Ankara University
Faculty of Political Sciences
Department of International Relations
(MÜLKİYE)
Farewell Speech
by
Aydın Nurhan
Ankara, May 22, 2008
My Dear Students,
This is our last lesson in our academic year 2007-2008.
As you would well remember, I taught you that the most effective method of speech was improvisation, and today I am reading from my prepared paper. The reason is that today I’m a bit emotional, and also, I wanted to leave a written record of what we did last year, together with my farewell sentiments.
As I taught you, reading from paper may not have the warmth of improvisation, but I chose every single word with care, and I want you to give me your ears today.
Firstly, I should begin with expressing my sincere feelings that the best ever job I did in my lifetime, full of love and passion, was teaching you here at Mulkiye.
At almost 60 years of age, what I tried to give you was the life-experience of a career diplomat and a strategist.
Not having the expertise of a professional academic, I hope you would forgive me for the shortcomings of an amateur professor.
We had bright, happy hours together, sometimes you teasing me, sometimes me making jokes, and never any offense.
I was especially lucky to be given the freshmen, the teenage newcomers to college.
It gave me the chance to prepare your flexible minds for the global community. And I wonder if we did a nice job this year, we will get the output after at least ten years, if God lets us see it.
My Dear Students,
It was many years after I was graduated from highschool, now I was an experienced diplomat, and one evening my wife and I invited my old American teacher to our home for dinner in Ankara . At dinner table, I asked him to summarize, in one sentence, what hewanted to give us in highschool. He said he did not need one sentence. One word was enough. And the word was, INTEGRITY.
Preparing this farewell speech, I remembered my teacher, and also asked myself if I can summarize my philosophy in education. And what I found was the same word, I was captivated by the philosophy
of my teacher.
Knowingly or not, my policy was to raise honest persons, men and women of integrity to life.
That was why I let you free in exams with open books,
That was why I let you alone with your conscience in sending your comments on line,
whether they were genuine or not,
That was why I accepted all your excuses without questioning them.
Because I trusted in you.
I trusted in your youth, innocence and optimism.
And mind you, as an administrator, I apply similar principles to my colleagues, and get the utmost efficiency from them. It works!
Now, the technical aspect of our education.
I was indeed committed to break the closed feudal, dogmatic, memorization mentality of the education system that you came from.
I had to open you to the global village, I had to acquaint you with the diversity of global ideas, then, based on this knowledge, give you the patience and tolerance, first towards your friends, then to the global family of human beings.
To this end,
It took us about a month’s trial and error to create our Yahoo group and our method of scanning the media.
Then I scanned journals and strategic periodicals for you every single day, choosing 20-30 pages of articles fit for your education.
I put an introductory commentary on each one of them, and highlighted their important phrases.
To sugarcoat the daily articles, and also to give you a wider choice, I also sent you subjects on youth, health, workouts, education, business life etc.
Through introducing you to the global media, I wanted to familiarize you with diplomatic terms which would enter your subconscious without your awareness.
Beyond teaching you diplomatic terms, and knowing that at the root of Turkey’s problems lies the lack of global horizon among our elites, I wanted to prepare you as members of the global family of humanity,
– never ever forgetting that we live in a global village, not isolated, and in constant interaction with the remotest geographies and peoples of the world community, I tried to give you the brain power to locate Turkey’s stance within the realities of the global village,
– that we should never get stuck to feudal, local dogmas in dealing with the global family,
– and above all, the toilet education metaphor. ‘ I forced you to go on line every single morning and read serious columns on newspapers and periodicals. This is a must. It will be your trend, your lifestyle. Just like bicycle pedaling, you have to do it as long as you live!
– I taught you how to do it, how to choose the relevant articles.
Our main resources being American media, I would say that:
America is the balcony of the world.
When you look at the world from this balcony, everything seems smaller, whereas if you look at the world from Turkey , everything, especially in the West seems greater. Having gained the practice of looking at the world through American media, you saw that:
– every country is an ordinary country, with its good and bad sides, Turkish youth should not feel inferior to any Western ones
– America itself is not so impeccable as in Hollywood movies, it is one of the most problematic countries of the world
– Eurocentric prejudices on Africans and Asian peoples should be broken Monitoring the media,
– We learned firstly to question the aim of the Headlines.
– We learned to ask “Why this agenda, why now?” How long will this agenda be on headlines?
– Who would benefit from this agenda? Who would be the loser from this agenda?
– We learned not to be carried away with the news as ordinary unquestioning people.
– We got the skill of always turning questions upside down, changing the
position of parties, asking the counter questions.
– We discussed ideal versus real politik, double standards and ethics in the jungle of foreign policy.
Now,
As against this technique, I could have chosen 50 diplomatic terms in every lesson, and had you memorize them until the next exam.Perhaps, yes, some words may have stuck to your brains. But most were to vanish the next day, and it was something I hated, and I did not want to do something I hated. I believe that your reading daily articles and writing daily comments on them gave you much more vocabulary. Vocabulary which became your own.
To sum up, the First Semester, our concentration was on writing compositions. With this method, my intention was:
– that when you write compositions, you force your brain to find the best words to express your ideas, and it is the best way of improving your vocabulary
– writing forces your brain to think, create, contemplate, hence awakens your curiosity
– writing commentaries every single day builds your intellectual selfconfidence to comfortably and frankly express your views on national and international issues
– writing also enhances your capacity to think in English
– for the interested and talented, writing is an efficient means to be future journalists of diplomacy
The Second Term, we also concentrated on speech.
As we speak of Diplomatic English, many a time we disregard the spoken aspect of it. Whereas 21st Century diplomacy is carried more on verbal communication and public diplomacy than the historical written correspondence.
And if a diplomat cannot convey his message through a clearly spoken English, he cannot be successful.
To this end, I urged you to prepare speeches and make presentations in class, then we evaluated them on basis of pro-nunciation, communication skill, voice control, rhetoric, clarity of the message and being to the point.
Many young persons fear public speeches. But every diplomat overcomes this fear in time, because it is impossible to practice this art without public addresses.
Therefore we had to start this practice in our classes, and what I further want you to do is to utilize every chance to talk in public. We learn by making small mistakes. Do not shy away from making your small mistakes when you are young, so that you would not make big ones when you’re grown.
As I encouraged you to write your frank opinions on national and world affairs, I also urge you to honestly express your views in public, be men and women of cause.
Then, and only then…
You would be entitled to say
”Ey vatan gözyaşlarını sil, ”O motherland, weep no more!
Yetiştik çünkü biz.” cause we’re matured to serve”
My Dear students,
When I was in Chicago 😊
Long years back, an American professor who had been to our country said to me, he got the impression that “Turks do not like each other“. At that instance I could not evaluate what he meant. Later, I gave a special interest in Turks behaving towards each other. To my regret, I found out that the Professor was right.
The most striking example was in the field of expressing opinions. Especially the university educated ones had no tolerance to others’opinions. I saw hate in people’s eyes when their assertions were opposed.
Our educated people were not taught that after an idea was put forth, it belonged to humanity, and no personal offense should be taken if it was attacked!
To be enlightened means to have a questioning mind on your convictions, and being tolerant on other people’s ideas. Never ever forget that!
My Dear Students,
As I said many a time in my classes, fathers and professors do not know, and do not have to know everything. But they can, and should always look up for what they do not know.
You, too… Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know.” Always ask in the most innocent manner…
To pretend is the worst catastrophe for an intellectual. But when you are an expert in a field, be assertive, take risk, and honestly say what you believe.
Except for rare necessity, do not beg the help of crutches, quotations from other thinkers. Do not memorize and fight with the ideas of other great minds.
We, the generation of ’68, did that mistake. You should dilute all learned data in your brain and create your own ideas for humanity.
To do this, you must read in a crazy manner, then reflect and contemplate…
The ignorant, apart from parroting loaned memorizations from others, cannot create their own ideas for mankind.
Do not use words and ideas which you do not digest and make your own.
Memorized words and ideas stick out, get caught by serious minds and harm your intellectual integrity.
My Students.
Why do I insist so much on your intellectual capacity?
Because Mulkiye is a historical establishment.
It is the inheritor of the Ottoman Enderun establishment. It is the unique incubator of our statesmen.
For us Turks, “State” means so much.
And the State needs specially trained brains for its success.
Our beloved motherland has excellent universities, we have wonderful
institutions.
Yet, in the age of global economic competition, most of our elite colleges concentrate on producing the mentality of global businessmen.
Our beloved Mulkiye also must have a globally oriented education, a global vision. But as against our other colleges oriented towards cosmopolitan culture, our school should be concentrated on ”State”.
This should be the field which we should excel, this would be commensurate with our Mulkiye March.
One important asset of Mulkiye, is our education in our mother tongue Turkish as against the English curriculum of our other elite colleges.
Yes, we definitely have to learn English and practice it, and it was my job to teach you excellent English.
Yet Mulkiye should have the monopoly of Turkish curriculum in elite education as well as excelling in English language to communicate with the global community of mankind.
My Students,
Nearing the end of my farewell lecture, I would like to give you one last example; that the day we graduated from highschool, we collected all our books in the center of our football yard, burned them, and turned around the blazing books with crazy orgy.
Looking 40 years back today, I wonder how our teachers felt that day…
I hope I did not make you hate books and learning…
Life is a marathon, ordinary people have no bright future in it. Information technology is swiftly creating a new global society, without borders. If you lose track of global agenda, show neglect, exhaustion or fatigue, it would send you to the bottom of the global society. In this new global family, there will be two
groups, sans borders: The highly, and continuously educated, and the rest.
Therefore, you should be prepared to be among the top, and continually educated, and become exemplars and beacons of your society.
Now I am departing with best of memories, and with optimism. I hope we did a nice job together.
My beloved students,
Bidding farewell, I have one little request from you…
If I could pass you some little knowledge…
Do not use it to oppress helpless people.
Use it to help human beings, especially the oppressed and the needy.
And always be on their side.
This was what my father asked of me,
This is what I ask of you,
And hope you would ask the same of your children.
Thank you and good-bye.
