lpetrich
Contributor
Turkish students increasingly resisting religion, study suggests | Turkey | The Guardian - "Young people likely to challenge Islam and see themselves as less religious than previous generations"
Twenty-two-year old Esra, from Mersin, is even more bored than usual this Ramadan. Universities are shut and Turkey has taken the unusual step of placing under-20s, as well as over-65s, under a curfew, because many Turkish families live in intergenerational households.
As a result, Esra can’t see any of her friends. And a few days into the Muslim month of fasting, like many young people, she is now feeling even more suffocated by the religious restrictions imposed by her pious parents.
“They normally don’t know how I dress when I’m not there but even in the house now wearing tight jeans bothers them and they’re commenting on it,” she said. “They think I am fasting but I’m not. I have water in my room.”
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Yet a study by Sakarya university and the ministry of education from earlier this year looking at religious curricula in Turkey’s school system found that students are “resisting compulsory religion lessons, the government’s ‘religious generation’ project and the concept of religion altogether”.
Almost half of the teachers interviewed said their students were increasingly likely to describe themselves as atheists, deists or feminists, and challenge the interpretation of Islam being taught at school.
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The shift away from religion among Turkey’s younger generation follows a trend seen in many industralised countries. But some wonder if it is also a backlash to almost two decades of the AKP’s pushy brand of political Islam.