ISTANBUL - Stating that the ÇEDES project is an assimilation project that is intended to be carried out in the dimension of belief, DAD Co-Chairperson Kadriye Doğan said that those who are seen as "others" should create a barrier against the project.

 

The Ministry of National Education (MEB) and the Ministry of Youth and Sports assigned imams, preachers, religious services specialists and Quran course instructors as "spiritual advisors" within the scope of the "I am sensitive to my environment, I protect my values (ÇEDES)" project signed in partnership with the Presidency of Religious Affairs. They started to provide "values education" to students in public schools. Imams were assigned to schools within the scope of the project that started in Izmir. Experts warned that education would increasingly become far from secular. Kadriye Doğan, Co-Chair of Democratic Alevi Associations (DAD) and a teacher for 30 years, said that the aim of the project is to raise a "religious and spiteful" generation.

 

Kadriye Doğan

 

INTERVENTION IN EDUCATION WITH ÇEDES

 

Stating that the Presidency of Religious Affairs intervened in education with the ÇEDES project, Doğan said: "The issue of religion being kept away from education was ignored and education was religiousized. Touching on the aims of the project. The government and its partners are trying to build an 'Islamic life'. The government wants to build for its own way of thinking and a way of life in this way of thinking, and is trying to create a social structure that will support it. He knows that the way to this is possible with education. That is why they are seeking to intervene in the field of education and create a religious generation, in their own words, a 'religious and spiteful' generation, by intervening in the field of education and putting the student youth through a religious education."

 

ASSIMILATION OF BELIEFS

 

Stating that there are different beliefs in the country and that these segments of faith are wanted to be assimilated in the name of education, Doğan said: "The existence of these segments is ignored. As its name suggests, this project is not 'I am sensitive to my environment, I respect my values'; this project is neither sensitive to its environment nor respectful to the values and beliefs of other social segments. The government is trying to impose the way of life of Islam, which it has put forward in its own way, to the whole society.”

 

WHAT DO ALEVI PEOPLE THINK ABOUT THE PROJECT?

 

Stating that the government does not have good intentions and that it aims to bring different beliefs and ethnic groups together with the Turkish-Islamic belief in a "one bag", Doğan said: "The 'one religion, one nation' thought system, which is the foundation of the Republic, is intended to be sustained with the dimension of belief. The ÇEDES project heavily influenced Alevis and that the Alevis were reactive to the project. There are pressures to appoint salaried dedes to cemevis, to appoint counselors to schools, and to ignore acquired rights such as not being subjected to compulsory religion lessons obtained by ECtHR decisions. . The AKP-MHP government started to apply this pressure intensively today, and this situation increased even more immediately after the elections."

 

RISK OF AFGHANISTAN AND IRAN IN TUKİYE

 

The government aims to erase the Alevi belief from the memory of the society, to define this belief as a Sunni sect, and to turn the Djemevis into 'mosques without minarets'. We have to know that with the success of ÇEDES, the society is really headed towards being ruled by a religious oppression, a religious regime, and if it is not prevented, we are at risk of becoming an Afghanistan and Iran in the near future. We have to stand in a place that sees what such a regime would cost for women, Alevis and youth in Turkey. In this sense, we have to make an effort to raise our reaction, increase our organization, and open the way to meet with the social segments around us who yearn for democracy and freedom.”

 

MA / Ömer İbrahimoğlu