Turkey: Current textbooks portray Christians as enemies of Ottoman state

Some history textbooks, still used in Turkish schools today, when outlining the end of the Ottoman Empire, describe Armenians and other Christian communities, as enemy forces at the service of foreign powers - the Armenian magazine Agos has learnt.

Journalists from the magazine, examined text books listed on the website of the Ministry of Education, for use in primary and secondary schools in Turkey for the new school year, which just started.

In particular, one history book for use in Grade 8 classes, presents the pressure exercised by Britain and Russian on Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire as a factor which unleashed action against the Armenians portrayed as “necessary deportation” and never as massacres.

The only Christian minority spared negative reference is the Syrian community. All the others are described as tools of foreign powers intent on provoking the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

One passage reads: “The politics of states in conflict, aiming for the demolition of the Ottoman Empire was efficacious with Armenian, Greek, Nestorian, Chaldean and Melkite communities, despite its weak effect on the Syrian community ”. .

Source: Fides/Agos

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