TITLE: CULTURE MEANS UNITY
The previous generation of Turkish people lived in small towns. They were doing agriculture and they raised different kinds of animals. They produced grains, eggs etc. for themselves. They had a simple life and basic culture. However, after rapid developments of some different countries such as, the European countries and America, a lot of things have changed around the world. These developing countries have made strong ties with other countries. After new inventions such as televisions, cars, fast ships, phones etc. every country is affected by other countries. Big and powerful countries tried every way to be the number one. A way of being powerful country is through imperialism, especially cultural imperialism which is the most important way of superiority. Cultural imperialism is defined as the domination of one culture over another. This domination is very dangerous for the submissive country because culture is a main part of life. If the culture will be affected by something, this will produce plenty of problems in main institutions of life of a country such as economy, language, education. Big and powerful countries want and try to change other countries cultures for their benefit to get some advantages from this situation. With the globalized world imperialism is extended to different kinds. One of these ways is language imperialism. Language is a living creature that regulates a country's social life and cultural institutions. If a country's language change, its culture can change easily by external forces. As mentioned above a similar situation occurs in Turkey. Cultural imperialism can be seen in Turkish culture. Because cultural imperialism comes from America, it is called Americanization. There is some evidence about this subject. For example in some Turkish universities they educate their students in English and the other universities that can't afford to educate their students in English, want to do this. Also many products in restaurants and markets promote American culture such as Mc Donald's hamburgers and noel trees etc. In addition most of the Turkish channels names are in English. For example Star, Show, Flash. By this way little by little Turkish culture will disappear. Instead of real Turkish culture there will be a mixed and deformed culture in the future.
If somebody says that nothing has changed in Turkish culture, this is wrong because it is obvious that a lot of things have changed in Turkish culture. For example, Turkish people's clothes, foods, entertainment styles and language have changed. For example, in a book that is published by Turkey Culture Ministry the change in clothes can be seen. In this book in different centuries Turkish clothes are shown and 100 years ago the clothes in Turkey were completely different from today's clothes that can be seen in Aktuel(December, 2001). In addition, the Turkish language has been affected and changed by English. For example, hamburger, jeans, automobile, internet are new words for Turkish language. Therefore, there are a lot of things that have changed in Turkish culture.
Some can say that the changes into the American culture are good for Turkish culture. However, the changes are bad for culture because they don't help Turkish culture for being a global country. Turkish culture doesn't have to change into the American culture. For example instead of wearing jeans Turkish people can wear trousers or something like that. This is not an obstacle for globalization. For example in Japan there are a lot of people still wearing their traditional clothes but they are developed now. They developed by doing this, by making strong ties with their own culture.
Turkish culture is an old, rooted culture so if one wants to change it there will be big responses in Turkey. In fact the Turkish government wasn't concerned with Americanization of the Turkish culture at the beginning of the Americanization period. But after some time, the Turkish government saw that a lot of restaurants are Americanized and some Turkish universities started to give education in English language. Additionally there are a lot of establishments promoting English and American culture in Turkey such as National Education Ministry. The government saw these facts and they decided that Turkish culture is disappearing. Therefore they are proposing that all universities should be taught in Turkish language to protect language and all establishments should be promoting Turkish culture to protect main Turkish culture. It means that universities are educating in English will stop their working education system and replace it with another system that is teaching in Turkish. Also this means that Mc Donald's must sell a kind of Kebap near its products hamburger, cheeseburger.
In fact, if government makes these changes, it will be good because there are a lot of reasons for this. It is certain that educating students in English or in another foreign language cut their success in their courses. For example, the science faculty in Bilkent the language of education is English. Thus students first have to translate the English words and science terms to their mother language and they try to understand the main case. This situation both hinder their understanding and cut their learning speed. According to Alev Alatli, a famous writer in Turkey, learning sciences in foreign languages cuts down the inventions. She said that `We don't have any scientist in Nobel competitions.` and she added that if successful Turkish Universities teach their students in their mother tongue they are going to be much more successful in their researches and global area.(2001). This is a certainly true observation because the good universities in Turkey such as Bilkent and M.E.T.U give education to their science students in English. This situation causes some problems for example in Bilkent 66% of the students who take English course have grades under 3.00 and this will affect their final graduate degree very bad.
Consumer culture is also a part of a culture. If consumer’s habits change it will affect both culture and economy. It can easily seen that consumer culture is changing in Turkey. Thus these changes will affect the Turkish economy. For example, if Turkish people buy more jeans Turkish trousers sellers will collapse. In addition Turkish people give less importance to Turkish goods.
Learning in English can harm people's language in Turkey. In Turkish universities there are a lot of people who can’t speak Turkish fluently although Turkish is their mother tongue. These people sometimes can't remember a word's Turkish meaning or they have to speak Turkish and English at the same time in their sentences. If these people are instructors this situation will affect the students. Students feel themselves as a stranger out of the university. Sometimes they can’t communicate with their parents or some Turkish friends who can speak and understand only Turkish language.
Culture is a main part of the social life of a country. Also culture is fundamental for the unity of a society. If people can’t communicate with each other, they can't know how other people in their country live then there will be a unity in that society. There are a lot of examples from Turkish societies about this situation such as Hungarians. According to Namik Orkun's book about Turkish history, Hungarians were a Turkish tribe while they were living in Middle Asia. However, after some of the Turkish tribes immigrated from the Middle Asia, Hungarians- a tribe of Turkish nation- came to Hungary. After the immigration their culture has changed during the history and now their culture is completely different from main Turkish culture(300-100 B.C). Another example of this subject is Azerbaijan. During the time they were in the borders of S.S.C.B Russian's policy was to make Azerbaijan people forget their culture. Russians used this in education system and they defined the language of education as Russian. As a result Azerbaijan people can't speak Turkish fluently also their religious different from Turkish people who live in Turkey. Thus their culture changed and went away from Turkish culture. These examples show the importance of culture in a society's unity. If Turkish culture will disappear there will be no unity in Turkey's Turkish society .
The demand for educated people who can speak English very well can be high. However, to educate students in English, universities don't have to teach all other lectures in English. People can learn English as a second language in courses or in some kinds of English lessons but not in and economy or sociology lesson. An interesting example can be given. Hacettepe University has the highest point in University Entrance Examination and the university gives education in English in medical sciences. In contrast Erzurum Ataturk University doesn't give English education in medical sciences(there is no English word in their website). However, according to TGRT news, in the Master in Medicine Examination Erzurum Ataturk University is in the first place so the students who leave this university with a degree will be preferred to the students in Hacettepe
Consequently, Turkish government must change the university education system because of the reasons proved above. Additionally Turkish government must prevent Turkish culture by prohibiting activities which promote English culture.After these changes Turkish universities will give Turkish education and Turkish culture will be more supported. Like other Turkish people, Bilkent University students have to support this application. If Turkish people won't support their culture and their language from external forces, their culture will disappear and sink deeply into the depth of history in the future.
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