I could not help but hear a fleeting inner voice ask me why I was so horrified at the war in Caucasia, while news about another one that has been continuing for years in Iraq, with tens of civilian casualties every day, did not even catch my attention any more. The human body is blessed with an ability to adapt to the surrounding conditions by way of which our senses get used to changing climate, light, and even pain. This feature of our body is a mercy considering that if we could not adapt to circumstances, life would be a torture. Could this be the reason bombings and civilian sufferings in Iraq do not irritate me—because I have been watching or reading about it for more than five years now and my senses are adapted to being exposed to the same play on the Iraqi stage?

I jumped from one channel onto another, praying not to come across any bad news about the Turkish schools in the region. I was relieved of the first shock, with no apparent news other than the rumors that a delay is expected in the start of the academic year.

In the history of Gülen-inspired schools, Georgia has an important place as far as their international expansion is concerned. The process of sponsoring education by Turkish businessmen and educationalists from Australia to the USA, from Japan to Argentina, according to Ali Bulaç, started with 11 volunteers of the Gülen Movement who took the first step out of Turkey onto the Georgian soil via the Sarp border gate on January 11, 1990, following a sermon by Gülen in Süleymaniye, one of Istanbul's largest and most magnificent mosques.^[1] This sermon coincided with the week when the Berlin wall collapsed, and it was almost another year before Boris Yeltsin seized power and the Soviet Union disintegrated.

Professor Kemal Karpat of Wisconsin University reports that Georgia is one of the countries he visited in order to observe Turkish schools. He says the most distinctive feature he noticed of these schools is that there is "friendship, fraternity, and tolerance with mutual respect and trust between the staff and students."^[2]

In her 2004 visit to Tbilisi, Professor Büşra Ersanlı notes the multi-faceted administration of the Turkish school in this Georgian city that brings under the same roof the local Georgian system of education, the Turkish education system represented by Turkish staff, and the Turkish businessmen of Denizli who sponsor the school. For Professor Ersanlı, this type of administration is a good example of coexistence where differences are allowed to remain while ensuring that there is supervision of activities by all the parties involved.^[3]

Researching how clashes might have affected education I checked out the website of International Black Sea University of Tbilisi; there is an Announcement of a State of Emergency on the home page,^[4] and it reads, "... a number of people from the conflict zone have to stay temporarily at the university area including classrooms and office rooms." This is a prestigious university training Georgian and international students, and among the founders of it are two Turkish companies: Mars and Çağlar. Due to the current disorder, the university is now like a shelter for refugees. This reminds me of an interesting conversation I had with a young businessman from Gaziantep in 2000. He said in 1997 he sent two of his employees one after another to Albania in order to import some kind of raw product, but as both of them failed to locate the producer due to the civil war he had to go himself, for he desperately needed it for his business. After he landed in Tirana, he took a taxi and asked the driver to take him to either the Hilton or the Sheraton, whichever was nearest, to stay overnight. But to his surprise the taxi driver recommended a different option to him: "Sir, I don't want to be nosey, but none of these hotels are secure these days. I would recommend that you go to the Turkish school." This businessman, who had had no interest in these schools before, first encountered one during a nationwide state of emergency in Albania where thousands of people had taken to the streets and anarchy was sweeping the country. This was a time when foreign countries were evacuating their citizens from Albania. Turkish schools had a reputation, and all sides of the strife knew it was pointless to attack these successful and peaceful institutions. The businessman found the Turkish staff of the school in their positions, and to his surprise the principal told him the producer he was looking for was actually one of the parents with a daughter enrolled there. He was extremely happy to have found his contact so easily. After they had completed their business meeting, the Albanian producer approached this Turkish businessman if he could help him to have his second daughter enrolled in this school, too. He thought our businessman had a history with the school. The businessman asked out of curiosity, "There are many Muslim staff in this school, and you are a Christian. Aren't you concerned that they might convert your child?" The Albanian parent confidently replied, "This school is bringing up students as real humans; the rest does not matter."

Turkish schools in many parts of the world do not discriminate on the grounds of religious or ethnic differences. Muslim and Christian students sit in the same classroom in the Philippines; Bosnian, Serbian, Albanian, and Croatian kids play peacefully in the same schools in the Balkans; Russian and Tatar boys enjoy the same education in St. Petersburg.

Gülen-inspired schools have a lot to contribute to a peaceful future...

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."