Thursday, November 23, 2006

political adolescence

prof. dr. atilla yayla was suspended from his teaching assignment at the gazi university of ankara because during a meeting organized by the ruling akp, he allegedly was "unduly" critical of atatürk, turkey's founder, his reforms and kemalists, who rather than his followers, give the impression they are his idolatrists and ierocrats.

in any civilized country, yayla's comments would be, at best, insignificant. here, they cost him his job, or at least his teaching mission, and put him in possible jeopardy in case he dares walk in public and a hot head decides to teach him his lesson, maybe with weapons or clubs!

this type of collective sociopathic sycophancy, the malaise of treading the official (in the early 50's it would probably be called the authoriatarian) line of discourse is turkey's bane that will never go away. we think freedom of thought and expression is only limited to ideas and utterances that are not too incompatible with ours.

or, you are free to do what you want as long you want what we want you to want.

No comments: