Prof. Dr. Yasin Aktay mentioned the proclamation of the Turkish Republic from the date before 1923 until 1950’s at first. He underlined the importance of abolishing caliphate for the Muslim world in general and for the Turkish religious people in particular. “Until the 1950 Turkish society witnessed the forceful application of the democracy” he said. “The headscarf issue divided society into secularist and religious communities” he added. “According to the secularist people the headscarf was the symbol of the religious reactionary that’s why it had to be banned in the government institution. But which kind of wearing style cannot be seen as a political symbol?” he emphasized the significance of this question.
Prof. Aktay gave the French case as an example about abolishing the headscarves for the teacher not to influence students with their preferences but the headscarves being allowed for the student in the context of freedom of education. He underlined the main question of “what if the normal lady means a headscarf lady for other people”. He indicated that there is no written article in Turkish judicial texts to forbid the headscarf but it is applied out of the forceful interpretation of higher judicial actors.
He also mentioned another issue in Turkish political life, namely the Kurdish problem and ethnical identity. He explained the government’s initiative ideas about identities with examples from Turkey. He gave Atatürk’s definition of Turkishness that; “Turkishness is not an ethnical identity. It has nothing to do with racial issues. It is to make a definition of territorial citizenship out of which a national state would be built. In these territories everybody is Turkish and their entity is being recognized by the constitution”. Prof Aktay said that this definition is a good intentional definition for eliminating ethnic claim and discrimination. However this good intention did not suffice because it relied on the promotion of the Turks as ethnic group and it could not create an umbrella identity to incorporate the Kurds because it relied on the strategy of denial of all sub-identities in order to good-intentionally eliminate the discriminating policies.
Therefore, he mentioned, we came to face with the fact that; Turkishness triggers the separational-nationalist ideas which are also dangerous for the societies. After these explanations he gave the example of PKK terror organization and its attacks in 1984. At the beginning he referred to the relationship of rapid urbanization happened simultaneously with the Kurdish issue and said, “The Kurds were brought into the cities. They saw their differences from the other city dwellers. That caused another ideology of ‘who am I? question. In return the ethnic identity came into the scene.
AKP redefined the ethnical identity with the initiatives but it couldn’t be successful in total. With the officially recognition of Kurdish people with their ethnical differences through the government, they got an official TV broadcasting in Kurdish, teach Kurdish to their children freely, and make their voice heard in the government. All these actually have come to put an end to the denial paradigm which has caused the emergence of the Kurdish issue. “But the terrorist attacks still didn’t finish” he said.
So a conclusion aroused here that the case of Kurds problem was not ethnical identity anymore.
When Prof. Aktay came to the secularism issue, there was a question from a student. The student asked that why there appears the left and the right wing in Turkey when it comes to secularism? Why the people in Turkey interpret the secularism differently? To this question Prof. Aktay gave an example that; “even in Germany there are about fifty percent Catholic and fifty percent Protestant. But among the Catholics or the Protestant we know that there many people who are seem to be against the idea of religion, but still they are considered as Catholic or Protestant. From one moment on, the religious identity is just a cultural identity having not to do with the practicing. So, the 99 percent Muslim does not mean that everybody is the same. There may be some diversifications. Secularism is also the same. Some believe that secularism should be eliminated from the religion; they even support the idea of abolishing the “religion part” from the Identity Cards. Secularism is working as a mater of conflict rather than being a principle solving the conflicts between different parts. It is by itself the major and stronger part.
One of the students asked Aktay to compare the situation in Basque Country and whether the Kurdish issue is similar with that case and if there are some advantages to solve the problem in Turkey. Prof. Aktay replied that the people in Basque region were accumulated only in one part of the country and it was easier to claim a separation, but in Turkey the Kurdish and Turkish people are so intermixed that a separational claim cannot be realized. Moreover the religious dimension in Turkey is very strong element in keeping the two people with each other. As for the language element, today the Kurdish people speak their own language even teach it and also have a TV channel to broadcast. And they are not gathered only in one region, they are all over Turkey. So they cannot be located only in south-east.
Another issue was Turkey’s accession into the EU. Prof. Aktay said that “Turkey want to play a role to complete the EU mosaic. Turkey tries to integrate the EU standards for its own sake. There are popular ideas about Muslim in France, Dutch which are the EU member countries. The EU should act more secular in terms of religions” he said.
A question came from another student that; “Is Turkey getting away from the East by getting closer with the West?” Prof Aktay said; “Surprisingly the more Turkey gets closer to the West the more she is supported by the East. For example Iran and other Arab countries are the biggest supporters of Turkey to join the EU. Prof. Aktay argued that the importance of the role of mediation, which is played by Turkey in many international affairs, should not be underestimated. Turkey is in such a region that it is very critical in every sense. So Turkey plays the role of mediation between Iran and America, between Hamas and Israel as well. We should pay sufficient attention to the role of Turkey in the region.
Eventually Prof. Aktay gave information about the vision of the institution. He said; “we are not engaged with any political or institutional organization. SDE is completely civil think tank organization trying to achieve the democratization of Turkey and the world. SDE is not trying to impose any hierarchical things. Here is a “think tank” club and we create ideas in the framework of the democracy. We are also a dialogue center for the conflicted groups to make better policies.
The meeting took 1, 5 hours and at the end, the students visited the institution building and had the publications of the institution.