RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16618/turkey-religious-sects

The school curriculum teaches boys that the female sex is inferior and second-class, while it teaches girls to be a slave to a man. — Professor Esergül Balcı, Report from Izmir September 9th University, September 5, 2020.

In 2010 a scandal in Siirt in southeast Turkey revealed serial rapes in this conservative little town, including cases of adults raping minors and minors raping toddlers, even killing one…. “This is a small town,” the mayor said… “Almost everyone is related to everyone.”…. No one was prosecuted.

When, in 1925, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, banned all Islamic sects, dervishes, lodges and other religious cults dating from the Ottoman times, he publicly said, “The Turkish Republic cannot be a republic of sheiks, dervishes and their disciples. The only right sect is the sect of civilization.” Almost a century after the birth of a modern nation, nevertheless, the Turkish Republic has indeed become a republic of sheiks, dervishes and their millions of disciples.

The findings of an academic from Izmir’s September 9th University are worse than scary. The following is from Professor Esergül Balcı’s alarming report:

Islamic sects, cults and orders in Turkey have flourished in coalition with [President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s] Justice and Development Party (AKP) as their members have successfully built networks in public service.
The number of madrassas [Islamic schools] has risen sharply [since the AKP came to power in 2002].
The Treasury’s financial support for schools run by Islamic sects has reached TL 1 billion [approximately $126 million].
About one million pupils attend schools run by sects.
A total of 2.6 million Turks have some kind of connection with a religious order.
There are primarily 30 sects, their 400 branches and 800 madrassas.
Parents enroll children as young as three years old at religious schools. A third of Turkey’s 10,000 private schools have links with at least one sect. So do 2,800 of the country’s 4,000 private dormitories.
The school curriculum teaches boy students that the female sex is inferior and second-class, while it teaches girls to be a slave to a man.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trouble-in-putins-neighborhood-11603149025?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Changes to the Russian constitution approved earlier this year allow Vladimir Putin to remain president well into his 80s. While he has consolidated power at home, one of the little-remarked events of the year has been the authoritarian’s inability to stop disorder in Russia’s near-abroad.

In 2005 Mr. Putin said “the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” More than a decade later, the former KGB officer mused that if he could go back in time he would prevent the 1991 collapse. The USSR isn’t coming back, but the Russian Federation still tries to maintain stability on its periphery through deep economic, military and cultural ties with former Soviet Republics.

This project hasn’t been going well, even in countries that generally view Moscow favorably. The latest headache comes from Russian ally Kyrgyzstan. Opposition parties accused ruling elites of voter fraud after Oct. 4 parliamentary elections, and chaos continued even after the results were annulled last week.

President Sooronbai Jeenbekov announced his resignation Thursday. The nationalist Sadyr Japarov, newly sprung from prison, has become prime minister and acting president. But a Kremlin spokesman said Thursday that Russia would pause economic support for Bishkek because “there is no government as such, as far as we see.” Mr. Putin has reason to worry about instability in the resource-rich country, which hosts a strategically important Russian air base.