What happens at the most important breaking point?

Foreign media are very interested in the "rebellion" at Boğaziçi University, and let’s not "fall behind the gang." But not by "looking at Lenin's books" like Samad Vurgun, Without going into the government's 18-year education policy from primary school to university, let's take a brief look at the nature of the processes taking place at the country's top university in terms of the quality of education.

Neither the teaching staff nor the students accepted the rector appointed by the President, who has the authority to appoint rectors directly to universities, to Boğaziçi University. Among the promises of the new rector are "I will include the university in the top 100 universities in the world," "We can create an atomic bomb in 6 months," and so on, just as no teacher accepts being a vice-rector, students do not back down from their demands.

It should be noted that Boğaziçi University is higher education institution in the country that admits students with the highest university admission exam scores. As the silent resistance of the teaching staff continued and the police interfered with the peaceful protest of the students by several times but the situation did not change, the President's words - "Are you a student or a terrorist?" – fueled the fires.

The leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, Devlet Bahçeli, wrote in a long Twitter message that "teachers who do not accept the offered positions must be expelled from the university" and "the heads of the terrorists who do not stop the protests must be crushed."

Tension reached its peak when all those who were brought to trial were released despite all the radical demands of Mr. Bahçeli, who declared almost all of the protesting students, who belong to a different worldview, "terrorists".

Statements by the US State Department and Congress in support of the student protests at Boğaziçi University were crashed to the wall of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and they were also "knocked down to size."

At the next stage, the "rector" problem of the best university in the country brought to the fore the threat of "breakage" for Turkey, which in several respects is deeply rooted in several ways. Looking at this bulge from the surface, we see that the appointment of the rector of Boğaziçi University has become a "life-and-death issue" for the head of state.

Because if Professor Melih Bulu steps back in the face of protests and resigns (I think he would have done so long ago), he will gain respect, the charisma of the head of state will be damaged; however, the teaching staff and protesting students will naturally celebrate it as their victory. This is the main reason for MHP leader Bahçeli's anger - "their heads must be crushed like snakes, we support our police."

At the heart of the issue is the government's attempt to stifle all opposition voices in the process of preparing the country for the regime it wants, taking full control of the world of science and education.

While it was very difficult to establish foundation universities in the country, the AKP government made it very easy to open foundation universities, with the exception of Boğaziçi University in Istanbul and the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, all universities (whether public or private) are under government control.

The head of state is dissatisfied with this, complains that "they have not been able to achieve the desired results in the field of education and culture," and does not want any "territory" of science and education to be completely out of control, so that there will be no negative repercussions from any area in the process of implementing the plan.

Resistance at a university is, in fact, an attempt to prevent the deepest break in society, and to try to disguise a democratic protest as either "homosexual" or "terrorist" will further weaken the "breaking" points, making it impossible for the pillars to endure.

Another reason for writing this article is my desire to bring up the fate of the provincial branches of private universities and state universities that opened in Azerbaijan in the mid-1990s.

Undoubtedly, the importance of education provided by a significant part of those private universities to the country was measured years later, and many were closed. But there is an important nuance: about 20 years ago, Tafakkur University awarded the title of “honorary Ph.D.” to Akkan Suver, the most important partner of Ali Hasanov, the most important lobbyist of Azerbaijan in Turkey, nicknamed "Maho ağa", and Akkan Bey used that title of Tafakkur University in all tribunes of the world.

Interestingly, although the Tafakkur University has been closed, Akkan Suver still uses the title of “honorary Ph.D.” given by the university, of which doors were closed down.

Has Azerbaijan warned its lobbyist about this?

Mayis Alizade