Oktay Eksi: The commotion in Sincan
Güncelleme Tarihi:
You might all remember the mayor of Sincan, Bekir Yildiz, the man who invited the then-Iranian Ambassador to Ankara as the guest of honor at his city's version of "Jerusalem Day," a radical celebration that was first started by the Ayatollah Khomenei? Well, there is now a high school teacher from Sincan who appears to be following in the footsteps of Bekir Yildiz. You might have read about Tarik Sezai Karatepe and his cell phone messages in yesterday's Hurriyet. He scared his students into giving him their cell numbers, and then used the numbers to send messages like the following, which was propaganda about the traditional school ball:
"This is a communist activity. Let's say no to communist activities. There will be much chaos there.
Girls and boys will be mixed. Tell your friends."
This teacher would sign his messages "What happiness to be a Muslim," and would swear at the names of Ataturk and other important secular Turkish leaders in front of his classes. He even reportedly signed up some of his students for the youth version of the religiously radical Saadet Party, but without their knowledge. In short, we are talking here about a high school teacher who was working as an active religious militant.
But for two years, our administration, which is charged with the protection of secularity, and our National Education Ministry, whose job it is to guarantee a secular education, did nothing about Karatepe's activities.
If you ask me what all the commotion is about, I have to admit, it's hard to find an answer. Because we are, after all, living in a Turkey run by a Prime Minister who has said "I am not secular, but I am in the position of protecting secularity." And then there is National Education Minister Huseyin Celik; you know, the one who signed up poor, hard-working students who were studying at a boarding school for disadvantaged primary schoolers for entrance in the religious high school system. Yes, we are talking about a Minister of Education who can't even behave honestly with students. We have a National Education Ministry which encourages school celebrations of "Sacred Birth Week," which opened up a letter-writing contest entitled "Letter to our Prophet," which has removed certain teachers from the Mersin school system for teaching Darwinism. Yes, looking over this all, I suppose it's really not worth the commotion over Tarik Sezai Karatepe.