Politics Behind Turkey’s Student Troubles

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32036, 10 July 1969, Page 6

Politics Behind Turkey’s Student Troubles

(Specially written for "The Press” by RALPH JOSEPH; ANKARA. The smoke is likely to curl up from Turkey’s smouldering university campuses till well into October, when the country’s general elections are to be held. In plainer language the student unrest here is frankly motivated by politics, the activists forming a very small percentage of Turkey’s 100,000 odd university students. The university reforms and boost in university teachers’ salaries being fought for, while real enough in themselves, appear to be convenient excuses seized upon by leftists to embarrass the conservative Justice Party before the elections. The Government has hit back by making a number of arrests, but quite a few of the student leaders have gone into hiding, secure in the knowledge that with the examinations postponed till September they won’t be losing much anyhow. The lament of the passive middle-of-the-road majority is that they may lose a whole academic year. When the universities reopen for the examinations in September, the electioneering will be at its height. Vanloads of white-helmeted riot police are still patrolling Ankara’s streets, but in general the Government’s handling of the students has been relatively mild. What is holding the ruling party’s hand probably is the memory of what happened to the Democrats in 1960. After roughing up the students.

they found themselves ousted by an army coup. But the Justice Party is probably in part to blame for the unrest. It could well have discussed the reform bills before sending the Senate prematurely into recess. Demirel’s answer to this is classic: Where's the money going to come from?

The leftists in Istanbul university, demonstrating against American presence for want of any thing better, suddenly found something meatier to sink their teeth into, and swung round. Professors also registered their protests, some of them resigning. Not ail did, however, and when the rector objected to methods of protest "involving anarchy," after the university was “occupied,” he had to flee the campus under a hail of stones. Efforts to hold the June examinatons “under police protection” were abandoned after student-police clashes; * The methods of protests “involving anarchy" are demonstrations, strikes, or boycotts of classes, and “Ishgal,” which literally means occupation. The students claim to have adopted the latter from the 1968 Sorbonne student protests; it involves a student “take over” of the university administration.

The trouble spread to the Middle East Technical Univer- ‘ sity, a U.N.E.S.C.O. institute in Ankara, and the Ankara University. Boycotts and "Ishgals" deteriorated into clashes with the police in the capital after students demonstrating in front of the Turkish-United States logistics office (T.U.5.L.0.G.) used molotov cocktails and handgrenades or "sound bombs” as the students call them. Police arrested about 38 M.E.T.U. students, and about 15 from Ankara, another 15 or so being earlier arrested

from Istanbul. A smaller total have gone into hiding. The universities were sent into recess one after the other. Trouble next erupted at the Aegean University at Izmir, where right and leftwing students ended up in a bloody clash on June 20, using clubs, stones, pistols and shotguns. Eight students were sent to hospital with serious injuries. Curiously, the police did not interfere at the Izmir incident, claiming the university senate had not called for their help. They stood by, however, in case asked to enter the campus. Later they helped carry wounded students to the ambulances. The only institute from which no incidents have so far been reported is the Ataturk University at Erzurum, near the Soviet border. But officials, judging probably from the pattern the unrest has taken (it went from one university to the next, instead of erupting simultaneously all over) suspect the same group of trouble makers, numbering “50 to 100 in all,” is responsible for all the incidents.

If correct, the Government is fighting revolutionaries, not students. A talk I had with one of the student leaders at Ankara University did nothing to dispel this impression. If he was a revolutionary, he certainly looked the part. (I am withholding his name on purpose). Rather fierce looking, he had reddish brown hair, with fair skin and some youth blossoms dotting his face. His light brown moustache pointed down in the manner Ghenghis Khan’s probably did. He was thoroughly Turk. The slightly angry look in his eyes forestalled any arguments I might had had with him. -s. b 1; :

He took the trouble of explaining to me the difference between “boycott” and “Ishgal” and then went on to explain what the agitation was all about. In Turkish universities, he said “instructors” or “assistants” are paid only 500 to 1000 liras ($42 to $B4) a month, which is inadequate. They are employed only part time at the universities, and to supplement their incomes they have to take up part time work outside, which affects their efficiency at the university. There is no real complaint about professors’ salaries, which averages 3500 liras ($300) a month, about equivalent to that of, say, an engineer. But a university teacher must pass 'through the “assistant” stage before he becomes a full professor. The “assistants” should at least be employed full time, he said. Another university reform being fought for is student representation on the faculties, with students and professors having equal status. I interrupted his version of the chain of events on the campuses to ask why the students had demonstrated in front of the T.U.S.L.O.G. office. “Because,” he said somewhat irrationally, “the Americans are directly or indirectly responsible for all Turkey’s troubles.” Later I asked him what had been achieved if the university had been sent into recess without the student demands being accepted. “Something has been achieved politically,” he said. “We have made trouble for the GovernWe spoke about the students who had gone into hiding from the police. “How will they do their examinations in September?” I queried. “They are revolutionaries,” he replied somewhat dourly, "not students.”