Taha Parla and self-criticism

We laid my friend of exactly sixty-six years, Taha, to rest a few days ago. As I said at his graveside, I used to envy him a little. Let me explain by working backward. We had lost my dear classmate from those same years, Niyazi Dalyancı, two years ago. When Niyazi got angry, he would laugh magnificently; when Taha got angry, he would—also magnificently—fall silent. For years, I kept envying one's laughter and the other's silence. At his graveside, as I was leaving, I advised those present: please, don't make Taha angry anymore.

I first met Taha in 1959. One evening, he called me. "Hasan, I'm at my aunt's house in Moda, why don't you hop over?" It was an apartment in Mühürdar. As soon as I opened the door, an Atatürk photograph hanging on the wall caught my attention. It was a photo of Atatürk—often used in the YÖN magazine of the time—that for some reason I always thought looked like Lenin. My eyes were fixed on it, and Taha explained, "Hasan, İlhan Selçuk is my uncle-in-law."

The biography of Taha that has appeared in the press for the past few days is as follows: "He completed his primary and secondary education in Ankara, and his high school and university education in Istanbul. He attended Columbia University in New York, where he went for his master's and doctorate, and took the first steps of his academic career there. Between 1976-1982 and 1991-2007, he served as a faculty member and later as department chair in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University." Let me expand on this story a bit, even at the risk of annoying him, if only slightly. Taha completed his high school and university education in Istanbul at Robert Academy and Robert College. He graduated from high school in 1963 and from Robert College in 1967. He then received his master's and doctoral degrees at Columbia University. His doctoral thesis is on Ziya Gökalp and corporatism. A beautiful evaluation of Professor Taha's numerous publications was published by Prof. Evren Balta (December 4, T24). Another recent and beautiful article about the professor was written by his student, CHP İzmir deputy Mr. Yüksel Taşkın (December 5, Birikim). However, there is a mistake in this article. Taha was not dismissed from the university under the then-martial law numbered 1402. The chronological order of the three disgraces that put the finishing touch on the nightmare of September 12, 1980, is as follows: YÖK (Council of Higher Education), 1981; the Constitution, 1982; and the 1402 incident, 1983. Taha was as opposed as possible to both YÖK and the 1982 Constitution, which was accepted as a result of a referendum that he persistently described as a plebiscite. As far as I know, Taha is the first professor to leave our universities out of anger at the practices of September 12. Before closing the subject, let me add one more to the "finishing touch" events I just mentioned. Istanbul University awarding an honorary doctorate in law to Kenan Evren took place in January 1983, and the 1402 practices began immediately after that, in February 1983. In short, when Taha resigned, he was deeply offended not only by the tyranny of September 12 but also by the morality of the university that applauded it.

This is exactly where I come to self-criticism. A few years ago, in a speech, I was talking about our country's lack of self-criticism and mentioning that self-criticism is the main element of the Enlightenment, which is the foundation of modern civilization. A student of mine, perhaps offended by some of the points I touched upon, took the floor and spoke about the necessity for those who crave self-criticism to first perform their own. I tried to explain as best I could. The self-criticism meant by the Enlightenment naturally includes personal self-criticism to some extent, but the essential self-criticism sought is for a person to criticize the environment they live in, their colleagues, and those who govern them—that is, their country. The classic example of this is Jean-Jacques Rousseau, perhaps the most important thinker of the Enlightenment, teaching the world a lesson on raising moral children with his famous work Emile, while placing his own four children in an orphanage. Do not infer from what I have said that dear Taha had many personal problems. Other than smoking too much for years and, in some cases, being excessively silent, there was no aspect of him that I criticized, either aloud or silently.

I am also very familiar with Taha's criticisms of Kemalism. However, I have a suggestion: let's look at the situation from a different angle while evaluating these criticisms. Is there not another dimension to these criticisms? Or are the individuals who make up society falling into the insidious cunning of attributing all evils to those who govern them, just as they expect all good from them? In other words, Kenan Evren did not establish or manage Istanbul University, which saw fit to grant an honorary law degree to a coup leader. My dear friend, who resigned immediately after YÖK, did so, in my opinion, primarily because of his intolerance for the insidious cunning I mentioned.

Let us evaluate Taha's lifelong anger and all that he wrote from this perspective as well, or at least show the courage and honesty to do so.