New School Books for Peace and Equality

A collaborative project of the History Foundation (TV) and the Turkish Human Rights Foundation (TIHV) has resulted in a report entitled “Human Rights in School Books”.

Only 11 books "cleared"

This was the second time that school books were scanned for problematic passages. 139 primary school books (from year 1 to 8) were examined for militarist, nationalist, unscientific, gender biased and racist passages.

At a press briefing in Beyoğlu, Dr. Gürel Tüzün of the History Foundation said, “Human rights violations start in school books.”

He added, “The results show that primary school books are problematic in content.”

The project began in August 2007. 139 books, which had been revised under recent curriculum changes were examined. Only 11 books, that is eight percent, were found to be unproblematic.

Tüzel said that project found that books:

• did not develop critical perspectives
• contained mistakes, sometimes deliberate ones, and ignored other issues
• were problematic in terms of creating an “us-them” mentality and not promoting peaceful values
• did not develop a democratic conscience or laicism
• were biased in terms of the gender roles assigned to women

He added that the school books often contained subjective opinions and often referred to “higher authorities” such as Atatürk or Allah.

Overemphasis of "national values"

The report criticised, for instance, that pupils were constantly being reminded of the War of Independence, the flag, Atatürk and similar “national values”.

The nationalist discourse in many books meant, so Tüzel,  that children were being taught that only “we” have “national values”, thus elevating a nationalist mindset by denigrating other societies and cultures.

Creationism and Sunni indoctrination

Another issue was that a creationist perspective was being presented as a scientific concept in biology classes.

The most problematic book was found to be the Religious Culture and Ethics book.

“This lesson continues to be based not on a religious studies curriculum but on theology, and here the aim is to teach Sunni Islam beliefs.”

The curriculum of this lesson, as well as the obligation to attend it, has often been criticised by Alevis, who argued that it represented an indoctrination in one religion only.

Curriculum needs to be demilitarised

Project coordinator Gamze Rezan Sarısen then called for the curricula to be reviewed according to the international agreements that Turkey has signed. She also called for an abolition of the “National Security Class”, in which children are taught by military personnel, and for a demilitarised curriculum.

Peace education and critical thought

Turks and other identities should be shown as integrated subjects, and there should be an emphasis on peace education. Pupils should learn conflict resolution techniques, observing all sides, as well as a culture of debate. A course on human rights should be offered as a separate lesson.

The report also proposed that the “Thinking Education” offered as an elective one-hour lesson in classes 6 yo 8 should become obligatory and be increased to two hours a week.

The activists called on Turkey to withdraw their qualifications to their signature of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in order to offer different groups the right to education variety in religion, ethnicity and mother tongue.

A mindset that can create murderers

Tüzün criticised the fact that literature extracts of Kurdish, Armenian,  Jewish and other non-Turkish writers did not feature in books, and that everyone was automatically considered to be heterosexual.

He reminded the audience of a sentence by Rakel Dink, widow of murdered journalist Hrant Dink. She had referred to “the darkness which makes murderers out of babies”.

The project workers have decided to create a hotline where teachers, pupils and parents can give notice of further violations. (BÇ/AG)