THE head of the Turkish Cypriot Educational Planning and Programme Development department, Dr Hasan Alicik, is making history with a project that aims to bring sweeping changes to the way history is taught in Turkish Cypriot schools.
His task, since March this year when Mehmet Ali Talat’s Republican Turkish Party (CTP) took over the education ‘ministry’, has been to create a syllabus that will give what Alicik calls “an objective view of Cypriot history”.
“Even before we came to the ministry there were calls for a new Cyprus history book coming from all quarters of society,” Alicik says.
For the last 20-plus years, students have been studying a history course set by Turkish Cypriot historian Vehbi Zeki Serter. It is about to be scrapped for being “out of touch with the times”.
Alicik, however, is insistent he is not trying to rewrite history.
“We are trying to change the way it is taught,” he says, adding that Serter’s style is “transmission education” – a methodology that involves the book and teacher telling the “facts”, with the students digesting them. With Alicik’s student-centred methodology, students look at the same historical facts or events, but are allowed to come to their own conclusions.
“Of course, we can’t say the Ottomans arrived on Cyprus in 1575 when they actually arrived in 1571, but we can look at historical events with a much wider perspective than we did in the past.”
Alicik’s approach to education is termed “student centred” because it aims to “motivate students by involving them in the educational process”.
“This involves engaging students in discussions and research projects – things that make them feel they are involved in what’s going on.”
It was not only the methodology that Alicik and his team of academics found lacking in Serter’s text.
“Unfortunately, Serter’s book encourages the student to make enemies, and we were convinced that such an approach is not productive.
“In one part of the book it describes how Greek Cypriots ‘gouged out the eyes, filled bodies with holes’ etc. This kind of language, as well as breeding hatred, can also cause lasting psychological damage to the young reader.”
There are also political aspects Alicik believes need to be redressed.
“Serter’s book describes the EU as a ‘rotten apple’ and a ‘poisoned carrot’. Again, such absolutist sentiments go against what we believe. We believe students should be given the wherewithal to make their own decisions about such things.”
The group working on the new history syllabus is made up of six school-based history teachers and three university lecturers. The team also receives technical support from psychologists, artists, pedagogists and graphic designers.
Alicik, as a sociologist, believes it is of utmost importance for young people to learn about social history in order to understand and develop their own identities. He accepts, too, that such a project is a minefield in a place like Cyprus and that the objective approach he adheres to will undoubtedly raise objections in more conservative circles.
“One of our aims is to educate students in such a way that they start to appreciate who the are and where they are from. We want them to feel in touch with their homeland and feel they are an integral part of it.”
He quotes the French pioneer sociologist Emile Durkheim, who highlighted the importance of education and experience in the development of identity, as ammunition for his argument that unless you understand yourself, there is little chance that you will be able to understand others.
Identity, Alicik adds, “is so important for Turkish Cypriots today. We need to know who we are and how to project ourselves in the world.”
“Our people have shown through the ballot box and on the streets that they want to integrate with the world, and we believe that as we integrate it is important for us to know who we are as individuals and as a community.”
Alicik believes in a modern approach to history that is “scientific and objective” rather than absolutist.
“The idea is to teach, not just from one perspective, but from many,” he insists, adding that he is aware that for his project to work he will need the backing of history teachers, without which his programme would stand little chance of working properly.
“We are planning a number of workshops for history teachers at the beginning of the next academic year and are hoping for a working visit from a number of lecturers from Erfurt University in Germany,” he adds.
Alicik hopes his project will act as a catalyst in urging the Greek Cypriot community to “clean up its own act” in the history department.
“We all have to realise that in Europe things are changing. They days of intercultural conflict are giving way to an era of intercultural co-operation.”
Asked how the set of books – which will cover everything from pre-history to the last decade – deals with the events of 1974, Alicik says: “When we look at 1974 we look at it from many perspectives. These perspectives include those of the Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriot, Greeks, Turks, British etc. We don’t say whether it was a good thing or not. That’s for the student to decide.”
Alicik is undogmatic in his approach to the origin of the Turkish Cypriot people.
“We also don’t insist that all Turkish Cypriots are descendents of Ottoman settlers that came after 1571. Hopefully, we will teach the students the methodologies necessary for them to do their own research an find out who and what they are.”
He says he looks forward to seeing “a new kind of identity can emerge: one that makes up its own mind.”
