Islamic Political Identity in Turkey

the role of literacy and the media in the islamic movement 127within this four-year period we opened 450 new 8mam Hatipschools; (2) 10 Institutes of Higher Islamic Studies; [and] (3) 3,000Qur’an vocational projects. Over half a million youth have studied inthese schools. Within the last 15 years many youths have graduatedfrom these schools. The graduates of 8mam Hatip high schoolsnumber over 1,300,000.We have trained a new and moral generation.80Bahattin Ak7it, a professor at Middle East Technical University who has carriedout survey research on the 8mam Hatip high school students, notes that “thestudents’ education reinforces their religious sentiments and opposition toKemalist secularism.” 81The opening of 8mam Hatip schools has been one of the main demands ofMuslim groups in Turkey and has been one of the main concessions grantedby center-right parties in return for electoral support. These schools have playeda critical role in the Islamicization of society and the state. Consequently, thesecular authorities have adopted a very ambivalent attitude toward them. KenanEvren, the 1980 coup leader and president of Turkey between 1983 and 1991,labeled the 8mam Hatip schools sources of “fanaticism” and blamed the coalitiongovernments prior to his coup for allowing their expansion. 82 However, itwas during his leadership that the state promoted a Turkish-Islamic synthesisand presented Atatürk as a “religious leader” who had engaged in a jihad toprotect his nation. Although no new 8mam Hatip high schools were openedduring the coup period (1980–1983), none were disbanded or curtailed either.Between 1983 and 1997, the number of 8mam Hatip schools grew by 59percent, from 374 middle and high schools to 604, but their student enrollmentactually increased from 220,991 total middle and high school students to511,502.The discrepancy is due the fact that parents and school associations, withthe help of administrators, opened new annexes to existing 8mam Hatip schools,which then expanded their enrollments. Pious foundations and a newly emergingMuslim bourgeoisie not only supported established schools Wnancially butalso provided money for new construction.Ministry of Education data for 1991 show that 66 percent of all public 8mamHatip schools had been constructed almost entirely with funds from privatesocial and cultural associations. Another 19 percent of these schools had beenbuilt by joint state and private cooperation; only 9.65 percent had been builtlargely with state funds. 83 Over time, the ratio of 8mam Hatip students as apercentage of all secondary school students increased from 2.6 percent in 1965to 8 percent in 1985 and 10 percent in 1997.The 8mam Hatip schools became the main source of tension between 1990and 1997 with the rise of the RP. 84 Many Kemalists believed that these schoolsbred Islamism in society. 85 After the military forced Erbakan out of oYce in 1997,the NSC demanded the immediate introduction of compulsory eight-year seculareducation to stop the growth of religious schools. The Wrst oYcial decisionof the government of Mesut Yìlmaz was to implement the new education law“suggested” by the NSC. By expanding compulsory education from Wve to eight