Islamist Prime Minister Erdogan is seeking to return women to their centuries-old struggles by encouraging them to wear head scarves, leave school early, marry, stay home, and have many children with restricted access to abortions. He recently passed new education laws that mandate Islamic studies in public schools, allow parents to take their children out of school early to marry or work in the fields, and even segregate male and female university students by requiring them to ride different buses and eat at separate cafeterias, as Sol newspaper reported is happening in Trabzone, a city on Turkey's Black Sea where Erdogan has family ties.
Erdogan's newest ploy is to restrict access to secular public schools so that parents have no choice but to send their children to Islamic schools that require girls to wear head scarves. This exposes Erdogan's plan to eradicate secular democracy from Turkey and raise a new generation of Islamists. Erdogan also has shifted government funding from secular schools to religious schools and even builds mosques on university campuses.
On August 6, Environment and Urban Planning Minister Erdogan Bayraktar explained the ruling Ak Party's views on the matter.
"This is a Muslim country," he said. "Ninety-nine per cent of the population is Muslim. We have a structure [i.e. Turkish society] that comes from history. Due to Turkey's geographical placement, we don't have inventors. Therefore, we need to put our focus in raising strong, well-educated and mid-level technical workers."
This kind of retro thinking has enraged secularists.
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