Seeds of Turkish nationalism sown at school

2 April 2007 | 10:22 | Source: Reuters

ISTANBUL — Nationalism poses problem with Turkey schools,which,
within IMF-imposed budget restraints spends little on education.

"Happy is he who says he is a Turk," pipe hundreds of uniformed
children in unison, lined up in the playground before a golden statue
of Turkey’s revered father Ataturk, for a daily pledge of hard work
and sacrifice.

The enthusiastic chanting ends and the children file into school, past
an inscription saying their first duty is to defend Turkey and another
of the national anthem — texts which appear again on the classroom
walls and preface all their textbooks.

When they move up to high school, they will take a weekly class from
army officers about the military’s exploits. Their school books will
tell them European powers have their sights set on Anatolia and
Turkey’s geography makes it vulnerable "to all kinds of internal and
external threats".

Textbooks are peppered with the sayings of Kemal Ataturk, who founded
modern Turkey in 1923 after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
"Homeland … we are all a sacrifice for you!" comes particularly
recommended by one textbook’s authors.

These are just some of the features of Turkey’s education system that
reformist teachers and activists want changed. They say it encourages
blind nationalism — something Turkey is looking at more seriously
since the ultranationalist-inspired murder in January of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.

Political rows with the European Union, which Ankara hopes to join,
have also fanned nationalism — especially in an election year — but
many experts say the seeds are first sown at school.

"In newly founded nation states like ours education is an effective
political lever to train and transform people … but in recent
decades this concept, which needs to be loosened, continues," Ziya
Selcuk, university professor and former head of the government’s
Training and Education Board, told Reuters.

This government has reformed the curriculum in a way teachers say
makes students more active and reduces traditional rote learning, but
the emphasis on nationalism remains.

"There’s still some emphasis on militarism, the importance of being
martyred, the importance of going to war, dying in war and so on,"
said Batuhan Aydagul, deputy coordinator of the Education Reform
Initiative.

Teachers also say they feel pressure not to stray from the official
line or curriculum in class.

"If you present some arguments which are the opposite of the
established arguments … you might get reaction, absolutely, from
students, from other teachers, from directors — negative reactions of
course," said one teacher who declined to be named.

His colleague, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, laughed at
the idea of criticizing Ataturk in a history lesson, saying to do so
would spark investigation by prosecutors.

"They think … if you do such a thing you confuse their minds and
confusion is not good for young people," the first teacher said.

But the textbooks could be confusing for some: while foreign
historians say Ottoman forces massacred Armenians in 1915, high school
history books here say it was the other way around.

"It must not be forgotten that in eastern Anatolia the Armenians
carried out genocide," one 2005-dated book reads.

In its latest progress report the EU also criticized the portrayal of
minorities such as Armenians, saying further work was needed to remove
discriminatory language from textbooks.