9 ms·

The decline of Turkish schools

• mannigfaltig 9y ago
  I'm wondering what role brain-drain plays in this catastrophe. Who wants to live at the border of chaos? Smart and open-minded people emigrate to Central/Northern Europe, US/Canada or Australia to live a much safer and fulfilling life. What remains is the conservative personality type (high dutifulness, low openness to experience, tight integration in communities), who is much more likely to reject democratic ideals and to accept theocratic dictatorships. One might conclude that the only way to reliably stabilize such regions is to massively incentivize them for the personality types that have emigrated over the course of the past decades or centuries, even.
  • rjsw 9y ago
    I have wondered whether this has happened to Poland too.
    • fishnchips 9y ago
      Not likely. Polish communities abroad tend to vote for right wing radicals more often than the society back home. Surprisingly this is not only the case of "old" immigration in the US but also post-2004 ones in the EU.
  • thriftwy 9y ago
    I'm not sure that either refugees or guest workers are "smart and open-minded" variety, not the conservative one. Europe might be importing enough conservative types to repeat this stunt in a few decades.
    • ido 9y ago
      Turkish immigrants to the US were/are generally the elite. Not every place is Germany.
• geff82 9y ago
  Turkey in total is in decline. It is the classic way of the dictatorship: after some initial successes in the economy, the leader wants to get more and more power, surpresses more and more diversity, tries to bring under control the thoughts of people and finally destroys the country by his power. I wish the Turkish good luck with their deliberate choice to give their sucker at the top everything he wants. They knew what they vote for and they absolutely deserve the results.
  • notzorbo3 9y ago
    > It is the classic way of the dictatorship Let's not kid ourselves though. The people voted time and again for Erdogan and his policies. It's a democracy that brought this upon itself. Putting the blame on a single individual and labeling them a dictator just muddies the water.
    • thriftwy 9y ago
      Actually when they voted the wrong way he just held a reelection for more preferred results.
      • vixen99 9y ago
        Rather like the EU forcing Ireland to vote again on the rejected Lisbon Treaty. 'Vote until you get it right'.
    • jon_richards 9y ago
      >Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. Karl Popper, "The Open Society and Its Enemies", 1945
• notzorbo3 9y ago
  If you're ever again in a discussion with people who claim they have nothing to hide from their government because medieval things don't happen in modern democracies.. just point them to Turkey. Or perhaps the States under Trump.
  • sebazzz 9y ago
    Or that a democracy does not change easily to an authoritarian regime. See also Turkey. I would not say Turkey is a democracy right now, maybe only on paper.
    • notzorbo3 9y ago
      I have not gotten the feeling that Turkey is no longer a democracy? I have to admit that I haven't researched it much, but I haven't heard anything in the mainstream media about fraud during the elections or the referendum to expand the presidents powers. The whole coup was a disaster of course, and the way Erdogan reacted is without a doubt dictatorial in nature. But I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of the people are actually supportive of him, much like people are supportive of Putin in Russia. I've always found it kinda weird that as soon as people in different countries vote for something we don't like, we consider them no longer democratic. BUT, like I said, I haven't researched it well enough, so I might be entirely off the mark here. If you have any info on this, I'd love to hear it.
      • te_chris 9y ago
        Democracy is more than just casting and counting votes. It's the biggest trick of tyrants to convince the people that so long as they can vote they're free (see: Putin, Erdogan). Full functioning democracy requires a strong, independent media, quality institutions, an independent judiciary, all of which are accountable and responsive to their constituents. It also requires eternal vigilance because these conditions are vulnerable to despotism, so you always need to be on the lookout (see: Trump, UK tories and the repeal bill, Poland, Hungary)
        • deleted 9y ago
• Mlergh 9y ago
  Replace Turkey with a smaller country to the south, Islam with an earlier religion and you'll get about the same picture that's been hapenning for a while now
  • ido 9y ago
    Not really, turkey is much further down the road towards an illiberal police state.
    • Mlergh 9y ago
      Probably, but this article specifically addresses the decline of secular education and use of religious indoctrination as means of fostering a more easily governable generation and the preemption of religion by the state.
      • ido 9y ago
        Again, turkey is leading the way there atm.
        • Mlergh 9y ago
          It's not a competition, some countries are way worse and have been for a while (Saudi Arabia recently legalized women driving - does it mean its getting better ? and from a far enough historical perspective you could say Turkey is merely returning to its Ottoman legacy) There is a clear world-wide regression in civil liberties vs. government power in tandem with religious revival and education is key to that.
  • KKKKkkkk1 9y ago
    Are you referring to Lebanon? In my experience, making oblique references to Judaism and the Jews often indicates that a person has opinions about them that he or she is ashamed to admit.
    • Mlergh 9y ago
• acqq 9y ago
  > The education ministry says the term, which can also refer to one’s personal struggle against sin, has been misused. The "personal struggle" variant is however unsupported by the religious texts. From all hadiths, only the one considered "weak" (i.e. not to be trusted) has such an interpretation. And the jihadists know that.
• Upvoter33 9y ago
  it's quite sad. Turkey was pushed way ahead of where it might have otherwise been through Ataturk and his western vision. Now, they are taking backwards step after backwards step. It will be interesting to see what happens once Erdogan is gone, though - will he have destroyed too much to repair it?
• markatkinson 9y ago
  I just got back from a holiday in Turkey. What a beautiful country. It was shocking to have things like Wikipedia and Imgur blocked though. Was a real eye opener.
• mengibar10 9y ago
  It baffles me the amount of misinformation given to the public in the West. A deliberate attempt to mislead and misguide people to further an agenda of violence, coup, and war. Haven't we learned anything from Iraq War? If a country is not submitting your requests and taking care of their own business is enough to be painted as dictatorship. One truth in an articles is mixed with 10 other lies. There are so many one finds oneself overwhelmed.
  • maxxxxx 9y ago
    Not sure what you are trying to say. Can you be more specific?
    • mengibar10 9y ago
      One example. The mentioned Imam Hatip schools were a headway for religious education after a very heavy secularization of the country. It was just an alternative to ultra secular education system so people could send their children to have them get some religious education. They were never meant to train preachers only. Their graduates have become anything but preachers mostly. In my family there are physicians, lawyers, engineers who attended that school (Alas, I did not). In the article it is presented as if these schools are training ultra religious people even "Jihadist" in the sense Western conception has these day. That is the biggest lie and misdirection. These schools are actually anti-thesis of such movements like people who join ISIS. The fundamental reason is that they teach religion, and if one knows Islam as it should be one can not join such groups. For example, The coup attempt executed by Gulenist (a pseudo-religious modern looking power hungry group) have been against these schools. Because these schools were teaching Islam as opposed to a version filled with superstitions, like believing the Gulen himself (the leader of the group) is Mahdi to put the world in order. During the coup attempt they have killed over 250 ordinary citizens. They shot to crowds from helicopter gunships. Due to their so called religious understanding those killed were killed for a greater good anyway or deserved such death. Do you see any resemblance to ISIS? They are more dangerous than ISIS though, at least those thugs show their true color unlike Gulenists. Where there's lack of proper education and understanding of religion there will always be someone to abuse it. Painting these schools as if training jihadists is nothing but disservice to the public.
• gkya 9y ago
  [I've written a long comment about how this happened, and it seems that it's been too long to include in a single comment, so I'm splitting it into parts.] [Part 1] I'm from Turkey myself, in my initial 20s, undergrad at the faculty of letters in Istanbul. We're that interesting generation whose parents were kids/newborns at the first coup d'etat after the first conservative government of Turkey (that of Menderes), teens and young adults during the left/right clash and the coup of 12 September 1980 (that date is so much ingrained to our memories as probably 9/11 is to American ones), 30-something parents during the '90s' hideous bloodshed, and middle aged individuals during the first decade of the millennium where the AKP phenomenon started happening. For us the '90s kids, the dawn of AKP rule is a childhood memory, and also the coalitions, 90-years-old Bulent Ecevit, the shy beginnings of an alternative conservative party that managed to become the sole dirigent power of this country. This past is interesting in that it let us, at least the curious among us with educated parents, to either live firsthand or learn from eyewitnesses the funny story that led us to where we are now as a country. The decline of Turkish schools began since the first day, just like that of every other institution of the republic, and nothing is or was a coincidence. Ottomans were a family, like Hapsburgs or Bourbons. There was no Ottoman people. Under Ottoman rule were though turkish speaking muslim peasants, which were called Turks. During the 19th century, some intellectuals, under the influence of European romantic racism and nationalism, developped the idea of Turkish nationalism, in the same era where many christian nations parted from the empire, and lots of bloodshed was suffered in particular by Armenians, because they were a way more integrated part of the Empire and one of the last groups to seek independence, and they were Christians (I'm not referring to the Medz Yeghern here, but to the Hamidian massacres). In this atmoshpere of ethnoreligious clash and of the disintegration of a long-standing empire that followed many other long-standing empires since Darius the Great, the ideals and the ideas of Turkish nationalism were initally born. Intellectuals were seeking the origins of the Turkish-speaking anatolians in Central Asia, fooled by linguistic relations (today it seems to me that there's little doubt that the Turkification of the Asia minor was through language and culture replacement provoked by elite dominance by Persianised Turkish military powers, not unlike how the same region was Hellenised under Alexander the Great and how southern Europe was Latinised under Roman rule and later with the influence of the Catholic church), and a plethora false narratives of war glory, mass migrations, racial/ethnic supremity etc. started being produced by the Ottoman-Turkish intelligentsia. When WWI was happening, the Turkish nationalists (Ittihat Terakki Firkasi) was in control of the recent constitutional monarchy, and under their control the biggest bloodsheds happened in Turkey; deportation and massacres of Christian ethnoreligious groups, mass poverty and lots of war casualties because of the short-sighted government following unrealistic, inhumane and bloody agendas (the event of Sarikamis is a really popularly known one, where 90 thousand Ottoman troops died of cold in the extreme conditions of very-high-altitude province Kars, without encountering a single enemy soldier). At the end of the war, the constituent peoples of the empire were tortured both by themselves, the empire itself, and the belligerent European forces; and the empire was dead. As the European belligerent states were in the process of sharing the Ottoman territories, nationalism was becoming more fierce among the Turkish-speaking muslims of Asia minor. In this atmosphere were born many organisations for Turkish or Muslim indipendence. Kuva-yi Milliye (National Forces) was one of them, it comprised many disorganised bands of amateur warriours, not much unlike the Italian partigiani. In the last decade and a half, Mustafa Kemal (later Ataturk) was rising as a successful general in a decadent army of a moribond empire. After 1919, he left Istanbul to Samsun in disguies on a ship called Bandirma, quit his role in the Ottoman army, and with his many friends started to organise an independence movement in Anatolia. He managed to unify, organise and regularise Kuva-yi Milliye, and to form an army that then fought its way through 1919-1922 to successfully establish a Turkish republic in Thrace and Asia Minor in 1923, with the Lozanne Treaty in 24 August and the declaration of the Republic in 29 October. After this point came the long rule of Ataturk as the de facto BDFL of the nascent country, where the wartime elite executed many reforms to realise their ideal Turkey. They made their Turkey, now they had to make the Turks. The state encircled at that time Muslims of diverse ethnic backgrounds, split mainly in Sunnites and Alawites, and also in Turkish-speakers and Kurdish-speakers; and the surprisingly populous remnants of the Christian population of the territory (given the catastrophe they faced). Ataturk's government implemented a series of rather oppressive and authoritatisn reforms, based on his seven principles (see Kemalism), to modernise and westernise the country and its peoples, and to assimilate the citizens into the figure of modern Turk: a turkish speaking, secular and laicist, patriotic, hard-working individual, for whom religious and ethnic ideals are bad memories of the past, or better yet forgotten altogether. And thus came the dismissal of the Ottoman dynasty, the removal of the Sultanate, the dismissal of the Caliphate, the language reform, the clothing reform, secularist and laicist reforms, mass programmes of assimilation, and a reformist, unquestionable dictating government of recent war veterans. Nearly all of these reforms were unwelcome by different constituent ethnolinguistic and ethnoreligious groups of the new republic, and bloodshed came. The Westernisation was imposed by the founding fathers, either by authoritarian laws or by force. It's really interesting that it's the same government who both executed Sheik Said and incarcerated Nazim Hikmet Ran. Turkey was Ataturk's little baby to be raised as a hard-working modern man, but it was never becoming what he wanted when left on his own, so he didn't. This period did a lot of good to Turkey, but also lots of bad. In this period were formed the initial modern institutions of education in Turkey. The Istanbul University existed in some form since the 4th century AD, and the Levantines and the Christians had their lycees, but the Turks mostly had the religious medreses at their disposal for study. Under Ataturk a new education system was installed, copying the Western system (I guess a mix of the German and the French systems), and modifying it to produce the first "seed" generation according to Kemalist ideals, securing the continuity of the new Turkish republic and its fundamental philosophy. And surprisingly this worked, though, the copycat nature and the focus on quantity over quality still remains to date in many institutions of the country along with its education system.
• MichaelMoser123 9y ago
  However Gdp growth of Turkey remains impressive. Can it be that not all of Turkey is fucked up? They must be doing some things right if Gdp keeps growing like this.
  • gkya 9y ago
    Number-juggling. Wages grow fast, buying power sinks faster.
    • MichaelMoser123 9y ago
      Where can I read more about your claim?
      • gkya 9y ago
        It's a process we've witnessed (I'm from Turkey), so I don't know where to point you to. But while since 2010 minimum wage went from ~800 liras to ~1400, most of the basic needs' prices have at least doubled, and with the USD and EUR parities of TRY tripling in the past two years, the increased amount of liras people get has lost lots of value.
        • mengibar10 9y ago
          Back you claims with data, and don't be elitist and call Turkish institutions crap.
          • candiodari 9y ago
            Here's one data point: https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=USDTRY https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=USDTRY https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=EURTRY https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=EURTRY Lira has about 1/3rd of the US dollar value it had in 2009, even if it's been going up slightly this year. In Euro it's lost about 65% of it's value in the same time frame. Average wages in Turkey went from 1300 Lira to close to 1600 Lira in the same period. So Turks have lost between 30% and 50% of their spending power in the last ~10 years.
• transverse 9y ago
  Article flagged due to pay wall.