The KCK Executive Council has issued a statement on the occasion of World Mother Tongue Day, 21 February, calling for the struggle against assimilation and denial and for mother tongue education and self-government to be stepped up in all spheres.

The KCK Executive Council said 21 February had been accepted as world mother tongue day, and should be seen as a day of struggle for all oppressed peoples whose cultures are subjected to policies of assimilation and denial.

The KCK said no language was superior to another. “Every language is precious. Language is the spirit of the body. Language and spirit, language and brain, language and life. Nothing has any meaning without this dialectic. Peoples who cannot freely use their language are enslaved. Therefore, hostility to language is one of the cruellest crimes committed against humanity.”

‘Constant struggle until the right to education in the mother tongue is won’

The KCK emphasised the great age of the Kurdish language, saying that despite the hundreds of years of assimilation, the Kurds had produced epics of literature such as Mem u Zin, and writers like Ahmedi Xani, Faqe Teyran and Mele Ciziri.

The statement emphasised that the Turkish colonialist system had developed a system of boarding schools in Kurdistan with a single aim: to force Kurdish children to learn Turkish before they have learnt their own language. “The Kurds’ greatest revolt has been against this, because to prohibit a people’s language is to deny their very existence. Hence the Kurds should maintain their struggle for education in the mother tongue until the right is obtained.”

The KCK Executive Council called on the Kurdish people to step up their struggle for education in the mother tongue and for self-government, by exercising their legitimate right to resist in all spheres.