Bias exposed in Turkish education

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A study shows the bias potential educaters have towards those they view as others and how they see only the positive side of Turkish history.
A research project involving graduate students training to be teachers came up with results that showed the meaning of the term "biased" changes when the subject is the Turks themselves.

The students thought texts that consider the British "hardworking",  "brave",  "religious"  and "always right"  were biased, and commented on the British being "liars",  "filthy"  and "deceitful".

The study, called "Evaluating Us Through Others,  was conducted by associate professor Yücel Kabapnar from Marmara University...

The texts copied from Turkish schoolbooks were altered as such: "Turk",  "Muslim"  and "raiders"  became "British",  "Christian"  and "knights".  ...

.  The altered texts are as follows:

"The Christian religion has added to the strength of the already present courage of the British. The British Army was always ready for war; it did not know the meaning of being tired. It was reported by eastern writers that a hundred British were louder than ten thousand Muslims. The courage of the British soldiers was above all estimation."

"The British are the bravest people history has ever known. Through this bravery, our nation has founded great countries that have important places in history and took many peoples under its dominion. The British people hold their independence dear. They fear no one when their independence is in danger. "

"The British dislike cheating and lies. They do not cheat others. They are forthcoming. ... "

"The British nation believes being clean comes from Christianity. Through this faith, they pay importance...".

Results showed that 60 percent of the education students did not think the texts ...students said they were "completely biased;  "prejudiced toward other nations;  "putting their nation in a higher place;  "insulting to Muslims;  and "extreme on the contents of religious or nationalist opinions.  Only 14 of the 140 education students said they disliked the texts because they were similar to the understanding of Turkish schoolbooks.

... some said those qualities are not suitable for the British, but are suitable for Turks.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.co....09-09-28

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No comment from me!!

I would love to see any books on history of any nation which is not biased,which is not glorifying any nations merits and depicts facts the way they are.Long way to it and rather impossible,historical facts are perceived in different way ,still many have doubts and still many take all for granted.This study example only shows that no matter what substitute words will be,they can fit to any society,any time and any school history curriculum.

Ridiculous article H...EVERYONE knows that Amerikans are the bravest!

 ahh the bravest with the help of Poleseven Washington would not do anything if Tadeusz Kosciuszko did not have the mission of saving the world and burning feets that moved him to the newly born USA.

I must have missed that day in school when they talked about how Poland saved Amerika...maybe I fell asleep for 5 minutes?

 Saratoga,west point..you careless girl!!!Dreaming about dudus collection in a closet at that time!!!!

but at least you should give them credit about being brave in starting wars.

I think you have just informed us about the biased American education!!

BRITISH PROPAGANDA AND THE TURKS

Prof. Justin McCarthy
(Presentation made at the School of Oriental and African Studies on 19 January 2001)

This evening I am going to consider something that I have noticed for many years.That is the basic assumption in Europe and America that the Turks must be in the wrong, whether the question is human rights, activities in Cyprus, the Armenian Question,Turkish-Greek relations, or al most any other contentious subject. Often it is assumed that the Turks are evil. If there is a question of comparative guilt, it is assumed that the Turks were most guilty. Turks have to prove themselves three times for every one esseftion provided by their opponents.

I will not be speaking only of British propaganda tonight, but of the effects of what the British propaganda machine produced in World War I. That means I will alsa be discussing America, where that propaganda had its greatest effect.

The reasons for the iII feeling against Turks that is of ten seen in Western countries, as all of you know, go back to the Middle Ages. They go back to the period in which the name Muhammad was virtually synonymous with the Devil in Western culture. Europeans and Americans had a jang memory of conflict between Christianity and Islam, and Turks were the politicalleaders of Islam.

The particular image of the Turk as the enemy developed in the nineteenth century along what can be described as facialist lines. In the United States, as well as in Britain, books were printed which portrayed the Turks as members of groups of people who were described almost uniformly as viciaus. "Brutal" was the prirnary adiectiye that was used to deseribe them. In America, and i suspect in Britain as well, we feared something called the "Yellow Peril." The Yellow Peril supposedly was a great danger to the "white racelf (a fine example of psychological transference, since at the time Europeans were much more likely to assault Asiatics than vi ce versa). The Turks were portrayed as being at the forefront of the yellow peril, the leaders of the Yellow Peril. Those who had never seen a Turk found this an easy mental exercise: Turks lived in Asia. Turks were great warriors. Therefore, Turks led the Yellow Peril.

Traditional facialist and religious animosity against Turks has left a legacy of prejudice that has affected European and American feelings about Turks in dur own day. But Westerners have jang held religious and racial prejudices about many peoples. None of these prejudices seems to rise to the level of the feelings against the Turks. No other group is assumed to be so violent and brutal, nar is any other group so often and routinely assumed to be wrong in all its disputations with other peoples. There is more to the feelings against Turks than traditional animosities.

Darwin´s Enmity Towards the Turks

The most important target British colonialism set itself towards the end of the 19th century was the Ottoman Empire.

At that period the Ottoman state ruled a huge area from Yemen to Bosnia-Herzegovina. But by now it was finding it hard to control this area which it had managed in peace, calm, and stability. Christian minorities were beginning to rise up in the name of independence, and such great military powers as Russia were beginning to threaten the Ottomans.

In the last quarter of the century Britain and France joined the powers which were threatening the Ottomans. Britain particularly set its eyes on the Ottomans´ southern provinces. The Berlin Agreement, signed in 1878, is an expression of the European colonialists´ decision to divide up the Ottoman territories. Five years later, in 1882, Britain occupied Egypt, which was an Ottoman territory. British colonialism set about its plans to later take over the Ottoman territories in the Middle East.

As always, Britain based these colonialist policies on racism. The British government deliberately tried to portray the Turkish nation, the basic element of the Ottomans, and particularly the Ottoman state, as a so-called "backward" people.

British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone openly said that the Turks are examples of mankind´s non-humans, and for the sake of their civilisation, they must be pushed back to the Asian steppes and eliminated from Anatolia.23

These, and words like them, were for decades used by the British government as a propaganda tool directed against the Ottomans. Britain tried to portray the Turkish nation as a backward nation that had to bow its head to more advanced European races.

The so-called "scientific basis" for this propaganda was Charles Darwin!

Darwin´s comments regarding the Turkish nation appeared in the book The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, published in 1888. Darwin proposed that by eliminating the "backward races" natural selection would play a role in the development of civilisation, and later said these exact words about the Turkish nation:

I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.24

This nonsense of Darwin´s was a written propaganda tool to give support to Britain´s policy of destroying the Ottoman Empire. And in fact this propaganda tool was an effective one. Darwin´s words to the effect that "The Turkish nation will soon disappear, this is a law of evolution" gave a so-called scientific support to Britain´s propaganda directed at creating enmity towards the Turks.

Britain´s desire to bring about Darwin´s prophecy basically came to life in the First World War. This giant war, which began in 1914, was born of conflicts of interest between Germany and Austria-Hungary on the one side, and the allies Britain, France, and Russia on the other. But one of the most important calculations within this war was the aim of destroying and dividing up the Ottoman Empire.

Britain attacked the Ottoman Empire from two separate directions. The first was the Canal, Palestine, and Iraq fronts, opened with the intention of taking the Ottoman territories in the Middle East. The second was the Gallipoli front, scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War. The Turkish Army at Çanakkale fought heroically and lost 250,000 men to resist the enemy forces mustered by the British. As for the British, they sent more Indian troops and Anzac units recruited from such colonies as Australia and New Zealand to fight the Turks, whom they saw as a "backward race," than their own soldiers.

The echoes of Darwin´s hostility to the Turks continued to ring after the First World War. The European Neo-Nazi groups who treacherously attack the Turks in Europe still draw their inspiration from Darwin´s stupid nonsense about the Turkish nation. Darwin´s words about the Turks are still to be found on the Internet pages of these racist enemies of the Turks. (See the chapter on The Bloody Alliance Between Darwin and Hitler.)