Students, teachers demand right to learn in mother tongue

Dozens of students and teachers gathered on Sunday at Ibn Rushd School in the al-Mushairfa neighborhood of Hasakah and issued a statement calling on the Syrian Transitional Government to recognize Kurdish as a language under the Syrian Constitution.

The participants held up banners with, “Learning in Kurdish is our right,” “The Kurdish language is our existence,” “There is no life without language,” and “Revival in the new Syria begins with recognizing Kurdish as an official language alongside Arabic” written on, while chanting slogans including, “There is no life without language” and “Our Kurdish language is our constitutional right.”

Following a minute of silence for the souls of martyrs, student Hadla Khalaf read the statement in Kurdish, while student Himen Hesso read it in Arabic.

The statement said, “We, the students of Ibn Rushd School in Hasakah, are following the decisions issued by the Transitional Government in Damascus, which directly affect our rights.”

The statement said, “Abolishing the Kurdish-language curricula and limiting Kurdish language instruction to three classes per week constitutes a curtailment of our educational and national rights, which we categorically reject.”

It highlighted the difficulties that will face hundreds of thousands of students who have spent years studying in Kurdish at the primary, preparatory and secondary levels. “We have studied our mother tongue since first grade and for many years. It is unacceptable to abruptly revoke this achievement through decisions that would harm our educational future,” the statement said.

The statement called on “The Syrian Transitional Government to reverse these decisions and adopt Kurdish-language curricula in our areas, while allocating classes to Arabic, rather than the other way around, in the interests of justice and respect for national, linguistic and cultural specificity. Syria is a homeland for all its components, including Arabs, Kurds, Syriacs and others, and the rights of any of these communities should not be curtailed.”

In their statement, the students and teachers affirmed that “they would continue to demand their full rights, as the right to learn in mother tongue is guaranteed by all international laws and conventions. It is a fundamental right, not a favor granted by anyone.”

The statement also included the following slogans:

- “Our language is our identity; our language is our existence.”

- “No to disregard for the future of thousands of students; yes to education in Kurdish.”

- “We support the linguistic and cultural rights of all Syrian communities.”

- “We call for respect for linguistic and cultural diversity in Syria.”

ANHA