Erdoğan's Relentless Purge Of Academia — A 'Copy And Paste' Version Of Orwell's 'Animal Farm'

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was very enthusiastic when he mentioned the novel 'Animal Farm' in his address to the parliamentary group of the ruling AKP earlier this month. The issue was one of his popular themes on what he sees as the domination of the Permanent Five in the U.N.

“George Orwell criticises an order where ‘some are more equal than others’, like the [international] order which restricts United Nations Security Council membership to five countries. Very meaningful indeed,” he said to a loud applause.

This statement has caught the attention of Umut Özkırımlı, a distinguished professor of political science at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University, in Sweden, and made him, apparently, smile at the paradox within. 

'Obviously, neither the president nor his speechwriters were aware what Orwell’s allegorical fable — a satire on the Russian Revolution and Stalinism — was criticising. Had they read the book, they would have probably refrained from any references to it for fear of evoking parallels between Erdoğan’s unabashedly authoritarian “New Turkey” and the farm run by Orwell’s pigs.'

Özkırımlı is one of the most outspoken critics of Erdoğan's rule. He has in this utterly ironic piece been pointing out the striking similarities between what Orwell depicts in his novel and what has been happening in terms of oppression in Turkey.

'Armed with the power to issue executive decrees through a State of Emergency declared on 21 July 2016 for 90 days, but extended for a fifth time at the time of writing, the government embarked on the largest purge in republican history, reportedly dismissing more than 100,000 state employees from their jobs. This has included thousands of academics.'

Özkırımlı's powerful article is a call for the international community to 'open its eyes' and help all those brave academics who continue to resist oppression in what he calls 'Erdoğan's Farm'.