Turkey bids farewell to a secular icon

Prof. Dr. Turkan Saylan

Turkan Saylan, famous secularist and women’s rights champion who changed the life of thousands of poor young girls in rural Turkey by supporting their education, has died on 18th May in the age of 74. Her funeral in Istanbul was attended by thousands of people from all backgrounds and wages of life, many among them women, who mourned for their mother and benefactress. “You, my dear daughter, stop asking yourself, ‘Why am I born a girl?’ and aim at becoming the best you can be,” said Saylan’s letter to the girls of Turkey that was read at her funeral. She had written it short before her death for a yet unpublished book.

Turkan Saylan was a dermatologist, former professor at the University of Istanbul and WHO consultant, fighting against leprosy. She built up the Turkish Leprosy Relief Association and was a founding member of the International Leprocy Union. In 1986, she received the International Gandhi Award for her work in this field. In 1989, she founded a charity with the name Cagdas Yasam Destekleme Dernegi (CYDD; meaning association to support contemporary life) and dedicated herself to the education of poor children. Since then, the organisation facilitated the education of about 58,000 children, most of them girls, by providing student grants and scholarships to them. Aysel Celikel, former minister for justice and Prof. Saylan’s right-hand woman, will succeed her in the organisation.

19 May, 2009, Mourners at Sisli, Istanbul

Saylan was suffering since 19 years from breast cancer – all thoughout her relentless work for the education of the poor. At the end of last year, her physical condition worsened dramatically. Most of the last five months of her life, she had to spend in hospital undergoing chemotherapy. What may have weakend her more than her illness during this time, however, was the brutal harassment of the governing Islamist Justice and Development Party. A staunch secularist as she was, she had been a thorn in their flesh since long. Now she had to appear several times in front of public prosecutors and defend herself against the absurd accusation that she was a conspirator planing a military coup against the government. In the second week of April, when her doctors allowed her to spend a weekend at home, the right wing camp used the opportunity to deal a brutal blow to her. This very weekend, police raided her home and offices and Dr. Saylan, frail and sick unto death, had to watch helplessly how they confiscated and destroyed private and professional documents. Her colleagues were put under surveillance too, 17 offices of the CYDD were raided and scholarship documents of more than 500 girls vanished, who would not be able to get financial help now. In a statement on the CYDD’s website www.cydd.org.tr, Dr. Saylan insisted that the organisation supported neither a military coup nor Islamic law, but the secular ideals of Turkey's founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. She clarified her position again in a live television interview and accused the government for the injustice meted out to her and her organisation. The public was shocked and outraged.

Fury againt the government and the emphatic avowal of secularism resounded during Turkan Saylan’s funeral and made it a political event. Besides gratitude and respect shown to her as a doctor fighting leprosy and an educationist fighting poverty and gender inequality, she was celebrated as an icon of secularist resistance against the onslaught of Islamic fundamentalism. “When her activities are considered to support a coup, then all of us are ‘coupistas’!”, said Aysel Celikel under thunderous applause. “Turkey is secular and will stay secular!” people were chanting again and again in the streets. The army sent a wreath with the inscription “We are all Ataturk’s soldiers”, and the national flag was draped around her coffin. The government did not dare to send any representative and kept mum.

[Bulletin #181]