April 23 Children's Day

April 23, 1920, is the date when the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, representing the will of the Turkish nation, was opened and the Turkish nation declared its sovereignty. Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk decided on April 23, 1924, that April 23 should be celebrated as a holiday. 

Are we authorized to celebrate April 23 today with the same sentiment and excitement? In my opinion, no! My reasons are as follows: First, in the 1920s, the parliament was opened after the homeland had been saved from occupiers. The situation today is not the same.  The parliament is open today, but the current parliament consists of a formal structure dominated by a single man and the party under his leadership. Second, the parliament of the 1920s was the parliament of a state that had won its independence and was able to stand up to the West. However, the situation today is not like that. So much so that, in a display completely opposite to the image of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who never left his country even for a moment, the head of state and his entourage, who are constantly traveling abroad with their massive staff, are only proud of the images they take with foreign leaders. So much so that the head of state crossing his legs while meeting with the US president is seen as an indicator of equality. What a pity!

Atatürk's gifting of the April 23, 1920 event to children is based on his view of children as the builders of the future. Yes, that was the understanding of the leader of that period and his policy towards children. Well, is this the case in this context? No. Our children are forced to go to school in the mornings before the sun rises, without getting enough sleep, due to a meaningless imposition. The insistence on not switching to seasonal time adjustments has caused children to turn to education under stress from a very young age. 

Children who go to school before the sun even rises in the morning do not receive enough food at home due to poverty, and the government, which cannot cut back on meaningless high expenditures for luxury and state officials, denies children even a one-time food aid. The performance of this service by some municipalities, despite a thousand difficulties, is also opposed in the name of protecting state authority. Under these conditions, this government's gifting of April 23 to children who are left without protein and suffer from nocturnal trauma cannot go beyond a superficial political deception. 

The issue of what kind of education we offer to children who are protein-deficient and suffer from nocturnal trauma is another painful story. It is observed that in schools, a system dominated by a pedagogy of raising a reactionary generation prevails, with the exception of the fact that a headscarf has not yet been placed on the single bust of Atatürk. An education where the Islamic religion is reduced to mere rules and its philosophical content is emptied can only lead your children to two dire consequences. First, children who drift into religious extremism without understanding its philosophical content form the future cannon fodder ready to be managed. Second, peoples divided by different education systems or dual education systems are subjected to social fragmentation, making it easier for them to be made ready to serve foreign powers and/or internal malignant groups. Thus, the path into which our youth are pushed today is not the path of the principle that youth are the light of the future, as Atatürk accurately defined, but the path of the principle of being the agent of darkening the country. 

The ability of our children and youth to perceive their present and turn towards behaviors and education that prepare them for the future is directly proportional to the intensity of their ability to perceive or foresee the future. Young people who cannot see the future, who think that their future in the country may be darkened, and who think that they cannot succeed in oral interviews after written exams without being a member of a party, especially an organization in power, or proving that they are its sympathizer, inevitably turn abroad. Can you imagine a forward-thinking and dignified country where foreign universities or educational institutions, trying to capture customers before every term, almost engage in marketing activities regarding what services they can offer to young people in their own countries? If this is the case, if it is inevitable that all our successful young people will go abroad, this means that not only the current level of our educational institutions but also their future level will be low. 

Even colonial countries, when they go to other countries, aim to increase their human capital capacity by focusing on successful young people both in the dissemination of their languages and in the system where they provide primary education, whereas in our country, not even a trace of such a thought or concern is read, and it can be argued that trying to maintain the system by appointing the most unsuccessful and destructive elements to the most important ministry has not the slightest relation to either patriotism or capable management understanding. 

In the face of rapidly changing technology and in an environment of intensified international competition, it is clear that walking into the international arena with a reactionary, passive, and under-qualified staff that has not received enough from basic sciences will be an absolute defeat. Well, if this is the situation, what are politicians trying to do with the policies they pursue, and by being stubborn with whom, are they wasting our youth in plain sight and dragging our country to defeat? 

Despite these negatives, I wish our children success and congratulate all the children of the world, with the belief that our country can be carried to a bright future with our youth who have not lost their consciousness despite all the malice, by fighting a successful struggle against internal forces just as our people who fought the War of Independence did against the external enemy!