Turkey is ramping up pressure worldwide to shut down schools close to a network that it accuses of terrorism.
However, it is facing unusual resistance in the Central African Republic (CAR), one of the poorest and most vulnerable countries in the world.
The Galaxy School, in the capital, Bangui, is close to Hizmet (“Service”), the group run by US-based Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen, whose supporters say promotes a progressive form of Islam.
However, Turkey blames Gulen for the attempted coup in 2016 against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It has vowed to root out his influence at home and abroad.
The Turkish National Intelligence Organization has staged several operations, whose nature remains mysterious, to “bring back” suspects as far afield as Kosovo, Ukraine and Gabon, where three Turks working in education were apprehended in April.
“We will never allow these vile people to walk freely,” Erdogan said after the Gabon operation.
As a result, the Turkish headmaster of the Galaxy School is living as a fugitive and an exile in the CAR.
“On July 15, 2016, they named me personally as belonging to the Gulen movement,” said the headmaster during a tour of the premises, who asked to be identified by the pseudonym “Emre” to avoid any repercussions for his family back home.
“We’re accused of being a terrorist group when what we are doing is education and humanitarian work,” he said.
The school boasts equipment worthy of a well-funded facility in Europe or the US — a modern digital smart board and a video projector, as well as a classroom devoted to information technology.
The school, which also has playing fields and a canteen, is private. With fees just more than 100 euros (US$115) per month, it caters mostly to the upper classes.
The rate of pupils passing the high-school exam stands at 83 percent, compared with a national average of 12 percent.
The Islamic component in its curriculum is very small, although students can ask to have additional classes.
Turkey’s efforts have brought about the closure of such schools in at least 17 African countries — which have either been nationalized or taken over by the Maarif foundation that is close to the authorities in Ankara.
Given the CAR’s vulnerability, the survival of the Galaxy School so far appears remarkable.
The country has been ravaged by rival armed groups and bandit gangs since 2013, ranking last of the 188 countries in the UN’s 2016 Human Development Index.
The CAR’s institutions of state are feeble and the country has the entrenched reputation of being a place where pretty much anything can be bought.
For one staff member at the school, “the Central Africans have upheld their dignity,” in being a country that has not ceded to Turkish pressure.
Jean Serge Bokassa, a former CAR minister of public security and territorial administration, said Turkish diplomats visited him in March last year, dangling a mixture of “verbal intimidation and promises” if he conceded to Ankara’s demands.
Although Bokassa said he is a political foe of CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadera, he commended him for standing firm against Ankara.
“For the moment, I’m delighted that the president has conceded nothing,” Bokassa said.
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