Turkey 100 years after the Treaty of Lausanne (page 2)
Fast forward to 2002 when Tayyib Racep Erdogan’sJ ustice and Development Party (Adaletve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) was voted into power. It may not be too much to say that during the last two decades Kemal Ataturk’s secular policies have been reversed and Turkey is now only nominally a secular state. A review of AKP’s educational policies best affirm this assertion.
In recent years, a slew of government initiatives have pushed Islam deeper into Turkey's nominally-secular education system.
Nowhere is the spread of Islamic education seen more clearly, however, than in the steady expansion of imam-hatip schools. Imam hatip schools were established in 1923 to train imams. When AKP took power in 2002, around 65,000 pupils were enrolled in them; today, the figure is nearly one million, or 9% of all school children aged between 10 and 18.
Erdogan, who went to Imam Hatip school has said one of his goals is to forge a “pious generation” in predominantly Muslim Turkey “that will work for the construction of a new civilisation.” religion at the heart of national life after decades of secular dominance, and his old school is just one beneficiary of a government programme to pump billions of dollars into religious education.
Turkey rolls out new school curriculum
In July 2017, the government rolled out a new school curriculum, effective from the start of the 2017-2018 school year which increased the emphasis on Islamic values. It also obliges Turkey’s growing number of “Imam Hatip” religious schools to teach the concept of jihad as patriotic in spirit. “It is also our duty to fix what has been perceived as wrong. This is why the Islamic law class and basic fundamental religion lectures will include (lessons on) jihad,” Education Minister IsmetYilmaz told reporters. “The real meaning of jihad is loving your nation.”
The new curriculum underplays Ataturk’s contribution to modern Turkey. At the primary school level, classes are expected to truncate the teaching of his leadership role during, among other events, Turkey’s war of independence, out of which the modern Turkish republic was created in 1923 from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey’s enemies: The curriculum is also notable for whom it includes among Turkey’s enemies, including the Kurdish Workers’ Party, or PKK, long branded a terrorist group by Turkey and the United States; the Islamic State; and Fethullah Gulen, the United States-based cleric who was blamed by Erdogan for July 2016’2 attempted coup. The education minister, Ismet Yilmaz has said that it was essential to educate the new generation of Turks about the perils of Mr. Gulen’s movement.
Turkey to stop teaching evolution theory in schools
The new curriculum stopped teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in secondary schools, deeming it controversial and difficult to understand. A chapter entitled "Beginning of Life and Evolution" was deleted from the standard biology textbooks used in schools and the material will be available only to students who go on to university studies from age 18 or 19, according to Alparslan Durmus, head of the national education board. "We are aware that if our students don't have the background to comprehend the premises and hypotheses, or if they don't have the knowledge and scientific framework, they will not be able to understand some controversial issues, so we have left out some of them," he said.
Debates about the teaching of evolution have taken place in other countries, including the United States. In the late 1990s, the state of Kansas famously banned the teaching of evolution in public schools. The School Board reversed its decision in early 2001 amid public criticism. In the mid-2000s, at least 16 U.S. states were considering changes to the teaching of evolution in schools.
According to World Population Review.com’ report titled “U. S. States that Don't Teach Evolution 2023,” Evolution is required to be taught by 25 US states while in 15 US states Evolution is required to be taught but creationism may also be taught. In Two states – Colorado and Wyoming – several schools teach creationism.
Tellingly, amid his religious policies, President Recep Tayyip reopened Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque for worship on July 24, 2020 for the first time in 86 years. "Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque is a cultural heritage of humanity as a whole. It was a mosque and was reverted back into a mosque," Erdogan said following the prayers.
Tellingly, Hagia Sophia opened as mosque on July 24 that is the 97th anniversary of the Treaty of Lausanne which Erdogan seeks to revisit. The treaty outlined the boundaries of the modern Turkish state after the demise of the Ottoman Empire.
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The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
