Dear Colleagues:
A week after the attempted coup in Turkey, we are now witnessing Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s attempt to consolidate power by launching a massive purge of Turkish institutions and now the government has “issued a blanket travel ban on all academics.”
Since 2003 as Turkish expert Soner Cagaptay writes, “Erdogan has built a cult of personality as a kind of authoritarian underdog, portraying himself as a victim who is forced to crack down on those conspiring to undermine his authority.”
Clearly, Erdogan’s “victimhood” absolves him from any wrongdoing.
Given the above, with all the real violations of academic freedom we are now witnessing in Turkey will Western academics that have been so quick to call for boycotts on Israel stand up for Muslim scholars? Further as our colleague William Jacobson correctly writes, “the Turkish academic purge raises a test for the anti-Israel academic boycotters. Will they devote themselves this coming academic season to an academic boycott of Turkish Universities, in addition to other majority-Muslim nations where minorities are repressed and academic freedom stifled?”
Finally, it was gratifying to see that Atlanta’s mayor Kasim Reed flatly refused a demand by protesters associated with Black Lives Matter to end the local police force’s cooperation and training with Israel. In a press conference Reed stated,
As always, we welcome your feedback and article submissions.
Sincerely,
Asaf Romirowsky, PhD
