Fethullah Schools: "They taught us how great Turkey is"

29.8.2006 - by Vladimir van Wilgenburg, Journalist, Netherlands

Vladimir: Can you introduce yourself to our readers?

Hiwa: 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.

Vladimir: 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?

Hiwa: 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.

Vladimir: With your school, you also made a visit to Turkey, what did you see there? And what happened there?

Hiwa: 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!

Vladimir: 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?

Hiwa: 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.

Vladimir: 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)

Hiwa: 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.

Vladimir: Were these schools Islamist?

Hiwa: 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!

Vladimir: What did these schools do with your view of Turks?

Hiwa: 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.

Vladimir: 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?

Hiwa: 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 Ataturk 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.