By: Hambersom Aghbashian
Ayşe Kadıoğlu is a Professor of Political Science. She is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabancı University, Istanbul. Her areas of interest are Citizenship Studies, Contemporary Political Ideologies, Nationalism, Secularism/Laicism as well as Liberalism in Turkey. She completed her BA in Political Science at Middle East Technical University (1982), MA in International Relations at the University of Chicago (1984), and her PhD in Political Science at Boston University (1990).
Ayşe Kadıoğlu was a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center for European Studies in 1992 and a visiting scholar and Senior Associate Member at the University of Oxford, St Antony’s College in 2005 and 2009-2010. She has been a regular participant of Yale Law School’s ongoing annual Middle East Legal Studies Seminar since 2004. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Istanbul Policy Center, Sabancı University and a member of the Advisory Board of the PhD Scholarships Program in Migration Studies of Zeit Stiftung in Hamburg. She is a deputy member of the Board of Directors of the Hrant Dink Foundation in Istanbul . Kadıoğlu is also the author and/or editor of many books and the author of various articles in Middle East Journal, Middle Eastern Politics, International Migration, Muslim World, Citizenship Studies, and many others.(1)
In her article “How Turkish taboos perpetuate immaturity” (Feb. 17, 2012), Ayşe Kadıoğlu spoke of her experience growing up in Turkey where taboos, many imposed by law, have trapped citizens “in a state of immaturity”. She wrote “Growing up under the spell of taboos is a debilitating experience,” and added ” It can imprison one’s mind in a state of infancy despite the inevitable physical growth of a person. I grew up in Turkey where the prevailing education system still conceals certain historical facts in primary and secondary school curricula lest they would harm the indivisibility of the state with its country and nation”, an expression that is used several times in the current Turkish constitution. When she began to read about the tragedy of the Armenians during the demise of the Ottoman Empire “I almost felt as if I was from another planet! ” she said.(2)
Ayşe Kadıoğlu was one of the Turkish intellectuals who signed a petition against an exhibition which was planned by the Turkish embassy (Denmark) to support their point of view concerning the Armenian Genocide . In their petition to the Royal Library of Denmark They mentioned “By giving the Turkish government the opportunity to present an “alternative exhibit”, you support their policy of suppression and intimidation. The support that you are extending to a regime that has made opposition to confronting history and denial of the truth a fundamental principle is equivalent to supporting a regime of apartheid”, and added ” Don’t Stand Against Turkey’s Democratization and Confrontation with its History! “.(3)
In her research “ The Pigeon on the Bridge Is Shot“ (February 16, 2007), Ayşe Kadıoğlu quoted Hrant Dink saying in his opening remarks at a conference entitled “Ottoman Armenians During the Collapse of the Ottoman Empire,” held in Istanbul on Sept. 24 and 25, 2005, “Sometimes they ask me what it is like to be an Armenian. I tell them that it is a wonderful thing and I recommend it to everyone”. Those of us lucky enough to hear the mischievous introductory lines received them with joyous laughter, but we also knew we were witnesses to a lecture of historic significance, a momentous step forward in the efforts of Armenians and Turks to come to terms with the horrors of the past. Little more than a year later, on Jan. 19, 2007, Dink, the editor-in-chief of the Armenian-Turkish newspaper Agos, was assassinated in front of his office on a busy street in Istanbul. On the day of his funeral, when more than 100,000 people (mostly Muslim Turks) marched with banners proclaiming “We are all Armenians” and “We are all Hrant Dink,” I could not help but think that we had indeed taken him up on his advice. Yet this time, most of us were crying.(4)
Ayşe Kadıoğlu was one of the “Organizing Committee” members of the “Conference on Islamized Armenians ” which was held by Hrant Dink Foundation in Istanbul (2-4 Nov. 2013) (5).
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1- http://www.bu.edu/ckls/ayse-kadioglu/
2- http://freespeechdebate.com/en/discuss/how-turkish-taboos-perpetuate-immaturity/
3- http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/The_Armenian_Genocide_and_the_Scandinavian_Response
4- http:// research.sabanciuniv.edu/
5- http://www.hrantdink.org/?Detail=645&Lang=en
Also published on Nor Or, July 24,2014