In March 2015, I published this open letter. A few months later I found myself forced out of the Kurdish region of Turkey in what soon became a much broader campaign against Kurdish and pro-peace scholars across Turkey. Since returning into exile, I, like so many others, have been alarmed by the increasing normalization of exclusionary and tribalist discourse in the United States as well as the emboldening of neofascism in Europe. As an educator, I believe that if there is any hope for us to leave these dark ages behind, it is through education, and this letter comes in that context.
As a philosopher, I tend to search for the abstract in life and life in all that is abstract. When I reflect on contemporary social movements, for example, I situate them within a continual line of struggle that goes back to ancient history. One of the manifestations of that struggle has been the enduring conflict between mentalities that gravitate towards the prototype of an antagonistic tribe and those that operate on the grounds of a more universal, which is to say broader and more inclusive, world.
Fascism, in all its explicit and implicit forms, is one example of a tribalist way of imagining and engaging with the world, and it emerged a century ago on waves of nationalist fervor. For the next 36 years, nationalistically mobilized masses as well as artists, intellectuals, professors, and university students joined various fascist movements across the European continent.
