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"They taught us how great Turkey is"
29.8.2006
By Vladimir van Wilgenburg, Journalist, Netherlands
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Can you introduce
yourself to our readers?
My nickname is Hiwa, I was born in a village in
southern Kurdistan, but raised in Halabja and lived
there till 1995. Except the three years from
1988-1991, when we were unable to go be in Halabja.
I have just finished my degree in computing at the
University of Leeds. Currently I live in Leeds in
UK.
How did you end up at a Turkish school in Hawler?
What did they teach you? Was the education good? In
what time was this?
Hawler. Fezalar Egitim, which is a Turkish
educational company, opened it's first school in
Hawler in 1994. A year later we heard through the
Nur Islamic group, which had people in Halabja, that
there is a private school. This school accepted
students with high marks. We also heard that the
first round of assessments are over, but there was a
late second round and I was taken to Hawler by my
eldest brother. So I entered Erbil Ishik Private
College in 1995 and I finished it in 1999.
These schools are probably the best schools in the
Middle East, if not better than some European
schools as well. They care about every detail of the
school from the school buildings to the books. They
assess students and pupils and they only accept the
best amongst them. The main education language is
English, but Turkish, Kurdish and Arabic are
languages which are also studied. Great care is
given to teaching Turkish, as some of the teachers
struggle with teaching in pure English.
With your school, you also made a visit to
Turkey, what did you see there? And what happened
there?
Well these visits were kind of holiday trips for us,
accompanied by either parents or teachers from
Hawler. I was not in the first trip, but I was
amongst a 12 student group trip to Turkey and went
to different towns and cities in Turkey by a rather
uncomfortable bus. There is a town near Ankara
called Polatli, that's were they used to that there
is their base for "our schools in Hawler" . So the
first place to go and stay was at one of those
school dorms and from there I went around the
country.
The first thing we saw were villas of rich people
whom they used to call "business brothers". They
said that say these are the people, who sponsor our
schools and they would like to see what have we
achieved. Then some official visits and once there
was a rumour that we were to see [Correction] the
then Prime Minister Tansu ?iller and we all said "no
we would like to go around town" as typical
teenagers. But we met the MP of Amed (Diyarbekir)
and I think he took some photos as well.
And off course we made a January trip to Turkey,
which meant a freezing cold Ankara and snowy roads
in northern Kurdistan. So apart from indoor
entertainment, that would never include going even
close to a cinema. There was no proper fun really!
Where you also confronted with Turkish nationalist
ideology in your trip? And did you visit Turkish
national monuments like Ataturk's grave? How did you
experience these visits?
Almost all visits to Turkey had to include a visit
to Ataturk's grave, so called (Anit Kabir) and we
paid a visit, too. I must say when I went I rose my
hands to the air, I used to pray back then, so from
the bottom of my heart I said to Allah "may Allah
fill his grave with fire!" in Arabic.
We even were taken to the F-16 factory to see how
Turkey makes such fighter jets which are currently
used in bombing Qandil mountains in southern
Kurdistan leaving from their bases in Amed.
In the 1997 trip when we were attending the
chemistry competition, on the day of the awards
ceremony, the presenter shouted "The Future will be
Turk's" and I was sitting next to my teacher and
shouted at him "bullshit!". They used to introduce
as to their sponsors or authorities as Turkified
Kurds! I fought over this to the end of my education
and they made me make a mess out of their so-called
graduation ceremony in my final year due to their
racial discrimination!
I used to like the visits as a teenager, but I can
very well remember experiencing racial
discrimination and hear racial remarks which we used
to argue over for hours. They used to convince us
that they have to do these things for the sake of
the schools' future.
What was the general feeling amongst the students
in those Turkish schools?
There were different feelings, but the pro-Turkey
Turkmen feeling was high and the pure Kirmanj
(Hawleri) feelings off course was that the "Turks
are invaders and they are here to Turkify". But for
me it was to get the best education and then said
good bye to the school which was 100% different to
my background.
Who is behind these schools? Do PUK/KDP tolerate
these schools? Do they still exist? If they do
exist, why you think the KRG tolerates them? What
does the Turkish intelligence service have to do
with it? (MIT)
Fethullah Gulen is said to be behind all these
educational institutes, print houses and even
hospitals around Turkey and around the world. The
support from KDP/PUK has never been greater and they
used to have 24-hour electricity while entire Hawler
was in the dark. They have the best of Hawler
buildings in the best position in Hawler and they
used to invite officials as high as then-PM Dr Rozh
Nuri and Kosrat Rasul the president of KRG. I don't
know why they are tolerated, but I don't think it
was a planned and calculated tolerance. They still
exist and they now have two schools in Hawler, two
in Slemani and they are now opening one in Kirkuk
with a language centre in Hawler.
I have no concrete evidence about the MIT
involvement, but for our 1997 competition we were
taken to the border and a sergeant in the army
helped us get through the Turkish custom with no
passports. When we came back to Ibrahim Khalil
border, we were put in a dark windowed 4X4. The
driver only lowered the window to say "Merhaba" to
the Turks and "Roj Bash" to the Kurdish peshmarga on
each side of the border. I think those two words
were two passports for three of us.
Were these schools Islamist?
They don't deny this. They teach Islam and they have
hundreds of books in the library in Ishik College
and they are proud of it. They all pray and they are
not ashamed or afraid of telling anyone about it. I
remember studying the Islamic history, just as we
used to do in the mainstream schools in the
Kurdistani schools. The difference off course, was
history were to be taught in Turkish and by a
Turkish teacher!
What did these schools do with your view of
Turks?
The question needs a story to tell, but I can say
that I am grateful because I know them from inside
out. I am no longer a Kurd who just happens to be
sceptical and cautious about Turks and Turkey. I am
a person who knows a bit about their history and
knows enough about their language and culture. I
cannot be differentiated from a Turk with a bit of
accent, if I want too. I know why they are there and
it's nothing more than teaching naive pupils in
southern Kurdistan how great Turkey, the Ottoman and
the Turkish people are, but that the Turkish
political system is secular and bad.
According to the Turkish liberal news paper Sabah
(2001) people are taught to hate Ataturk in
Fethallah Gulen's schools. Is this true? What do you
think about Fethallah Gulen?
Well this is quite natural because Ataturk is a
little bit loved by the west, because he was the
only person who destroyed Islamic culture, rule and
political movements in the 20th century. Not only
Fethullah and his group, but also all other Islamic
movements in the Middle East think Atat?rk destroyed
the legacy of the largest Islamic empire.
This doesn't mean that the school ideas are pure
Islamic ideas; they are there to serve the greater
Turkish nation and Said Nursi's (Sheik Said Kurdi)
path in a version modified by Fethullah Gulen.
http://vladimirkurdistan.blogspot.com
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