Posted to FB by Ayça Çubukçu
Last week in Istanbul, not far from the gorgeous campus of Bogazici University overlooking the Bosporus sea strip, residents of my neighbourhood were banging on pots and pans at 9 pm in solidarity with the students and faculty of the prestigious university who have been protesting President Erdogan’s appointment of a new rector through a decree mobilizing emergency powers.
Over the past month, spirited demonstrations against the undemocratic appointment of Professor Melih Bulu—a member of President Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, the AKP—as the rector of Bogazici University have spread well beyond campus walls, leading to protests in major cities of Turkey including Ankara, Izmir, and Adana, and even abroad, in New York, Paris, and Berlin.
More than 3,300 academics and writers from across the world, Judith Butler and Noam Chomsky among them, as well as organizations such as PEN America, have signed a petition condemning “the AKP’s attempt to assert political control over Bogazici University” while criticizing the Turkish government’s brutal response to the demonstrations, which has resulted in the detention and arrest of hundreds of protestors. “Erdogan has called the students ‘terrorists’ and LGBTI+ students in particular have been singled out for harassment. The police have conducted home raids with guns at dawn, detained and stripped searched protestors, and engaged in torture,” the petition (to which I am a signatory) reads.
The United Nations Human Rights office, led by the High Commissioner of Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, too, has called for the prompt release of students and protestors arrested for participating in peaceful demonstrations, urged the police “to stop using excessive force,” and condemned homophobic and transphobic comments by state officials that incite “hatred and discrimination against LGBT people.”
In the meantime, Twitter limited access to two tweets by Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu over hateful conduct. In recent tweets, Soylu had referred to LGBT individuals as “perverts” in the context of the Bogazici University protests. Following Twitter's sanction, Turkish Interior Minister Soylu said the social media platform had “formed a protection shield to terror organizations and deviant LGBT,” referring to Twitter as a “toy of imperialism,” and claimed it “was trying to disrupt the chemistry of countries, democracy and peace.”
Across Turkey, Bogazici is neither the first nor the last university where a rector has been appointed by presidential decree through emergency powers claimed in the aftermath of a failed coup attempt in 2016. What is remarkable is that this wave of protests to ensure academic freedom and autonomy in Turkey has already turned into an international battleground for the future of democracy in the country.
On February 4, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a press release titled “Regarding the Statements Made by Certain Circles Abroad on Events at Bogazici University.” Leaving ambiguous who these “certain circles abroad” may be—does the term refer to the UN Human Rights office, President Biden, the European Commission or signatories of the solidarity petition mentioned above that have all issued international criticism about events at Bogazici?—the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned that “no one should exceed their limits and interfere in Turkey’s internal affairs.” Yet even a quick glance at statements by President Erdogan and the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs finds innumerable criticisms about the so-called “internal affairs” of many countries from the United States and China to Libya.
On February 6, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs applauded the International Criminal Court’s ruling that it has “jurisdiction over the Palestinians territories, including East Jerusalem,” designated the decision as a “meaningful step towards holding Israel accountable for its crimes in the Palestinian territories” and urged “the international community” to support this ruling. Who is this international community being called upon, and what is its relation to “certain circles abroad” that President Erdogan and his ministers of “the interior” and the “the exterior” constantly condemn for interfering in Turkey’s “interior affairs”?
My point is not that the Palestinian people do not deserve international solidarity—on the contrary. Rather, my point is this: either President Erdogan and the Republic of Turkey should cease their commentary on the “internal affairs” of any and all countries, or they should accept with grace that what happens in Turkey does not concern merely the citizens of Turkey.
Otherwise, their hypocrisy will remain laughable, and their press releases will continue to ring hallow when they “recommend to those who turn a blind eye to Turkey’s lawful acts regarding events taking place at Bogazici University and who intend to lecture Turkey on democracy and law to look at the mirror.” For beyond the legality of any government’s use of force, beyond the legality of its undemocratic practices, there is the question of their legitimacy, which concerns everyone inhabiting the earth.
No, President Erdogan, the legal violence you yield against students at Bogaziçi and elsewhere is not “normal.” Nor is it correct to frame your violence as counter-terrorism, unless you can admit, once and for all, that you are terrorized by all resistance against your will.
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