The Attitudes of Turkish Academy Towards Political Issues in the Context of the Kurdish

Year 2018, Volume: 3 Issue: 9, 7 - 27, 01.07.2018

Necat Keskin

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Academia
is belived to be a place or community to say the truth, and to be able to say
the truth needs first of all a critical point of view. By doing so academics/intellectuals
fulfill their social responsibility which sometimes puts them on the spot and
creates a conflict between what s/he is doing and what s/he is expected to do. The
power wants the academics to be accordant with its official policy and
discource, namely doing their duties, and mostly they move in the frame that
has been demarcated by the power. This relationship affects their approaches
towards what is going on around, especially political issues.

The
situation of modern Turkish academia, raised in the 1930s, can be evaluated in
that framework. In the beginning of the 1930s Turkish academia played a crucial
role in constructing a scientific base for the state’s official policy and
discourse, and did not intervene any political issues. One of the issues that
state was very sensitive about was the Kurdish issue and the academics who were
interested in that topic had to pay a price for it.

In this
article, this situaiton of Turkish academia and its attitudes towards political
issues; their effort to be ciritical to official policy and what they had to
pay for it are going to be discussed in the context of the Kurdish question
with the case of Academics for Peace.

Keywords

Academia, Scholarly ethics, Turkish Academia, Kurdish Question

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