"Turkish court rules religion classes should not be compulsory"

1. Citation:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/04/news/Turkey-Religion.php
"Turkish court rules religion classes should not be compulsory"
International Herald Tribune
Article published: Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Article chosen: Thursday, March 6, 2008

2. Summary:
This article is mainly about an Alevi family whose sons and daughters went to a school where Sunni- belief classes were being taught. The family pressed charges against the school to try to make religious classes optional or have Shiite religious education offered. They won the case, a huge accomplishment for the Shiites considering how many more Sunni Turks there are. Alevis are around twenty percent of Turkey’s population says the US State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report while Alevis say they are almost a third of the population. Nonetheless, their win will likely make the European Union very happy because they have been working on making Alevis treated equally in Turkey, considering that they have been discriminated against in multiple schools. Alevis mostly live in Turkey and they worship by dancing, singing, and chanting. Women and men don’t pray separately or “hajj pilgrimage to Mecca” as other Muslims do.

3. Reactions:
A) This article relates to the AP World History Theme Development and Interactions of Cultures, because the religion and culture of Sunnis and Shiites are meshing with one another. The differences between their beliefs and worships cause a conflict. This interaction causes their society to make a more fair environment for children at school.
B) As we are learning in class, the historical background of the rivalry between Sunnis and Shiites was caused by the different opinion in whether a caliph should be chosen by Muslim leaders or the caliph had to be a relative of Muhammad. Then when Saddam was in rule, he was against Shiites; he kept Shiite extremists firmly under control and would kill a Shiite without a reason. After Saddam's downfall, the Sunnis became more violent toward Shiites who tried to ignore it. The Shiites gained political power and started to avenge the Sunnis. The election of a Shiite president led to the Sunnis growing resentment. Sunnis bombed a Shiite mosque and hatred resumed. Now that the Shiites were now politically dominant in Iraq and Iran a series of battles broke loose between neighboring communities. The civil war caused chaos and children were taught to hate the opposite sect in school and at home. Iraq and East Baghdad backed up the Sunnis while Iran and west Baghdad backed up the Shiites.
C) There is no definite author of this article but it can be assumed he/she is a Shiite. This can be inferred because the author does not write negative statements on their win in court; instead he/she lists many facts that support the Shiites.
D) The author's point of view impacts the article slightly by the facts given. His/her point of view gives the reader the impression that the school was an unfair place of learning. The author could have stretched the truth and mentioned the European Union's possible pleasure in order to persuade the reader.
E) A Sunni's point of view is missing and to gain the full understanding of the issue, one should hear from a Sunni teacher of religious education. From this the reader would hear the teacher's opinion on the school teaching Shiite classes and their classes becoming optional after court. Without this the reader doesn't hear the negative or nonsupporting side of the story.
F) This article caught my eye and wasn't difficult to read. I found it interesting and was happy to find an article about the groups of people we are learning about in class. I was pleased to learn that Shiite religious education classes were added to the schools because I believe that is what is fair. I found it interesting that Alevis believe they are a larger group of people than what the U.S. State Department's International Religious Freedom Report says. I did not like the way this article was written, I felt the paragraphs should have been placed in different orders to make the article more understandable. I think this article is important because it shows people that the conflict between Shiites and Sunnis still exists today.