![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/508708616.jpg\" "\\"508708616\\"")
<\/p>\nBy Fulya Ozerkan<\/p>\n
ANKARA \u2014 Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s comment that his government wants to \u201craise a religious youth\u201d has touched a nerve in society, fuelling debates over an alleged \u201chidden agenda\u201d to Islamise secular Turkey.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (C) arrives for a meeting in Ankara on February 9, 2012<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to raise a religious youth,\u201d said Erdogan, himself a graduate of a clerical school and the leader of the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), during a parliamentary address last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you expect the conservative democrat AK Party to raise an atheist generation? That might be your business, your mission, but not ours. We will raise a conservative and democratic generation embracing the nation\u2019s values and principles,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Erdogan\u2019s remarks drew strong criticism from the staunchly secular Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP) founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, with its leader calling him a \u201creligion-monger.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a sin to garner votes over religion. You are not religious but a religion-monger,\u201d said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, accusing Erdogan of polarising the country by touching its faultlines.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m asking the prime minister: what can I do if I don\u2019t want my child to be raised as religious and conservative?\u201d wrote prominent liberal commentator Hasan Cemal in Milliyet daily.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are going to train a religious and conservative generation in schools, what will happen to my child?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Columnist Mehmet Ali Birand also criticised Erdogan this week in an article titled, \u201cThe race for piety will be our end.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does it mean, really, that the state raises religious youth? Is this the first step towards a religious state?\u201d he wrote in Hurriyet Daily News.<\/p>\n
Erdogan must explain what he meant, otherwise a dangerous storm may erupt and go as far as fights about being religious versus being godless, he argued.<\/p>\n
Neither religious nor political uniformity can be imposed on Turkey given regional, ethnic and sectarian diversity in the country, wrote Semih Idiz in Milliyet daily on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
He said millions of people \u201chave subscribed to secular lifestyles\u201d even before the republic.<\/p>\n
Erdogan\u2019s AKP has been in power since 2002 and won a third term with nearly 50 percent of the vote in the 2011 elections, securing 325 seats in the 550-member parliament.<\/p>\n
But since then the influence of the military, considered as guardian of secularism, has waned.<\/p>\n
Dozens of retired and active army officers, academics, journalists and lawyers have been put behind bars in probes into alleged plots against Erdogan\u2019s government.<\/p>\n
Critics accuse the government of launching the probes as a tool to silence opponents and impose authoritarianism.<\/p>\n
Secular quarters argue Erdogan\u2019s conservative government is also step by step imposing religion in every aspect of life, saying many restaurants already refuse to serve alcohol during Ramadan.<\/p>\n
They also criticise recent changes to legislation under which religious school graduates will now be able to access any university branch they like, while in the past they had only access to theology schools.<\/p>\n
Birand expressed fears that the changes would not be confined to this and would lead to censorship in television broadcasts.<\/p>\n
The Turkish television watchdog RTUK \u201cwill restrict all kissing scenes; they will confuse pornography with explicit broadcast and all television screens will be made pious,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen will come religious foundations. After them, it will be municipalities. All kinds of Koran teaching courses, legal or illegal, will mushroom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Observers say Erdogan\u2019s message contradicts what he had said during a recent tour of Arab Spring countries, in September.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Recep Tayyip Erdogan I am a Muslim but not secular. But I am a prime minister of a secular country. People have the freedom to choose whether or not to be religious in a secular regime,\u201d he said in an interview with an Egyptian TV, published by Turkish daily Vatan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe constitution in Turkey defines secularism as the state\u2019s equal distance to every religion,\u201d he said in remarks that provoked criticism from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.<\/p>\n
Postmedia News<\/p>\n
via Recep Tayyip Erdogan sparks furor in Turkey by saying he wants to ‘raise a religious youth’ | News | National Post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Fulya Ozerkan ANKARA \u2014 Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s comment that his government wants to \u201craise a religious youth\u201d has touched a nerve in society, fuelling debates over an alleged \u201chidden agenda\u201d to Islamise secular Turkey. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (C) arrives for a meeting in Ankara on February 9, 2012 \u201cWe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":50943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[1211,535,7962],"class_list":["post-50941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","tag-akp","tag-chp","tag-religious-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}