Question: Send your kid to the East or the West to study?

Let’s start with what President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has recently said. “Those who were sent to the West to study came back only having taken in Western culture and having left their identities there.”

“Those who we hoped would contribute to the welfare of the country came back as the West’s voluntary agents,” the president also said.

The president has spoken just fine on the subject, though he skips some important notes.
For example:

Why did we have to go the West to study and learn sciences and receive proper education for the past two centuries? Why are there no alternatives to the West to provide our kids with a good education? Why don’t we have the capacity and resources to teach our children sciences and knowledge? What are we lacking?
The president skips the question on why these kids are sent to the West and not the East.
I’ve got some bitter news.

It seems, we will have to keep sending our kids to the West with all these sudden high school entrance and college entrance exam changes, with all the newbie ministers applying their adjustments to the system.
Meaning, with the ups and downs, changes and rewinds we impact our education system with, we will have to send our children to the West for another century, Mr. President.

HDP-Barzani relations

What is the Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (HDP) stance against Kurdistan Regional Governor leader Massoud Barzani? They support a Barzani-led referendum for an independent Kurdistan, even though they’re not vocal on the issue.

Here is why they are not vocal: They don’t really want to create a perception of Barzani as the Kurdish leader.

Is Gül coming back

The traditional “Will Abdullah Gül come back to politics?” season has begun. Rumor says, former president and co-founder of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) Abdullah Gül is coming back to the political arena. I hope you understand this:

Mr. Abdullah Gül is not coming back.

That is why you should give up on the 75th traditional “Will Abdullah Gül re-enter politics?” celebrations.
We have issues to take on and no energy to waste.

Also, even the socialite Şeyma Subaşı’s extravagant wedding stories on social media are more exciting than the rumors on Gül.

The man called it “Armenian”

We can say Aysel Tuğluk, formerly a human rights activist, and now a jailed member of parliament for the province of Van in Turkey from the HDP, went through hell last week.

Her 78-year-old mother died and the burial became a disaster.

Just as Hatun Tuğluk of Alawite descent was buried in a coffin on Sept. 13 in Ankara, tens of fanatical ultranationalists showed up and started a scene ...

Slogans went, “This is not a Kurdish, Armenian or Alawite cemetery.” A growing number of chanters said they would dig up the coffin if the family did not remove it.

The coffin was then transported to Dersim, the mother’s hometown.

Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said he went through the security footage and that he did not spot “an Armenian slogan” thrown around on Saturday.

But one of the suspects of the case confessed. He said “This is not an Armenian graveyard” in his court testimony.

Surely, Süleyman Soylu is bound to make an updated statement on the issue.

Marx and Islamic knowledge

I consume both Islamic knowledge and Karl Marx’s ideologies

Here is what the young generation of the 80’s said as they defined their ideological stance:

“I have read hermeneutics as well as Marx’s works.”

And those who assumed the Islamist youth did not consume anything other than religious texts would be highly surprised by such statements.

At a time when the Islamists are in power in Turkey, Marx has been removed from the sociology class curriculum.

Here’s the puzzling part: When they are not in power, they use Marx’s name to confuse others, and when they are in power, they remove his name from school books.

You poor, bearded Marx. Times change, but your name is still a yo-yo in power politics.