[ISL] "For Turkey’s Greek minority, an island school provides fresh hope"

[rfmcdonald]

Kursat Akyol, writing for Al Monitor, looks at the revival of Greek schools on the now-Turkish islands once known to their Greek inhabitants as Imbros and Tenedos. Is the Greek minority in this part of Turkey reviving, or even in a position to revive?

On Sept. 28, Turkish newspapers reported that a Greek school was reopened after four decades on the Aegean island of Gokceada, known as Imbros in Greek. In reality, however, the school was reopened after 51 years. Moreover, the closure of Gokceada’s Greek schools in 1964 was not because they ran out of students, as the reports said, but because the Turkish state had shut them down.

Half a century ago, the schools had about 450 students. Today, the number is 14 — three students in primary, five in secondary and six in high school. Barring those in primary school, only one student was born on the island. The others are the children of Greek families, natives of the island who had immigrated to Greece and are now drawn back by the revival of schools.

Greek-language education on Gokceada resumed after a 49-year hiatus in 2013 when a primary school was reopened. The secondary and high school sections were expected to follow suit last year, but delays in renovation work deferred their inauguration to 2015.

For Turkey’s dwindling Greek minority, the reopened school represents both a reminder of a painful past and a hope for the future. As Laki Vingas, a community leader personally involved in the efforts, told Al-Monitor, “For a community whose history abounds with suffering, scars, lost values, closed schools, banishments and confiscated lands, this school lays the foundation of a [new] vision and dream for the future.”

For Vingas, who heads the Imbros Education and Culture Association, the low number of students today is not important. It’s the future that matters.