This article is an attempt to analyze how the (ab)use of law has been used as a weapon to punish critical academics and researchers by the ruling elites with a special emphasis on the post-2016, the failed coup attempt process.
I will also tell how I have been excluded from academia. This process can be well-understood through an explanation based on the lenses of Louis Althusser’s work. Althusser (1971) argued that the modern state exercises its authority and control through two main mechanisms: Repressive State Apparatuses and Ideological State Apparatuses. One of the areas concerning the ideological state apparatuses is known as education. Through compulsory education, state elites aim to keep control of and even manipulate the masses.
Following the teachings of Althusser, this article argues that the ruling AKP elites have got engaged in pursuing a witch-hunt in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt for shaping higher education and research fields. This has been a reflection of shaping these ideological state apparatuses as well.
Thousands of researchers and academics lost their jobs, some had to leave the country while others were put behind bars due to their political stance. In addition some researchers including me have been systematically excluded from active work life through not being hired by any institution.
In the aftermath of 2016, the government allegedly stated that Gülenist network (in their own words “Fethullahist terror organization) followers staged the coup attempt and thousands of academics and researchers got vilified and they have been condemned to exiles and unemployment.
A massive wave of university purges took place in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt of 2016. The number of academics expelled from universities by statutory decrees after the coup attempt exceeds 20 times the number of academics purged in all coup periods. The number of dismissed academics is more than 5.000. Some of these academics had to leave Turkey and some were sent to prison.
Furthermore, there are also researchers like myself who faced human rights violations as a result of the discrimination they faced during their job applications. I have been repeatedly rejected by the institutions I have applied. For example, in a private university I had applied, the dean told me that they had already determined whom to hire before they posted the job vacancy.
My works have been cited for 186 times by scholars from all over the world as shown on on Google scholar and I am in the top 0. 5% on academia.edu . I have 19 peer-reviewed articles, one book, one book chapter, three full conference papers and several conference presentations and other academic roles such as editorial board memberships despite all of these, I have been systematically prevented from working in both public and private universities.
This is a human rights violation and brain drain is the ultimate consequence of it.
P.S. I ran into a tweet posted by Dr. M. Emin Adın this morning. Dr. Adin currently works an assistant professor of radiology in Yale University. He posted some tweets telling his story (how he faced mobbing during his job application for a public university in previous years). He said that he was not accepted in a public university located in Anatolia (we call such universities as "taşra" university) because the rector of the university had wanted someone else to be appointed there.
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