Interview by Sawsan al-Abtah (Beirut)
Mehmet Hakkı Suçin: The language of the dad is now officially taught in our schools
Turkey’s new political opening towards the Arab world is accompanied by several cultural initiatives that have come to light, perhaps the most important of which is the decision taken last year by the Turkish Ministry of Education to teach Arabic as an elective in primary and secondary schools. Dr. Mehmet Hakkı Suçin – head of the committee for the new Arabic curricula that Turkey has drawn up according to European standards, something applied to our language for the first time, and currently in charge of the project for translation from Arabic into Turkish and vice versa – speaks in this interview about the future of Arabic in Turkey and the current projects to strengthen cultural ties between Arabs and Turks.
You head a committee charged with drawing up new curricula for teaching Arabic in Turkish schools. Why now? And what stages have you completed?
Six years ago, with funding from the World Bank, the Ministry of Education decided to renew Turkey’s curricula, including those for foreign languages such as English, French and German, in line with European standards. About a year ago our committee – myself, two academics and a number of Arabic teachers from the imam-hatip schools – was asked to draw up a new curriculum for teaching Arabic to non-native speakers. We set learning objectives for each stage: the student must acquire speaking, reading and writing skills in order to move on to the next stage.
What approach did you follow in your curricula?
As is well known, grammar and translation is the most common method of teaching Arabic, and it is one of the most primitive and traditional. We adopted the modern communicative approach used in teaching European languages and applied it to Arabic. It is the approach used by the British Council for English and the Goethe-Institut for German, and this is the first time in the world that it has been applied to Arabic.
In 2011 the Turkish Ministry of National Education decided that Arabic would be taught in primary and secondary schools as an elective or compulsory foreign language, like other foreign languages including Spanish, Italian and Chinese. The decision comes with Turkey’s new opening to the Arab and Islamic worlds. Nor is it the only cultural step Turkey has taken since the Justice and Development Party came to power: there is a project for translation from Arabic into Turkish and vice versa; Turkish-language centres are opening in Beirut, Cairo and, for example, Muslim countries in the Balkans; Turkey now takes part in and funds restoration projects for Ottoman heritage sites in northern Lebanon; and it promotes its universities through various activities to attract Arab students and sends music and arts ensembles to introduce Turkish arts. What are the Turkish cultural projects for rebuilding bridges with the Arab world, what are their aims, and what do the Turks expect from the Arab peoples in return? Dr. Mehmet Hakkı Suçin – professor of Arabic at Gazi University, author of works on Arabic language and civilisation, head of the committee for the new Arabic curricula and coordinator of the Turkish–Arabic translation project launched a year ago – tells us. Here is the text of the interview, conducted on the sidelines of the 11th Al-Arabi Magazine Forum in Kuwait.
Perhaps you have laid foundations from which Arabs too could benefit?
That is true. Arabs sometimes learn Standard Arabic as if it were a second language distinct from the colloquial, so the curriculum we have drawn up might help Arabs themselves; Europeans, too, could use it to teach Arabic in their own countries. We had to choose between two standards, American or European, and we chose the latter because of our well-known ties with Europe. Imagine: we have developed new applications, and many people could benefit from our curricula. What students will learn is a language drawn from life, not a dry language far removed from everyday use.
In your schools the mother tongue is Turkish; students must choose between English and French as a compulsory second language, and Arabic comes as an optional third language among a range of languages. Do you think the uptake will be reasonable?
Many Turks have a strong desire to learn Arabic, and I expect the number of learners will not be small. There are many reasons for this.
What are these reasons?
The decision is a government one and comes for strategic reasons. For ordinary people, learning Arabic comes from religious motives, including the wish to read the Qur’an. Usually those who start learning the alphabet go all the way: whoever chooses Arabic in primary school will choose it again in secondary school.
Nor should we forget commercial motives: a family may think of teaching its children Arabic to make it easier for them to work in the Arab world, or to trade with neighbouring countries and earn money. On top of this there is the tourism dimension, important for Turkey and impossible to overlook.
Which foreign languages are taught in Turkey today?
Ninety per cent of schools teach English as a compulsory foreign language from the fourth grade, but the teaching methods are weak, so when students graduate they cannot speak English well and write with some mistakes. For this and other reasons the curricula had to be reconsidered.
Arabic is taught to those who want to specialise in it at university and in the imam-hatip schools, which number about 493 with around 235,000 students. Turkish also contains some five thousand Arabic words. With the new curricula, learning Arabic becomes possible for pupils from primary school if they wish, and they can continue learning it in secondary school. By law, a secondary school may also choose Arabic as a compulsory foreign language if it wishes.
What about translation from Arabic into Turkish? In Arabic we read translated books by Turkish poets and novelists; do Turks know the great Arab writers?
Unfortunately, Turkish writers follow Arabic literature through English and French. Very little Arabic literature has been translated into Turkish. Naguib Mahfouz was translated very poorly from Arabic, and his retranslation from English came out better. There are translations of Arab writers such as Khalil Gibran, Tawfiq al-Hakim and Adonis made through intermediary languages, though I have retranslated some of Adonis’s poems from the Arabic. But this problem should be solved, and Turks will get to know Arabic literature better through direct translations from the original, thanks to the TEDA project, which will deal with translation from Arabic into Turkish and vice versa.
Is it devoted to translation between Turkish and Arabic?
TEDA has been running for five years; its aim is to bring Turkish literature into English, German and French and to hold workshops. Arabic was added about a year ago, and I am the Arabic coordinator of the project. I would add that about 100 Turkish literary books had been translated into Arabic even though the project did not originally include Arabic.
And how does the work with the Arab side proceed in practice?
The project has two parts: translation and workshops. Proposals submitted by institutions or publishers wishing to translate books are approved and funded. In addition, ten-day workshops are held in Istanbul to work together on what is to be translated. Each year we choose a theme; this year we chose the short story. We send texts to six translators months before the workshop, and when we meet in Istanbul there is a coordinator from the Arab side and another from the Turkish side, and the translations are assessed.
We are currently cooperating with the National Centre for Translation in Egypt and seeking cooperation with the Arab Thought Foundation. We want to diversify our partners: there is the Kalima project in the UAE, and there should be another institution in, say, Morocco, so that we cover the Arab region.
The Justice and Development Party has drawn up a strategy to build cultural bridges with the Arab countries. To what extent will the Arab revolutions, especially in Syria, hamper this project?
The revolution in Syria was a hard blow to communication, since Syria is our unavoidable land route to many Arab countries, but the losses may be limited to Syria. It is likely to be a passing phase that will be overcome.
There used to be a cultural and civilisational attitude between Arabs and Turks that could be called tense; now the orientations have changed. Does this Arab–Turkish rapprochement answer a desire among Turks, or is it a decision from above?
Before the Justice and Development Party, Turkey’s orientation was European; with the change, foreign policy has become multidirectional. A very large majority of Turks support the European orientation, but they support the Islamic orientation along with it. These two orientations feed each other. A strong, European Turkey representing the region in the European Union will benefit the whole region.
To what extent do you think the Turkish people are interested in strengthening cultural ties with the Arabs?
The Turkish people are religious by nature and attached to their Islamic traditions. The tendency you now see in foreign policy is in harmony with popular aspirations.
At the level of language, Arabic enjoys a popular sanctity in the eyes of Turks, as with all other Muslim peoples, and I believe presenting Arabic literature through translation will meet a great response.
What response have your projects received from the Arab bodies you are trying to coordinate with?
We have now begun with the step of drawing up curricula and teaching Arabic, and the question is whether Arab countries will respond with a similar step for teaching Turkish. We set up the Yunus Emre centre in Beirut for teaching Turkish, with counterparts in Cairo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, and other centres will open in European countries. Arab peoples could benefit from these centres to strengthen communication between us. Demand in Beirut is very great; the Turkish cultural centre in Syria used to take 700 students; and many Arabs come to our Turkish-teaching centres in Ankara and Istanbul.
I think there is a great historical longing between Arabs and Turks. The two sides were apart for a time, and now they are meeting again. The heated debate about Turkey’s role and the strong reproach we hear from Arabs stem from the affection between the two sides.
But when we talk about culture, literature alone is not enough?
Certainly, when we talk about culture we must include all kinds of arts and forms of expression, including folklore, which can bring peoples closer. The Turkish people have a rich folklore, as do the Arab countries, and work must be done in this field to introduce societies to one another and strengthen ties at the popular level. The basic point in relations between the two sides is that the ice has been broken and the wheel has begun to turn.
Source: Sawsan al-Abtah, “Turkey has drawn up Arabic curricula, the first of their kind”, Asharq Al-Awsat, no. 12178, 1 April 2012. Translated from the Arabic for this site.