💭 More than 33,000 people are now known to have died after Monday’s earthquakes in Turkey and Syria – and each hour rescue workers find yet more bodies in the rubble of destroyed towns.
Remarkably, some people are still being found alive. Earlier today a ten year old girl was among survivors pulled out of collapsed buildings in the Turkish province of Hatay.
💭 Violence reported amid protest at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, 25 June 2022.
Reports indicate police have violently dispersed protesters at Addis Ababa University, in Addis Ababa, June 25, resulting in an unconfirmed number of injuries. Protesters had gathered there to denounce a June 18 attack on non-Oromo civilians in Gimbi District, West Wellega Zone, Oromia Region, that left over 1500 civilians dead.
Heightened security measures are almost certain to remain in the vicinity of Addis Ababa University. Localized traffic and commercial disruptions are likely near the protest site in the coming hours. Despite these measures, further violence could occur. Furthermore, protests in response to the violence could occur in Addis Ababa.
(The Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins dated back to 1922 and it received the name Hitler-Jugend, Bund deutscher Arbeiterjugend (“Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth”) in July 1926)
“This is the only thing left that connects me to Islam,” says Merve, showing me her bright red headscarf.
Merve teaches religion to elementary school children in Turkey. She says she used to be a radical believer of Islam.
“Until recently, I would not even shake hands with men,” she tells me in an Istanbul cafe. “But now I do not know whether there is a God or not, and I really do not care.”
In the 16 years that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party has been in power, the number of religious high schools across Turkey has increased more than tenfold.
He has repeatedly talked of bringing up a pious generation.
But over the past few weeks, politicians and religious clerics here have been discussing whether pious young people have started to move away from religion.
One day, Merve’s life changed when, after waking up very depressed, she cried for hours and decided to pray.
As she prayed, she realised to her shock that she doubted God’s existence. “I thought I would either go crazy or kill myself,” she says. “The next day I realised I had lost my faith.”
She is not alone. One professor has been quoted as saying that more than a dozen female students wearing headscarves have come up to him to declare they are atheists in the past year or so.
But it is not just atheism that students are embracing.
At a workshop in Konya, one of Turkey’s most conservative cities, there have been claims that students at religious high schools are moving towards deism because of what they referred to as “the inconsistencies within Islam”, according to reports in opposition newspapers.
Deism has its roots back in Greek culture. Its followers believe that God exists, but they reject all religions.
While there are no statistics or polls to indicate how widespread this is, anecdotal evidence is enough to worry Turkey’s leaders.
urkey’s top religious cleric, the head of Religious Affairs Directorate Ali Erbas, has also denied the spread of deism and atheism among the country’s conservative youth. “No member of our nation would ever adhere to a such a deviant and void concept,” he said.
Theology professor Hidayet Aybar is also adamant that there is no such shift towards deism.
“Deism rejects Islamic values. It rejects Koran and it rejects the prophet. It rejects heaven and hell, the angels, and reincarnation. These are all pillars of Islam. Deism only accepts the existence of God,” he says.
According to deist philosophy, God created the universe and all its creatures but does not intervene in what has been created, and does not lay out rules or principles.
“I can assure you that there is no such tendency towards deism amongst our conservative youth,” he argues.
Turkey’s only atheism association believes Prof Aybar is wrong about the current trend and claims that even atheist imams exist.
“Here, there are television shows that debate what to do to atheists,” says its spokesman Saner Atik. “Some say they should be killed, that they should be sliced to pieces.”
“It takes a lot of courage to say you are an atheist under these circumstances. There are women in niqabs who secretly confess they are atheists, but they cannot take them off because they are scared of their family or their environment.”
I meet Merve for a second time at home. She greets me without her headscarf. She has decided to let her hair down when she is at home. Even if there are men around.
“The first time I met a man without my headscarf, I felt really awkward,” she tells me. “But now it comes all very naturally. This is who I am now.”