Educator,
politician. He was born in Sivas in 1948. His father’s name is Hüseyin Bey and
mother’s name is Mrs. Hesna. After he completed Sivas Teacher School for Boys
(1966) he completed his higher education in Istanbul University Faculty of
Literature History Department Osmanlı Institutions and Civilisation Discipline.
After his
higher education he worked as a teacher between 1966 and 1973. Between 1966 and
1973 he worked as Archive in Prime Ministry Archive General Directorate. He
worked in so many civil society organization’s committees and managements.
He began
to political career as candidate for Şişli Municipality Mayor from Refah Party
in 1984. He worked as Head of Şişli District, City President Responsible for
Organization in Istanbul City Organization and City President in the same
party.
In 1995,
he was elected as Istanbul Congressman from Refah Party and got in to TGNA. Not
only he was a member of TGNA Industry and Trade Commission and also was member
and had of various research commissions.
He was
elected as Istanbul Congressman during the 20th, 22nd, 24th,
25th, 26th terms. He worked as Member of MKYK and Vice
President of Organization in AK Party. He is still working as Founding General
President of Language and Literature Association (LLA) and as Vice General
President Responsible of Research and Development in AK Party. Erdem is married
and have 5 kids. He has a work titled Bizimki
Türkçe Sevdası.
Ekrem
Erdem was pioneer for entering a Parliament Research Motion to TGNA about
protecting Turkish Language and preparing a report in 2006. And in his book
named “Bizimki Türkçe Sevdası”, he focused on issues such as history of
Turkish, problems of language and reasons and solutions for language problems.
He mentioned these important points below:
"Turkish
is a rich language. If we are misusing
this richness, the reason of this is our wrong education system. Language and
religion are the most important and distinguishing characters of a nation. If
we want to use Turkish in a correct way, educators, politicians have a very
important role. The name used by the tradesmen for their workplace, and the
utilization of Turkish in a proper way by politicians will serve the proper use
of Turkish.
Most of our concept is foreign. It is natural for
Turkey to be effected from the language of its neighbours. But we still need to
protect our uniqueness. From kindergarten to university, from computer to
television, from health to sport; we need an unity in the language and
therefore linguistic education must be based on solid grounds. We are on the
right track. Some changes need to be done in school curriculum for contribution
to language education. I believe that Ottoman courses will serve this. But
there are a lot of things to do. Everyone has duties to do. We are waiting for
the contributions of academicians to our book and to our studies. A social contribution is needed for
fine utilization of Turkish."
REFERENCE: Ekrem Erdem
(ekremerdem.com, 13.11.2012), Ekrem Erdem (tbmm.gov.tr, 12.6.2015), Ekrem
Erdem: Dilimiz tehdit altında (tded.org.tr, 15.8.2015).
