OPINIONS
Thu 01 Jun 2023 10:14 am - Jerusalem Time
We have elections...
During my meeting this week with elementary school students in one of our villages, I talked as usual to the students about the titles of my stories, and gave a brief overview of each one and what is the meaning or idea it carries.
Among these stories is the story "In Our Country There Are Elections", which is suitable for students from the fifth grade and below.
The meeting was with third students, and when I mentioned the elections, some of the students responded immediately and with clear joy, “Erdogan won the elections.” This was not one or two, but a large number of students. They started talking about the elections in Turkey and Erdogan’s victory, and I was surprised that one of them entered into Details He says: If the opposition leader succeeded, he would have expelled the Syrians from Turkey.
I was astonished by the immersion of third-elementary students in this picture and their exposure to international politics, not just local ones, so I had a discussion about politics with them exactly as if they were adults.
It is clear from the students' reaction, the importance of the Turkish elections and their reflection on our people locally, as well as on the Arab peoples in general through the means of communication. This interest that reached children of this age did not come by chance, but rather because politics is an issue raised in our daily lives and in every home.
There is an unprecedented exposure through the Internet and various media to all generations, but the most important of all is the influence of the parents and what they talk about politics and other things in front of their children. It is clear here that the parents are sympathetic to Erdogan, and this was transmitted to the children.
This means that the parents have a decisive role with regard to the position on the local elections, and how to manage them, and what the children hear from their elders will undoubtedly affect their behavior. It reaches the children, and they will act on the basis of the information they received from their parents, as positivity reflects positivity, and negativity reflects negativity.
Guidance at home is the basis of education on the importance of respecting and accepting the existence of competition and other opinions without demonizing political opponents.
My story “In Our Country There Are Elections,” which was published in 2017 by Dar Al Aswar for the Child, talks about the behavior of the two competitors, the winner and the loser, and what they must do in the elections, whether they are local or national.
The responsibility for the reaction to the election results is not only the responsibility of the loser to admit his loss and congratulate the winner, but the responsibility lies equally with the winner who has the right to rejoice, but without provocations to the losing competitor, and to have taste, and not disturb the globe with firecrackers or gunfire!
This is on the local level, as the local elections are approaching.
On the international level, in the last two decades, Turkey has constituted an excellent model for the countries of the region, and for many countries of the world, by spreading the democratic spirit in which elections took place, transparent competition, Recep Tayyip Erdogan's behavior with the opposition before and after his victory, and his reassuring approach that constitutes a model Well, for the minimum that the system should be, and this is what no Arab country enjoys, unfortunately.
Turkey and its politics are very important to the region, the world and the Arabs, and the victory of Erdogan and his party and what it represents is a referendum for the Turkish people, in which he clearly declared his respect for its history and the bias of most of it to a normal relationship of mutual respect with the Arabs, without denying their civilization and language and what they offered to humanity.
Many in the world wished for Erdogan's failure, including many Arabs, and most parties in Israel and from various sects wished that Erdogan and his approach would disappear from the map of the region and the world. On behalf of the great powers, it is also not silent when the occupation commits crimes against our Palestinian people, and does not equate the criminal with the victim. That is why I understand those innocent phrases uttered by the children, which reflected a popular mood among us sympathetic to Recep Tayyip Erdogan and what he represents. About "Arab 48"
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