(Un)Holy Alliance: Creationism in Turkey
July 24, 2006 by fern hill
By fern hill
CBC Radio’s Overnight program is terrific. It takes news and features from public radio stations around the world: English-language services from BBC, Radio Sweden, Radio Africa, Australian Broadcasting Corp, and Deutsche Welle, among others.
The other night I caught part of a program from Deutsche Welle’s ‘Dialogue’ on creationism in Turkey, by Dorian Jones. I wasn’t quite awake enough to get the details, so I e-mailed DW and got a zippy reply, including the script for the piece. From that I got names (and correct spellings) and did some research.
For more than 20 years, creationism has been part of science classes in Turkey. (Who knew?) But lately, it has begun to push evolution aside in the classroom.
In the DW piece, Jones says that Turkish teachers are not permitted to speak to the media without permission from the Ministry, but he got one to speak on condition of anonymity. Miss X, a high-school teacher of biology in Istanbul, said (translation from script):
Teachers who want to teach evolution face a lot of pressure. We face pressure from our colleagues who believe in creationism, in my school 3 out of 5 science teachers only teach creationism and I face pressure from them everyday, they also try to turn the children against us in their classes. There are also religious groups who are always giving out creationist material both outside and inside school premises. These people also send petitions to the authorities complaining about teachers who support evolution. The local authorities send faxes telling headmasters to send children to creationism meetings. And last year 5 teachers were suspended because they taught evolution. Every year it becomes more difficult for teachers like me.
One of the main movers behind creationism is an outfit called Knowledge Research Foundation (Turkish acronym BAV), founded in 1991 by Adnan Oktar, who, under the pen-name Harun Yahya, has written so much that his critics speculate that he is not an individual but a committee.
The publications and DVDs are lavishly produced and very inexpensive, often free. The Foundation sets up displays in shopping malls and according to the DW piece, campaigns across Europe, including the UK. Here is a quote from Tarkan Yavas, one of its directors:
What we say is 21st century technology shows the problems of the evolution theory. We see that scientifically, the evolution theory has collapsed and it doesn’t mean anything. What we want to do is to draw attention to this. At the root of this theory is an ideological stance, with the purpose of denouncing God. We should prevent this incorrect information, these lies that cheat our children.
The material draws heavily from US-based Christian organizations. The funding for the Foundation is ‘obscure’, but it spends millions a year on its publications, workshops etc.
One of Harun Yahya’s books on creationism is ‘The Evolution Deceit’. Inayat Bunglawala, media secretary for the Muslim Council of Britain, wrote the following for the Guardian, on July 3, 2006:
The United States has witnessed a very public and ill-tempered debate between the vast majority of scientists on one side supporting Darwin’s account of how species have evolved over time, and mainly Christian supporters of “intelligent design” and other variants of creationism on the other, with both sides arguing that schools ought to teach children their version of life’s history.
What is less well known is that in recent years expensively produced glossy literature and DVDs arguing for the direct creation and fixity of species have also become very popular in many Muslim communities in the UK and Europe. The material disseminated largely originates from Turkey and are the works of a Turkish philosopher, Adnan Oktar, who writes prolifically under the pen name of Harun Yahya.
Harun Yahya’s books, website and DVDs are all very professionally presented in a manner clearly designed to impress.
I first came across a Harun Yahya publication, The Evolution Deceit around seven years ago and to my untrained eyes it was revelatory. Full of colour illustrations and written in lucid prose with plenty of quotations and references from the writings of prominent scientists, it seemed to make it clear that Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection was being exposed throughout the world as a fraud perpetrated by materialists seeking to undermine belief in God. When examined dispassionately, the actual evidence from the fossil record consistently showed creatures that were fully formed – there was no evidence for species evolving gradually into successor species.
Evolution had always been a rather uncomfortable subject for me and I suspect for many fellow believers. What role is there for God if evolution is true, I would say to myself? So, by disclosing in a seemingly authoritative manner that Darwinism was a bogus theory pushed by atheists, the Harun Yahya book played perfectly to my prejudices and fears. (Read the rest at the link at the end.)
Another player is a Turkish writer named Mustafa Akyol who, according to the DW script, ‘works closely with US groups and was even an expert witness in a Kansas court case challenging the teaching of Dawwinism’.
Akyol is great pals with Phillip E. Johnson, one of the main US proponents of creationism and the originator of the phrase Intelligent Design. Here’s a quote from Akyol from the script:
There is interesting alliance being formed between the more theistic people in the west and east, against some ideas, which are inherently hostile to religion. In this clash with the Islamic world and the west, one major element is the ideas which are coming from the west into the Islamic world and which is seen as inherently atheistic. Now there is a controversy in the west about this materialistic philosophy itself, there are some westerners who say we know that materialism is a philosophy but science doesn’t really support that philosophy science can also support theism, the fact that there is a god. So when Muslims recognize this they can stop thinking the world in terms of west versus the east so we can have a dialogue with the west.
‘Interesting alliance’ indeed.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Dark Ages. Learning about this period as a kid, I was very perplexed. How could ‘we’ forget stuff? How could ‘we’ get stupid? What saved western culture was in large part Arab and Islamic scholarship and maintenance of libraries.
But now, it seems Islam and Christianity are joining hands — and not inconsiderable resources — to make us stupid again.
Links:
Harum Yahya
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harun_Yahya
Knowledge Research Foundation English: http://www.srf-tr.org/science.htm
Rest of Inayat Bunglawala’s piece, plus comments here:
Akyol: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Akyol
Akyol’s own blog: http://www.thewhitepath.com
Phillip E. Johnson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_E._Johnson
Superb article, fern hill.
This is entirely news to me, but it fits a pattern, American power-brokers up to their old tricks in strategic and sensitive areas of the world. I scanned through the Wikipedia entry on Johnson to see how well anyone has tracked his political connections — he obviously has some (Santorum, eg), and then of course there is the question of where all that money is coming from.
Both the Americans and the Israelis have been happy in the past to fund and otherwise supply local fundamentalists (what eventually became al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Hamas in Palestine) as an opposition to secular regimes of which they disapprove. Not working out so well for them, that strategy, is it.
And Turkey is so promising, and yet so delicately balanced. Damn the U.S. meddlers.
Thank you. It was all news to me, too. Turkey is a fascinating place. Dragged by Ataturk into the modern era (and the West’s pockets). Now it wants to join the EU, which is leery. We should keep an eye on how the current madness plays out there.
Intrinsic commitment comes from within, from people’s unadulterated humanity; not from some ideological concept or interpreted translations of ancient texts to which one becomes attached. Fundamentalism is running amock in the world as we frantically seek answers to questions we never thought we’d be asking about human relationships. It is time to call on our intrinsic strengths having human experience, not to lean on extrinsic doctrines and translations from the past.
Raptures and Virgins, ugh! Thanks Fern, lots I didn’t know, but suspected.
This is quite humourous. The left have been doing the very same thing in the US public school system and we don’t hear you people complaining but no no no, not creationism. Too funny. Hypocrisy abounds.