More Democracy For Turkish Schools

Turkish schools do not allocate special spaces for the students -or for the staff members to do their prayers. Even though this secular rule has been breached for a long time in practice, Turkish Republic never responded to the religion based demands in official level and this situation has always been a big issue of criticism.

Those people who self-claim to be the spokesperson of the Muslim population has been harshly accusing Turkish Republic for being an infidel state who persecutes the oppressed Muslim public of the nation for every single implementation of the state which does not match with the Sheria laws.

Turkish Republic was founded in extremely hard conditions, and an Islam based opposition has always been a strong obstacle. Therefore, the Turkish regime has always seen the Islamic opposition as a direct threat to her own existence, and guarded herself accordingly. It is very clear that the never-ending harsh tone of the political Islam did not help the situation, causing the secular Turkish Republic to be very sensitive against any kind of Islamic demands. To be honest, the global political winds were for the favor of the Republic, so the demands for a more Islamic Turkish Republic was considered to be a minor issue, or a problem which can be controlled.

The situation started to change by the end of Cold War and reached its peak point by the year 2000, with the rise of AK Party. Even though the demands for a more Islamic country didn’t change, the reasoning behind such demands shifted, and the words infidel state and atrocity were exchanged with the words liberation and democracy. As a matter of fact, the confusion of democratic demands with the Islamic demands was not experienced for the first time in the relatively short history of the Republic, and the current situation may be considered as a consecution of the prior political waves, but I will skip this matter for the sake of a shorter article.
Now Turkish Republic was simply caught off-guarded. It was (and still is) very true that there was (and still is) a lot of room for the Republic to improve herself for a more democratic country, and the timing for such an improvement couldn't be any better thanks to the new global world order constantly forces the whole world to a seemingly more democratic level.

The old school defend mechanism of the Turkish Republic is not working any more. The words democracy and liberation are everywhere, and these words are in a way immune from any kind of criticism, providing a perfect shelter for every kind of political demand. Those people who dare to question these demands are blamed to be non-democratic elitists in no time. Measures against these so called elitists sometimes resemble a fascist oppression, but ironically all these measures are taken for the sake of democracy, so it is almost a sin to argue the matter.

Nobody argues the need for a true democracy in Turkey, but it should be seriously argued whether all the demands match with democracy or not; or rather if the so called new democrats are true democrats who care for the demands of the public in all aspects.

The demand to open prayer rooms in Turkish schools is still an issue of controversy, but nowadays people want them not because they think not-having prayer rooms is an atrocity, but because having them is a democratic right. Or sometimes we see this demand as a perfect solution to protect the young generations, as it was the case not very long ago.

But of course, the political Islam is also affected from the global tides and they don’t ask the prayer rooms only for the Muslims but for all other religious groups, too. Hence, with a population of 99.99% Muslims, it is pretty clear that such an implementation would practically cover the Islamic demands which Turkish Republic had been hearing all the time, but of course, this time for a seemingly different cause. However, lets first analyze the multi-cultural and multi-religious aspect of this "democratic demand."

Even though there is an immense ethnical diversion in Anatolian soils, the populations of "minorities" are really minor when compared with other multi-cultural societies. I am not saying this to try to belittle the minorities in Turkey, but to underline the fact that it would be very hard to try to please every religious groups in Turkish schools. Because, with the exception of few schools specially designed for minor ethnicities, the number of students from a non-Muslim group in any given high school wouldn’t be more than 10 or 20, if there are any. So what will be the criteria to open a prayer room for any religious group? Will 10 students be enough, or 5, or only 1? And what if the criteria is for 10 students but there are only 9 students from a religion? Or what if, the criteria is for 5 students, and there are like 6 students this year but only 4 students the next year?

And, are all the religions will be covered by this democratic right? And what about the sects? Is the government going to allow a special prayer room for every sect of every religion, or will they tend to ignore the sects claiming that they are the parts of the bigger picture, as the ruling AK Party tend to approach the Alevi population in Turkey. Or, is the conservative democratic AK Party going to allow every religious democratic demand or only the religions which worship the True God? Are they going to allow Budist rooms if Budist students demand for it? Or, is the government going to allow a special prayer room for every religion that human can count? I don't know if anyone has counted but there must be hundreds of different religions in the world. Or as an extreme case scenario, it is not a big secret that Satanism sometimes becomes very popular in a portion of the society, and sometimes the number of kids who claim to be Satanists outnumber any other sub groups. Will the government allow cat killing sessions in schools for the sake of democracy, or will they suddenly remember there should be some limits, for any of the questions which took place in this paragraph?

Talking about democracy and liberation always sounds good in public, but the so called "democratic" implementations may cause more problems then expected if they are not handled rationally. I do not suggest that Turkish Republic or any other republic in that aspect should ignore any religion based questions, but I am suggesting that trying to find a solution outside the school yards and leaving schools for educational purposes as they should would be a far better idea.

But lets put aside the extreme examples and lets think about the most possible typical situation in Turkish schools if such an implementation takes place: In most of the schools there will only be Namaz rooms because there won't be any other religious groups who demand a special prayer room in their schools. Even though this self-elimination of diversity simplifies the problem to some extent, I don’t think it is any nearer to a real solution.

First of all, if it is a matter of finding a place for a prayer for the Muslim students in Turkey, it would be enough for them to take 500 steps outside of their schoolyards to find a mosque. If they can't find any mosques in 500 steps, just make it 1000 steps and there is no way they can't find a mosque then. So perhaps, a regulation to allow these children to go to a nearby mosque might pretty much solve the problem. But of course, there will be people who object this kind of a solution, saying that there will never be enough time for the students to attend both the mosque and the classes, and it is the best if the children do their prayers in school, which also happens to be the basis of another problem.

Prayer times are not fixed in Islam, and they change due to sun's movements. So the same prayer time shifts approximately one minute per day forward or backward depending on the season. So, even if we allocate special prayer rooms for the students to practice Namaz, we won't be able to solve the timing problem, and there will always be a time when the class time and the Namaz time collide . Unless of course, you don't regulate the class times constantly in order to prevent such a collision.

Of course, demanding such a regulation may also be considered as a democratic demand and school times may be arranged due to prayer times. This is democracy, and this is what the public wants, so what is wrong with that? At least, this is what the new democrats of old conservatives would tell you. But it is indeed wrong. The first problem here is, it is very clear that you don't try to fulfill a democratic demand anymore but make regulations due to Islam, which is against the secularism concept. Samewise, you are also making changes due to the demands of a group of students (and also their parents), ignoring the opinions of other people outside of this group, which is against the democracy concept. And this is wrong as long as you claim that you are trying to change Turkey for a better democracy.

As a matter of fact, the practical problems which will be encountered if religion based "democratic" demands are tried to be compelled have a second degree of importance. The important problem as I see here is the mindset of the people who constantly associate democratic demands with religious demands and ignore every other social notion. Yes, prayer rooms might still be considered within the democracy, and a dedicated mind can actually find the best solution for the practical problems to be encountered. But however, should this really be the priority of a government who claim to be the most democratic? In an average state school in Turkey, the average number of students who have to share the same class room is not less then 50, unless of course, the parents are not rich enough to send their children to a private and expensive school. So, are there any people in the current AK Party government who work hard day and night to bring a solution to this problem?

A Muslim boy can always find a place for Namaz in a way or other, but what about a music genius who creates miracles in front of a piano? Can such a student be able to find a place to play a piano that easily? I am afraid that such a child will most probably grow old even maybe without seeing a real piano, without given such an opportunity.

Yes, religion is a very important social and psychological aspect which tames the souls and keeps our young generations away from trouble. But what about sports, which will help them spend their excessive energy if nothing else? I used to see some ads in Istanbul streets which the municipality run by AK Party was bragging with the number of new sports facilities they have opened. This is actually a great service for the public and I cannot deny that, but what good is it for if it is not supported by related politics so that students are actually encouraged to do sports? Are there any one in the AK Party government who works hard day and night to bring a solution to that problem? Looking at the failure of Turkish Republic in the last Olympic Games in Beijing, I don’t think that there is.

My point here is, a more democratic Turkey should of course be encouraged, or even be "pushed" towards that destination -if "push" is the right word for it, but however what we see nowadays in Turkey reminds me the cunning merchant who wraps the old goods with a new and eye-catching paper. What's more, the cunning merchant runs such a brilliant PR campaign that everybody believes that he is selling a brand new product, and those people who try to tell what the real situation is about are oppressed by every kind of accusations.

Turkish Republic is still against the very old demands regarding political Islam. It wouldn’t look that bad if the demanders and the implementers who widely happen to be the same people could draw a sincere picture about their democratic claims and ask democracy for everybody, but unfortunately for the republic, they seem to be seeking the democratic rights of the "conservative" population only, completely ignoring the rest of the society.

Of course, people realize the real situation when they go home and open the fancy box, and perhaps the go back and ask for their money, but in socio-political events, reversing back things may not be that easy.