, an exiled Islamic cleric living in the US whom Erdogan believes was behind the coup.
More than 1,300
teachers in universities across Turkey have been identified and penalised in
different ways. Criminal cases have been filed against them and many have been
jailed. Hundreds of teachers have been dismissed and expelled. Scholars from
other countries who have lived and taught in the universities of Turkey for
more than quarter of a century have been asked to leave the country. In Turkey, education
and higher education in particular has traditionally been under strict state
control.
There are areas that scholars cannot even touch. But under Erdogan,
things have taken a dangerous turn. After the coup attempt, a shadow of
suspicion has engulfed Turkish society. Educational institutions are being targeted because Gullen’s network runs its own chain
of institutions. Erdogan fears that conspirators are hiding in these
institutions and other universities as well. As a consequence, he has closed down thousands of them and put others under
strict vigil.
Little academic
freedom: But if one looks at
the record of academic freedom in Turkey before the attempted coup, it becomes
clear that suspected conspiracy against the elected government is only a new
cover to impose such restrictions. In a piece titled “Why Turkey’s government
is threatening academic freedom”, the Washington Post reported in January last year:
“Emboldened by his
party’s electoral victory in November, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
has set out on a crusade against academics. After 1,128 academics signed a petition to the Turkish government imploring
an end to the violence in southeastern Turkey, prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against all
signatories. University administrations have begun investigating these
academics, who have in some cases been detained or suspended.”
The peace petition
asked the Turkish government to stop persecuting the Kurdish population. All
the signatories were declared to be enemies of the Turkish state. The article explained
that this persecution of the academics had to be seen in the wider context of
Erdogan’s attempt to bring higher education under his control. The article
states that the Council of Higher Education, under which all the universities
come, enforced a regulation which gave it powers to “take over private
universities (called foundation universities in Turkey), suspend their activities,
and even shut down an entire university indefinitely on the grounds of
violations against the ‘indivisible integrity’ of the Turkish state. Such
violations can be ‘triggered’ by failure to provide YÖK [the Council] with
documentation for its inspections.” Calls have been made
to raze universities to the ground and shower in the blood of dissenters.
Erdogan has also been contemptuous of intellectuals . The signatories of the
petition asking for peace have been called “fifth columns” of foreign powers
and “so-called intellectuals.”
New globalisation: It is time for the
academic community world wide to stand in solidarity with their Turkish
fellows. How can they do that? At the very least, they could show their
disapproval for the man responsible for this atrocity. Globalisation of a
different kind is the necessity of our times, one that creates an international
community of justice and peace. Honouring state
leaders is often not the decision of the universities, they do it on behalf of
their governments. But diplomacy is not the business of universities. They do
create friendship among nations and different peoples but not by being agents
of their states.
We should also ask:
why Jamia and not Delhi University? Is it because an Islamist dictator can be
honoured only by an Islamic institution? Have we forgotten how a smear campaign
was launched against Jamia and Aligarh Muslim University, calling them dens of
terrorists, by those who hold power today? Why are the teachers
and students of Jamia silent? Why is the larger academic community of India
unwilling to even take note of this decision?
More posts on Turkey
See also
IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies. This, at least, may seem enough of a truism to pass over without comment. Not so, however. For the modern intellectual, it is not at all obvious.
