From the Ministry of National Education of the Republic of Türkiye to the Ministry of Public Instruction

Head Teacher (Başöğretmen) is the most meaningful title that perfectly aligns with Atatürk’s identity, personality, ideals, his achievements, and his aspirations. Whether he is giving orders to soldiers, speaking with officers, or observing war games, he is as much a Head Teacher as he is a Commander-in-Chief. He is a Head Teacher when presiding over meetings of the Turkish Language Association and the Turkish Historical Society in Çankaya, attended by the renowned scientists of the era. He is a Head Teacher when teaching the New Turkish Alphabet to the public at the blackboard or giving lessons in the Nation's Schools.

He is the Head Teacher who addressed the nation—a nation that made every sacrifice to keep the state they founded alive, gave their lives when necessary, yet was constantly belittled, excluded, and neglected—as the “Great Turkish Nation.” He is the Head Teacher, the theorist and practitioner of the Turkish Revolution, a project to create a contemporary, secular, civilized society that has turned its back on the Middle Ages.

The two paragraphs above are a summary of the founding of the Republic and the process of implementing its revolutions. It is time to bring the subject to the process of destruction that has been unfolding before everyone's eyes from the recent past to the present. We are talking about the delayed revenge of the Madrasa tradition, which could not prevent the abolition of the Sultanate, the removal of the Caliphate, and the liquidation of the remnants of the Middle Ages. The target of this revenge is, without a doubt, the Republic of Türkiye.

The words used, the concepts, and the messages given through dates contain meanings that satisfy the 100-year-old desire for revenge held by the community they come from, the political atmosphere in which they were raised, and political Islamist circles. The chronological/historical meanings of March 31, August 10, April 23, 1920, October 29, May 14, and May 27 for them do not coincide with the chronological meanings the general public attributes to these dates. It must not be forgotten that for the representatives of the political Islamist tradition, who have not internalized the Republic and who are the antithesis of October 29, 1923, the ultimate goal is the liquidation of the Atatürk Republic, which put an end to the Sultanate and the Caliphate.

Atatürk had asked teachers to raise generations with “free thoughts, free conscience, and free wisdom.” The Head Teacher knew that the Turkish revolution could only survive with Republican generations who had adopted and internalized this revolution. For this reason, the programs developed by the Ministry of National Education of the Republic of Türkiye for all levels of formal and non-formal education were based on raising civilized, free, secular-minded, Republican generations/citizens.

The regulations and changes aimed at transforming the Ministry of National Education into a Ministry of Public Instruction (Maarif Nezareti) should be labeled as a program to raise generations whose thoughts, conscience, and wisdom are imprisoned—conditioned to believe without thinking, to accept without questioning, and to obey without criticizing, instead of fostering scientific thought, scientific skepticism, research, inquiry, and a critical perspective.

Conglomerate-like religious communities, universities turning into Madrasas, the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye (TBMM) losing its character as the Gazi Assembly where the national will is embodied by turning into a passive rubber-stamp institution, a public being stripped of its status as a Nation to be made subjects of the leader, and the loss of identity imposed through the demagoguery of being "local and national"—this is the painful and thought-provoking portrait of the New Türkiye before us.

We are faced with two options, two paths: to be dragged into extinction by silently bowing down, or to resist to exist in defiance. The Turkish Nation chose not to perish in 1919, but to exist by resisting! In a process where history is repeating itself, there seems to be no other way out than to once again try the option that saved the Turks from extinction and led them to salvation 100 years ago.