Nergis Canefe shares some of the insights gained over three decades of teacher training initiatives addressing minority communities in Greece and Turkey.
Nergis is Professor of Politics, Public Policy and Law at York University.
Back in 1997 the government of Greece launched a ten-year, large-scale intervention project aimed at reforming the education of the Muslim minority in Western Thrace, a project co-financed by the European Union and the Greek Ministry of Education. As project leads Thalia Dragonas and Anna Frangoudaki noted, nearly two hundred specialists, drawn from various disciplines and led by a team from the University of Athens, contributed to the development of new educational materials, teacher training and community engagement. I had the privilege of taking part in some of the original discussions that shaped the project. The project was conducted in tandem with another large-scale, interdisciplinary Project for Reform in the Education of Muslim Children (PEM) in Western Thrace, Greece, implemented during the years 1977–2004. Although this earlier project targeted children and the teaching of Greek as a second language, it also involved the development of educational materials, teacher training and academic assessment of outcomes.[2]
In the early 2000s I attended a series of small workshops in the Cypriot village of Pyla, which brought together peace scholars active in both sides of the divided island to imagine how one might write a common history for the entire Cypriot community. Teacher training as socio-political intervention assumes markedly different forms in different geographies, even if the subject matter remains the same. What may appear as ‘shared trauma of imperial collapse’ to one community, for example, may be a cause for jubilation and an essential element of freedom narratives in an adjacent one. No single model can therefore hope to deliver results that enhance engagement, critical thinking skills or even reconciliation. Added to this complex picture are challenges such as unequal access to education and segregated educational practices.
Legacies of underdevelopment and communal marginalization need to be acknowledged in any teacher-training program.
Systemic inequalities defy the idealistic vision of creating a universal curriculum for conflict resolution. The aforementioned projects were predicated on the right of the Muslim minority of Western Thrace in Greece to receive education in their mother tongue, provided by the Treaty of Lausanne and the educational bilateral agreements—the Educational Agreement (1951) and the Cultural Protocol (1968)—signed between Greece and Turkey.[1] Many of the minority students did not have adequate opportunities to gain basic let alone advanced knowledge of the Greek or Turkish languages, however. Teacher training on the minority’s rights could not remedy outdated textbooks, poorly-educated teaching staff or make up for the absence of an efficient school curriculum.[2]
New primary-level textbooks may have been designed, covering Greek as a second language, history, geography, the environment and civic education, all emphasising the rights of minorities in Western Thrace and ultimately leading to an affirmative action arrangement in 2005 for higher education admissions, but simultaneous application of such principled policies is rarely possible on both sides of a conflict. The very widespread network of scholars, activists and advocates working on the Turkish side of memory politics and historical scholarship was heavily invested in the writing of textbooks, yet it was not enough to guarantee success. I spent several years studying the history textbooks developed for the post-1974 Northern Cypriot community; the nationalistic/atavistic tone of the texts was practically prohibitive of any hope for future reconciliation between Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities.[3]
It is essential that these kinds of initiatives are instituted at historical turning points, when society is attuned to the possibility of re-membrance and revisiting of certain events. In this context, The Lausanne Project is a very important stepping stone.
Finally there is the question of timing. I think it is essential that these kinds of initiatives are instituted at historical turning points, when society is attuned to the possibility of re-membrance and revisiting of certain events. In this context, The Lausanne Project is a very important stepping stone in that direction. The engagement of communal actors, such as NGOs who have been working on “memory politics” and “minority rights” issues is also key for the successful absorption of the findings of such projects. What is much more difficult is the official acceptance and/or endorsement by the home governments and multi-lateral meetings that bring two or more sides of conflict-ridden histories together. That, I believe, is the most crucial aspect to any future endeavour we may undertake concerning the re-evalution of the Lausanne Treaty in 2023 and beyond. As the title of this blog suggests, the present is indeed the past of our future.
Special thanks to Thalia Dragonas, Professor at the University of Athens, MP and Anna Frangoudaki, Professor at the University of Athens for their leadership, commitment and perseverance.
FEATURE IMAGE: NERGIS CANEFE
Notes
[1] https://www.eliamep.gr/wp-content/uploads/en/2006/05/Case_study_report_Thrace.pdf
[2] See Iris Kalliopi Boussiakou’s work which provides a very detailed analysis of the circumstances effecting the school-age minority children in Western Thrace at https://d-nb.info/1190971496/34
[3] Nergis Canefe, “Citizenship, History and Memory in Turkish Cypriot Society: Is There Room for Cypriotness?” in C. Koulouri, Clio in the Balkans: The Politics of History Education (Thessaloniki: Ballidis, 2002): 383-396.
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The Lausanne Project 