Turkey’s Government & Education

As an applicant to the European Union, EU, Turkey receives billions of euros. One respected and energetic colleague in Gaziantep managed a program that took students to France for a few weeks. The students lived with French families and learned French culture, sponsored by an EU educational exchange program.

EU cuts Turkey funding after ‘democratic deterioration’ | News | Al ..

A newspaper in Turkey reported that Turkey broke international sanctions against Iran. Turkey illegally bought oil from Iran. The government avoided a paper trail by paying in gold bars. A feeling of boastful cunning seemed to underlie this reality when I questioned Turks about this.

Turkish Gold Trader Courtroom Show-N-Tell On How Iran And Turkey …

The present President ErDOGan of Turkey was partners in politics with Abdullah Gul: one the Prime Minister four years, then president the next four; then vice-versa. YouTube presented a telephone conversation between President ErDOGan and his son. The president ordered his son home to rid the house of stashed money – American dollars, British pounds, European Euros, Turkish lira and more. Other government officials’ homes had been raided in a corruption scandal. ErDOGan wanted to keep his corrupt gains.

President Erdogan first denied it was his voice on YouTube. He stopped Turkey’s access to YouTube. This was a serious disadvantage to Abdullah Gul University, AGU, since we teachers relied on YouTube for our ‘blended learning’ classrooms. Quite quickly, AGU had access to YouTube. Later, so did the entire country. Eventually, the president admitted it was his voice advising his son. Off and on, YouTube was disconnected in Turkey. Follow-up information about the phone call? Suppressed.

President Erdogan’s partner in politics, Abdullah Gul, took a different route. He declined running again with his former partner in politics and invested millions in establishing an international university to attract and educate Turkey’s best and brightest. Land, years of construction outside Gul’s hometown of Kayseri, high professor salaries, excellent student benefits and an intellectual environment may hopefully benefit Turkey’s future. If only President Dog would stop periodically firing thousands of teachers!

One student researching education noted that the USA had 2,000+ colleges and universities. Turkey, a more established and older country, had merely 200+.

The mandatory educational requirement in Turkey used to be up to 5^th grade in the 1970s. It was later raised to 10^th grade. I asked my AGU students how many of their mothers had been to college. Few. I asked, “How many graduated from college?” None. However, their fathers had mostly finished high school and some had college.

As most people know, and as President Trump is attempting in the USA, an uneducated citizenry is easy to influence, manipulate and, ultimately – dominate.

The Kurds are a large minority in Turkey, fighting for their rights as African-Americans did with Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement started by Rosa Parks. However, it seems President Erdogan and pals brand Kurds as ‘terrorists’ and would like to organize their fate as they did successfully with the Armenians. Genocide.

Kurdish Repression in Turkey | Cultural Survival

In Kayseri, I noticed a large Greek-like domed building atop a low-lying mountain. I walked to it. A plaque noted that the present mosque was an Armenian Christian church until about 1919 or 1921, then transformed into a mosque.

At home, from the Internet, I learned 50,000 Armenians used to live in Kayseri. Nowadays, only one remains, in charge of a small Armenian museum.

John Oliver – Armenian Genocide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGHBbaShIhU

Now the Turks are killing the Kurds in Syria.

It is one thing to watch a country from afar destroy itself, but it was terrible to live within the beginning of President Dog’s dictatorship. A German painter who had escaped Nazi Germany confided that Nixon’s Watergate and the Pentagon Papers were important. It prevented the USA turning into what he had watched his homeland become as a German.

As an American, I watch the same in the USA, and am fortunate I do not live there now. But watching its demise, and its total incapacity to protect itself from Trump, is shocking.

Fight or flee are two basic, animal ways to respond to life-threats. The other one is freeze. Predators often abandon their prey when it plays dead. It is unconscionable that the present young generation of the United States is allowing this travesty of injustice, corruption and greed to continue.

A massively undereducated Turkish population is easier to understand for allowing this, but Americans?

Have Americans already been divided and conquered by destroying the family unit with MeFirst negligent parents? Has the public educational system so declined that children even in college must be protected from the emotional and intellectual pain of criticism? (And knowledge?) Has the all-volunteer army completely annihilated public demonstrations against wars? (Afghanistan is said to be as unwinnable as Vietnam.) Is Trump’s arrival and continued presence in the White House simply the icing on the fall of democracy? Why can’t D.C. and American Generals just say “NO!”  to Trump’s demands for an ego-military parade?

Compare Erdogan’s Palace to Trump’s Military Parade.

Turkey president Erdogan’s palace worth £500m | Daily Mail Online

Another John Oliver Erdogan’s observations: