Faruk Sen, the Turkish-born founding Director of the Center for Studies on Turkey in Essen / Germany, has come under sharp political criticism over recent comments comparing the situation of Turkish migrants living in Europe to the plight and discrimination previously suffered by European Jews. Here is an excerpt:
Faruk Sen’s remarks, first published by the Turkish business paper Referans a few weeks ago, prompted the conservative-led government of the state of North-Rhine Westphalia (which has been providing major funding for the Turkish Studies Center since its founding in 1985) to push for Sen’s immediate dismissal. The Center’s Board sharply criticized Faruk Sen over the “irresponsible comparison between Turks and Jews” and accused him of having done “severe damage” to German-Turkish relations and Germany’s integration policies in general. Sen later apologized for his statement. Unfortunately, despite his outrageous remarks, Mr. Sen was able to extract a rather favorable exit package from the state government following his threat to retaliate with a lawsuit. The 60-year old self-styled political activist masquerading as an academic has been put on leave until the end of this year, when he will formally resign as the Center’s Director. In an editorial published last week, the conservative DIE WELT newspaper had it right: Faruk Sen should have been forced out of his cushy post much earlier and for very different reasons. After all – leaving aside previous state auditor reports decrying the Center’s wasteful spending and lack of proper expense accounting – the research by Faruk Sen has done nothing to advance the integration of Turks living in Germany.
In essence, this same “Turkish-migrants-are-victims” mantra also inspired Sen’s “The-Turks-are-the-new-Jews-of-Europe” comments. In politically correct Germany, the affable, ever-smiling Faruk Sen was able to get away with his political meddling for far too long. Just last year, for example, Sen tried to gain political mileage out of a house fire in Germany that killed several Turkish migrants by describing it as a “signal” sent by the German society to the Turks living there. The incident sparked massive anti-German reactions in the Turkish media, which quickly jumped to the conclusion that the fire was a deliberate attack on Turkish immigrants in Germany. In fact, neither German fire investigators nor their colleagues flown in by the Turkish government found any evidence of a racially motivated arson attack. To the contrary, prosecutors now believe that the fire, which started in the basement, was caused by sheer negligence (most likely on the part of the inhabitants who used to live there). For far too long, Germany’s political establishment as well as German companies providing financial support for the Turkish Studies Center, were apparently too afraid to speak out against Faruk Sen’s questionable practices for fear of being labeled anti-Turkish racists. In the end, it took an outrageous comparison to the Jews / the Holocaust (an absolute no-go zone in Germany) for Sen to finally step down… at the end of this year…
