There were 43 of them, they left Turkey for a study trip to Germany in September, and only 2 returned. Nobody knows where they are, there is no news of any of them, and they seem to have disappeared into thin air. Who moved them? Who protects them? But, above all, what happened to the 43 academics and scholars of the municipality of Yeshilyurt, a quiet town in the heart of Anatolia, close to Malatya, cradle of the Gray Wolves movement?
The yellow exploded yesterday morning on the pages of Sozcu, one of the very few newspapers not controlled by the conservative government of religious inspiration of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The newspaper reports how the deputy chairman of the opposition Republican People’s Party parliamentary group, Günnur Tabel, said that members of the Malatya Personal Development World Association had been sent to Germany as part of the “Raising Environmentally Sensitives” project among the 15 and 27 September 2020. However, at the end of the study trip, as many as 43 of the 45 people sent to Europe never returned home.
“We do not have a single piece of information as to why these people who received service passports and visas did not return. The management of the association makes different statements, everyone wants to know the truth about what happened. For some reason our president is still silent. , we want this mystery to be cleared up. Who accomplished this event, who was caught, what was the purpose? It is the right of both the council members and the people of Yeshilyurt to learn clear news about it. “
The decision to send the Turkish delegation to Germany arose during the debate on the agency’s 2020 annual report, discussed at the meeting of the council of the municipality of Yeshilyurt which belongs, attention, to the AKP of Malatya, that is to the Justice and Development party, to the government for twenty years in Turkey. The most credible reconstruction therefore wants that, after the decision of the local team to send the large group of scholars to Germany, almost all have taken the opportunity to expatriate and settle away from Turkey waiting for the situation at home to change.
It is now clear why many Turkish academics and lecturers respond to invitations for conferences and conventions from European or American organizations, explaining that they are prevented from leaving the country. Or, as happened recently, the Turkish government has blocked some French professors, exactly 21, from the Galatasaray University of Istanbul (traditionally French-speaking), left without visas and regular travel permits, and therefore now subject to expulsion. So too is the story of the professors of the University of the Bosphorus, perhaps the most prestigious in Turkey, that is the former Robert College from whose ranks comes the Nobel Prize for Literature, Orhan Pamuk. For months they have been protesting, every day at noon, on the square of the academy, turning their backs on the rectorate after Erdogan imposed on them the name of a new rector, without regular elections as was the case before.
Moreover, there are many, and more and more, examples of intellectuals fleeing Turkey. Today, the cream of the intelligentsia of Smyrna, Ankara and Istanbul can be found abroad, scattered between France and Germany. But many are also found in Switzerland and Belgium, some even in Italy, and many have fled between the United States and Canada. The flight of Turkish intellectuals is one of the most important signs of the crisis in Turkey. And it shows the disconnect between the ruling class and the thinking heads confined in academies, universities, publishing and newspapers, in the world of culture and art. And who can, who has the opportunity, who tries to rebuild a life, today escapes from Turkey.
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