Foreign-based opposition schools obsess Turkish leader

ALTHOUGH Recip Tayyip Erdogan is considered the most powerful leader of Turkey since Ataturk, he frequently chooses to visit Latin American countries with which Turkey has weak ties, as well as small European and African states.

Erdogan has visited sub-Saharan Africa 10 times in less than 18 months. This week he will be visiting Mozambique, Angola and Madagascar at a time the Turkish lira appears to be 2017’s worst performing currency.

Erdogan’s Africa visit has political and economic motives.

Obviously Turkey has strong relations with Africa. Istanbul hosted the “Turkey-Africa Co-operation Summit” in 2008, which was attended by 49 countries. The second Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit took place in 2014 in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.

Today Ankara runs 34 embassies on the continent, even in some countries, such as Namibia, which have almost no Turkish citizens. Turkish Airlines flies to 51 destinations in 34 countries across the continent, double that of Emirates’ African network.

Turkey’s bilateral trade volume with Africa reached US$17.5 billion in 2015, and trade volume with sub-Saharan Africa reached US$6bn that same year.

But what is the real motivation for Erdogan’s visit in these turbulent days for Turkey?

Erdogan is expanding his witchhunt against the Gulen Movement to Africa. While the Turkish lira replaces the rand as the world’s most volatile currency, and the most critical Cyprus meeting is in progress in Geneva, Erdogan’s Africa visit is not surprising for citizens of Turkey.

Erdogan has made most of his famous critical statements during his trips abroad, and has been out of Turkey at times when the country has faced serious social turmoil, such as during the Gezi Park protests.

But this time, the issue is not opposition protests or challenging the country’s secular army.

Turkey faces an existential problem as Erdogan challenges Russia and the US at the same time.

This is in addition to the PKK, whom Turkey has been fighting for 40 years, and Islamic State, which has carried out deadly attacks in major cities almost weekly.

Erdogan has openly stated that his government will focus on fighting Gulenists abroad this year as the AKP shut down all the Gulen-affiliated institutions in Turkey last year.

Erdogan’s powerful AKP formed the Maarif Trust under the Turkish education ministry to take over Gulen schools abroad, and this trust has succeeded in taking over some of the movement’s schools.

For a long time, one of the key agendas of Turkish ambassadors has been to fight the Gulen movement, even though many ambassadors joined the opening ceremonies of Turkish schools a few years ago.

Hizmet schools are registered by local authorities and they follow local curriculum, with almost all the students being local. That’s the reason why in Pakistan, Morocco and Senegal, parents and students organised massive protests against their local authorities in order to protect their children’s educational rights.

As in his previous visits, Erdogan will be very generous to African leaders in order to shut down Hizmet schools. Turkey has strong economic and political ties with Sudan, Somalia and other countries which have decided to close down Hizmet schools.

The Hizmet Movement has been in the education field for the past 40 years in Turkey, and 30 years abroad. Thousands of volunteers who graduated from top Turkish universities contributed to education in several countries.

For the Turkish government, it would not have been easy to convince teachers to serve in African countries with lower living standards compared to Turkey.

Since 2013, Turkey has become increasingly authoritarian and accused of having relations with many armed groups outside the country.

According to sources, Erdogan will visit Madagascar for three hours. It is expected that he will request Mozambique to close Hizmet schools operating in its territory. The irony is that Mozambican President Nyusi’s son graduated from Maputo’s Willow School.

While Africa is struggling with security issues, we will watch how the continent will receive and respond to Erdogan when Turkish prisons are filled with professors, judges, doctors, teachers, housewives and business people, while only seven IS members are currently behind bars, despite recent deadly attacks carried out by IS adherents.

Terzi is a Turkish journalist based in South Africa.