3.5 The Big Event

Leah Crowder. Sultanahmet 2015.

On January 12, 2016 Sultan Ahmet Square was buzzing as tourists shuffled into the legendary Blue Mosque. Mid afternoon an explosion shook the square, leaving behind a singing haze and the smell of burning flesh. Ten European tourists died and centuries old Ottoman architecture was destroyed. The culprit was soon determined to be an ISIS affiliated suicide bomber.

A few hours later, Erdoğan stepped into the press room of his Ankara offices. Journalists from local and international publications were anxiously awaiting a call to action against the so-called Islamic State.

Instead, Erdoğan went after the “so-called academics.” The president claimed that those who criticize the Turkish government are the worst terrorists of all. Reporters hurriedly took notes as the President described the hundreds of academics who publicly called for peace in Eastern Turkey as “dark” and “demented.”

Erdoğan denied any responsibility for the decades long Turkish/Kurdish conflict. He claimed that the fact that the government built (now crumbling) roads in majority Kurdish cities is proof that the government is benevolent.

The president said that all foreign signatories of the declaration “We Will Not Be a Party to This Crime” are ignorant and don’t deserve their positions of academic prestige. He singled out American academic and father of modern linguistics Noam Chomsky, accusing him of spreading terrorist propaganda in the US.

The president didn’t mention ISIS once.

All Turkish signatories were immediately placed under federal investigation. Dozens have been fired from their jobs, twenty seven have been detained, and many have gone into hiding. International academic organizations have