Yeni Binyıl, 16 July 2000

If I, as an Armenian, took part in the debates around the issue of education in Kurdish, would I be overstepping my mark?

Although come to think of it, certain circles — I don’t need to tell you who I mean — have always said that the Kurdish Issue is just the Armenian Issue in disguise... [1] But still, you never really know with these people. They could quite easily come up to me and say, “Mind your own business, how dare you speak out on the Kurdish Issue?”

Come what may, giddy as I am with the heat of this July sun over my head and with my past experience in tow as an officially registered ‘other’, I believe I can enrich the debate. So in order to force your horizons to expand a little, I say to you…

“As an Armenian from Turkey, I demand my share of my Kurdish.”

***

I know, you’re baffled. I will explain further, but first, let me present a fact that may come as an even bigger surprise to you:

We Armenians appear to many to be a ‘happy minority’ (!) that has gained the opportunity to carry out education in its own language, at its own schools, through its own means and without receiving a single penny from the state.

However, the truth behind this rosy portrayal is in fact much more painful. Of the approximately 80 thousand members of the Armenian community, at present, only around four thousand students study at these schools. The great majority instead choose to go to the more attractive, and also more expensive, private schools. The number attending Armenian schools decreases at an alarming rate every year. [2]

It should provide food for thought to certain quarters when even a minority community with such a deep-rooted and rich cultural background has been dragged along by the irresistible winds of globalization and allowed its mother tongue to suffer a certain degree of neglect as it chased after global languages and education.

For now, keep this fact somewhere in the back of your mind.

***

Now let’s come to my objection to the presentation of the right to mother-tongue education — which has been imposed within the framework of the Copenhagen Criteria [3] — as a great threat to the unity of the country.

I say that the most important and truly indispensable reason for having schools that provide Kurdish education is not really being discussed.

Yes, such schools must be opened, but not because it is a right of the Kurdish community alone. As an Armenian, I too must have the right to have my child learn Kurdish. In precisely the same manner that non-Armenians should have the right to send their children to Armenian schools.

***

Amidst the cultural blend of Anatolia, Kurdish cannot be abandoned only to Kurds, just as Armenian cannot be abandoned only to Armenians. In the same way that speaking Turkish does not turn someone into a Turk, speaking Kurdish would not make an Armenian a Kurd. To leave Kurdish to the exclusive monopoly of Kurds would at best foster Kurdism, and to abandon Armenian to the monopoly of Armenians would foster Armenianism.

What best suits this land of ours is the coexistence of different communities that know and speak each other’s languages.

We have no problem squeezing the languages of the world’s great powers into our schools, so why do we fall short of learning and adopting as our own the languages of the people we live alongside?

[1] In reference to allegations — both overt and implied — that there are many ‘terrorists’ of Armenian origin within the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), a group that is designated by Turkey as an illegal terrorist organization, and that the PKK had past connections with the militant organization ASALA (Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia).

[2] In the 2020s, only around 3000 students are registered at the 16 Armenian schools in Istanbul.

[3] The Copenhagen criteria are the conditions a country must satisfy in order to be eligible to join the European Union.