WHITEWASHING EDUCATION JIHAD
ASSYRIAN INTERNATIONAL NEWS AGENCY
AINA
May 18 2012
While the mainstream media continues to promote Turkey as a successful
example of the coexistence of Islam, democracy, and economic stability
— referring to the country as “a bridge between East and West” and a
potential asset to the European Union — this view couldn’t be farther
from reality.
In fact, Turkey has descended farther into the abyss of Islamization
as it continues to refuse to acknowledge its genocide of Armenians,
Assyrians, Greek Christians, and other minorities; denies its
decades-long repression of its Kurdish population; and persists in its
illegal occupation of the Republic of Cyprus. Islamic instruction,
under the guise of religious culture and ethics classes, has become
mandatory in state schools, further signaling the demise of secularism
in Turkey. Meanwhile, veiling, an emblem of Islamization, has
increased significantly within the last decade.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s public statements have
also defied this optimistic view of Turkey as a “moderate” Islamic
state. In 2007, he was quoted in Milliyet commenting on the term
“moderate Islam” to describe his party, the AKP: “These descriptions
are ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no
moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.” On
democracy, Erdogan has said, “Democracy is like a street car; you ride
it as far as you need, and then you get off.” About the function of
mosques, he said, “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our
helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.”
It is clear that Turkey is reverting to its historical Ottoman
Empire-inspired Islamic fundamentalism. At the same time, it is
pursuing a stealth or cultural jihad against the West, in large part
through the efforts of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish Islamic theologian.
Gulen has spawned the worldwide Gulen Movement, which pretends to
espouse “understanding and respect” but in truth is dedicated to
spreading the beliefs and influence of Islam and Turkey, especially
through creation of Gulen schools, which now number more than 130 in
26 states in America.
Fethullah Gulen, profiled in a recent CBS 60 Minutes segment, “The
Challenge of the Empty Chair: Fethullah Gulen,” was referred to in the
broadcast segment as the “most important Muslim cleric in the world
today or at least one of the top two or three.” In fact, Gulen is
believed to be the driving force behind the ruling party in Turkey —
the AKP — that has spurred Islamization. The eponymous movement Gulen
spawned controls the majority of preparatory schools in Turkey, and
graduates have been strategically placed in positions of power and
figure prominently in the police force, the media, and the courts.
Anyone critical of Gulen has been arrested. In fact, the author of a
book about the Gulen Movement was arrested last year and a Turkish
newspaper office raided in an effort to destroy all copies.
M. Hakan Yavuz, a Turkish professor at the University of Utah and
astute observer of the Gulen movement, states that “its main goal has
been the Islamization of Turkish society.” Bayram Balci, another
Turkish scholar who has studied the Gulen schools, said, “Fethullah’s
aim is the Islamization of Turkish nationality and the Turcification
of Islam in foreign countries.”
The 60 Minutes segment glowingly described Gulen’s teachings of
tolerance, interfaith dialogue, and education and touted the alleged
worldwide success of his movement. Although the portrayal of Fetullah
Gulen and his movement was mostly adulatory, it wasn’t a complete
whitewash of a highly controversial figure of questionable motives who
is believed to be, in large measure, responsible for transforming
Turkey from a secular state to an anti-Christian, anti-American,
anti-Western, and anti-Semitic Islamic one. Gulen, in partnership with
Erdogan, has made a concerted effort to undermine and weaken the
military, the traditional guardian of what was purported to be a
secular democracy; take over the police, media, and courts; and
suppress academics and journalists who criticize the regime.
Reportedly, Gulen owns TV stations, banks, and trade associations and
is worth over $25 billion.
60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl praised the academic success of
Gulen schools, of which there are more than 1,000 worldwide, including
130 schools in 26 states in the United States, representing the
largest collection of charter schools in the country. Gulen was able
to establish his charter school network in America fully funded by
public money. In the CBS program, Stahl emphasized Gulen’s commitment
to education, with a special focus on math and science, as well as the
stellar performance of the schools. She reported that Turkish teachers
are brought in on visas — a practice defended on camera by a Gulen
spokesman who stated that the United States needs skilled teachers in
math and science. Ironically, Turkey ranks far below the United States
in math and science. Many of the Turkish teachers at the
taxpayer-funded Gulen schools have poor English skills and
questionable teaching credentials and experience. As was shown on
camera, a significant number of them are listed in a school directory
as teaching English — hardly a rationale to import teachers to take
jobs away from Americans. Information contained in visas for
applicants to teach at Gulen schools in America listed no prior
teaching experience for most of the applicants, with many having
themselves attended Gulen schools.
As for their reported academic excellence, the Gulen schools show high
performance on school-administered state tests but lackluster results
on college admission tests such as SAT and ACT. The Gulen schools’ SAT
average score of 1026 falls short of the 1100 considered to indicate
college readiness. Former Gulen schoolteachers have reported state
testing violations, lack of test monitors, and unqualified individuals
administering tests.
Many parents are unaware of any connection of the schools to the Gulen
Movement and are unwittingly supporting it. There have been complaints
of hyped advertising that mislead prospective students and their
parents about class size, graduation rates, and college acceptances,
especially since most of the schools lack a 12th grade, and the
majority of students graduate from other schools.
In the CBS special, Stahl dismisses complaints about the Gulen schools
advancing an Islamic agenda in America with the baiting question of
“So do you think there’s a little bit of Islamophobia involved?” Yet a
Washington Post blog post recently reported that an article in a
popular Turkish daily newspaper quoted Gulen school insiders who
outlined the U.S. Gulen schools’ goals: “through education, we can
teach tens of thousands of people the Turkish language and our
national anthem, introduce them to our culture and win them over. And
this is what the Gulen Movement is striving for.”
Stahl claims that CBS’s investigations revealed that Islam is not
taught at all at the schools and emphasizes that this would constitute
an illegal practice in public schools. Federal guidelines prohibit
schools from promoting religious instruction for a particular group as
well as teacher participation in any prayer practice.
In a 2008 article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a former teacher
from a Gulen K-8 charter school in Minnesota reported that students
pray regularly, led by a prostrating imam; celebrate Islamic religious
holidays; perform ritual washing; eat halal food; and receive
religious instruction from the Muslim American Society, a known
affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, the school shares space
with a mosque, and its director is an imam. Although the school
defends the practice by saying that all prayer is “voluntary” and
“student-led,” this appears to be a whitewash of actual practices.
While it is technically true that Islamic studies are taught after
school, school buses don’t leave school grounds until the class is
over, and Islamic studies assignments are listed on the blackboard
along with assignments for other subjects.
The 60 Minutes special mentioned that the Gulen schools were being
investigated by U.S. authorities. In fact, they are being investigated
by the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, and the FBI
due to alleged kickbacks of salaries to the movement and immigration
fraud. One former teacher married to a Turkish teacher discovered that
her husband was required to cash his check and give back 40% to the
movement. Posts on a charter school watchdog blog translated Gulen
contracts, which indicate that Turkish employees must give back cash
from their salaries as well as tax refunds and state retirement funds.
The Gulen schools are among the nation’s largest users of H1B visas,
used to import foreign workers with technical skills to fill job
shortages of qualified American workers. Parents have alleged that
certified, competent American teachers have been replaced at higher
salaries by uncertified Turkish men who spoke limited English. They
claim that the schools discriminate against women and non-Turkish
teachers and that Gulen teachers receive preferential treatment.
Clearly, the United States should not be using taxpayer dollars to
fund a network of charter schools engaged in a kind of “education
jihad” in America. The movement is bolstered by the deception of
providing a purely secular quality education lacking in America and
mostly favorable reports like the recent 60 Minutes segment, but
American students and their parents should not be partners in an
enterprise that serves the Gulen Movement’s ideological and strategic
goals to indoctrinate and Islamicize Americans.
By Janet Levy
American Thinker
http://www.aina.org/news/20120518101232.htm