“I hope that not only those people whose mother tongue is Kurdish but everyone who lives in this country is interested in Kurdish and learns this ancient language,” Ahmet Davutoglu said in a tweet in both Turkish and Kurdish languages late Wednesday.
Members of his Future Party’s office in Van province published a video on Tuesday, encouraging Kurdish parents to register their children to Kurdish elective lessons.
Turkey’s Kurds are allowed to study in their mother tongue at school for a few hours a week through elective courses which can only be opened when at least ten students register for. Lessons are provided in both dialects of Kurdish language: Kurmanji and Zazaki. The deadline for registration is January 21.
Kurdish political parties, language promotion institutions and academics as well as social media users have recently campaigned for elective lessons in Kurdish in Turkey through media outlets, social media platforms and brochures. The hashtag #KurdîHilbijêre (select Kurdish) has been trending on Twitter for days.
The lessons are only offered to students in the fifth to eighth grades. The process is not new but many Kurdish students have avoided such classes in the past on the grounds that they are not graded for the final results. Only the parents of the students can register their children to these classes.
Davutoglu, who served as Turkey’s foreign minister from 2009 to 2014 and premier from 2014 to 2016, seems has sought Kurdish votes in the country’s southeastern provinces since he founded his party in 2019. He is typically after the votes of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) - in which he served for years.
Kurdish language has been silenced in modern Turkey since its foundation in 1923, due to the oppressive assimilation policies of successive governments and Kurdish parties. A 2019 study shows that only a small size of Turkey’s Kurdish population can speak their mother tongue.
