Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stressed the importance of preserving the mother tongue as a defence against assimilation in a video message to the congress of the Union of International Democrats (UID – an organisation protecting the rights of European Turks) over the weekend. However, his remarks were met with derision on Kurdish social media, with critics pointing to perceived contradictions in Erdoğan’s stance at home and abroad, and accusing the Turkish government of promoting domestic policies that suppress the Kurdish language.
“Our greatest weapon against assimilation is the teaching of our mother tongue, culture and the values of our civilisation to our children, who are the guarantee of our future,” Erdoğan said in his message on Saturday.
“At a time when many threats are escalating in Europe, ranging from Islamophobia to cultural racism, the primary task of our union is to defend the rights and interests of European Turks to the end, without deviating from democracy and the law,” Erdoğan added. His comments sparked controversy in Turkey and within the Kurdish community over the weekend.
Critics argue that Erdoğan’s rhetoric about defending the rights and interests of European Turks contradicts the policies implemented within Turkey itself. In particular, they point to the ongoing challenges faced by Turkey’s large Kurdish population, including the lack of mother-tongue education and suppression of the Kurdish language.
Last year, a proposal made in the Kurdish language by a member of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) to remove barriers to education in Kurdish was rejected by the Turkish parliament without even being registered. This incident serves as a concrete example for critics who accuse Erdoğan of hypocrisy in light of his recent statements.
Concerns are further heightened by the historical context of Kurdish language bans in Turkey. Following the 1980 military coup, the Kurdish language was banned in public and private life, with severe consequences, including imprisonment, for those who spoke or used Kurdish in any context.
Although the ban was officially lifted in 1991, the use of Kurdish as a language of instruction in schools remains illegal, and the language itself is only offered as an optional course for a maximum of two hours a week. In 2021, of 20,000 new teachers, the Ministry of Education hired just three Kurdish teachers, compared to 938 for English, 503 for Arabic and 25 for Russian.
Kurdish is excluded from public services, including Turkey’s multilingual online prescription service and a women’s support app developed by the Ministry of Interior to provide support for women who are victims of domestic violence. The service is available in Turkish, Persian, Arabic, English, French and Russian.
In addition, grassroots efforts to promote the Kurdish language have faced obstacles, including the enforced closure of Kurdish language newspapers, television stations, cultural institutes and NGOs. The remarks of Kurdish MPs who speak in Kurdish in the Turkish parliament are not noted in parliamentary records, and prisoners are denied Kurdish newspapers, books and magazines and letters sent to them by relatives and friends in Kurdish. Prisoners have been subject to communication bans as punishment when their visitors have spoken to them in Kurdish.
The discrepancy between Erdoğan’s advocacy of the mother tongue abroad and the challenges facing the Kurdish language within Turkey has sparked a contentious debate, with critics calling for concrete measures to address these issues and ensure the protection of the linguistic and cultural rights of the Kurdish community.
