Our world and our universities in the trial of Gaza

Thanks to the crimes against humanity that have come to light since the revolution, the whole world is now seeing under the tyranny of what kind of criminal regime the Syrian people have been living for 61 years. The great and exuberant joy the Syrian people have shown at being rid of Assad is in itself sufficient testimony to the oppression they have endured until now. In fact, even more living witnesses to this oppression were the nearly 12 million Syrians scattered across every part of the world.

It is a rule: a refugee always arrives at the place where he seeks shelter bearing a testimony about the place he fled. A refugee is a cry from those who remained in their country, who could not get out, who continue to live in this oppression and darkness. Whether this cry is heard, and whether, having been heard, what it requires is done, also shows the level of quality that humanity has reached. As the stay of the Syrians who have been in our country for years has grown longer, many people, instead of asking what terrible experiences there are that prevent them from returning, began to express weariness on account of the "ever-lengthening period of guesthood." Yet under normal conditions a person who has been forced to leave his country is inclined to return to it. If he cannot return, there must be a situation about the place he came from, one that he has lived through, which requires the intervention and help of all human beings.

Seeing today what Assad inflicted on his own people in the Sednaya Prison and in the other prisons, named or unnamed, should not all people be making an accounting of conscience in the name of humanity? One must set out on the road: to witness the joy the Syrian people are experiencing, to see up close what a moment of liberation means and what kind of social upheaval it can cause, to share in this joy, this happiness, and also to see a little of what has happened on the spot.

I am writing these lines on my way out of Iğdır University, where I was about to give a conference titled "Our World in the Gaza Test: Politics, Society and Science," as I am setting out toward Syria. That I am speaking at an event in another frontier province of Turkey, under this title, on the road to Syria, seems to me a highly meaningful coincidence. Let me begin by pointing to this meaningful coincidence.

As is well known, the situation of any Anatolian university gives an important cross-section of the historical development of universities in Turkey. Iğdır University, where the opening of the 2024-/25 academic year was also held on this occasion, is these days rejoicing at having achieved a remarkable ranking in the Interdisciplinary Science Rankings 2025 published by Times Higher Education (THE). In this ranking, which includes 749 universities worldwide, Iğdır University succeeded in placing in the 351-400 band in 2025. Thus, among the 52 universities from Turkey that were included in the list on account of their noteworthy work, it ranks 16th, and so once again certifies the quality of its interdisciplinary work in the international arena.

The university's rector, Prof. Dr. Mehmet Hakkı Alma, who is also a member of TÜBA, said that the university stands at the top as the first among the state universities founded in 2008 and afterwards, and added "especially" that in many rankings in fields such as the number of foreign students, internationalization at the university, scientific support and specialization, its greatest rival is Siirt University. The university's success in these matters, with 790 foreign students from nearly 30 countries currently enrolled, is without doubt a concrete indicator of the educational revolutions Turkey has experienced over the last 20 years.

What I have written on this subject before is out there. In a field in which the service sector stands out in the world, Turkey has made a very important breakthrough in the area of building universities, one that brings it very great advantages. This advantage of course carries certain risks, but together with these risks it has recorded a very important stage in science and technology, in the export of university education, in terms of preparing for the world of the future.

Without doubt, a more important stage for the university is for the university student to show a quality that is sufficiently sensitive, valuable and philosophical at the point of certain human values. The issue of Gaza has summoned us to a very difficult test. The response that American and European university students gave to this test has opened up very hopeful horizons regarding the meaning of the university, and very important horizons regarding the meaning of the university. However, the Zionist performance of their administrations in this matter also shows under what invisible limits and pressures the universities operate.

Gaza does not stand there simply as a victim, and by its resistance it does not point only to an oppressor who "tyrannizes it barbarically." It points to a global bandit order that has levied tribute upon the whole world, that dazzles the eyes of the world, that hides the facts from people, that, with its order built on lies, kills, lies, exploits, deceives, and ruins progeny and produce. Within this global bandit order there is no place that has not been occupied, no one who has not lost his freedom in one way or another, to one degree or another. Perhaps the only people who have been able to remain free against this destructive order are the people of Gaza, and the only place is Gaza. For that reason Gaza, as the keystone of the whole world, holds up the light of freedom to everyone.

Before this horizon revealed by the university, by Gaza, and by the revolution experienced in Syria on the path Gaza opened, there is a very wide field for putting forth many issues: occupation, colonialism, freedom, independence, and all the pressures, limits and humiliating situations to which the world system and science are subjected.

Of course, the most important thing is for university students to feel the test to which they are subjected in the face of Gaza, Zionist racism, genocide and injustice, and to try to give the right answer to this test.