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Greece revises books for its Muslims
Greece revises books for its Muslims Schools in Turkish-speaking areas around Xanthi are soothing old emnities with new history textbooks https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/content.asp?aid=86039
Archive photo
Pupils of the Greek Muslim community of Xanthi. Last year the European
Commission against Racism and Intolerance underlined in a report that it was
'pleased to note that the Greek authorities have recently accepted a number
of Turkish-language schoolbooks for the use of Muslim students in Thrace,'
and other developments such as the intention to 'gradually introduce
Turkish-language classes and the teaching of the Koran in pilot secondary
public schools.'
By Elena Becatoros
The Associated Press
XANTHI - "What was there in Greece before the War of Independence?" the teacher asks her class of sixth graders.
"Four hundred years of slavery!" comes the sing-song reply.
The reflexive answer about Muslim Ottoman rule would be the same in practically any elementary school in Greece.
But these particular children are members of the country's Muslim minority, whose community is endlessly buffeted by tussles between Greece and Turkey over ethnic identity. Now, as both countries work to put aside old enmities, signs of change are surfacing in one of the most contentious areas: education.
Greek Muslim children, part of a 120,000-member community where many consider themselves ethnic Turks, are still given strong doses of the national perspective, including condemnation of Ottoman rule. Gradually, however, new programs are being introduced to recognize that most speak Turkish and identify closely with Turkish culture.
"These children will at last be educated," promised Dimitris Halkiotis, who until March was special secretary for minority and intercultural education for the government of this mostly Orthodox Christian nation of 10.9 million people.
In an overture of reconciliation, villages and towns on either side of the Greek-Turkish border signed agreements in March to start joint projects to boost local trade, tourism and agriculture.
"Now Greek-Turkish relations are better, it helps the situation. It has removed a part of the fanaticism," says Omer Hasan, headmaster of the Second Minority Junior School in the northeastern town of Xanthi, about 185 kilometers (110 miles) northeast of Thessaloniki.
Most Muslim children attend bilingual schools, with half the lessons in Greek and the rest in Turkish.
Under a new program implemented this academic year, standard Greek textbooks have been replaced by ones treating Greek as a second language. A weak grasp of Greek often left Muslim students lagging in competition for jobs.
The new program's goal is to give minority students a more manageable approach to learning Greek fluently. It also draws more on the children's faith and culture, using examples that are more recognizable for them.
The approach is a drastic departure from the hardline politics that long overshadowed everything between Greece and Turkey, which have come to the brink of war three times since 1974.
Turkish-language books used for Greek Muslims are printed in Turkey, but their contents must be approved by Greece's government. The same applies to Greek books for the small ethnic Greek minority centered in Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city.
For years, failure to agree on textbook contents left minority children in both countries using battered photocopies of editions dating as far back as the early 1970s.
Using the aging photocopies year after year "poisoned our children," says Cavit Ali Osman, who heads a group of teachers in the northern town of Komotini. "Every year, Greek teachers handed out new books, but we didn't have any, and we had to lie to the children about why."
But improving diplomatic relations allowed censors to finally approve new books on both sides last year.
Changes began several years ago, when education authorities revised the sixth-grade Greek history text and removed many overtly anti-Turkish passages.
The old text dwelled on descriptions of the Ottoman conquerors as uncivilized barbarians who brutalized their Greek subjects. There was no mention of other historical views describing concessions the Ottomans made, such as allowing subjects to keep religious leaders and customs.
"It is impossible for one to imagine a calamity greater than that which our nation suffered when it was enslaved to the Turks," reads the first chapter of the old book. "The Turks, wild and uncivilized, sowed destruction in their wake without recognizing any rights for the enslaved race."
The 1997 edition still describes Ottoman brutality. But it adds that the Ottomans allowed some freedom in trade, commerce and agriculture, religion and local self-rule, although it gives the motives as being "to serve their own needs," such as easier tax collection.
But some teachers worry that changing textbooks could lead to events being censored if they are deemed unpalatable.
"Historical facts must be told," said Margarita Psaltopoulou, a ethnic Greek
teacher in the Xanthi primary school. "Teachers, if they are insensitive,
can do damage without it being in books."
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