Turkish Ultra-Nationalist Education Produces Soldier-Students

The Turkish anthropologist, Ayşe Gül Altınay, is a good source on the militarist, virulent, Turkish education system. If anyone has interacted with the typical Turk in real life or online, one will wonder where their renowned fanaticism comes from. Well she partly answers it in her works. 

Bianet: Turk-Soldier-Muslim: The Ideal Student

"The ideal student, according to the education system in Turkey, is the student who looks at the world with a nationalist mentality, who defines him or herself as 'a Turk' based on ethnicity, and who is a soldier-student, ready to fight."

Presenting a paper titled "Who is a good Turk?: The 'Ideal' student according to Textbooks" at the "International Human Rights Education and TextBook Research Symposium" held last weekend, Assistant Professor Ayse Gul Altinay from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabanci University, tackled this issue.

                ...

Another important characteristic of the "ideal" Turkish student in textbooks is being a "soldier-student." By extension, this ideal student, or the first-class citizen is basically a man.

Here, military service is defined as a cultural given and students are told that they will not be of any good to themselves, their families or their nation if they do not serve in the military. Under this definition, military service is no longer a citizenship obligation for male citizens. It is taken out of the political/legal framework, and is used in a social and cultural framework, which defines a person's life, and his relations with his family and environment.

The discourse about Turks being a "military-nation" underlies this argument and it naturalizes dying, killing and thus, violence.

Almost all excerpts reflect a homogenous nation that represents a "single race" and a single culture. Saying there are different "races" within one nation is defined as "separatism."

The general view in these textbooks is that, the Turkish nation is a homogenous nation with a single ethnicity. Thus the books ignore the diversity in Turkey and see every kind of diversity as an element of "threat."

Ayşe Gül Altınay went on to produce a related book that deals with this subject further:

In Turkey, the mandatory military course taught in high schools by military officers remains one of the most significant sites where the interdependencies between education and defense are established and naturalized. Taught under different names in different periods (Military Service, Preparation for Military Service, National Defense Knowledge, and National Security Knowledge), the military course has been in the curriculum of high schools since 1926. Currently, it is called National Security Knowledge and is mandatory for all students (male and female) in the second year of high school, regardless of the kind of school. ...

The most important continuity is that the course has been taught by military officers (or retired officers) who get paid by the Ministry of National Education or the school that employs them. However, neither the Ministry nor the schools have any say in the choice of these officer-teachers. The officer-teachers are appointed by the highest commander of the nearest garrison on an annual basis. ... Their qualification for teaching this course is defined solely in military terms: the most preferred category is that of staff officers (Staff Colonels, Majors, and Captains), followed by other officers ranked militarily.[5] ...

Source:
Altinay, Ayse Gul. Myth Of The Military Nation. (Palgrave, 2004; 1st Edition) p. 124.

Here is a Youtube video, Neden Hedef Türkiye(48:51), that was shown to Turkish students in those classes that teaches them to suspect neighboring countries and minorities. If anyone knows Turkish and is willing to translate please translate any section you wish in the comments.

Turkish Journalist On Who Really Burnt Down Smyrna/Izmir in 1922

A Ottoman-Turkish journalist and contemporary eye-witness, Falih Rifki Atay, on who really burnt down Smyrna/Izmir on September 13th, 1922: 

AFTER THE VICTORY

Because I have decided to write the truth about what I know, I will quote a page from the notes I made at that time: The looters too helped the fire expand. One of the things I regret the most [is]; an officer who went to loot a photograph’s shop left pictures he had taken during the entire offensive wars at the hotel, [leading to] the burning and loss of these historical documents. Why were we burning Izmir? Were we fearing that we wouldn’t be rid of the minorities [the non-Muslim communities in Turkey] if we left the mansions, hotels and casinos [cafés, bars etc.] to stand? At the time of the 1st World War, when Armenians were deported, we burnt down any and every habitable neighbourhood and quarter of cities and towns in Anatolia with the same fear. There is no thing which will not come from this driest of dry [in e.g. purest of pure] feelings of [wishes of] destruction. In this there is also the effect of a sense of inferiority complex. It was surely in our fate not to be [a place] resembling a piece of Europe in every corner, as if (sic) being Christian or foreigner. If there had been another war [and] if we’d been defeated; would leaving Izmir in ruin be sufficient in protecting the city’s Turkishness? If it hadn’t been for Nureddin Pasha, whom I came to know as a dark fanatic, raging demogogue, I don’t believe the continuation of this tragedy would have been possible till the end. Nureddin Pasha was without any doubt strengthened by the feelings of rancor and revenge harboured by the arriving officers and people who had witnessed the ruins of Turkish towns burnt down to coal by the Greeks and the crying and agitated populace of these, [even] before [the time of] Afyon. Likewise, after the victory at Izmir, a Nureddin Pasha issue will arise (sic). This man, with the smallest share in the victory, as soon as he entered Izmir, printed a personal card reading "Besieger of Küt-al-Amara, winner of the Afyon war and conqueror of İzmir." And the first man he met [in e.g. held a meeting with] in Izmir was the mufti [or “mullah”]. Nureddin Pasha left a declaration for himself [saying]: at his death a mosque the size of Kordon [quarter in Izmir] and his tomb were to be built. The Conqueror was to be buried in this tomb. The Mufti, was little after going to present this bearded and majestic [in e.g. grand] leader to the whole of Turkey’s religious fanatics in through [one of] his booklet[s]. And when he went from Izmir to Izmit, at the time of his meeting with commanding officers:
- I came again, said the man not commenting [in e.g. giving oppinion] on the war:
- I came prepared to walk over Mesta-Karasu, [but] I’ve been held here, he was to say.

Atay, Falih Rifki. Cankaya (1969) p. 325.

Turkish original: 

ZAFER SONRASI
325
Bildiklerimin doğrusunu yazmaya karar verdiğim için o zamanki notlarımdan bir sayfayı buraya aktarmak istiyorum: «Yağmacılar da ateşin büyümesine yardım ettiler. En çok esef ettiğim şeylerden biri. bir fotoğrafçı dükkânıni yağmaya giden subay, bütün taarruz harbleri boyunca çekmiş olduğu filmleri otelde bıraktığı için. bu tarihi vesikaların yanıp gitmesi olmuştur. İzmir'i niçin yakıyorduk? Kordon konaklan, oteller ve gazinolar kalırsa, azınlıklardan kurtulamıyacagımızdan mı korkuyorduk? Birinci Dünya Harbinde Ermeniler tehcir olunduğu vakit. Anadolu şehir ve kasabalarının oturulabilir ne kadar mahalle ve semtleri varsa, gene bu korku ile yakmıştık. Bu kuru kuruya tahripçilik hissinden gelme bir şey değildir. Bunda bir aşağılık duygusunun da etkisi var. Bir Avrupa parçasına benzeyen her köşe. sanki hıristiyan veya yabancı olmak, mutlak bizim olmamak kaderinde idi. Bir harb daha olsa da yenilmiş olsak, izmir'i arsalar halinde bırakmış olmak, şehrin Türklüğünü korumaya kâfi gelecek miydi? Koyu bir mutaassıp, öfkelendirici bir demagog olarak tanımış olduğum Nureddin Paşa olmasaydı, bu facianın sonuna kadar devam etmiyeceğini sanıyorum. Nureddin Paşa, tâ Afyon'dan beri Yunanlıların yakıp kül ettiği Türk kasabalarının enkazını ve ağlayıp çırpınan halkını görerek gelen subayların ve neferlerin affetmez hınç ve intikam hislerinden de şüphesiz kuvvet almakta idi.»
Nitekim İzmir zaferinin hemen arkasından bir Nureddin Paşa meselesi çıkacaktır. Zaferin bu en küçük hisseli adamı izmir'e girer girmez şöyle bir vizita kartı bastırmıştı: «Küt-ül-Amare muha-sırı, Afyon ve Dumlupınar muharebeleri gaalibi, İzmir fâtihi Nureddin Paşa.>> Izmir'de ilk buluştuğu adam da müftü idi. Nureddin Paşa kendisine bir vasiyetname bırakıyordu: ölünce Kordon bo-yuna bir camii, bir de türbesi yapılacaktı. Fâtih bu türbeye gömülecekti. Müftü, bir risalesi ile. biraz sonra irticaın bu sakallı ve azametli liderini bütün Türkiye yobazlarına takdim ettirmek üzere idi. İzmir'den İzmit'e gittiği zaman da, Çay'da komutanlara danışıldığı zaman:
— Yeni geldim, diye taarruz hakkında oy vermiyen bu adam :
— Ben Mesta-Karasu üstüne yürümek için hazırlanmıştım, beni burada tuttular, diyecekti.
***
Yakup Kadri, ben ve Asım Us, Bornova'da bir İngiliz evine yerleştik. Bornova karargâhların bulunduğu yer olduğu İçin. her gün

Turks cannot be imperialist, it is loving domination!

Anyone who has had the misfortune to interact with Turks on the net will have discovered that according to almost all of them the Turkish state, the Ottoman Empire, that Turks -- cannot be guilty of imperialism. There has to be a reason, they all did not independently arrive at that mythos. Recently during a speech mourning the anniversary of the long deceased Mustafa Kemal, the dictatorial, founder of modern Turkey, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated:

... that Turkey never had designs on the lands of other countries.

"Today, visit anywhere in Syria, Iraq, North Africa, the Middle East or the Balkans, and ask the people there their opinions of Turkey, and you will see no one mentions colony, invasion, oppression or massacres alongside Turkey," Erdogan said.

"Instead, you hear the symbolic call, 'Truehearted Turks here again!’" the president said, adding that Turkish people accept all people living in the same land as brothers and sisters without any discrimination based on religion or race. 

Source:
Anadolu News Agency: No country thinks of Turks as invaders: Erdogan 11/10/16

It is well known that Erdogan doesn't know a foreign language and is not as educated one would expect the leader of such an influential country to be. It would likely take well over a thousand contact hours for a Turk to learn a Western language like English. Since he doesn't know a foreign language, he doesn't have the intelligence or exposure to outside cultures necessary to know how unacceptable it would be seen outside Turkey needed to hide this hypocritical nationalist mythos of non-imperial, imperialist Turks, to foreign audiences. If Erdogan was astute he would not have referenced North Africa, the Balkans, the Mideast so directly because that almost guaranteed that the countries of those regions that were ex-Ottoman states, will cover that ultra-nationalist fascist comment and give Turkey yet another media black eye in the region. This is nothing new in Turkey, even before Erdogan there was the myth that Turks cannot possibly be imperialist, this is a mythos Erdogan simply grew up and inherited.

This is an excerpt from an old Turkish schoolbook from 1977, translated by David Davidian[1] and archived on a now defunct Geocities page:

The want to dominate is an instinct. It exists in a human as an unconscious force. This instinct at the same time is a means to exploit. The inclination of some nations to exploit in this manner is because they lack "pride of prince (bey)" that exists among the Turks. The "pride of prince" is not only a simple psychological state for an opportunity to brag. Its main characteristic is protecting (those under one's domination) without expecting anything in return. The foundation of this is loving the people under one's domination.

Source:

[2] _Tarih Lise I, Ibrahim Kafesoglu, Altan Deliorman, 1977 Ikinci Basilis, Milli Egitim Bakanligi, page 238.

Turkish original:

Hukmetme istegi aslinda bir ic-gududur. Her insanda suur-alti bir kuvvet olarak yasar. Bu ic-gudu ayni zamanda baskalarini somurmek icin bir vasitadir. Bazi milletlerin bu yolla istsmarciliga yonelmesi Turklerde mevcut olan "bey gururun"nun onlarda eksik olmasindandir. Beylik gururu, sadece ogunme vesilesi olan basit bir psikoloji degildir. Asli ozelligi, karsilik beklemeden koruyucu olmasidir. Bunun temeli de, hukum altina alinmis insanlari sevmektir.

This fascist mentality, that the want to dominate is universal and that Turks cannot exploit others who they rule is far older than the 1970's. Ziya Gökalp, who like most celebrated Turkish nationalist theorists was a non-Turk, since based on where he was born was likely a Kurd, yet he maintained he was a Turk, wrote much the same much earlier. He died in 1924, so the following summary by the Israeli scholar Uriel Heyd had to refer to material written before then:

The ancient Turks were, according to Gokalp, distinguished by a multitude of excellent qualities: open-handed hospitality, modesty, faithfulness, courage, uprightness and so forth. Especially praiseworthy was their attitude to the peoples subdued by them. Strong as their love was for their own people, remarks Gokalp with astonishing naivete, they did not oppress other nations. Their God was a god, of peace and the whole object of their rulers was to establish a regime of peace. Devoid of all imperialistic ambitions, the great Turkish conquerors in ancient times only sought to unite other Turkish tribes only. 

Source: 

Heyd, Uriel. "Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: The Life andTeachings of Ziya Gökalp." (Luzac & Company Ltd., 1950) pp. 113.

So now you know part of the reason why most Turks cannot imagine that Turkish imperialism exists today or has ever existed in the past. Don't let the fake secular, Turkish hucksters convince you that this mythos was invented recently by Tayyip Edrdogan and that Kemalists are somehow different.

[1] A very educated and informed Armenian-American that knows Turkish and who used to debate Turkish ultra-nationalists and genocide denialists on usenet back way back in the 1980's and early 1990's when it is was populated mostly by university students posting under their real names. Now you can read his erudite comments on Armenia, Turkish-Armenian relations on his public Disqus comment profile.

           

Turkey, the lowest figures out of the OECD nations in educational attainment

Turkey has the lowest figures in the OECD for education attainment. In 2009, the last figures available, only 18.3% finished upper secondary schooling(high school).[1] Further, the population of Turkey that is totally illiterate, is roughly the size of Denmark's population at 5.6 million.[2] In addition to all that, according to a poll almost 70% of Turks said they never read a book in their whole lives and 9 out of 10 never took a single holiday abroad(meaning they are poor, provincial and ignorant)![3] Adding to their humilitation, 10 million Greeks publish almost twice as many new title books every year, compared to 74+ million Turk-rab-Kurds of Turkey.[4] Worst of all, 21.1% of Turks nationally are inbred retards![5]

[1.http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education-attainment_5kg22xq5cfxp.pdf?contentType=&itemId=/content/chapter/factbook-2011-85-en&containerItemId=/content/serial/18147364&accessItemIds=&mimeType=application/pdf
[2.] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/23/turks-xenophobic-conservative-poll
[4.] Coming soon
[5.] Pubmed.gov: Consanguineous marriage in Turkey and its impact on fertility and mortality: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7864588
Though better to cite the previous blog post

7 years of education only in Turkey:
http://istanbulnotes.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/learning-not-to-trust-the-oecd-on-turkish-education/

The Young Lack Human Capital:
http://betam.bahcesehir.edu.tr/en/archives/1041
The data from the Household Labor Force Survey 2009, released by TurkStat, show that only 50.4 percent of young women and 57.1 percent of young men are enrolled in school.

25% Of Children Are Poor

Turks love to bluster about their country, the reality is that despite the alleged AKP economic miracle, Turkey and Turks are still desperately poor.

Bahcesehir University Center for Economic and Social Research (Betam): ONE IN EVERY FOUR CHILDREN IS POOR (PDF)

April 22, 2013

...

We use[d] the Survey of Income and Living Conditions 2006 and 2010 to study material deprivation, as measured by access to basic needs of nutrition, heating and clothing, of children between the ages of 0 and 15. The variables used are the ability to “eat meat, chicken or fish every other day”, “keep home adequately warm” and “afford new (not second-hand) clothes” respectively. Children who live in households that do not have the ability to meet any of these basic needs are defined to be poor children. According to this definition, 4.6 million children, i.e. one in every four children, are materially deprived (Table 1).

When we look at the basic needs separately, we see that 40.3 percent of all children who live in Turkey live in households that cannot keep their homes adequately warm and 40.8 percent of children cannot afford new clothes. 12.5 million children are not able to consume meat, chicken or fish every other day, i.e. their nutritional needs are not met. Given that two out of three children do not have access to main sources of protein, we can conclude that these children cannot have a healthy diet.

There have been significant improvements from 2006 to 2010. Share of materially deprived children decreased from 34.7 percent to 24.4 percent. Looking at the components of material deprivation, it is clear that the improvement stems from the clothing item. The share of children who cannot afford new clothes fell from 60.2 percent to 40.8 percent. One can guess that this striking improvement is a result of the decrease in the relative price of textiles. There has been some improvement in heating and in nutrition, albeit smaller.

...

Data points to stark regional differences. ... An overview reveals that child poverty deepens as we move from the western to the eastern regions. ...

One in every three children is materially deprived in East Black Sea and Northeast Anatolia. However, child poverty is more widespread in Southeast Anatolia. 42.1 percent of children who live in Southeast Anatolia are materially deprived. To reiterate, 1 million 200 thousand children in Southeast Anatolia cannot meet their basic needs as measured by nutrition, heating and clothing.

... 66.9 percent of children living in Turkey cannot eat meat, chicken or fish every other day. Even in the most privileged regions, such as Istanbul (57.4 percent) and Central Anatolia (55.6 percent), more than half of the children cannot satisfy their basic nutritional needs. In Southeast Anatolia, 80 percent of children cannot.

In Turkey, 40.3 percent of children live in households that cannot heat their homes adequately. Even though the share of children in such homes are lower in the western regions, in Istanbul, Central East and Southeast Anatolia, almost half of the children live in homes that are not adequately heated.

Moreover, 40 percent of children cannot replace their old clothes with new ones. This is more common in Mediterranean, East Black Sea and Central East Anatolia. In Northeast Anatolia and Southeast Anatolia, more than half of the children cannot afford new clothes.

...

Kemalism: Legal And Media Engineering To Develop An Ultra-Nationalist Population

Turks with very few exceptions are proud ultra-nationalist lunatics. Their state is structured by their war criminal military regime who act as overseers of the state ideology of Kemalism, the Turkish equivalent to the ridiculous North Korean Juche Idea. This is changing slightly in the present as the success of the Islamic oriented AKP Party has allowed them to  route out the traditional Kemalist deep state, media and other organs and replace it with their plants. However, they just want those who are more oriented into Sunni Islamic bigotry to control the state ideology, not abandon it or reform. Turks are fanatic nationalists because Kemalist ideology structures them to be so. This relatively old source from 1995 still holds largely true in most aspects:

Official ideology: Turkey is the only European State to have, written into its Constitution, an official ideology. This is based on: "the concept of nationalism and the principles and reforms brought about by Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic, immortal guide and incomparable hero".

According to the Preamble to the Constitution "no opinion or thought can expect to receive any protection as against Turkish National interests, the principle of the indivisibility of the Turkish national entity, its State and its territory, the historical and spiritual values, inherent in the Turkish people or the nationalism, principles reforms and modernism of Ataturk".[1]

THE MEDIA:
On the Official State Ideology's Service

Foreigners passing through Turkey or observers critical of certain political aspects of the country, are often shocked by the ultra-nationalist and militarist content of the principle Turkish media and the virulence of the press campaigns they orchestrate. At the same time they notice that certain media don't hesitate to criticise on or other of the Ministers or even the Prime Minister. To understand the Turkish system one must bear in mind that, apart from some publications of the Left or islamic opposition, the principle Turkish media are at the disposal of the State and its official nationalist ideology (Ataturkism).

The political police (MIT) and the General Staff, who have a whole network of influential "honourable correspondents" constantly keep watch over what they consider "the superior interests of the State" and launch orchestrated press campaigns against "the internal and external enemies of the country". Amongst the more famous victims of their campaigns: Nelson Mandela, "guilty" of having refused an Ataturk Peace Prize, which seemed to him rather out of place in a country that was martyrising its Kurdish population; Mrs Mitterrand, Senator Kennedy, the German Social-Democratic Party leader R. Scharping etc... Their network covering the media is sufficiently subtle to allow each paper to have some liberal editorial writers who criticise official policy from the standpoint of another idea of "patriotism". Those who cross the thin red line(criticism of Ataturk or of nationalism, defense of the Kurds) are promptly sacked, like Koray Düzgören from Hurriyet, Ahmet Altan from Milliyet or Ismet Imset of the Turkish Daily News — often following a simple phone call from an official of the Joint Forces General Staff.

Concentration of ownership also helps ensure a more efficient control of the media. Two groups share the bulk of the market. The Dogan Group, with the two mass circulation dailies Hurriyet and Milliyet, each of which has its own television network, and the Ding Group whose main standard bearers are the two dailies Sabah and Yeni Yuzyil as well as the ATV television network. The industrialists who control these two groups also have large interests in sectors which depend heavily on State and Army contracts. The General Staff, also regularly calls the Managing Directors of the newspapers and television stations for "briefings" in which they are told how to treat matters affecting national interests and defense. It is, for example, "inadvisable" to publish anything on "events in the South-East" (Kurdistan) apart from official Army communiques.

Finally, by a very generous policy of subsidies and loans on advantageous terms, the Government has been able to ensure the support of these media and their huge audience. The police and the courts can be left to stifle the few dissident voices, like the pro-Kurdish Ozgur Grundem, which was banned after the assassination of ten of its journalists and the blowing up of its premises by the police.

Despite the diversity of papers, publications, radios and televisions, those that really form public opinion are, with a few rare exceptions at the disposal of the State, its security organs and its official ideology. The "organs" only have to whistle and this powerful brain-washing machine gets under way to denigrate or vilify any opponent judged too iconoclastic, or to present as an enemy of the Turkish nation any foreign personality who dares to criticise excess of the Turkish Army or Courts or express a wish for an improvement in the fate of the Kurds in Turkey.[2]

Sources:
[1.]The International Committee for the Liberation of the Kurdish Parliamentarians Imprisoned in Turkey(CILOEKT). Which Turkey for Which Europe(PDF). (December 1995) p.  8.
[2.] Ibid., p. 10.

The main difference is that in the present those who are against the AKP regime are complained against over the phone, fined, jailed, taken to court and otherwise silenced by the AKP regime, and not the militarists of the Turkish General Staff as in the past.

5.6 Million Illiterates, More Than The Total Population of Denmark

Bianet: 4.7 Million Illiterate Women in Turkey
Burçin BELGE
25 August 2010, Wednesday 11:34

...

According to data compiled by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) based on the 2008 Household Workforce Inquiry, a total of 5.647 million people older than 15 years are illiterate. There are 4.742 million women and 932,000 men who are not able to read or write. Thus, the percentage of illiterate women amounts to 84 percent within this group.

...

The report was prepared by researchers Assoc. Prof. Gökçe Uysal Kolaşin and Duygu Güner from the Bahçeşehir University Economic and Social Research Centre (Istanbul).

...

Gender discrimination persists in education

...

- ... The disadvantages situation of women is not confined to a specific age group. 79 percent of all illiterate women are aged between 15 and 24 years. ...

- Illiteracy is a huge obstacle for the integration into social life. ...

- The number of illiterate women amounts to almost one tenth of the Turkish population. ...

- ... The vast majority of these women are being pushed out of economic life. Only a small minority is employed and 97 percent of these women work off the record.

- Most illiterate women cannot benefit from a stronger integration into economic life since they work as unpaid family workers.

- The situation of illiterate men looks better in comparison. Still, one third of them are self-employed and the remaining male illiterates are facing high rates of unemployment. (BB/VK)

For reference of comparison, in the third quarter of 2013, Denmark, had a population of 5,608,784. Thus the number of illiterates in Turkey is greater than the entire population of Denmark.

Here is the more detailed abstract by the Bahcesehir University Center for Economic and Social Research(Betam):
4 Million 742 Thousand Women Are Illiterate (PDF)

Related blog post:
Turks don't read: only 1 out of 10,000 are regular readers