Baskın Oran (born 26 July 1945) is a Turkish academic, politician and human rights activist. Currently, he is a teacher in

Faculty of Political Science, Ankara University The Faculty of Political Science of the University of Ankara (, more simply known as "''SBF''") is the oldest institution of administrative sciences in Turkey. It is the successor of the "Mekteb-i Mülkiye" ('), also known simply as "Mülkiye," wh ...

Biography

Baskın Oran was born on 26 July 1945 in

İzmir İzmir is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara. It is on the Aegean Sea, Aegean coast of Anatolia, and is the capital of İzmir Province. In 2024, the city of İzmir had ...

. He finished the high school in

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. He attended high school Saint-Joseph, which explains his Francophonie then İzmir Atatürk High School. He then entered

Ankara University Ankara University () is a public university, public research university in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. It was the first higher education institution founded in Turkey after the History of the Republic of Turkey, formation of the Turkish republ ...

and studied for

Political Science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

. He graduated in 1968. Later in 1969, he started his academic career as a teaching assistant in the Department of

International Relations International relations (IR, and also referred to as international studies, international politics, or international affairs) is an academic discipline. In a broader sense, the study of IR, in addition to multilateral relations, concerns al ...

. In 1971, following the coup, he was suspended for the first time from his post and was reinstated by the Council of State (Danıştay) in 1972. He completed his doctorate in 1974. He continued his studies and by 1975 he finished his

postdoctoral A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary acade ...

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

on international minorities. In 1982, when he was an assistant professor, he was again suspended from

docent The term "docent" is derived from the Latin word , which is the third-person plural present active indicative of ('to teach, to lecture'). Becoming a docent is often referred to as habilitation or doctor of science and is an academic qualifi ...

1980 Turkish coup d'état The 1980 Turkish coup d'état (), headed by Chief of the General Staff General Kenan Evren, was the third coup d'état in the history of the Republic of Turkey, the previous having been the 1960 coup and the 1971 coup by memorandum. During ...

. He was not reinstated until 1990 by court order. In 1991, he was appointed Senior Lecturer in the Department of International Relations and, finally, in 1997, he received the title of professor. At the university he taught and worked on subjects of minorities,

nationalism Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...

globalization Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

, Turkish foreign policy and relations between State and religion. He was officially retired in 2007 but continued teaching at the Faculty of

of Ankara University as well as giving lectures and courses at foreign universities. Meanwhile, he started writing for Turkish newspapers, He was an editorialist in the daily Birgün from 2004 to 2006, Radikal 2. since February 2000 he has also been writing for the bilingual weekly – Turkish and Armenian –

Agos ''Agos'' (in Armenian: Ակօս, " furrow") is a bilingual weekly newspaper published in Istanbul, Turkey, established on 25 February 1996 by Hrant Dink, Luiz Bakar, Harutyun Şeşetyan, and Anna Turay. ''Agos'' has both Armenian and Turki ...

, newspaper, founded byhis publisher friend, Hrant Dink. who was the founder and the director of publication He also worked for Büyük Meclis magazines and newspapers (La Grande Assemblée), (New Daily), Ikibin'e doğru (Around 2000), Tempo, Aydınlık (Clarity) from 1985 to the year 2000. Since 2003, he has been Chair of the Subcommittee on

Cultural rights Cultural rights are rights related to themes such as language; cultural and artistic production; participation in cultural life; cultural heritage; intellectual property rights; author's rights; minorities and access to culture, among others. ...

and

Minority rights Minority rights are the normal individual rights as applied to members of racial, ethnic, class, religious, linguistic or gender and sexual minorities, and also the collective rights accorded to any minority group. Civil-rights movements oft ...

of the Human Rights Advisory Council attached to the Ministry of Human Rights. A publication in 2004 of a controversial report earned him and Professor Ibrahim Kaboğlu judicial and death threats from ultra-nationalist groups. On 1 June 2007, he participated in the parliamentary elections in the second

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

constituency in the platform list of the Collective of Independent Candidates (Ortak Bağımsız Aday Platformu).

Journalism activity

Meanwhile, he started writing for Turkish newspapers, He was an editorial writer in the daily Birgün from 2004 to 2006,

Radikal ''Radikal'' () was a daily liberal Turkish language newspaper, published in Istanbul. From 1996 it was published by Aydın Doğan's Doğan Media Group. Although Radikal did not endorse a particular political alignment, it was generally consider ...

2. since February 2000 he has also been writing for the bilingual weekly – Turkish and Armenian –

, newspaper, founded byhis publisher friend, Hrant Dink. Buskin also wrote for magazines and newspapers Büyük Meclis (The Grand Assembly) Yeni Gündem (New Daily), Ikibin'e doğru (Around 2000), Tempo, Aydınlık (Clarity) from 1985 to the year 2000.

A committed personality

Baskın Oran is "National Liaison Officer" for

to the Commission against Racism and intolerance of the

Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; , CdE) is an international organisation with the goal of upholding human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. Founded in 1949, it is Europe's oldest intergovernmental organisation, represe ...

. On 15 December 2008, Baskin Oran with Ahmet İnsel, Ali Bayramoğlu, Cengiz Aktar and more than a thousand Turkish intellectuals introduced the "I Apologize" campaign, thus opposing deliberately organized collective obliviousness in Turkey. This version of history understates the responsibility of the government in the era of deportations and

massacres A massacre is an event of killing people who are not engaged in hostilities or are defenseless. It is generally used to describe a targeted killing of civilians en masse by an armed group or person. The word is a loan of a French term for "b ...

of Armenians. Baskın Oran is an independent personality who continues to stimulate the conscience in Turkey despite the legal problems and threats. He is one of the representatives of this vanguard of the civil society fighting for Turkey to complete its democratic transformation. He does not hesitate to speak of the"second revolution" in progress, the first being that of the establishment of the republic by

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Mustafa Kemal Atatürk ( 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish field marshal and revolutionary statesman who was the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first President of Turkey, president from 1923 until Death an ...

in 1923. Baskın Oran was an

assistant professor Assistant professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doct ...

, but twice in 1971 and 1982 he was banned from teaching by the

military junta A military junta () is a system of government led by a committee of military leaders. The term ''Junta (governing body), junta'' means "meeting" or "committee" and originated in the Junta (Peninsular War), national and local junta organized by t ...

Identity Conflicts

Baskın Oran claims that most of the conflicts in Turkey are due to the Republic's choice to rely on Turkish identity (

ethnic An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

– blood based) instead of choosing the land, He feels sorry that the name of the people "Türk" is chosen instead of "Türkiyeli" (from Turkey). In the Ottoman era, the Turks were one of the "millet" (infra-identity) that made up the empire ruled by the Ottomans (supra-identity). The other "millets" were

Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...

Armenians Armenians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the Armenian highlands of West Asia.Robert Hewsen, Hewsen, Robert H. "The Geography of Armenia" in ''The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiq ...

Kurds Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

, Syriacs,

Arabs Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of yea ...

, etc. The mistake of Atatürk's nationalism is to have replaced the supra-identity "neutral" by one of the infra-identities instead of building the nation on land, (the Ottomans were not Turkish in an ethnic sense, moreover they did not recognize themselves as such). He rejected the myth that kemalism was the source of an egalitarian society. He created an acronym to designate on which sociotype the ideology and the dominant class are based: --

Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...

Hanafi The Hanafi school or Hanafism is the oldest and largest Madhhab, school of Islamic jurisprudence out of the four schools within Sunni Islam. It developed from the teachings of the Faqīh, jurist and theologian Abu Hanifa (), who systemised the ...

and secular Muslim Turkish ), they are, according to him, the equivalent in Turkey of what the WASP (

White Anglo-Saxon Protestant In the United States, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants or Wealthy Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASP) is a Sociology, sociological term which is often used to describe White Americans, white Protestantism in the United States, Protestant Americans of E ...

) are in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

From Kemalism to Social Democracy

Baskın Oran, who comes from a family of the Kemalist and secular bourgeoisie always likes to mention that he grew up in favor of the

nationalists Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, Id ...

of his country. He was a leftist activist while still a student feeling close to

communists Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, d ...

as were many other people at that time (in 1968, he was 23 years old). In 1986, he wrote about The question of the Turkish minority in Greece and about Turkish-Greek relations. He was then contacted by a

Kurd Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

ish personality, who points out to him that Kurds live a similar situation in Turkey, following this discussion, he focuses his work on the problem of minorities and

inside Turkey. Later, in 2003, he was asked by the government that as an expert on this subject to co-write a report, which, despite the wrath of justice, will become the book "Türkiye'de Azınlıklar, Kevramlar – Teori – Lozan – İç mevzuat – İçtihat – Uygulama"(Minorities in Turkey: concepts, theory, Lausanne, domestic legislation, jurisprudence, practice). This book became a "bestseller" in Turkey. Another meeting in 1993 was also decisive. Baskın Oran received a call from Hrant Dink, a journalist who said he was very moved by his writings, especially by the fact that he was a Turkish who wrote them. (it must be remembered here that the subject of what he wrote was taboo in Turkey, from the emergence of the Republic and in the name of the sacrosanct national unity). They met again and remained closely linked until the journalist's assassination on 19 January 2007 separated them. Baskin now proclaims himself as a

social democrat Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...

, without being affiliated with any political party.Oran Aims for Opposition Outside Parliament
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oran, Baskin 1945 births Living people Academics from İzmir Turkish activists Human rights in Turkey Ankara University people Politicians from İzmir