School of Politics 8 Begins

The School of Politics program, organized for the eighth time this year by the Bahçeşehir University School of Government and Leadership, has completed its first week. The program, attended by Prof. Dr. Burhan Kuzu, Prof. Dr. Süheyl Batum, Şişli Mayor Mustafa Sarıgül, Munich Mayor Christian Ude, Istanbul Member of Parliament Celal Adan and Retired Ambassador Dr. Onur Öymen, touched on many topics, from new constitution efforts to the presidential system, from local governments to foreign policy, and from Türkiye's Relations with Iraq to the problem of terrorism.

Highlights from the program are as follows:

Prof. Dr. Burhan Kuzu:
 

"Legal texts cannot withstand readings made in bad faith. Constitutions are drafted with the idea that good people will abide by them, and as long as there are those who want to find loopholes, the functioning of constitutions ends up being set aside. For the constitution work, invitations were sent to more than 20 thousand associations and foundations and 165 universities, but when satisfactory participation did not come from universities in the first stage, the deadline was extended and thus various proposals were received. There are also more than 1 million comments on the websites opened by newspapers; compiling them is very difficult, but we want to learn what the public highlights and what citizens say. The stage of gathering citizens' views will continue until 30 April 2012, and constitution drafting will begin after May."
 

Prof. Dr. Süheyl Batum:

"A constitution is not made in an incubator or in a laboratory; it is made according to the country's society and social structure. We are not making a constitution under laboratory conditions. You cannot take the constitution of one society exactly as it is and apply it to another society. The most important function of the 1961 Constitution was that it brought trade unions and civil society organizations and created dynamism in society. It protected workers' rights, but then someone came along and introduced the 1971 Constitution. Constitutions are documents with memory. The presidential system is a system that can be applied in America but cannot be applied in any other country. Because in America there are hardly proper parties. There is a state system; the social and political structure there suits it, but not elsewhere. The presidential system leads to disaster!"
 

Mustafa Sarıgül 

"Politics has two sides: the first is science and the second is the people. Success comes only by combining the two; in the system we are in, we cannot overcome issues through education alone, we also need to keep our finger on the pulse of the people. By increasing migration to Istanbul, we only increase the problems. Istanbul's problems need to be solved in Anatolia."
 

Christian Ude

"Commenting on Turks living in Germany and xenophobia, Ude said that Germany owes its prosperity to the foreign workforce that came; however, although large cities are pleased with this, in regions with high unemployment these migrations have brought xenophobia with them. Finally, stating that there are language and cultural problems in Germany related to Turkish migration, Ude said that unfortunately they have not been able to implement the right policies on integration, and said that although he does not believe in views that the German race is superior, people living there should speak the language of the country they are in."
 

Celal Adan

"In which region of the world is there a country whose neighbor sends terrorists into its territory? Listing what the then Minister of the Interior requested from Barzani on 12 September 2010, Adan emphasized that despite these requests, the travel of PKK members between Iraq and Europe could not be prevented, PKK camps were not cleared, and the roads to the camps were not controlled by the authorities, and therefore no progress was made on these requests for a whole year."
 

Dr. Onur Öymen

"According to some thinkers, the first democracy emerged in the Middle East. There are other facts confirming this view. But according to another view, democracy emerged in the Middle East but never returned there. It is not that there has never been democracy in the Middle East, but there have been many efforts to prevent it, which is why democracy has been short-lived. Another feature of the Middle East is that the concept of the nation has not developed there. There are many countries, but they all consider themselves part of the Arab nation."