How could I ever explain the erasure of Beşir Atalay's name from his university?

Dede Korkut is said to have given people their names not at birth, but after they had performed a certain deed that would characterize them. Some people, on the other hand, engrave the names they carry in people's minds only after certain deeds and missions, becoming identified with those deeds and those missions. Such a name cannot be so easily torn out and thrown away either.

On the anniversary of the July Revolution, I was in Bangladesh to discuss the political, international relations and cultural dimensions of the event, and the think tank that had invited me held a gala dinner at which I was the speaker. Many university rectors also attended the gala, which centered on relations between Turkey and Bangladesh. The rectors' interest was, of course, less in my person than in Turkey, which appears like a sun from Bangladesh, and in its history and its leader. After the conference I also met many of them again over dinner, and we talked about universities. A conversation about improving the quality of our countries' universities, especially about the cooperation that could be undertaken between Turkish and Bangladeshi universities. Right in the middle of this conversation, I read on my phone a piece of news about our universities that lodged in me like a pang of pain. The Kırıkkale University Senate decided, "with the unanimous vote of those present," on the appropriateness of canceling the decision to give the name "Kırıkkale University Prof. Dr. Beşir ATALAY Campus," which had been determined by a University Board decision in 2017, and of changing our university's campus name to "Kırıkkale University Martyrs Campus."

My first reaction, of course, was "What do you mean?" How and why could such a thing happen?

Giving the name of a living person to a university or some other facility is in essence always a problematic situation, but taking that name back once it has been given is far more problematic. It is an attack on one's moral personality. The names of many living politicians are given in one way or another to universities, institutions, avenues and streets. When an opposing political administration takes over, these politicians can very easily become targets. This, unfortunately, is something that happens often in Turkey. Names are taken as easily as they are given. This is partly because namings are done in a very arbitrary way and with far too much political zeal. But political courtesy actually expects a level of gentlemanliness to be observed among the opposition in these namings. The names given should not be taken back so easily, neither from the living nor from the deceased.

Let us put that aside. Some namings are so natural, so well deserved, that no one should be able to touch them. For example, Beşir Atalay's name being at Kırıkkale University has a symbolic importance that goes beyond the Professor's own person. Professor Beşir's name was not given to Kırıkkale University like a patch, out of political officiousness. His name was engraved there of its own accord, from the role he played since 28 February, and from his unparalleled contributions to the university both as its founding rector and later through his political office.

Among the universities that Turgut Özal opened as a cultural and sociological instrument of development and democratization in Turkey, Kırıkkale University had a special place. In appointing Beşir Atalay, whom he knew from his work at the DPT (State Planning Organization) and from a much broader background, as rector of this university, he was not making a random choice. 28 February was at the same time a blow against the university-building that Özal had set in motion as a channel of democratization. Many rectors appointed by Özal were forced to resign by YÖK, but Professor Beşir refused the demand to resign in spite of all the pressure and was removed from office. This stance alone should have granted him a privilege that would clear even his past and possible future mistakes. His name was not like the name of a politician who had gained power and influence for a period. On the contrary, it was a name more than deserved as the stance of an academic who stood up for his university, rather than for his political struggle. Touching that name should also have meant ending up in the same place as everything that 28 February represented, and, correspondingly, disregarding all the feelings, stances and struggles experienced against that dark period.

Professor Beşir is a man who made very important contributions, with his scientific and intellectual approach, to the founding of the AK Party, which has been governing Turkey for 23 years, and to all of its politics afterward. In the periods when he was active in politics, his name was always identified with all of the AK Party's positive policies: he played a very important role in establishing and preserving politics' strong link with sociology and field research, in human rights, in democratization, and especially in the democratic opening and the resolution process. We touched once more on these contributions of his here in connection with his memoirs published some time ago. He also became the target of many circles because of his approach of putting his hand under the stone in the resolution process. Yet the "Terror-Free Turkey" horizon reached today has been opened largely on a ground to which he contributed.

In this sense, Professor Beşir's name, which is identified with Kırıkkale University, has actually become a matter that goes beyond his own person. Whatever political positions he may have held before or afterward, that name goes beyond those personal dimensions. His name turns into one of the symbols of a struggle lived by society in Turkey during the 28 February process. It would have been expected, above all, that academics would appreciate the symbolic character of that name more. That academics, who should be more concerned with scientific freedom, autonomy and quality, have been able to touch an academic's name so easily is of course problematic.

If Beşir Atalay were still active in politics, could this decision have been taken? Of course it could not. In that case, an academia that can so easily squander the name of an academic whose name is on the university, merely because he no longer holds a political position, is also problematic. If academics will not protect the dignity of the academic against politics, who will?

If his being outside politics for some time made him seem politically touchable, and gave the impression that the name he academically deserves could also be touched, then the academic standing of those who act on that impression is of course very seriously problematic. That such a thing occurred to the university senate, and moreover that none of those who joined such a proposal objected and that they were able to decide it unanimously, is far more problematic.

This was of course not the Turkish University I told the rectors of Bangladeshi universities about, and could not have been. How could I have explained it?