And while the United States has suffered a shock to its system and a grievous blow to its reputation, let’s not forget Turkey, another country backsliding into strong-man politics. Now President Erdogan wants to control the universities, public and private, as reported by Mustafa Akyol on AL Monitor:
Two major changes have now been introduced. First, the intra-university elections at state universities are a thing of the past. The president will simply appoint whomever he wants, without a feedback mechanism involving academics. Second, and more stunning, the president will appoint the rectors of private universities. The latter’s boards of trustees will only be able to make suggestions to the YOK, which will defer the final decision to the president.
What does this means in practice? According to political science professor Ustun Erguder, a former rector of Bogazici University and a prominent liberal, “We went back to 1982.” That year, Turkey was ruled by the brutal military junta that established the YOK to bring universities under its control. After that, as Erguder explained, various reforms were implemented over the years, including the intra-university election system, to provide some self-governance for Turkish academia. Now, however, to Erguder’s regret, these reforms have been reversed.
Predictably, any form of dissent is intolerable, and so Turkey will continue to fall into disrepute as Erdogan tries to close his fingers around the prize. He’ll probably achieve it, but it’ll be a diminished Turkey, a Turkey that worries more about its politics and religion (if, indeed, the two don’t simply merge into a single entity), rather than achieving excellence. Thus distracted, Turkey has little chance to advance on important objectives such as economic recovery, security matters, and other such things.
And, quite possibly, Erdogan will become another victim of political violence. Then the question will be whether Turkey can reverse its plunge into the morass of religious politics, or return to the advantages of a secular democracy?
