Tasks Against the New Middle Ages

The title brings to mind the relationship between the Constitutional Court and the 3rd Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation. However, I will not be addressing that issue. I will address the state we witness, hear about, and are bombarded with on social media every day: our backwardness, our confusion, our ignorance, and our helplessness...

Two remedies come to mind in the face of evils: Education and Law. We either say "education is essential" or we complain about the lack of exemplary punishments. What escapes our notice is our lack of policy regarding both. We have laws; crimes and punishments are regulated. But it is certain that we do not have a sound and realistic criminal policy. Criminal policy is a subject that must be regulated to establish acceptable behaviors and understandings, taking into account the rights that need protection, frequently occurring rights violations, the current structure of society and its direction of change (even the shape you want to give to society), and the country's economic and political power. 

What happened at the Koç University dormitory has now been heard by the deaf sultan, or so I hope. However, such incidents are not new, and there is far more oppression, ignorance, brutality, and intolerance in the remote corners of the country. We saw the statements spread on social media. If a student studying at the Koç University Faculty of Law can utter these words, we must review our situation. Let us consider the kind of education a citizen, presumably in their 20s, has gone through for 20 years. These are the thoughts that have spilled out despite all that education, exposure to cultural products, and living in an era where differences are even more visible. What a pity! 

We must ask: What kind of society do we want? What kind of public discourse do we want? Should we prevent the use of "hurtful" words regarding people's identities, thoughts, and beliefs? Or should we make people immune to these "hurtful" words? Furthermore, how should we decide which words are considered "hurtful"? How should we frame freedom of expression? 

If we were to express the questions on a completely different plane, we could also ask: Should we prevent hatred directed at identities, thoughts, and beliefs? Or should we prevent the expression of this hatred? Or is the very formation of hatred a problem for us? 

The incident at Koç University is not isolated. Our country has a severe problem of gender inequality, and an environment of hatred that feeds on and reinforces this inequality. On the other hand, hatred towards ethnic identities and hate speech, which is the expression of this hatred, is also clearly evident. Moreover, violent incidents accompanying this hate speech, such as the Madımak massacre, and the events in Çorum and Maraş, are as if they happened just yesterday. 

If you notice, depending on the answers we give to these questions, we have moved beyond the debates of criminal policy and law. The reaction and intolerance towards differences are also an educational problem. When we say "education," we generally understand it as instruction. However, criminal policy, tax policy, RTÜK, regulations brought to social media, local cultures, family order, and the spatial effect of the city are all included in education. Therefore, education is a problem too broad to be contained within the Ministry of National Education and to be referred solely to the MEB. 

How will we fight against the reaction and intolerance towards differences? Of course, it must be carried out together through education, legal regulations, and the rational and organized struggle of masses sensitive to this issue. 

Some of our friends will link what is happening to the policy of "raising a religious generation." This would be deceiving ourselves. The situation we are in cannot be explained by the education fantasies of the AKP government. Similar discourses, intolerances, and examples of ignorance are becoming global. In that case, we must review our understanding of education in accordance with the requirements of the age. The education reforms of the Kemalist Revolution aimed at the modernization of a segment that had no access to information and was surrendered to feudal cultural remnants. Now we face a new problem and new possibilities.

We cannot resist against religious and racist policies from the position of defending the progressive education model imposed by old needs. A solution focused on instruction will not be sufficient to resist the post-truth era (and the New Middle Ages). To resist this reactionary tide, we must implement a constructive and progressive will, guided by science and critical reason, through the culture industry, channels of instruction, and all vital practices.