BY HALUK SAHIN
RADIKAL- President Abdullah Gul's decision to appoint Yusuf Ziya Ozcan head of the Board of Higher Education (YOK) made big headlines yesterday. Nowhere else in the world would such an appointment be considered so important. But we shouldn't be surprised by this interest in our country, because it involves two important domestic fault lines: secularism and the headscarf ban at universities. I took a look at Ozcan's CV on the Internet. These points were interesting for me: His doctorate from the University of Chicago proves his academic aptitude. Moreover, it isn't easy to become a professor at METU.
His list of publications is wide ranging and covers a large variety of issues such as methodology, income distribution, social politics, police training, iodized salt, cell phones, etc. Even if he moved from one area to another, his studies on police training and Muslims are interesting. He gave courses at the International Islamic University in Malaysia in 1992-1994 as a visiting lecturer. I guess Professor Ahmet Davudoglu, the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) foreign policy brain trust, also spent time there. President Gul also has experience with the Islamic Development Bank.
In light of this common feature of officials, which became very important following this summer's elections, let me note that following those elections, the appointment of a sociologist with high Islamic sensitivities, instead of a constitutional jurist from Galatasaray University, is to be expected, but meaningful as well. After his appointment was announced, Ozcan stressed two important issues: Full academic freedom and high standards of scholarship. Indeed, scholarship at a place bereft of freedom is like trying to jog with no oxygen in the air. You could quickly suffocate.
The issue of educational quality, which has been kept on the back burner due to populist political pressures, requires separating different issues from each other. Quality universities can't be created by opening slum universities under political pressure. The new YOK head considers the headscarf ban a serious violation of human rights and argues that it should be lifted. He prefers a more libertarian and tolerant mode of administration. In other words, he hopes that if the students who come to universities wearing a headscarf aren't held back, the issue will be forgotten.
Although I also support lifting the university headscarf ban, which I consider discrimination against female students, I believe that prospects for this right now are extremely optimistic. If this issue hadn't been misused so much by those who made it political fodder, lifting it would have been appropriate. But now it might and will cause tensions. What is needed is a consensus framework about what will happen after the ban at is lifted. A `minority' who believe that we're gradually losing the republic sees Ozcan's appointment as another step in this conspiracy. They ask if the debate will end there, or will they move to the next stage. One day after the university ban is lifted, will people start pushing to end it at high schools too so that graduates wearing headscarves can be appointed to public posts? When will the spiral of freedom start to narrow? I wonder if Ozcan, who undertook an ordeal by accepting this difficult post, will do something to create such a consensus. Who knows, maybe there's no need for such compromises anymore!