By Batuhan Üsküp
In Turkey's upcoming 2023 legislation election, the youth is seen as a key to salvation from an authoritarian regime and to promote democratization. The election is planned to take place exactly 10 years after the Gezi Park protests, which was the biggest reaction against the establishing authoritarian course. Last year, the role of youth was decisive in politics for election promises and the effects were felt in public discussions. Under worsening economic circumstances, President Erdogan's vote base consolidation is no longer easy.
The generation gap is not going to close, according to the ruling coalition AKP-MHP’s future projection. This is also the most important indicator of the collapse of Erdoğan’s pious youth project that has been applied for many years. However, young people in Turkey struggle with severely restricted individual freedoms and harsh economic conditions.
Wind Down All Ivory Towers
The year 2021 started at Boğaziçi University, one of the best universities in Turkey, when the plagiarist and unqualified, but obedient, rector Melih Bulu was appointed by Erdoğan and the protest demonstrations that followed.
Political pressures are getting heavier on the ruins of academia in Turkey. Universities have become one of the institutions that have faced the most severe pressures in the past ten years. While many academics flee abroad, a majority of young people want to live and study abroad when they have the opportunity. Universities are regressing in world rankings, and the government is forcing universities to obey by standardizing them.
Boğaziçi University is one of the rare and rooted institutions that resisted the government's strategy of taking over universities, which it saw as oppositional. Many students who participated in the resistance were detained and an investigation was launched against them.
Nevertheless, at the end of a year all components of the university, students, professors and graduates, were determined not to give in by showing a strong will to resist. Support for the resistance and reactions to the trustee rector grew from academics, alumni and non-governmental organizations from many parts of the world.
Universities have become one of the institutions that have faced the most severe pressures in the past ten years
Students during the Boğaziçi University Protests (Hilmi Hacaloğlu - VOA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
We can't shelter
The economic crisis in Turkey started long before the pandemic, but was felt less with the pandemic restrictions. Nonetheless, as restrictions were lifted the Turkish economy went into free fall. If repercussions affect the whole society, students feel them particularly. For instance, while education was carried out remotely, students were able to somehow overcome the problem of housing.With the relaxation of restrictions, universities switched to hybrid or formal education, but the housing problem of students, who had difficulty in paying high dormitory and house rents in the increasing economic crisis, came to the fore.
Students organized through social media and other communication tools and united in the movement of #Barınamıyoruz which means “we cannot shelter”. The Barınamıyoruz movement has become the focus of social opposition with its actions, campaigns and hashtags. While the students were protesting against the government's inadequate policies by lying on benches and on the parks for days, President Erdoğan accused these students of being so-called students with links to terrorism.
Erdoğan’s Social Engineering Project: Pious Youth
Today even though it has no place in the daily lives of new generations, the debates between religious affairs and secularism, which is one of the most fundamental debates of Turkish social life, has always been kept hot on the agenda throughout the 20-year AKP rule.
During the two decades of Erdoğan rule, the younger generations suffered in several different ways from this: From the prevention of male and female students to sharing the same student dormitories in university campuses, to students being forced to stay in the dormitories of religious sects and congregations due to the state's lack of adequate facilities to the number of children individuals will have, and the nepotism in the interview system applied in government recruitment.
Erdoğan's desire is not only to raise generations with his own Islamist aspirations and moral values but also to form obedient servants of the authoritarian regime he was establishing. However, Erdogan is also aware that at the end of these twenty years, Turkey's internal dynamics and engineering efforts have not been successful. But he is attempting to shift his vote base, which is slipping from under his ruling party, towards those who have more conservative and radical demands.
According to a survey of Istanbul Economics Research, “most of the young people between the ages of 18-30 view the cooperation with the USA-NATO and the European Union positively in the near future, while the vast majority considers the collaboration with the Middle East, Russia and China negatively.”
The Sorrows of Youth
A suicide case at the beginning of this year 2022 highlights the plight of youth in Turkey: The death of Enes Kara, a 20 year-old medical student at Elazığ Fırat University who said he was forced to stay and pray in a religious sect-run dormitory. In a video and farewell letter, he published before committing suicide, Kara spoke frankly about his struggles with depression and societal pressure, saying “I have lost my entire joy for life.”
Following the news, his father pushed back on the claims during an interview in which he defended the community’s policies. Kara’s suicide has made a significant impact on public opinion, though opposition parties (particularly the CHP) have not shown a strong reaction with the exception of Turkey’s Labor Party.
Meanwhile, the AKP continues with its pious generation aspiration and support for religious communities. As Renowned poet Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar once said: “Turkey does not give its children the possibility to deal with anything but itself.” But Kara’s death lies at the cross-section of societal currents and will likely come to represent much more than what is, a tragedy in and of itself.
Batuhan Üsküp Batuhan Üsküp is a senior at Hacettepe University, majoring in International Relations. He is interested in foreign policy, European Union affairs, and Turkish politics. He is enthusiastic to analyse the developments especially foreign policy issues in the region and in the world. He is particularly interested in lobbying, think tanks and civil society issues. He is contributing to Turkey Recap newsletter and is a member of Turkish Political Science Association.
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