The death of Ahmet Turan Alkan saddened all intellectuals. His final years should be considered a concrete example of the problematic relationship that authoritarian political systems establish with educated, critical, and publicly responsible individuals. In such regimes, repression is not limited to legal sanctions or imprisonment; rather, it is a long-term and multi-layered process of intellectual neutralization.
Forcing an academic or writer to write an apology under threat (https://youtu.be/fJbmMudSVi4) corresponds to mechanisms of “symbolic obedience.” The aim of these practices is not only to punish the individual but also to undermine the legitimacy of critical thinking in the public sphere and to set a deterrent example for other intellectuals. In this context, repression operates not through direct physical violence, but through symbolic forms of violence that create more lasting effects (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0176268022001574).
The interruption of Ahmet Turan Alkan’s academic and literary output following his imprisonment can be interpreted as an individual choice or withdrawal. However, this situation can also be considered as authoritarian “learned silence.” In systems where academic freedom formally exists but is effectively restricted, the cessation of production is a rational defense mechanism (https://repository.library.northeastern.edu/files/neu%3Acj82nr72n/fulltext.pdf).
The fact that his novel was not published by the publishing house he had worked with for years clearly demonstrates that censorship does not operate solely through state intervention. In authoritarian regimes, cultural and academic fields are shaped by self-censorship mechanisms due to fear, uncertainty, and pressure to conform. Thus, publishing houses, universities, and cultural institutions often become extensions of the power structure, often without explicit instruction. In this process, intellectuals are marginalized not only by the political power but also by their own social and institutional environments.
This individual example is part of a broader, structural process. In countries dominated by authoritarian regimes, critical academics, writers, and artists are increasingly leaving the country and seeking refuge in democratic countries. Although this is described as a “brain drain,” it is in reality the forced exile of public intellect and critical thought.
In societies where intellectuals are suppressed or systematically excluded, intellectual production slows down; universities and cultural institutions lose their critical functions. This reduces the accountability of political power while paving the way for the further entrenchment of the authoritarian structure. This relationship between intellectual impoverishment and political repression creates a self-reinforcing and difficult-to-break vicious cycle.
The final years of Ahmet Turan Alkan’s life are significant in demonstrating how this cycle operates at the individual level. Following his death, condolences were written from various political circles. His story illustrates not only the silencing of a writer, but also the tendency of authoritarian systems to produce intellectuals whose value is not appreciated during their lifetime, but remembered only after their death.
The international academic community should not only support exiled academics, but also make visible the intellectual cost of authoritarianism. In this way, the vicious cycle of silencing intellectuals can be broken. Because societies that silence their intellectuals lose their intellectual output, their critical capacity, and their democratic future in the long run.
