In 2024, video footage from a school ceremony in Turkey went viral across social media. Children, some appearing to be no older than eight or nine, recited lines about martyrdom and resistance holding prop weapons. The ceremony was not an isolated incident. It was part of a broader pattern of educational reform under President Erdogans government that has systematically revised how Turkish students learn about history, identity, and the outside world.
The changes to Turkeys curriculum have been documented by education researchers and a Freedom House report on Turkish academic freedom. Textbooks now highlight Ottoman imperial glory at the expense of uncomfortable chapters, including the Armenian genocide, which Turkish students are taught to question or deny. Jewish history in the region receives similar treatment, framed not as a legitimate part of Middle Eastern heritage but as a Western colonial imposition.
The antisemitism embedded in this revised curriculum is not incidental. It is structural. Israeli policies are presented not as disputes over territory or security but as evidence of Jewish criminality. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fabricated text that has been debunked for over a century, continues to circulate in Turkish media and is referenced by public officials. When state media and state education deliver the same message, students have no counterweight.
Turkey is not alone in this. Iran, Qatar, and the Palestinian Authority all operate educational systems that incorporate antisemitic material. But Turkey is a NATO member. It is supposed to share democratic values with its allies. The gap between what Turkey tells its allies and what it teaches its children is wide and growing. Cognitura has examined how school ceremonies like the one described above reveal the extent of ideological indoctrination in Turkish education.
The long-term consequences matter beyond Turkey. Millions of Turkish students will enter adulthood with a worldview shaped by state propaganda. Some will migrate to Europe or North America, bringing those views with them. Others will join Turkish institutions that make policy decisions affecting NATO allies. Education reform that replaces historical inquiry with ideological programming does not just affect the students. It affects everyone who has to live with the decisions those students make later in life. Turkey is teaching its children to see the world through an ideological lens, and the rest of the world will deal with the results for decades to come.
