31 mars 2013
The Story of Ordu Is the Story of Every University in Turkey
By Nuray Sancar. In a society where employees are only expected to perform well according to predetermined criteria, where loyalty to superiors and management is permanently tested through the nightmare of contract non-renewal, where there is a desire to transform universities into subsidiaries of monopoly capital, those who say "a university should not be like that" will be treated as spanners thrown into the works. Such dissenters will be terrorized in order to threaten their followings, especially if they think that organizing is the best path to power and try to maximize their numbers despite being silenced and condemned to isolation.
That's the very reason why an investigation was opened on seven academics at Ordu University for hanging on their doors left-wing education workers' union Eğitim Sen's cockades and banners declaring "We Want a University for the Benefit of Humanity, Nature, and Society." The hastily prepared investigation minutes said only that the academics hung the banners without permission, omitting information about what the banners were about. On the same day, however, Assistant Professor Deniz Yıldırım, who is one of the aforementioned seven, learned that he was inflicted with a disciplinary punishment because of his speech on the draft law on the Council of Higher Education (YOK). Read more...
That's the very reason why an investigation was opened on seven academics at Ordu University for hanging on their doors left-wing education workers' union Eğitim Sen's cockades and banners declaring "We Want a University for the Benefit of Humanity, Nature, and Society." The hastily prepared investigation minutes said only that the academics hung the banners without permission, omitting information about what the banners were about. On the same day, however, Assistant Professor Deniz Yıldırım, who is one of the aforementioned seven, learned that he was inflicted with a disciplinary punishment because of his speech on the draft law on the Council of Higher Education (YOK). Read more...