[Originally published in Hurriyet Daily News]
This week, Turkey’s Education Personnel Labor Union, or Eğitim Bir-Sen, revealed a survey that mapped out the political attitudes in Turkish society. Bookishly titled, “Otherness in Turkey as a Common Identity,” the research focused on how people identified themselves in this society and how they looked at other identities.
People were asked what they called themselves first. Fully 52 percent said that they were “Turkish first.” Another 33 percent were “Muslim first.” Those who opted for “Kurdish first” were a modest 5 percent, nicely equaling the votes of the successive pro-Kurdish political parties.
Atatürkists and Kurds
The more interesting part of the survey was the political categories that people identified with. The most popular tags were “democrat” and “nationalist,” which were equally shared by 22 percent of the population. After that, 17 percent defined themselves as “Atatürkist” and 10 percent preferred to be called “Islamist.”
Interestingly, the “Atatürkists” turned out to be the least supportive of the reforms to broaden Kurdish rights. They, for example, gave the lowest support to the 24-hour official Kurdish-language television channel TRT 6 that the government opened two years ago.
Similarly, the “Atatürkists” outperformed every other political category, including the self-declared “Turkish nationalists,” in their opposition to “teaching of mother tongues in schools.” Only 38 percent of the “Atatürkists” supported this right, in contrast to 75 percent of the “leftists,” 70 percent of the “democrats” and 63 percent of the “Islamists.”
The “Atatürkists,” in other words, were the least tolerant group in Turkey when it comes to cultural diversity.
But this was a surprising result (at least for the uninitiated foreigner) because the “Atatürkists” were also the more educated part of society. The survey underlined this paradoxical relation between “the level of education” and “the support for the democratic opening” for Kurdish rights: “As the level of education falls, the number of those who see the democratic opening as a positive step increases. Conversely, as the level of education rises, the number of those who see the democratic opening as positive declines.”
As I said, this might be surprising to foreigners, particularly Westerners, who tend to presume that “education” and “liberal values” go hand in hand. That is indeed the case in Western countries, as the liberals often constitute the more educated part of society, while you find xenophobia and cultural monism in the less educated classes.
So, one wonders, why Turkey is so exceptional?
The answer might be in the education system. In the West, education is designed mainly to raise critical and democratic-minded individuals. But Turkish education, from primary school to universities (yes, even the universities), is designed to raise generations “loyal to the principles and revolutions of Atatürk.”
Unfortunately, those “principles and revolutions” don’t include concepts such as individual freedom, cultural diversity, and, alas, even democracy. (In case you haven’t noticed, Atatürk has a zillion sayings about nationalism, secularism or “republicanism,” but hardly anything on democracy.)
That’s why a mind shaped by the Turkish education system, unless tainted by some other factor, will be a staunch nationalist, secularist, and “republicanist” — but hardly a liberal or democrat.
Ignorance via education
Such “educated” Turks also have a staggering level of ignorance about the realities of Turkey. (Theirs is, in the words of the late thinker Celal Yalınız, “an ignorance that is possible only with education.”) Most of them simply don’t accept the existence of Kurds as a people or Kurdish as a language. They also believe that such “lies” are promoted only by those “who want to divide Turkey into pieces.”
The education system is really the key. From age 7 to 18, a Turkish student hears the word “Kurdish” only once: When he learns about the “The Society for Kurdish Advancement,” as one of the “treacherous organizations” that arose in the final years of the Ottoman Empire. (The take-away message is that “Kurd” is something treacherous.)
Similarly, the word “Kurdistan” appears only once in Turkish textbooks: as an article in the infamous Treaty of Sevres (of 1920), which divided Turkey into pieces. Hence, every Turkish graduate knows that Sevres is the ultimate evil, and “Kurdistan” is nothing but a part of it. So, he can’t stand to even hear that word – even if it is used to name the regional government in northern Iraq or to define an ethno-geographic region, as was done for centuries.
Furthermore, the same “educated” Turks also believe that their co-nationals who question such national myths are either paid agents of the “imperialists” who want to destroy Turkey or wild-eyed Islamists who yearn for “the darkness of the middle ages.”
Beware of the feistiness of such “educated” Turks, I would suggest. But, please, also forgive them: for they really know not what they do.
This might interest you.
A well known American historian, James Loewen found a similar pattern in US education during the Viet-Nam war: the more History classes a person had taken the more likely he or she was to support the war. Since this was is overwhelmingly seen today as a mistake, one must conclude that more history classes make people wrong.
Indeed, Loewen finds that educating the students to be patriotic Americans was an openly stated goal of the authors of most history books he studies.
Another similarity: Loewen focused on the treatment of two minorities, Blacks and Indians, and argues that they are systematically presented in a negative and inaccurate light. A key insight is that no one ever does anything wrong in an American history book. Slavery “Just happened” and is not unmentioned until it is abolished in the 1860s. The racial views of virulently racist individuals are also never mentioned. In the few times negative events are mentioned, it is always in the passive voice, eg. The Cree Indians were driven from Georgia, rather than A. Jackson drove the Cree Indians from Georgia or White Colonists drove the Cree Indians.
The reason I bring this up is that I have often reflected on Leowen’s work in the context of Turkish history. The parallels are obvious: a whitewashed history, suppressed roles of minorities, hero worship (another theme of Loewen). Indeed, to me, Turkish history is a replay of that of the US, with Kurds and Armenians in the role of Blacks and Indians, respectively.
Perhaps reading about how US history is distorted might help Turks come to terms with their own history? If so, I suggest the following two titles to my Turkish friends:
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, James W. Loewen
Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong, James W. Loewen
52 percent said they were turkish first? I do find that to be a suprising figure
Here is another manipulative piece by Mr. Akyol. I have a feeling that this demagoguery will never end. It just keeps coming and coming.
So based on the statistics, the details of which one can find above, tells us that the “Ataturkists were the least tolerant group in Turkey when it comes to cultural diversity.”??? Only Erdogan could have made such a sweeping uneducated black and white generalization based on such a simple statistic. This logic is extremely dangerous. (Remember the AKP’s rhetoric before the referendum? Those who voted yes were labeled as democrats, and those who voted no were labeled as fascists).
The statistics you provided tells us that those who identify themselves as Ataturkists are the least supportive of the reform programs aimed at improving the rights of the Kurdish people. It does not tell us anything else as you claim. In order to make such an inference (that a certain segment of the population is “the least tolerant to cultural diversity”) one needs to make a comparative analysis by providing a lot more data and statistics than the simple ones you provided. Is this segment equally intolerant to other ethnicities, sub-cultures, groups and etc.? or is this group simply intolerant to Kurds? If that is the case, why is this so? Are their statements contextual? There are so many other questions that can be raised if the purpose of the survey is to answer the question of whether or not Ataturkists are intolerant. So stop making manipulative inferences as if we cannot read and understand statistics.
Also how do you know that “such educated” Turks do not accept the existence of Kurds as people or Kurdish as a language? and that those who believe so are ignorant? Where do you get this information? Your columnist friends you trust and sympathize?
and how can you claim that “such Turks” who are the products of the very same educational system you went through remained so ignorant, and you did not? Were you special? Were you smarter than others? Did you somehow find a way to intellectual salvation but did not share with others? or perhaps, it is God given. No one is created equally as Erdogan claims, right? Where does this unjustified arrogance come from? Are you becoming a mini-Erdogan as he gets politically stronger?
Another interesting article which I agree with and have seen from my own experience living in Turkey.
It is of course evident that not all ‘educated’ Turks hold such backward and ignorant ideas but unfortunately there are many who wince and seem disgusted by the word ‘Kurdistan’ and see it fit to be racist either overtly or covertly to the Kurdish minority. But this of course is a minority happily enough and it please me to see that the majority of people voted for mother languages to be taught in schools, this is a positive step in integrating the culture and identity of minorities into the Turkish state.