Intellectual Traditions and the

Academy in Turkey — An Interview

with Evren Altınkaş
Ayça Alemdaroğlu, Elif Babül, Nabil Al-
Tikriti 06.2.2021
Evren Altınkaş is a Turkish scholar
who was pushed out of his academic
position by his university’s
administration as a consequence of
participating in the Gezi Park protests
of 2013. With help from the Scholar-at-
Risk initiative he was able to relocate
to Canada in 2018 to continue his
career. Altınkaş obtained his doctoral
degree from Dokuz Eylul University in
2011. His dissertation analyzed and
compared the development of the
concept of intellectuals in Europe and
in the Ottoman state and
Turkey. Altınkaş is an assistant
professor in the Department of History
at the University of Guelph. He
received the Chevening Scholarship
for the academic year of 1999–2000
and is a MESA Global Academy
Fellow for the academic year 2020–
2021. Altınkaş is also the newly
appointed editor of H-TURK.
MERIP editors Nabil Al-Tikriti, Ayça
Alemdaroğlu and Elif Babül
interviewed Evren Altınkaş in April
2021.

Demonstrators shout slogans during a protest against

a purge of thousands of education staff since the
attempted coup in July 2016, in front of the main
campus of Istanbul University,November 3, 2016.
Osman Orsal/Reuters

MERIP: What was your experience as

a scholar in the months and years
following the 2013 Gezi Protests in
Istanbul and the 2016 coup attempt in
Turkey?
Evren Altınkaş: I was employed at a
public university in Turkey as an
assistant professor between March
2013 and July 2014. As an active
participant in the Gezi Park protests, I
was subjected to five different
administrative proceedings between
September 2013 and July 2014, when
I was forced to resign. One of the
proceedings stated that I violated the
law by acting “inappropriately for a
public servant” and included one of my
social media posts as evidence.
Although I had a chance to defend
myself during the proceeding, I
received a “warning” from the
university as a result. This proceeding
was followed by others and eventually
the administration of the university
used some ridiculous methods to
cause more problems for me, such as
assigning me to teach two separate
courses in two different schools
approximately 80 miles apart. One
class ended at 1:30pm and the next
one began in the other school at 1:50
pm. I appealed to the university
administration, but they only said that
they expected me to find a way to be
present in the class on time, which
was impossible. This resulted in more
administrative proceedings against
me. As a result of ongoing
harassment, I had to resign from my
position in July 2014, which was
accepted within 24 hours.
The systematic but unofficial
mistreatment by university
administrations of academic staff who
participated in the Gezi protests
resulted in approximately 800
resignations of academic personnel
from public and private universities in
Turkey between September 2013 and
December 2014. I was unemployed
after that period. As a Turkish citizen
with no job and no steady income, I
could not obtain visas to attend
conferences or go to job interviews.
My academic career was hindered
between 2014 and 2018 until I arrived
in Canada to work at University of
Guelph as a visiting assistant
professor under the Scholar-at-Risk
initiative.
MERIP: Is your research agenda
informed by challenges you have
faced as an academic in Turkey?

Evren Altınkaş

Altınkaş: When I was a graduate

student employed to do research and
teach in Turkey, the challenges I faced
as a student of history (especially
Turkish history) made me think about
the country’s intellectual tradition. One
of these challenges was the lack of
diverse academic resources in libraries
and in the curriculum offered by
graduate programs. Most of the
readings and resources available in
universities and research institutions
were either produced by official
government entities or offered no
challenges to those official views. It
was quite interesting to see how
universities were transformed into
essentially advanced high schools
after the 1980 military coup.
Approximately 100 academic
personnel were dismissed from
universities in Turkey due to their
alleged leftist political tendencies
following the coup and were replaced
with unqualified high school and night
school teachers.

These newly appointed teachers were

granted the title “assistant professor”
overnight, even though they did not
hold doctoral degrees. They became
the new deans, department chairs and
professors at the regime’s universities.
During my academic career as a
graduate student, I had a chance to
meet some of them in seminars, talks
and conferences. This experience
made me think about the origins of the
intellectual tradition in Turkey and I
decided to write my PhD dissertation
on intellectuals in the late Ottoman
state and early Turkish Republic. I
have compared the development of
intellectuals in this period with the
development of intellectual strata in
Britain, France and Germany. My
research showed that the lack of
intellectual capacity and critical
thinking in most Turkish universities
can be traced to post-1950 intellectual
traditions.
My research showed that the lack of
intellectual capacity and critical
thinking in most Turkish
universities can be traced to post-
1950 intellectual traditions.
In the eras before 1950, both the late
Ottoman and the early Republican
intellectual classes were diverse,
versatile and more democratic. The
wide array of ideologies during the late
Ottoman period represented the
different ethnic and religious groups
within society. There were intellectuals
from different backgrounds, and they
constituted a diverse stratum. Some
examples are the materialist
intellectuals such as Baha Tevfik,
Westernist intellectuals such as
Abdullah Cevdet, Turkist intellectuals
such as Ziya Gökalp and Yusuf
Akçura, and Islamist intellectuals such
as Mehmet Akif Ersoy. We see a
similar and vibrant intellectual life in
the early Republican era. Following the
1950s, intellectual life and publications
in Turkey were shaped by Cold War
rhetoric and although there was a
diverse political sphere between the
years 1960 and 1980, we only see an
intellectual tradition with limited and
ideological debates.
MERIP: American commentators often
blame liberal intellectuals for fostering
widespread resentment in certain
segments of society, thus paving the
way for the rise of right-wing
Trumpism. In Turkey’s case, do you
think that the rise of support for right
wing populism is tied to the failure of
intellectual elites to integrate the
masses into political liberalism’s
promise?
Altınkaş: The Turkish Republic is the
product of a revolution from above.
After the Turkish National Struggle
between the years 1919 and 1922, the
new Republic was established by the
leaders of this resistance movement.
No consultations were made with the
people and no referendums were held.
Given the new map of the Middle East
following World War I, this might seem
like typical nation-state formation.
However, what made Turkey different
from the newly established countries in
the region such as Iraq, Jordan or
Syria was the lack of a mandate
regime or a kingdom and a king. There
was a constitution, elections were held
every four years and, more
importantly, the new regime wanted to
instill a Western-style series of reforms
into society. All these changes were
implemented from above, and the
reactions to these reforms were
consolidated under conservative
politics.
Although there is a liberal tradition in
Turkey, there is also an ongoing
conflict between liberal and
Republican groups. This conflict is
based on different views about the role
of the military in politics, religious
freedom and the state’s form
(Republicans favor a unitary state
whereas the liberals, since Prince
Sabahattin and his Liberal Party in the
early twentieth century, favor a federal
structure). Kemalism, which many
have been indoctrinated to see as
unique to Turkey, was simply a series
of solutions to the problems faced by
the young Turkey in the late 1920s.
For instance, due to the global Great
Depression, statism was introduced as
an economic principle of Kemalist
ideology. This principle was
considered permanent following the
death of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (the
first president of the Republic of
Turkey), and any attempts in the
Turkish economy or any programs to
amend this principle were considered
counter-revolutionary movements. The
same logic applies to all other
principles of Kemalism, which were
also conjunctural. This Republican
rhetoric in the early years was easily
adopted by right-wing political parties
that regard the form of the state to be
unitary and the government to be the
main driving force of reforms and the
protector of the regime, thereby
leaving the liberal tradition at the
extreme end of the political spectrum.
Since a unitary state is considered a
given, liberal ideas and political parties
that favor a federal state or limited
involvement of the state in the
economy are not welcomed by society
and public opinion, resulting in a
tendency toward right-wing populism.
To elaborate a little bit on this, I should
clarify the concept of liberalism and its
perception in Turkish society. For most
Turkish people, liberalism is related to
economic freedoms, not to political
freedoms. As long as the people can
carry out their business transactions
and trade freely, the type of regime or
the level of government interference in
their political choices is not seen as a
major issue. That is why right-wing
populism works perfectly for the
Turkish people, it offers a Turkish-
Islamic synthesis with free trade.
MERIP: What are your thoughts about
the project of the current Justice and
Development Party (AKP) government
to create its own intellectual and elite
class? How does this agenda parallel
or contrast with previous efforts to
create a new elite in the early
Republican era?
Altınkaş: Elites in the early
Republican era were a byproduct of
positivism. Goals such as rapid
development in the economy, realizing
the rapid transfer of positive science
and technology and thus catching up
with the West became the basic
elements that shaped the Turkish
government and intellectuals of that
period. There were two fundamental
points in the formation of early
Republican intellectuals. First is the
importance of the contribution of the
Turkist and Western-oriented
intellectuals during the last period of
the Ottoman Empire in determining the
ideological foundations of the modern
Republic. And the second one is the
fact that the Islamic tradition could not
find a place in the contemporary
Republican regime and the Islamist
discourse remained silent. The motto
of early Republican intellectuals in line
with the Republic’s goals was:
“Turkification, Secularization,
Modernization.” As a result of this, the
Republican government initiated a full-
scale transformation of the core urban
parts of the country. Rural areas,
which constituted more than half of the
territory, were not the priority. The
modernization and development efforts
of the Republic following the multiparty
system after the 1950s was limited in
rural towns and villages, which
remained peripheral and distant social
realities.
What the AKP did was to integrate the
periphery into the core through a vast
project of constructing buildings,
hospitals and schools around
metropolitan areas, providing long
term mortgages for low income groups
and bringing the alienated segments of
society into the urban areas. When I
was a teenager in the 1990s I visited
the hometown of my grandmother,
Bergama (Pergamon), almost every
summer. Bergama is famous because
of its historical and archaeological
attractions. Normally one would
consider it a developed city, located in
the Aegean region within the borders
of the third largest city of the country,
Izmir. However, the town was full of
government buildings and apartments
while most of the population lived in
the surrounding 114 villages. I was
seeing families from those villages
travelling to the town center in their
newest attire to visit the state hospital
or to carry out their deeds at
government offices. The AKP
government changed things for them.
With the introduction of new structures
surrounding the metropolitan areas,
migration from the villages to cities
increased. During the AKP
government, the number of people
living in the 114 villages of Bergama
has decreased by 60 percent, for
example. This transformation did not
necessitate an intellectual stratum.
The AKP does not, at its current
stage, have an intellectual class. It
has a structure which is very similar
to a pyramid scheme, or a Ponzi
scheme.
The AKP does not, at its current stage,
have an intellectual class. It has a
structure which is very similar to a
pyramid scheme, or a Ponzi scheme.
Companies that use the pyramid
scheme model make virtually all their
profits from signing up new recruits
and often disguise entry fees under
various items. The sooner you become
a member of the system, the more you
will profit from it. The AKP, after
winning the 2002 elections, did the
same thing. They started to transform
economic and bureaucratic interest
groups by gradually replacing their
staff with AKP members. Since AKP
members who were placed in these
positions started to benefit
economically and socially, the number
of AKP members increased
accordingly. Having AKP membership
and a card indicating membership is
considered to be the key to opening
every door. Today, the AKP has over
10 million members in Turkey. The
ones who became members of the
AKP during its early period constitute
its elite. In sum, we cannot compare
the early Republican intellectuals with
the AKP’s pyramid scheme, rather
there is only very weak intellectual
capital in the AKP.
MERIP: How would you characterize
the impact of US foreign policy on
Turkey’s domestic politics in the past
and today?
Altınkaş: US foreign policy during the
Cold War was based on containing the
Soviet Union and securing allies of the
United States in the region. The
concept of a “strategic ally” was used
by Turkish governments to explain the
position of Turkey in her relationship
with the United States. After the end of
the Cold War, Turkey declared that it
would continue supporting democracy
and the quest for a free world by being
a close US ally again. However, after
the attacks of September 11, 2001, US
policies toward the region changed
significantly. With a more active
presence in the region, the United
States also started to search for
“model countries” that would set good
examples for integrating Islamic
societies with the tenets of democracy.
Erdoğan, as the leader of the AKP
(established just one month before
September 11) was the ideal
candidate. In 2003, Erdogan gave a
speech at Harvard University’s
Kennedy School of Government and
said: “As Turkey proceeds in the
direction of membership to the EU,
also the modern democratic values
which she represents create greater
attraction in the Middle East. This
attraction will enable the Euro-Atlantic
community to act as a catalyst for
positive change in peace and
interaction with the outside world.” This
image projected by Erdoğan during the
beginning of AKP government in
Turkey has been an important driving
force in the support he received from
the United States and other Western
countries. The transformation in
Turkey that was carried out by AKP
government since 2002 has been
labeled as a “democratic and civilian”
one by global public opinion during the
beginning years of AKP rule.
After consolidating its power, the AKP
started to implement more
authoritarian policies and diverted its
path from democracy to autocracy.
Especially after the coup attempt in
2016, the anti-democratic policies of
the AKP within the country—such as
detaining anyone the new regime
considers as a threat, shutting down
private companies and universities,
dismissing countless civil servants,
imprisoning journalists and opposition
members—were not criticized at the
government level by the new US
administration of Donald Trump. No
sanctions were imposed on Turkey
regarding the purchase of S-400
missiles from Russia or regarding the
Halkbank case, where the deputy head
of a public bank run by the Turkish
state was arrested by American
authorities with the allegation of
conspiring to evade sanctions against
Iran by illegally funneling millions of
dollars to the country. Today, Turkey is
an authoritarian state hidden under the
mask of a “democratic and strategic
ally” of the United States.
Today, Turkey is an authoritarian
state hidden under the mask of a
“democratic and strategic ally” of
the United States.
Even now, during the Joe Biden
administration, I do not forsee any
changes.
MERIP: As a scholar who has closely
studied Turkey’s political history, what
do you think will be the main dynamics
and conflicts to shape the country’s
future?
Altınkaş: Turkey is a country of
dichotomies. Turks consider
themselves to be a country torn
between different civilizations and
cultures and they refer to a multiethnic
empire, the Ottoman Empire, as their
ancestors. The popularity of TV series
such as “Resurrection: Ertugrul”
among the Turkish people is an
indicator of that. The conflict between
Republican groups and AKP
supporters is based on the questioning
of identity. AKP supporters,
embellished with a sauce of Neo-
Ottomanism, blame the Republicans
and even the founders of the Republic
for being elitist and Westernist. They
question the Lausanne Agreement,
which is not only a peace treaty
between Turkey and the Entente
powers after World War I, but also a
document that declares the
establishment of the Republic of
Turkey four months prior. On the other
hand, Republicans accuse AKP
supporters of being ignorant and
Ottomanist. They say that by
questioning the foundations of the
Republic, AKP supporters pave the
way for the partition of the country.
This dichotomy within Turkish society
will continue to shape the country’s
future.
How to cite this article:
Ayça Alemdaroğlu, Elif Babül, Nabil Al-
Tikriti "Intellectual Traditions and the
Academy in Turkey — An Interview
with Evren Altınkaş," Middle East
Report Online, June 02, 2021.