A symposium in Dersim and the democracy package

The democratic opening package that Prime Minister Erdoğan is expected to announce to the public next week will in essence be just one link in a democratization program that has continued uninterrupted for 11 years. Looking at the criticisms that the package is being prepared entirely and solely by the AK Parti without heeding anyone's views, one might think that the process is being followed from France and like a Frenchman.

For one thing, it is forgotten that the package being prepared is a package of proposals prepared in the AK Parti's kitchen. On the one hand, the content of the package already contains suggestions, criticisms and contributions that have come from different segments of society for months, perhaps years. Of the reports produced by the wise people's committees most recently, those that could be put to use within the limits of political possibility have been reflected in the package. On the other hand, the package to be announced will not have become a legal text the moment it is announced. The real process will begin after that. Since one dimension of the proposal package will require legislation in parliament, it cannot in any case be exempt from debate. Therefore there is nothing to worry those who are longing for a debate over the democratization package. They will have more time and more opportunities to debate.

On this occasion, however, it must be recalled and reminded that this package is neither the first step or stage in Turkey's democratization process, nor will it be the last, and that the sum of the democratization packages opened so far has, for the time being, literally created a real "Silent Revolution." The book of the same title published by the Undersecretariat of Public Order and Security lays out this revolution in all its dimensions.

To understand this revolution better and to feel it in depth, perhaps it is not necessary, and you can certainly see it from where you are, but it is worth going to a Şırnak, a Siirt, a Van, a Tunceli and looking from there too.

I am writing this article from Tunceli, that is, from Dersim, whose original name is at last expected to be restored. The II. International Dersim Symposium is taking place at Tunceli University with wide participation from within the country and abroad, in the atmosphere of a true feast of ideas.

Democratization certainly has a dimension related to legal regulations. But its truly important dimension, in my view, lies in sociological policies aimed at improving the quality of citizenship. You can see in a very striking way how the "a university in every province" policy has made a fundamental contribution to the development of a culture of democracy in the cities of the Southeast.

Frankly, the newly founded universities in these cities are growing steadily and have become both the stage and the actors of a development that was hard to believe as of yesterday. Universities contribute very significantly not only to the demographic development of the city where they are located but also to the deepening of its cultural depth and awareness. Each university excavates the history, folklore, culture and geography of its city with an archaeologist's meticulousness and brings its gem to light.

Tunceli University was founded only five years ago, but it has already become a very effective and important actor in the city's development in every respect.

Why does the state establish a university in Tunceli? To transform it, to assimilate it? To strike the state's iron hand (Tunç el) on it once more?

Perhaps under the old conception of the state, "Tunceli" and "university" would not have come together at all, but if they absolutely had to, it would have been only within this equation, that is, an equation in which the state would make the people of Dersim feel its iron hand. Yet Tunceli University has opened departments and centers for the study and development of the Kurdish and Alevi culture that the state had until now denied, belittled and ignored. The students studying in these departments and the faculty members conducting research are now busy researching, developing and presenting the depths and riches of Alevi culture.

The rector, Prof. Dr. Durmuş Boztuğ, with his extraordinarily empathetic, intellectual and positive personality, states with great self-confidence, to a student who asked about the level of freedom of thought at the university and questioned him to his face, that no investigation has ever been opened over even the most radical ideas that can be expressed, and that none will be opened in the future. The university itself in effect works as a kind of guarantee of freedom of thought in these parts. So long as views do not adopt and practice violence as an element of unfair competition against other views.

Prof. Boztuğ, a rector who openly expressed his support for the process when the opening process began, explains the reason for this stance not simply as expressing a political view or supporting the government, but entirely on academic grounds: "We took the senate decision supporting the opening process because without the opening, without the Kurdish problem being solved, I cannot develop my own university. Because as Tunceli University, attracting both quality students and sufficient faculty members is not possible under the present conditions. But as for the matter of the opening process, even since it began, we have started to feel and experience good developments in this regard to a noticeable degree."

These days, as everyone waits with eyes open and ears pricked for the democratization package the prime minister will announce, we must not neglect to remember where we have come from and where we have arrived so far.