Turkish Schools in Northern Iraq

Last Updated on Thursday, 15 November 2007 04:28 by Hüseyin Gülerce, Today's Zaman Wednesday, 14 November 2007 21:00

Whatever the real motives behind them may be, the recent surprising statements from the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP), Deniz Baykal, about northern Iraq should be taken seriously by the government.

Baykal stressed: "The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) problem cannot be solved by a cross-border operation alone. We should also educate Kurdish students in Turkey and establish TV and radio stations that will broadcast in Kurdish for northern Iraq."

Losing is inevitable so long as the cultural and social aspects of the problem are neglected. Baykal has drawn our attention to the fundamental issue that we have long ignored. In emphasizing the importance of education, he unavoidably reminds us of the foresightedness of the Turkish education volunteers.

Most of us have only recently heard that there are Turkish schools in northern Iraq that were opened by education volunteers. These schools have been active for the last 14 years. The Turkish schools that have sprouted in so many countries around the world have turned out to be winning the hearts of the people in northern Iraq. It's as if they built breakwaters for 14 years, envisioning the problems we would be facing these days. They have built bridges of love between the parents of their Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen students. Moreover, the Turkish teachers working in the Turkish schools did not leave their students in 2003, when the US occupation began. Instead the teachers shared the same destiny as their students, just as they did during the Bosnian war.

Serpil Yılmaz wrote the following lines in her article about these schools in northern Iraq: "The first school, opened in 1993, was Işık College in Arbil, and it was followed by the opening of Nilüfer College in 1994, Işık Primary School in 2005, and Işık Kindergarten in 2006. Also, the Sulaimaniya Primary School and the Kirkuk Çağ High School in Kirkuk were opened in 2007. Two more schools are expected to be opened in Dohuk and Kirkuk in 2008. Talip Büyük, the director-general of the Turkish schools in Iraq, where 2,200 students receive an education, said they were awaiting permission from the regional Kurdish administration to build a university in Arbil. The Kurdish administration has allotted 100,000 square meters of land for the university." (Milliyet, Nov. 4, 2007)

These schools are objected to only by the PKK. The terrorist group's media organization, the Fırat news agency, broadcast a news report last May claiming that the Turkish schools in northern Iraq were trying to assimilate the Kurds in the region. Then the Cumhuriyet newspaper published this news without quoting a source. However, in a statement to the Cihan news agency, Professor Javdet Jafar Hattab, the chairman of the department of banking and finance in the School of Economics at Salahaddin University, heaped praise on the Turkish schools in northern Iraq and said: "We are grateful for the Işık Colleges that have been providing education here. They set a very good example."

Why do northern Iraqi officials praise these schools? The reason is that the graduates of these schools win medals in international science competitions and are raised as very good children for both their families and their countries. With the high-quality education they are given, they become candidates to be the administrators of tomorrow. What makes us so happy is that each and every one of these kids grows up as lovers of Turkey and the Turkish people.

Let me point out another thing. The students from the schools of the Fezalar Education Company, based in northern Iraq, won two gold medals and four silver medals at the 5th International Turkish Language Olympiads, attended by 550 students from 100 countries. Nazlı Adnan, from Nilüfer College in Arbil, was granted a special Turkish Parliament award given only to the best of the best.

Thousands of heartfelt thanks to the nameless heroes who fulfill a vital function in the course of history and to those who mobilize them in this humanistic project, to my nation, which claims them, and particularly to the esteemed Fethullah Gülen.