the tourist district of Kızılcahamam in springtime, one definitely
notices how fabulous the poppies are that cover the hillsides. It would
be difficult for many travelers to imagine a better view.
However, for about a week this conclusion is certainly untrue for
anyone whose destination is the Asya Thermal Resort in Kızılcahamam
where 700 contestants from 115 countries will compete in the 2009
International Turkish Olympiads.
Marking the seventh year of this event, the International Turkish
Olympiads is just one of the fruits of the tireless work of
self-sacrificing teachers who have moved to different parts of the
world, being inspired by the well-known Turkish Islamic scholar
Fethullah Gülen, widely considered to be one of the most influential
thinkers alive today.
Having witnessed the harmony between the students of those 115
participating countries, despite the fact that they are competing
against each other for first place in one of the 14 different categories
all requiring mastery in Turkish, one cannot but agree that if global
peace is going to be a reality one day, its existence will owe a great
deal to those who incessantly communicate their transcendent love, which
does not recognize borders or discriminate against anyone.
Walking among those students without even uttering a word, it is
impossible not to see the beauty they form together. Students coming
from Nigeria, the UK, Yemen, the US, Mexico, Tajikistan, Australia and
108 other countries around the world, hand-in-hand, are the perfect
assurance for a better tomorrow. Nothing could be easier to accept after
having seen Gulvardi, a Georgian girl, reciting a poem on the podium
and being applauded most by a Russian boy, Alexis, while he was also
trying to hold his country’s flag under his arm. However, it has only
been less than 10 months since the Russian Federation launched an
offensive on Georgia, alarming the world to a possible wider-scale
clash. Who would now bet even a single penny that Alexis, giving
Gulvardi a standing ovation, would ever agree to a similar offensive on
her country if he has any say in his country’s future? What about the
friendship between Iraqi Sazgar Darabek from Sulaimaniya Girls College
and American Denise Stacy Uraias from Texas Science Academy? They were
sitting next to each other just a few rows behind Alexis, waving to
Gulvardi, whom they met two days ago.
Heroes of education
A Turkish proverb says no pleasant outcome comes without fatigue. Who
bore all the pain and ultimately helped turn what is at hand today –
something that was only a dream not so long ago — into a reality? The
answers are among the students at Kızılcahamam: their teachers. One of
them, Behçet Polat, married with two sons and who is presently teaching
at Şule College in Australia, was giving last-minute tips to his five
students, Mualla, Cemile, Javeria, Jayden and Afrida, who surrounded him
with their eyes wide open. Polat first started working in the Siberian
steppes in the freezing cold and then moved to Australia after eight
years, a climate change from an average annual temperature of -20
Celsius to 20 degrees. Mualla and Cemile are the daughters of his
equally devoted colleagues working in the same country. Mualla, who is
competing in the short essay category, was born in Russia and then moved
to Thailand and Ghana and then returned to Russia along with her
parents when she was nine years old. After having spent another year in
Moscow, her father started working in Australia five years ago, where
she met Cemile, who had come to the country only 30 days after she was
born in Turkey’s southeastern province of Kahramanmaraş.
In order not to miss the significance of their stories, it should be
kept in mind that these men are not diplomats who work in various
countries during their careers because of the nature of their
professions or sailors voyaging around the world. They simply chose to
live like this to bring the message of love to whichever Turkish schools
they go to work in. Adem Aldemir is another of those heroes. Having
grown up in Burdur, a small province with a population of less than
250,000 in southwest Turkey, he first moved to Benin and then to Burkina
Faso and on to Togo, where he presently teaches at the International
Zodiac College. Interestingly enough, there isn’t even any Turkish
diplomatic representation in any of those three neighboring countries on
the African continent.
Islands of peace
The fatigue and pain that needed to be contended with in order for
these teachers to deliver a fruitful outcome cannot be underestimated.
They made the sacrifice of moving to countries far from Turkey that most
of their fellow countrymen have never even heard of and where the
climates are not so pleasant. There are examples of those devoted men
and women who traveled to some zones of conflict such as Iraq,
Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and many others to reach the children of
these countries, too. Parviz Hoşimov, Ramazan Safarov, Behruz Cumayev
and Rüstam Pirakov, members of this year’s Tajik team, have told the
story of the first Turkish teachers coming to their country. Mentioning
that there are six Turkish schools operating in Tajikistan today, they
said it was during the civil war between 1992 and 1997 when the first
one was opened by a handful of men determined to develop an “island of
peace” in Tursunzade, located 60 kilometers west of Dushanbe. “The
entire country was crumbling with the impact of the war back then.
People were afraid to go out to even buy bread and milk from a grocery
store.” They remember with grief the atrocities perpetrated in those
days. The children of the once war-ridden country, where brothers
pointed guns at each other, are now making Albanian, Argentinean and
Sudanese friends while communicating in Turkish with them.
Looking at the pictures he had taken with a Serbian contestant in the
waiting hall on his laptop was Chyngyz Shukurov, 19, from Kyrgyzstan.
He managed to participate in the International Turkish Olympiads in his
fourth attempt because he said: “The competition was too tough back at
home; it was like everybody was willing to come here. I was
unfortunately not successful enough in the first three.” Each year,
contestants are selected from every country where there is at least one
Turkish school by a jury of teachers working at that particular
institution. Asked if he knew anything at all about Serbia before coming
to Ankara, Shukurov replied: “Yes, but only a couple of players on
their national soccer team. Now I can talk about the country for hours.”
Brenda, 15, and Viridiana, 14, from Mexico came up with an answer
recalling something else. “In our country, many people do not even know
that the very host of this spectacular organization, Turkey, exists.”
Raindrop High School in Mexico, however, is a reality now, remedying the
lack of information in two ways; about Turkey in Mexico and vice versa,
and even beyond.
For someone speaking a language that is much more accepted worldwide
than Turkish, learning that particular language can be considered much
more difficult, but Ocean Carli, 11, from the UK is a solid
counter-example. Son of a sailor, hence the name, Ocean can hardly be
distinguished from his Turkish friends while playing in the courtyard of
the premises. Holding tight to the English flag with a St. George’s
cross on it, he was supporting an Azeri girl reciting a poem “I fell in
love before I even met you.”
Having been fascinated with what was seen in Kızılcahamam, one
definitely misses the poppies on the way back to Ankara.
