Atilla Yayla (Turkish:[atiɫɫajajɫa], born (1957-03-03)March 3, 1957), is a Turkishpolitical thinker and a proponent of liberal democracy. He is one of the founders of Association for Liberal Thinking in Turkey.[1] He was Professor of Politics, Political Economy and Political Philosophy at Gazi University in Turkey.[2] After his retirement from the public sector in 2009, Yayla became head of the International Relations department at Faculty of Commercial Sciences of Istanbul Commerce University until he was fired in 2015.[3] In 2016 he was fired from his teaching post at Haliç University, after the University administration was charged with corruption and turned over to Istanbul University by The Council of Higher Education (YÖK). Yayla lost the case against Haliç University administration in 2019 and was ordered to pay the court fees.[4]
He is currently a faculty member at the Political Science and Public Administration Department of Istanbul Medipol University.
Yayla also wrote articles in the 1980s for the magazine Yeni Forum, and later in the 2000s and 2010s for daily newspapers Zaman, Yeni Şafak, and Yeni Yüzyıl.
In the mid-1980s, around 1984-85 according to his statement, he embraced liberal views.[5] In 1992 Yayla founded the Association for Liberal Thinking (ALT) with his colleagues and served as its chairperson between 1997 and 2008. He remains an active member of ALT.[2][6]
He was a visiting professor at the University of Buckingham.[7] He was the winner of the Anthony Fisher Prize in 2000 for his book "Islam, Civil Society and Market Economy".[7] Yayla was awarded the Person of the Year Award by the Stockholm Network in 2007.[8]
Court case
In 2006, Yayla was charged with insulting the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk by calling him "that man" in a speech where he argued that the one-party period of the Republic of Turkey was less democratic than the preceding period of constitutional monarchy under Ottoman Empire and the early and short-lived multi-party period of the Republic of Turkey,[9] and also strongly criticized the cult of personality that has grown up around Atatürk since.[10] Some newspapers, notably Yeni Asır proclaimed him a traitor.[11][12][13][14] In a court case, he was convicted and received a suspended 15-month jail sentence.[15][16] Yayla was also dismissed temporarily from his academic post.[9]
Work and views
In 2008 Yayla was one of the signees of the Özür Diliyorum (I Apologize) campaign that caused an enormous reaction in Turkey by the government and the public. The declaration read as "My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathize with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers and sisters. I apologize to them."
Yayla supported The Kurdish Initiative project launched by the AKP government in 2009 to improve the human rights of Kurdish citizens of Turkey, and praised the advisory group, Akil İnsanlar Heyeti (The Wise People Commission), organized by the government to contribute to the solution process.
^This statement comes from the radio programme Yayla attended in 2011, titled "Entelektüel Bakış". At 25:47 he can be heard saying in Turkish “Actually, my liberalization was perhaps before that. For example, I was a liberal in the mid-80s, as of 84-85, but I wasn't very keen on using the label.”
^"Atilla Yayla" (in Turkish). Liberte Publications. Archived from the original on October 28, 2013. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
