Erdogan targets Hizmet inspired schools on Africa visit


Date posted: January 22, 2017

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Turkey has courted Africa for more than a decade, boosting trade, opening more than two dozen new embassies and Turkish Airlines routes and dispatching aid to conflict-torn Somalia. More recently, the Turkish government lobbied African nations to close or take over local schools linked to Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Turkey of masterminding a failed coup attempt last year.

So while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan travels with a big business delegation to Tanzania, Mozambique and Madagascar this week, he is also focusing on what he calls a security threat. Turkey accuses international schools inspired by Gulen of providing militant recruits for his movement, which in turn says an increasingly authoritarian government is casting as wide a net as possible for perceived opponents.

“It is only expected that they are trying to fight the battle in Africa with the Gulenists,” said Ahmet Kasim Han, an associate professor of international relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul.

“There is also the understanding that the existing Gulenist networks in the West are harder to take on because of Turkey’s capability limitations in the West, especially when it comes to influence and imagery problems,” Han said.

Turkey, a NATO member repairing frayed ties with Russia, has a sometimes testy relationship with old allies in the West over Turkey’s human rights record and other matters. The overtures to Africa are partly an effort to build Turkey’s international profile as a partner and counter to global powers on a continent with a bitter history of Western colonialism and Cold War-era conflict.

Turkey’s involvement in Africa feeds into the Turkish ruling party’s “self-perception as the protector of Muslims and Muslim minorities around the world,” said Sener Akturk, associate professor in the international relations department at Koc University in Istanbul.

And winning African support dovetails with Erdogan’s argument that the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia — “do not represent and do not serve the world” and the U.N. should be reformed, Akturk said.

Shortly before leaving for Tanzania on Sunday, Erdogan said he planned to talk to African leaders about the “intense activities” of the Gulen movement on the continent.

“Sensitivities toward this organization and its intentions are increasing within friendly African countries,” said Erdogan, who ends his trip on Wednesday. “There is no longer the possibility for these bands of murderers to hide, claiming dialogue, service, education and trade.”

On Jan. 9, Erdogan said Gulen’s organization previously had schools in 115 countries, and that Gambia was among six nations that had shut them. Schools in the African countries of Guinea, Somalia, Chad, Senegal, Mauritania, Niger and Gabon have been transferred to Turkish government control, he said.

The schools follow national curricula, serve children through high school and are popular with local elites because of good academic results. They deny any link to the botched military uprising in Turkey in July that led to a purge of alleged loyalists of Gulen, a U.S.-based critic of Erdogan who had expanded his international influence with a message of interfaith harmony.

The schools once had the approval of Erdogan’s government, whose former alliance with Gulen partly derived from joint opposition to the hard-line secular circles that had ruled Turkey. The partnership evolved into an increasingly acrimonious rivalry several years ago.

In Ethiopia, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said this month that schools linked to Gulen will be transferred to Turkish government control. He said he discussed the matter with Erdogan during a visit by the Turkish president.

“I told him that if there is something wrong with the establishment of the schools, then he should give us a way out how to keep the schools running,” the prime minister said. “They agreed on this and they have set up a foundation.”

In Tanzania, 11 schools in the Feza system inspired by Gulen have a total of 3,000 students, just over half of them Muslim.

Turkish diplomats have tried to “convince government officials to give these schools as a gift to Erdogan during his visit,” Feza director Ibrahim Yunus said in an email to The Associated Press. He dismissed the allegation that the schools are a security threat.

Some parents asked the Feza system to start a university, and the Tanzanian government allocated land 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Dar es Salaam for the institution, according to Yunus.

Turkey’s crackdown on suspected supporters of Gulen has undermined the plan.

“Unfortunately, because of the purge on businesspeople in Turkey, we are having difficulty in finding donors for that project,” Yunus said.


Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey and Elias Meseret in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia contributed.


Related News: Erdoğan’s fight against education in Africa

 

Source: The Daily Progress , January 22, 2017


Related News

Yamanlar Sweeps Gold Medals in the U.S.

Yamanlar Private School was the proud recipient of 12 gold, 10 silver, and 15 bronze medals in the 65th International Mathematical Olympiad (AMC-10), organized by the American Mathematical Society and the University of Nebraska.

Closing down prep schools another poor education policy decision

We are not convinced that shutting down prep schools will either improve quality of education in Turkey or increase educational equality,” said Batuhan Aydagül, director of the Education Reform Initiative (ERI or Eğitim Reformu Girişimi, ERG).

Disregard call to close Turkish schools – Proprietors tell Nigerian govt

Owners of the Nigeria Turkish International College have urged Nigeria to disregard the call by the Turkish Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Hakan Cakil, to close its schools in the country.

Students from Turkish Schools in Thailand Visited the Minister of Trade at His Home

A group of teachers and students from Turkish schools in Thailand, who participated in various international Olympiads, visited the minister of trade Mr. Boonsong Teriyapirom at his home. Yusuf Can Bektas, who is in charge of the Olympiads among Turkish schools in Thailand, Raneenat  Chaiwong, the representative of Fatih Koleji ( Whichai Wittaya) and Arif […]

Pak-Turk school teachers to be deported as Erdogan visits Pakistan

“PakTurk International Schools and Colleges are deeply concerned over the abrupt decision of the Government requiring the Turkish teachers, management and their family members numbering to approximately 450 individuals including the school-going children, infants and ladies to leave the country within three days – an extraordinary time constraint – in consequence of non-approval of their requests for extension of visa.

Turkish charities in Somalia for long haul

02 October 2011, Sunday / ALYSON NEEL Kimse Yok Mu’s healthcare teams traveled to Somalia three times in the last two months to provide emergency health services and bring medical equipment and medicine to the region. In Benadir State Hospital, the largest hospital in Somalia, the gynecology and pediatric units were handed over to Kimse […]

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In Case You Missed It

Gülen’s latest book launch celebrated at İstanbul forum

Chestnut Retreat Center offers a look inside their Saylorsburg facility and its mission

Families Of Afghan-Turk School Students Hold Protest In Kabul [against Turkish Gov’t]

Shut down schools, not tutoring facilities

Hizmet movement and Kurdish question in Turkey

Behind the secret documents – Turkish government profiled a large number of individuals

Turkey’s Erdogan and onslaughts against opposition

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News