According to the information bianet obtained, the Higher Education Council (YÖK) is getting ready to widen the scope of its circular about excusing the Armenian and Jewish students and personnel during their religious holidays. For there have been reactions to the circular in its original form.
According to the report of Sefa Kaplan from daily Hürriyet, the YÖK circular sent from the YÖK president Yusuf Ziya Özcan to all of the rectors in its present form has only excused the Jewish and the Armenian students and personnel during their religious holidays.
Positive but not enough
Prof. Dr. Ayhan Aktar with whom bianet met about the subject describes the move as a positive step, but says it will not be enough. For the circular in its present form excludes the other non-Muslim groups.
Neither all the Armenians are Gregorian, nor all the Greeks are Orthodox, and nor all the Turks are Muslims
The academicians with whom bianet met about the subject say that it was wrong to do the categorization using terms such as “Ermeni” (Armenian) or “Rum” (Greek).
The circular in question leaves out the Syrians, the Rums (Greeks), the Keldani (Chaldeans), and the non-muslim Turks.
The holidays listed in the circular as Armenian holidays are the holidays of the Apostolic Armenian Church (Gregorian). But there are Catholic Armenian and Greeks, too. Chaldeans are Catholic as well. Their holidays are different. The believers of the Greek Orthodox religion are excluded, too. There are Protestants living in Turkey and moreover, the Alewite religious celebration of Hıdırellez is kept outside as well. Then there is Newroz celebrated by many groups in the Middle East and the Caucasus.
The academicians believe that if there is going to be a practice like this one, then it should be based on religions, not the ethnic groups.
According to Aktar, they can take the list of the religious holidays from the religious leaders and make their arrangement accordingly.
There are also academicians who say that it is wrong to include only the monotheistic religions in the implementation; all of the religions should be included.
There are more than 90 religious holidays in the USA
The state of New Jersey in the USA had prepared a similar list, but they had told the educational institutions in their area that they could have added other religious holidays they had wished to the list.
The list has more than 90 religious holidays and days: Islam, Orthodox, Jewish, Hindu, Bahai, Sikh, Shinto, Taoism, Russian Orthodox, Buddhism, all the other Christian sects. (TK/TB)