Declaration of Support to Bogazici University Resistance

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Apr 30, 2022 Turkey
A student protest at Boğaziçi University (January 2021). Photo by Hilmi Hacaloğlu via Wikimedia Commons. A student protest at Boğaziçi University (January 2021). Photo by Hilmi Hacaloğlu via Wikimedia Commons.

Declaration of Support to Bogazici University Resistance

For the past 14 months, Turkey’s top-ranking Bogazici University has been under politically motivated attacks by government circles, which threatens its very existence as the last autonomous and free public university in the country. On 1 January 2021, President Erdogan appointed Melih Bulu, who was unqualified for the job and a member of the ruling party, AKP, as Rector (Vice-Chancellor) to the university without consulting faculty members. This triggered resistance among academics and students, followed by relentless attacks undermining Bogazici University's governing bodies, administrative committees, student clubs, and societies. Two new faculties were founded overnight and political appointments were made to key offices to sway votes in the Senate and other governing bodies of the university.

From day one, students, faculty members, and alumni staged protests and a tug-of-war ensued between them and the appointed rector and his accomplices. The police were called on campus in early 2021 to crush student protests and hold the campus under siege for several months. Hundreds of students were taken into custody, some were held in pre-trial detention for months. Boğaziçi faculty have held vigils every workday since 5 January 2021, turning their backs to the rector’s office in silent protest. Six faculty members were dismissed in retaliation, and protesting professors became targets of smear campaigns by the government-controlled media.

Against all odds, the resistance succeeded in exposing Bulu as a plagiarist and incompetent administrator, which led to his dismissal by Erdogan after 7 months of protests. Following his dismissal, staff, students, and alumni quickly organized a vote and announced their candidates for the rectorate. Yet, Erdogan replaced Bulu with the latter’s deputy, Naci Inci, flatly ignoring the will of the university. İnci proved to be even worse than his predecessor, purging staff in greater numbers, disciplining hundreds of students, and laying baseless accusations against some that led to months-long arbitrary detentions.

The attacks got fiercer in 2022, when the Council of Higher Education dismissed three elected deans for resisting the assigned rector’s orders to dish out heavy disciplinary punishments to students and faculty members. Naci Inci first appointed himself and his deputies to their posts, but then got academics from outside Bogazici University to replace them. Thereby, Erdogan loyalists gained almost full control of university administration and obtained the authority to dismiss faculty and expel students. They lost no time in abusing these powers. The rector created a new foundation, whose members include AKP deputies, to short-circuit the existing foundation loyal to Bogazici’s academic principles. The new tactic seems to be to re-tool the campuses, perhaps move the university out of the historical site it has occupied since 1863 to some faraway suburb, and allow private contractors close to Erdogan to build commercial venues in its place.

In a recent letter, Scholars at Risk called attention to how politicizing the Bogazici University administration and punishing dissent deepens the erosion of academic freedom already underway in Turkey since 2016: 

On February 18, 2022, the Magna Charta Universitatum Observatory, which oversees the integrity of intellectual and scientific work in 904 signatory universities in 88 countries in the world, also issued a statement condemning the violation of institutional autonomy at Bogazici University: 

More than a year into the struggle, students and staff are exhausted, yet still defiant, standing firmly by the principals of academic freedom, institutional autonomy and democratic governance. These recent pieces offer a comprehensive account of the resistance:

We, the undersigned, condemn the intensifying attacks on Bogazici University, and stand in solidarity with the students, faculty, and alumni who have waged an inspiring struggle for the principles of institutional autonomy, academic freedom and democratic governance. We demand: 

  • the reinstitution of electoral procedures to fill major administrative positions at the university, including the position of Rector, Dean and Head of Institute, 
  • the reinstatement of unfairly dismissed staff,
  • an end to the legal harassment of Boğaziçi staff and students,
  • the lifting of all restrictions on student and academic activities,
  • a return to democratic governance principles that made Bogazici a center of excellence and allowed faculty and students control over administrative decisions, academic programs, teaching, extra-curricular activities, and university property. 

We also urge President Erdogan to desist from his interference in administration and governance of higher education institutions in Turkey and to respect their constitutional autonomy.

See all individual petition signers here: https://boyutbogazici.org/en/petition/


Institutions endorsing the statement:

1. BOYUT (Bogazici University International Community) Academy

2. Utrecht Network

3. University of Greenwich, UK

4. SAR, Scholars at Risk

5. SULF, The Swedish Association of University Teachers and Researchers

6. AAUP, American Association of University Professors

7. UCU, University and College Union, UK

8. GEW, Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft - German Trade Union for Education and Research

9. EĞİTİM-SEN, Education and Science Workers' Union, Turkey

10. UCU, Universities and Colleges Union, University of Greenwich branch, UK

11. Saint Mary's University Faculty Union, Canada

12. TUFA, Trent University Faculty Association, Canada

13. LSA, Student Union of Latvia

14. Belarusian Students' Association

15. ISO, The Dutch National Student Association

16. SFS, Swedish National Union of Students

17. FAGE - Fédération des Associations Générales Etudiantes - National Federation of Students’ Associations, France

18. USI, Union of Students in Ireland

19. LUS, Lund University Student Union Association, Sweden

20. LDK, Lund's Doctoral Student Union, Sweden

21. Academy in Exile, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Germany

22. Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, USA

23. RIT, Research Institute on Turkey, USA

24. International Migration Research Centre, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada

25. Kualia Analytic Philosophy Journal

26. Off-University, Germany

27. KODA, Kocaeli Dayanışma Akademisi - Kocaeli Academy for Solidarity, Turkey

28. Nesin Mathematics Village, Turkey

29. Academics for Peace-Germany

30. İzmir Dayanışma Akademisi - İzmir Academy for Solidarity, Turkey

31. Insaniyyat: Society of Palestinian Anthropologists

32. Fédération SUD éducation, France

33. American Anthropological Association

34. SUD Recherche EPST, France

35. British Society for Middle East Studies

36. SAR Network - Ireland

37. ACSS, Arab Council for the Social Sciences

38. SMF, Société Mathématique de France

39. CGT, Ferc Sup Lyon 1
Feb 16, 2011 Lebanon
Jadaliyya Reports By :
Jadaliyya Reports

Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412