Post-colonial lust of some Turkish academics
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to Turkey disturbed many circles, particularly the Doğan Media Group. For instance, daily Hürriyet writer Ertuğrul Özkök wrote a piece addressing the German Bild daily in which he warned Merkel to not come by saying, "the attack in which [President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan's dissidents were killed," implying that the twin suicide bombing outside the train station in Ankara was ordered by Erdoğan. After that, Murat Yetkin from the Radikal daily defiantly listed the grounds for why the cancellation of her visit would be more appropriate.
Some 100 academics who struggle for their country to lose its legitimacy in the international arena and for the declaration of the country as a terrorist state if possible, but cannot even criticize the outlawed PKK's decision to end the cease-fire, signed another declaration. The petition, which was released two days before Merkel's visit, said the academics are extremely disturbed by the possibility of rewarding politicians who violated the most significant values of the EU. Displaying a perfect example of the discourse of addressing a "master" in a colonial position, the letter has so many distortions that there is no place to refute them all.
For instance, the letter argues that Erdoğan discriminates between languages, religions and ethnicities. On the day the letter was released, the law about teaching basic Kurdish to teachers appointed to the eastern region and an Orthodox church that Turkey will restore in Lebanon were on the agenda. The letter represents an incapacity in that it baselessly complains about Erdoğan, who "returned" some rights to Germany since Germany does not recognize the right to defense in one's mother tongue, and about the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which introduced multicultural policies in Turkey.
It also claimed that Erdoğan is discriminatory concerning religion and ethnicity. Turkey has been accepting refugees regardless of their ethnicity or religion, including Yazidis, Syriacs, Armenians, Muslims, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens, while Germany faces serious objections regarding that it gives primacy to Christians when accepting refugees in the country. Slovakia accepts only Christians while Denmark has not taken in any refugees. As the letter says, Turkey does not really share or represent EU values in this regard, because we have been busy with teaching humanity to Europe for four years. However, this colonial mindset, which is suffering from an inferiority complex on the assumption that EU countries are superior to Turkey in every respect, will of course not abstain from casting aspersions to humiliate its own country and president.
A few months ago, some people from radical right groups urinated on refugee children in a Berlin metro while others set fire to a hall holding refugees and many other shameful incidents took place. Although Turkey has taken in 10 times more refugees than Germany, it has not experienced such desperate incidents. One can at least use this as a reason to be proud of their country, but maybe it is first required to be among "the people of this land" to do that.
Consider that Merkel visited Turkey, which has about 2.5 million refugees, in order to make clear that they would not accept any more refugees apart from the 100,000 they have already accepted, and to stop the refugee influx to Europe. Broadly speaking, she paid a visit to Turkey in order to request that Turkey maintain its humanitarian refugee policies on behalf of the EU, meaning that they would be ready to provide funds for it, but cannot do any more than that. But still, our intellectuals preferred to isolate their own country through "unquestionably supreme" EU values in such a period.
Edward Said, who deciphered the study of orientalism, defines an intellectual as a person who tries to tell the truth despite the government as an exile, a foreigner who is marginal. The abovementioned intellectuals, however, only consist of some marginal people who blatantly lie to slam their own country, which, as a matter of fact, protects foreigners exiled from their countries.
Some 100 academics who struggle for their country to lose its legitimacy in the international arena and for the declaration of the country as a terrorist state if possible, but cannot even criticize the outlawed PKK's decision to end the cease-fire, signed another declaration. The petition, which was released two days before Merkel's visit, said the academics are extremely disturbed by the possibility of rewarding politicians who violated the most significant values of the EU. Displaying a perfect example of the discourse of addressing a "master" in a colonial position, the letter has so many distortions that there is no place to refute them all.
For instance, the letter argues that Erdoğan discriminates between languages, religions and ethnicities. On the day the letter was released, the law about teaching basic Kurdish to teachers appointed to the eastern region and an Orthodox church that Turkey will restore in Lebanon were on the agenda. The letter represents an incapacity in that it baselessly complains about Erdoğan, who "returned" some rights to Germany since Germany does not recognize the right to defense in one's mother tongue, and about the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which introduced multicultural policies in Turkey.
It also claimed that Erdoğan is discriminatory concerning religion and ethnicity. Turkey has been accepting refugees regardless of their ethnicity or religion, including Yazidis, Syriacs, Armenians, Muslims, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens, while Germany faces serious objections regarding that it gives primacy to Christians when accepting refugees in the country. Slovakia accepts only Christians while Denmark has not taken in any refugees. As the letter says, Turkey does not really share or represent EU values in this regard, because we have been busy with teaching humanity to Europe for four years. However, this colonial mindset, which is suffering from an inferiority complex on the assumption that EU countries are superior to Turkey in every respect, will of course not abstain from casting aspersions to humiliate its own country and president.
A few months ago, some people from radical right groups urinated on refugee children in a Berlin metro while others set fire to a hall holding refugees and many other shameful incidents took place. Although Turkey has taken in 10 times more refugees than Germany, it has not experienced such desperate incidents. One can at least use this as a reason to be proud of their country, but maybe it is first required to be among "the people of this land" to do that.
Consider that Merkel visited Turkey, which has about 2.5 million refugees, in order to make clear that they would not accept any more refugees apart from the 100,000 they have already accepted, and to stop the refugee influx to Europe. Broadly speaking, she paid a visit to Turkey in order to request that Turkey maintain its humanitarian refugee policies on behalf of the EU, meaning that they would be ready to provide funds for it, but cannot do any more than that. But still, our intellectuals preferred to isolate their own country through "unquestionably supreme" EU values in such a period.
Edward Said, who deciphered the study of orientalism, defines an intellectual as a person who tries to tell the truth despite the government as an exile, a foreigner who is marginal. The abovementioned intellectuals, however, only consist of some marginal people who blatantly lie to slam their own country, which, as a matter of fact, protects foreigners exiled from their countries.
Last Update: October 23, 2015 02:08