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ABSTRACT
In January 2016, 1128 predominantly Turkish intellectuals signed an Academics for Peace petition to draw attention to the conflict in southeastern Turkey. Their actions were met with outcry from the government, accusing the signatories of disloyalty to the state, even treason. This paper is an analysis of the responses of 60 of these scholars to a questionnaire sent to the entire Academics for Peace email list. Respondents, including 58 signatories, provided various perspectives on academic freedom in Turkey, as well as their own experiences of signing the petition. We contend that the responses faced by these intellectuals illustrate the homogenizing effects of power to silence criticism and ensure loyalty to the government and its ideas of Turkishness. It reflects a continuation of the suppression of academic freedom in Turkey, an issue that sees little sign of abatement or reform in the light of present challenges.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the respondents to this survey, many taking part cognizant of the potential threats they face. The authors also acknowledge the anonymous referees for their valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Note on contributors
Professor Tahir Abbas is a Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and Visiting Senior Fellow at the Department of Government at the London School of Economics in London. Previously, he was a Professor of Sociology at Fatih University in Istanbul, Reader in Sociology at Birmingham University, and Senior Research Officer at the Home Office and Ministry of Justice in London. His recent books are Critical Muslim 16: Turkey (with Z Sardar, Hurst and Oxford University Press, 2015), Contemporary Turkey in Conflict (Edinburgh and Oxford University Press, 2016) and Muslim Diasporas in the West (Routledge, 2017, 4 vols). He holds an MSocSc in Economic Development and Policy from the University of Birmingham and a PhD in Ethnic Relations from the University of Warwick. He is currently writing his next book on radicalization, Islamophobia, counter-terrorism and the culture of violence.
Dr Anja Zalta is an Assistant Professor for Sociology of Religion at the Sociology Department, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and author of many articles on religious traditions and identities, Islam in Slovenia and in the Balkans, inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue, and the role of monotheistic religions in European cultural and religious history. Between 2004 and 2006, she was periodically living in Konya, Turkey, where she was conducting a research on secularism in Turkish society, and the role of Sufism and Mevlevis in Turkish history. In 2013, she received a Turkish research grant for studying Christian minorities in Istanbul and the Tur Abdin region in the southeastern part of Turkey. From 2014 to 2015, she was a Visiting Researcher at the Nan Tien Institute in Wollongong, Australia. Her current research is focused on the question of religious minorities and human rights, as well as the rights of women in the monotheistic religions.
Notes
1. See <https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/profile/academics-peace>. Accessed November 16, 2016.
2. Bohannon, “Turkey Shakes Up.”
3. Association of American Colleges and Universities, Academic Freedom.
4. Norris, “Academic Freedom and University Autonomy.”
5. Seggie and Gokbel, From Past to Present.
6. Ibid., 8.
7. Ibid., 22.
8. Cayir, Who Are We?
9. Ibid., 9–10.
10. Tombus, “Reluctant Democratization.”
11. Gur, “Democratization and Massification of Higher Education in Turkey.”
12. Fırat and Akkuzu, “The Commodification Process.”
13. Carlson and Kanci, “The Nationalised and Gendered Citizen.”
14. Kaya, Forgotten or Assimilated?
15. Jackson and Penrose, Constructions of Race, Place and Nation.
16. White, Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks.
17. Balibar, Die Grenzen der Demokratie.
18. Hirsch, Herrschaft, Hegemonie und politische Alternativen.
19. Balibar, Die Grenzen der Demokratie, 67–70.
20. Weiss, “From Constructive Engagement to Renewed Estrangement.”
21. Ibid., 572.
22. <http://turkeypurge.com/purge-in-numbers>. Accessed November 16, 2016.
23. <https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/2016/11/1267-academics-dismissed-68-students-abroadexpelled-says-turkey-decree/>. Accessed November 16, 2016.
24. Esen and Gumuscu, “Rising Competitive Authoritarianism in Turkey.”
25. Foucault, Discipline and Punish.
26. Abbas, Contemporary Turkey in Conflict.