Faruk Şen: Difference between revisions

Faruk Şen (born April 21, 1948, in Ankara; died January 25, 2025, in Istanbul) was a Turkish-German university professor. From 1985 to 2008, he was the director of the Center for Turkish Studies (Foundation for Turkish Studies and Integration Research).

Life

Şen studied business administration at the University of Münster from 1971. After receiving his doctorate in 1979, he became head of the “Measures for Vocational Preparation and Social Integration of Young Foreigners (MBSE)” at the adult education center in Duisburg in 1981, and from 1983 managing director of the pilot project “Teacher Training in the School/Work Transition.” In 1985, he founded the Center for Turkish Studies and Integration Research (ZfT), of which he became director. In 1990, he was appointed professor at the then University of Duisburg-Essen. On July 3, 2008, Şen was suspended as director of the ZfT.^[1] Following criticism of him after he compared the situation of Turkish migrants in Germany to the persecution of Jews during the Nazi era, Şen officially resigned from his position in July 2008 by mutual agreement with the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, effective at the end of 2008.^[2]

Şen was married to the psychiatrist İnci Şen and was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

Controversy surrounding the Armenian Genocide

On March 9, 2006, in a radio interview, a few days before a demonstration^[3] by Turkish nationalists against the German Bundestag’s resolution on Armenians,^[4] Şen expressed the opinion that the Armenian genocide of 1915 was not a genocide. Şen said, and I quote: “That means the term we use for Germany is not correct for the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, I would say that genocide according to this definition is incorrect.”^[5] He was subsequently sharply criticized by Monika Düker, ^[6] the domestic policy spokesperson for the Greens in the North Rhine-Westphalian, as well as by the historians Wolfgang Benz^[7] and Medardus Brehl^[8], who argued that Şen’s categorical rejection of the term “genocide” in relation to the Armenian genocide in no way reflected the current debate (Düker), that Şen’s statement was unscientific and mere agitation and propaganda (Benz), and that, contrary to Şen’s account, the Armenian genocide could be proven both historically and legally. Lasse (Brehl). Şen has never publicly commented on the criticism.

Awards

Literature (Selection)

• Faruk Sen: Establishment, Structure and Economic Function of Turkish Employee Companies in the Federal Republic of Germany for the Socioeconomic Situation of Turkey. – Münster, 1980. – Dissertation: Münster (Westphalia), University, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences

• Faruk Sen and Sinan Özel: Effects of Turkey’s Full Membership on the EU Budget 2004–2006. – Essen: Center for Turkish Studies Foundation, 2004. -(zft-aktuell ; 104)

• Faruk Sen, Martina Sauer and Dirk Halm: Euro-Islam: A Religion Establishes Itself in Europe; Status, Perspectives, Challenges. – Essen: Center for Turkish Studies Foundation, 2004. – (zft-aktuell; 102)

• Faruk Sen: The New Jews of Europe, editorial in the Turkish business newspaper ‘Referans’ from May 19, 2008

External links

References