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- Soeren Kern: Islam Conquering Higher European Education
- Veli Sirin: Turkey: Erdogan's Ergenekon "Victory"
Islam Conquering Higher European Education
by Soeren Kern
August 13, 2013 at 5:00 am
August 13, 2013 at 5:00 am
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Critics say
that such efforts to create a "European Islam" are naïve and
misguided, and will serve only to contribute to the "mainstreaming"
of a religious and political ideology that is intrinsically opposed to all
aspects of the European way of life.
The Catholic University of Leuven, the oldest university in Belgium and one
that has been a major contributor to the development of Roman Catholic theology
for more than 500 years, will offer a degree in Islamic theology beginning in
2014.The decision by KU Leuven, as the university is commonly known, to focus on Islam follows similar moves by other leading universities in Europe and reflects the growing influence of Islam on the continent.
Castle Arenberg, part
of the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. The university will offer a
degree in Islamic theology beginning in 2014. (Image credit:
Juhanson/Wikimedia Commons)
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Some European governments believe that by controlling the religious education of imams, they can promote the establishment of a "European Islam," one that combines Islamic principles and duties with European values and traditions such as the rule of law, democracy, human rights and gender equality.
But critics say such efforts to create a "European Islam" are naïve and misguided, and will serve only to contribute to the "mainstreaming" of a religious and political ideology that is intrinsically opposed to all aspects of the European way of life.
The KU Leuven degree in Islamic theology will be offered within the department of World Religions, Interreligious Dialogue and Religious Studies (WIDR). The program is intended only for those who already have a bachelor's degree, a requirement that would appear to eliminate the chances for admission for a vast majority of the imams in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe.
Moreover, KU Leuven's Islam courses will be taught only in Dutch, a linguistic barrier that will presumably exclude many other practicing imams from participating in the degree program. In addition, the university has not yet revealed who will be teaching the courses on Islam, nor has it published information concerning the academic credentials of the professors who will be running the new program.
In order to earn the degree, students must prepare a thesis and also complete an internship as an Islam counsellor in public institutions such as hospitals, youth programs and prisons, etc.
Belgian opinion-shapers are casting an overwhelmingly positive light on KU Leuven's decision to teach Islamic theology, a move that has been closely coordinated with the government in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium.
Flemish Education Minister Pascal Smet says the new program, which will be launched in February 2014, will be an important step in creating an "academic framework for Islam" in Flanders.
Smet, who has headed a steering committee of representatives from universities and local Muslim leaders, has been instrumental in funneling €100,000 ($135,000) of public money to compensate KU Leuven for teaching the courses on Islam during 2014 and 2015.
Flemish MP Ludo Sannen, who has studied the approaches to training imams used by other European countries, says that working with existing universities is more cost-efficient than starting an Islamic theology program from scratch.
In an interview with the Flemish daily newspaper De Standaard, Sannen says, "We need to train our own imams and Islamic theologians so they approach Islam from our environment and are better integrated."
The KU Leuven Islam program has also benefited from the support of the Flemish Minister for Integration, Geert Bourgeois, who sponsored a major study on Islam in Flanders that was carried out by a consortium of Flemish universities in 2011.
The 80-page study, "Imams and Islamic Consultants in Flanders: How are they Organized?," states that Muslim leaders in Belgium are mostly unfamiliar with Flemish language and culture, and often make reference to the reality of Islam as it is practiced in the Middle East. As a result, imams are ill-equipped to answer the questions of the younger generation of Muslims in Belgium and help them with their problems. Feeling misunderstood, "the younger generation of European Muslims is therefore looking for religious leaders who speak their language and know their world."
In an interview with the Flemish newspaper De Morgen, Bourgeois says the KU Leuven Islam degree as currently conceived has a number of shortcomings. He says that over time the program should be customizable for the needs of individual imams, and that courses must be taught in a second language, presumably Arabic. In this way, according to Bourgeois, the degree program will "better reflect the specific needs of imams."
The training of imams is also moving apace in other parts of Belgium, where Muslims now comprise roughly 6% of the total population, one of the highest rates in Europe.
In northern Belgium, the Antwerp University and College Association (AUHA) is launching a pilot project in which imams and imams-in-training will earn college credits for taking courses such as introduction to Belgian law, introduction to Belgian social and political history, intercultural communication, and Western ethics.
In neighboring Holland, the government has financed several programs in Islamic theological training.
The first Dutch government-sponsored program in Islamic theology was a €2 million ($2.7 million) grant to teach Islam at Holland's largest Protestant Christian university, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), where students can earn bachelors and master's degrees by taking courses in Islamic theology, Arabic language and religious studies with a focus on Islam in the Netherlands and pastoral care.
The Dutch government has also awarded a €2.4 million ($3.1 million) grant to the University of Leiden to launch an Islamic theology program there.
Both of these programs have suffered from an inherent disconnect between the demands of Dutch politicians to promote a "moderate" form state-sponsored Islam, and the demands of local Muslim leaders to teach the authentic and true Islam.
In addition to the Islamic theological offerings at VU and Leiden, the Dutch Ministry of Education has also awarded public funds to the Amsterdam-based Hogeschool InHolland, a practical training university that prepares Islamic educators for work in Dutch secondary schools.
In Sweden, the University of Uppsala in November 2012 hired its first professor of Islamic theology and philosophy. According to the dean of Uppsala University's Faculty of Theology, Mikael Stenmark, "The idea is to develop a new profile at the Department of Theology, and in the long-term offer a complete degree program in Islamic theology."
In Germany, Islamic theology courses at German universities are so popular that they are "changing the German religious landscape," according to the news service Deutsche Welle.
The Center for Islamic Theology at the University of Tübingen -- the first taxpayer-funded department of Islamic theology in Germany -- was inaugurated in January 2012 and is the first of four Islamic university centers in the country.
In addition to the center in Tübingen, Islamic theology departments have also recently opened at universities in Erlangen/Nürnberg (September 2012), Münster/Osnabrück (October 2012), and Frankfurt/Gießen (June 2013).
The German government will pay the salaries for professors and other staff at all four Islamic centers for the next five years, at a total cost of €20 million ($25 million).
According to the German Ministry of Education, Germany has a demand for more than 2,000 Islam teachers, who are needed to instruct more than 700,000 Muslim children.
The German government claims that by controlling the curriculum, the school, which is to train Muslim imams and Islamic religion teachers, will function as an antidote to "hate preachers."
Most imams currently in Germany are from Turkey and many of them do not speak German.
German Education Minister Annette Schavan says the Islamic centers are a "milestone for integration" for the 4.3 million Muslims who now live in Germany.
But the idea has been criticized by those who worry that the Islamic centers will become a gateway for Islamists who will introduce a hardline brand of Islam into the German university system.
In Tübingen, for example, the three professors who will be teaching at the department (eventually there will be six full professorships) had to satisfy an Islamic advisory council that they were devout Muslims.
One of the professors, Omar Hamdan, a Sunni Muslim, says that critical analysis into whether the Islamic Koran was actually written by God is "completely out of the question."
Pointing to double standards, some of those opposed to the Islamic center say there should be critical distance between text and interpreter, as when Christianity is taught in German universities.
Critics also fear that conservative Islamic groups will exert their influence over teaching and research at the center. There are only two independent experts on the advisory board of the Tübingen center. The other five individuals belong to groups such as the Turkish-Islamic Union for Islamic Affairs (DITIB), which is actually a branch of the Turkish government.
DITIB is being used by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to exert control over 900 mosques in Germany -- and to prevent Turkish immigrants from integrating into German society. Erdogan believes that the assimilation of Muslims into a non-Muslim society "is a crime against humanity."
During a meeting with German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich in February 2013, Erdogan said that Berlin's insistence that Turkish immigrants who want to live in Germany must integrate and learn the German language is "a violation of human rights."
Education Minister Schavan says she is "placing a lot of trust" in the new Islamic centers, which she hopes will "contribute to the further development of Islamic theology."
Schavan's assistant at the Ministry of Education, Thomas Rachel, says the rise of taxpayer-funded Islamic centers in Germany is a "historic development, comparable to the rise of protestant Christian theology after the Reformation 500 years ago." According to Rachel, "Muslim theology will be firmly established in German universities, and thus also in German society."
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.
Related Topics: Germany
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Kern
Turkey: Erdogan's Ergenekon "Victory"
by Veli Sirin
August 13, 2013 at 4:00 am
August 13, 2013 at 4:00 am
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Be the first of your
friends to like this."Ergenekon," a legendary Turkish place of origin in Central Asia, was the title given to an alleged secret anti-AKP terror plot with which 275 defendants were charged. Of them, 60 were locked up prior to the trial, and 21 were acquitted.
Begun in 2007, the Ergenekon proceeding has ended with the former head of the Turkish military, General Ilker Basbug, ordered to serve life in prison. Basbug, who had served as Chief of General Staff under Erdogan, was arrested in 2012, accused of heading the Ergenekon plot against the AKP leader. Similar punishments were decreed for 18 more of the accused.
Turks protest against
the "Ergenekon" verdicts amidst clouds of tear-gas fired by police
in Istanbul, Aug 5, 2013. (Image Credit: Rezzan Atakol)
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Kucuk and retired colonel Arif Dogan were accused of creating and directing a terrorist effort to subvert the current authorities. Dogan was purportedly the mentor of a Gendarmerie Intelligence Anti-Terrorism Unit, as a covert, seditious organization, the existence of which has been questioned by such Turkish media as the daily Hurriyet [Freedom]. In the Ergenekon affair, he was sentenced to 47 years in jail.
Other former Erdogan supporters jailed for life in the Ergenekon trial include Kemal Kerincsiz, a fanatical nationalist attorney. Kerencsiz had persecuted the Armenian Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, who edited Agos [The Furrow], a weekly Armenian-language newspaper with sections in Turkish and English. Dink, whom Kerincsiz claimed "insulted Turkishness" – currently redefined as "denigration of the Turkish nation," and a serious offense – was murdered early in 2007 while awaiting indictment. The law that criminalizes "insulting Turkishness" was introduced under Erdogan and pursued with zeal by Kerincsiz.
Among the political and media victims of Ergenekon "justice," Mustafa Balbay, a writer for the daily Cumhuriyet [The Republic] and a parliamentary deputy of the long-established secularist Republican People's Party [CHP], was also senetenced to life in jail, as was his co-defendant, Tuncay Ozkan, another secularist journalist.
An array of 33 indictments was consolidated under the Ergenekon rubric in 2011. The list of defendants is as varied as it is long; the single aspect uniting them, however, is association with secular politics. Defense lawyers are preparing an appeal of the Ergenekon sentences to the Turkish Supreme Court. Turkish commentators point out that many of the accused were convicted without evidence – on opinions rather than on overt actions.
Protestors, in anticipation of the sentencing, gathered on August 5 at Silivri Prison, where the trial was conducted, but were barred from entering the courtroom. Silivri is located near Istanbul west of the Bosporus, in the region geographically described as "European Turkey." Police dispersed the demonstrators using tear gas, shut down roads, and blocked air space at the location, according to Hurriyet.
Erdogan's tyrannical tendencies are facing a serious challenge from the Turkish public, who mounted demonstrations beginning two months ago in Istanbul's Taksim Square. Whether civic discontent will change the outcome of the Ergenekon matter cannot be predicted. Turkish and foreign observers originally indulged Erdogan by describing the Ergenekon case as a necessary restriction on military influence as represented by a "deep state." With time, nevertheless, much of Turkish opinion began to view Ergenekon as a political purge and an assault on Turkey's post-Ottoman secularist political structure, established in the 1920s. Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, with which AKP is aligned, assert the existence of a similar "deep state" within the Egyptian military.
It may be argued that secular Turkey, which underwent army takeovers in 1960, 1971, 1980, 1993, and 1997, was always susceptible to military dictatorship. Yet Erdogan appears to aim at replacing it with an Islamist police state. The Turkish republic is insecure and divided, with Erdogan attempting simultaneous economic and political modernization and ideological Islamization. Ordinary people are pitted against intellectuals; religious believers against secularists; defenders of the legacy of the post-Ottoman republic against Erdogan's adherents.
While the intellectuals warn against restrictions on freedom of speech and the press, many Turkish citizens continue to support Erdogan for his harsh treatment of those he deems "enemies of the state." The Islamist prime minister labels his critics "terrorists," "criminals," and "gangsters."
In 2012, Turkey saw the outcome of a trial that foretold the Ergenekon verdicts: the so-called "Sledgehammer" case. In that, more than 300 officers were found guilty for an ostensible coup plan allegedly originating in 2003, the year after AKP first won a national election. In that trial, as in the Ergenekon ordeal, evidence, the rights of defendants, and prosecutorial conduct are said to have been monitored insufficiently.
Although schemes to overthrow political leaders are usually limited to small, confidential groups, Erdogan's government has presented "Sledgehammer" and "Ergenekon" as massive networks. Erdogan and AKP have manipulated and changed the law to pursue half the armed forces leadership, as well as media personalities, elected opposition politicians, lawyers, authors, and entrepreneurs. The AKP's rage to condemn those with whom it is displeased has extended to suppression of critics of another "moderate Islamist" trend, the "spiritual" movement led by the Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.
Followers of Gulen operate science-oriented schools throughout the world – including in the United States – which also instruct non-Turkish pupils in the importance of the Turkish language and culture in global society. A journalist who exposed Gulenist penetration of the Turkish military and judiciary, Ahmet Sik, was included in the Ergenekon jumble of reprisals. Sik was released from Silivri Prison last year but continues to await a resumption of his trial, scheduled for early September. The Gulenists stand by the Ergenekon allegations and support the AKP's prosecution of the show trial.
In a bizarre incident that illustrates the irrational tendencies at the top of Turkish politics today, early last year the prominent New York author Paul Auster refused to visit Turkey for a book tour in protest against its status as the world's leading state locking up journalists, writers and media commentators. Erdogan responded by dismissing Auster's criticism, but AKP deputy chairman Bulent Gedikli went further, asserting that even Auster was a participant in Ergenekon.
As reported by the London Financial Times, Gedikli, in a frenzy of fantasies, described Auster as part of an anti-Turkish network, "the Neocon-Ergenekon cadre," supposedly headed by Israeli politician Shimon Peres, along with German chancellor Angela Merkel, the then-President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as its back-up players.
There is no longer room for doubt: through a pseudo-legal witch-hunt at home and deceitful propaganda abroad, Erdogan and the AKP are committed to totalitarian suppression of their political critics and opponents, both in Turkey and elsewhere. They feed an apparently insatiable Turkish appetite for conspiracy theories and, as may be observed online, assiduously spread disinformation about "threats to Turkey." Turkish commentators worry that the West ignores Erdogan's violations of civil rights out of the need for him as an ally in confronting the bloodthirsty Assad regime in Syria. But looking the other way while Turkey is transformed into an authoritarian Islamist state will in no way help the suffering Syrian people.
Related Topics: Turkey
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Sirin
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