An internationally renowned mathematician, who spares almost all his time in a foundation set up by his father… The foundation gives shelter to children without families… A group of intellectuals who provide financial support for the foundation…

This trio has created wonders for many children, changing their diapers when they are little, feeding them, sending them to schools, finding them jobs and following them until they settle. It is a unique success story as a private endeavor which can only work when all three main factors are on the same wavelength. Unfortunately, the foundation has been going through serious crises recently, making the fate of the children uncertain.

I have no difficulty in understanding how this has happened, since the story show how bigotries and prejudices prevailing in Turkey are everyday occurrences, but it''s not easy even for me to put everything in perspective so that it can be understandable to the others. How a casual table discussion in a bar could lead to the destruction of a functional charity which gives shelter to 50 children is really beyond comprehension.

Dr. Ali Nesin is a French-educated scientist teaching mathematics at Istanbul''s Bilgi University. The foundation he was bequeathed by his father is in Silivri, a small town on the outskirts of Istanbul. Professor Nesin is famous in scientific circles, but his late father Aziz Nesin had even more fame all over Turkey and abroad, since he was the greatest Turkish humorist whose literary works have been published in almost all languages. Although he received an orthodox Koran education at an early age, Aziz Nesin was anti-religious all his life and he even dared to have "The Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie translated into Turkish and published it. He was also the first person in Turkey who requested no religious ceremony after his death, and his body was buried such a fashion that even his family doesn''t know its location.

Like father, like son. Ali Nesin is also an atheist, by his own admission. The foundation in Silivri/Istanbul housing almost 50 children of various ages is also strictly non-religious.

The people whose table discussions with Professor Nesin gave way to partial hardship in the foundation are also secularists. This is an important fact to understand the extent of bigotry in Turkey, especially in intellectual circles who would feel no qualms about torpedoing a foundation whose very existence serves their cause. Some in this country, who consider themselves "politically correct," can go to any extreme when they feel one of them has gone astray.

In this particular case, the person who has gone astray is Professor Nesin. His crime is "grave": he praised the Justice and Development Party government for its tenacity in keeping a purely democratic line, adopting modern standards in the public sphere. When he was accused during the table discussion as being "a turncoat'' and a ''traitor," but he nevertheless went on praising the government. Apparently his verbal leniency was not appreciated by the others in the table who, like Nesin, were enjoying a lot of raki, the strongest alcoholic beverage in Turkey.

Whatever happens in a bar remains in the bar. Right? Not really. The people whom Ali Nesin broke bread with apparently did not subscribe to this old adage. Since all are influential in their own right -- one is an actor, the other is a poet and the third a curator -- they started sending rumors in their own milieu until the incident surfaced as a news item in major papers. Politically correct rumor mongering turned into a successful smear campaign which tarnished the image of the foundation supervised by Nesin. Donations stopped, some donors sent letters criticizing Nesin, some even announced that they would change their wills to strike the foundation off it.

Ali Nesin is the same person, he is still an atheist, a free sprit of his own right, but nevertheless he has been shunned by the people whom he has been sharing tables in bars, drinking raki together, discussing current affairs in the way that politically correct Turks discuss among themselves.

What do you think of this story? Does it give you the sense how a very limited number of people dominate the intellectual debates, although they are bigots and full of prejudice? I beg you to think about this crucial question: Those who have no mercy for a person like Nesin, whose credentials are impeccable by leftist and secularist standards, do they spare a moment of hesitancy before opening fire on others who do not share their thinking?

The politically correct in Turkey do everything in their power to preserve unjust and undeserved hegemony they exercise in the intellectual sphere. The excommunication of Nesin stems from their fear, if they let one deviate from the line, the PC in Turkey would lose ground in other fields, as they have lost in politics.

I am sure, Aziz Nesin, the father, has been spinning in his grave in protest. Aziz Nesin would not protest Ali Nesin, his son, he so much enjoyed as a companion, but rather those who are out to demolish what he created as a charity out of his lifelong earnings, the earnings he did not spent on his own children.

I am trying to find out how I can contribute to the foundation sheltering children in Silivri/Istanbul, wondering whether Professor Nesin would accept my humble donation.

From The New Anatolian, July 5, 2005