America’s NATO ally Turkey, which is abandoning the secular vision of the modern state’s founder, could become a “more dangerous version” of Iran, a Middle East expert believes, according to a new report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
Uzay Bulut, a journalist who was born and raised Muslim in Turkey and now is a writing fellow for the Middle East Forum, noted the “Islamization” of the school system along with the dictatorial moves of President Erdogan.
In an article on the Gatestone Institute site, she said Turkish schools are teaching jihad under the guise of “religion, culture and morality” while cutting back on art, philosophy and other secular subjects.
“Given the political developments in Turkey for more than a decade, the country seems to be fast-forwarding to be the second – and possibly even a more dangerous version of – the Islamic Republic of Iran,” she wrote.
She cited various developments that have hit headlines recently:Â the jailing of journalists, destruction of Kurdish towns, the firing of more than 100,000 government workers “for political reasons” and the outright seizure of lands from Christians.
She said Turkey is in the process of including the concept of jihad in compulsory school curricula, teaching it as a “value,” according to the Turkish Ministry of National Education, in middle schools that offer an Islamic curriculum to pupils.
An estimate 1.5 million seventh- and eighth-grade students who will received the instruction.
For the rest of this report, and more, please go to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
