Today, in almost all of the countries, education is under governments" control and manipulation. The essential reason for governments to lay hands on the education is not to increase the declared average education level, help the poor, or to educate the children better by doing what amateur parents cannot do; it is to reveal the correct values and behavior patterns to young citizens. Because of this, the education that is under the state"s control is contrary to the communities" natural pluralism, because you can"t refer an education to more than one value system. No matter which value system you choose as a platform, absolutely someone will be excluded.

In countries like Turkey, which comes from a half totalitarian and half-authoritative past, the sole objective of the state is to give value education. Our education system is designed according to this. The ideology of this system is Kemalism. Children are educated to be Kemalists. Since it is impossible to hold this pattern tight in democracy, as in the single party regime, there had been cases, where the system had cracked and gave side branches. Imam Hatip schools are an example of this. Another example is the placement of the optional Quran and Prophetic Biography to the system by AK Party rulerships. However, these steps haven"t been able to change the education ideology. Objecting to this ideology and the injection of this to the youth via education, is even hard for politicians. As a matter of fact, no steps towards this direction had been taken by AK Party. The Liberal Turkey formation, which had seen this, had started a campaign to remove Revolution History classes, which are the main instrument of the ideological indoctrination. The following is what"s being said in the declaration that is being prepared for this campaign:

"Within the present national education system in Turkey, the context of the textbooks are designated by the Turkish Education Board, which is connected to the Ministry of National Education, while taking the National Education Essential Law (1739th clause) into consideration. In the National Education"s Essential Law, it is being stated that during the preparation of the contexts of the textbooks, the Ataturk Nationalism, which had found an expression in the Constitution with the Ataturk Principles and Revolutions, should be selected as the baseline. Asking the kids to connect with the nationalism, populism, statism, hat revolution, letter revolution etc. in the direction of Ataturk principles and revolutions, is nothing more than anchoring free people to a state of emergency vision, which had been experienced a century ago. At the same time, while the Ataturk Principles and Revolution History class, which doesn"t even comply with the liberalist education pedagogy and is being conducting in the direction of this barren expectation, is being unfair to the past since it brings forth a single ethnical identity and is making an independence fiction that is actualized by the courtesy of this ethnical identity, it is also unable to develop a vision which can construct the future. The language of this course, and the approach of the textbook, which regards pluralism dangerous, that belongs to this course, is contrary to the liberalist, pluralist and democratic education mentality. This course, which rips the late history and especially the Anatolia geography from the time and place depth, and disregards the identity and personalities, is enforcing a single and archaic ideology to individuals and blunting their pluralist, critical and objective thinking skills. The Ataturk Principles and Revolution History course, which doesn"t give credit to the experiences in the past, possesses a separationist set up, which is in the form of masters of the Republic and potential collaborative and reactionary rabbles, by alienating the generations that constructed its past, should be buried to the past like the course itself.

Every citizen in Turkey should have the right to read the late history, from authentic and objective sources, like in other advanced democracies, and shouldn"t be forced to compulsory lessons and textbooks, which possesses a singular point of view in this matter. An approach, which handles the late history as an objective past accounting, will be preparing an environment, which will give birth to a mentality that will provide the development of peace and human rights in free individuals, and contribute to the country"s and humanity"s common tranquility. In this sense, the late history course, which possesses a "Late History From Emperorship to Republic Course" type of format, will also be compatible with the "state cannot give an education against a parent"s belief and philosophic opinion" principle of the European Human Rights Agreement (EHRA), which Turkey had also signed. And in this sense, the late history course will reinforce Turkey"s liberalist stance between other modern democratic countries.

A good future can only be constructed via a past accounting, which is in peace with itself and solid. While experiencing one of the greatest breakings in history, we had been already late to write and explain the history written by the generation that had been shoulder to shoulder in the Anatolian geography, rather than the artificial memories that are fictionalized in order to cover the wounds and keep together the community, which had survived painful hard times. We, whose signatures are below, want the removal of the Ataturk Principles and Revolution History course from the compulsory essential education and ask for it to be replaced with a world recent era country history course, which is objective and in an authentic format like the "Late History from Emperorship to Republic Course".

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For people who wants to support this campaign and give their signatures: http://www.inkilaptarihidersikaldirilsin.com