Universities: The Gateways to Freedom or Submissiveness

Above photo is taken at a public university in Turkey. It may not seem remarkable at first glance. Just another plain cement building, reminiscent of the uninspiring public sector.

However, what makes it interesting is the two words written above those doors: “Student Entrance” (Öğrenci Girişi)

Few feet away, just around the corner is another door. “Faculty Member Entrance” (Öğretim Üyesi Girişi) it says.

I am sorry, but having separate entrances for the academic staff and the students -at a public university, of all places- reminds me of the Jim Crow laws in the US. This is segregation to me, no matter how you swing it.

What could be the rationale for having separate doors for faculty members and the students? Are the university students a wild pack that we need to avoid when getting in and out of the buildings? Would the mighty professors get stepped on if they walked with the common folk? It just doesn’t make sense…

The problem of hierarchy and super rigid pecking orders under the roof of what is supposed to be a universal institution of higher education bothers me a lot.

When I was teaching at a public university in Ankara, my university had five (yep, FIVE) separate lunch halls depending on your status in the pecking order.

At the bottom were the students. They had their separate place and God forbid, if they dared to show up at the other lunch halls. Their cards wouldn’t work and they would get scoffed at.

Then came the super rigid ladder for the staff. The lowest step was the manual laborers. They had their separate quarters tucked way in the back. Only once I peeked my head in, for I had lost my way. Instantly everyone stared at me and I understood my grave (!) mistake. I bowed down and backed out to my assigned quarters…

Next, came the second tier of staff. These were low ranking, white-collar workers, such as secretaries. They wouldn’t mix with the manual laborers, but wouldn’t mix with the higher ranked staff either.

With my meager status as a TA, I was a member of the third tier. This was a middle-of-the-road crowd, with bunch of low ranking academics, like TAs and instructors, and high-ranking admin staff, such as faculty secretaries. Assistant Professors who wanted to show some solidarity also came and ate with us.

Lastly, the top tier: Assistant Professors and up. The mighty professors didn’t line up with trays like us the commoners. They were perched up at a restaurant with the best views of campus, had tables with white linen and waiting staff…  

In a recent column, Gunduz Vassaf states that human beings feel extremely submissive to authority, when they don’t feel confident and powerful as individuals. He gives the examples of universities in Turkey, as institutions that cultivate this culture of hierarchy and submission.

Unfortunately, since the last military coup in 1980 the academic circles in Turkey failed terribly in terms of adhering to the universal principles of higher education. Instead teaching universal values like equality and freedom, majority of the universities are grinding the young generations into docility and submission. Their institutional culture is inimical to cultivating self-respecting individuals with critical thinking skills. Segregated entrances and lunch halls are all part of this structure that instills submission to authority.

The word university is derived from the Latin word, universe. It is composed by putting together uni (one) and versus (turned), with the combined meaning referring to one becoming whole, as in the whole cosmos.

If we cannot even bring students and faculty together and have them walk through the same gates and have lunch at the same tables, what kind of a whole are we talking about? What kind of a university are we talking about?

When I transferred to a different university in Ankara, one of the first things I appreciated was the de-segregated food court! Faculty members and students all lined up with their trays, chose their meals and sat wherever they could find. All as equal human beings! What a relief, I thought...

Wishing you all free and egalitarian university experiences,

The hierarch-averse Academic Mommy

The “Ping-pong Theory” of Democratic (Un)Consolidation

The time I’ve spent as a student and scholar of democratization is more than a decade now. Part of my effort was to see whether the Latin American experiences on the long and arduous path to democratization could be relevant for Turkey or the Mid East.

Looking at the transformation of civil-military relations in Latin America, I was taken aback by how the civilian regimes that took over handled this delicate matter. Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) was achieved in most of these countries. Militaries retreated back to their professional boundaries, and political space was left to the civilians. In Chile, Argentina and Peru, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions were established in order to uncover the heinous crimes committed under military rules. The days of impunity were over. Institutions to ensure the transparency and accountability of the military were set in place.

However, the civilian governments also granted comprehensive amnesties to the perpetrators. It was this part that I had harder time to comprehend…

In most cases, leftist governments gained electoral victory after the military regimes ran out of steam. They were treated brutally during the authoritarian era. Thanks to the unfettered support from the US during the Cold War, military regimes of Latin America unleashed vicious campaigns over these ‘commies’.

General Pinochet of Chile was notorious with his Caravans of Death. These were military helicopters that airlifted leftist dissidents and conveniently dropped them off over the Pacific Ocean. The last three Presidents of Brazil (Dilma, Lula and Cardoso) all experienced either jail time and torture, or exile during the military rule in Brazil. The Dirty War of Argentina left over 10,000 desaparecidos.* The Argentine military caused yet another tragedy by handing over the orphaned children of the disappeared to the military families.

Despite all the torture, summary executions, displaced/disappeared individuals and forced adoptions, the civilian leaders of Latin America allowed a graceful exit for the ex-military autocrats. More importantly, they uncovered the past military crimes and brought closure to the families of the victims.

Today, I realize that this was neither a sign of weakness, nor pity. It was a superior understanding of rule of law that carefully avoided regressing into a vendetta.

Seeking revenge, making your opponents pay back, are unsurprisingly human feelings. Yet, in polarized societies that seek democratic healing, an eye-for-an-eye attitude could hardly be the harbinger of lasting peace.

-Dude, why R U showing your ID to the bomb?
+ Dunno, what should I do instead?

These are my thoughts, as I see the last Joint Chiefs of Staff in Turkey go behind bars. For some, this settles the score for the jailing of Prime Minister Erdogan. Yet, settling scores could hardly be the best path to democratic consolidation. It would’ve been more constructive, had we seen genuine signs of transparency on the side of military, which had incidentally bombed 35 civilians by accident past week!

As much as I would like to see the normalization of civil-military relations in Turkey, I doubt placing more than half the acting or retired top brass behind bars on dubious legal grounds is the way to go. Instead of resolving the military issue, this approach simultaneously leads to two important problems:

It fuels the social polarization by making the weaker party (the secularists and pro-military sectors in the Turkish case) hold onto its grudge, and sharpen its weapons, until it gets its turn. Hence the ping-pong match of settling scores and undermining democracy…

Secondly, it undermines the sense of justice in the general society. If government can bend the judiciary branch at will, how can you expect the public to uphold the rule of law and respect it as impartial?...

Democratic consolidation cannot be achieved, if anyone with the biggest stick starts to corner its opponents into submission. Yes, those who committed crimes should be punished. But this should not come at the expense of rule of law. Nor should it amount to a vendetta.

Wishing you all sound legal systems in the New Year,

The Academic Mommy in a Quandary…

* A friend from Argentina kindly asked me to amend the number of desaparecidos. Upon close monitoring from the Human Rights NGOs, the official figures amounted to more than 30,000.