NEITHER ARABIC LANGUAGE, FLAG NOR POLITICAL ISLAM IN SOUTH KURDISTAN
By Kamal Rajab
KurdishMedia.UK
9/14/2006 KurdishMedia.com
Today the majority of Kurds are officially Muslim, belonging to
the Shafi School, and to a much lesser degree, the Hannafi School ,
both of Sunni Islam.
There is also a significant minority of Kurds that are Shiaa Muslims,
primarily living in the Ilam and Kermanshah provinces of Iran and
Central Iraq ("Al-Fayliah" Kurds). The Alevis are another religious
minority among the Kurds, mainly found in Turkey.
According to some claims, Kurds are also thought to be a kind of angel
worship that is an offshoot of Zoroastrianism. Today it is called
Yezidism and is only practiced by about 700,000 Kurds worldwide. It
is not strictly monotheistic, thus our Yezidis brethren have suffered
terribly under fanatical Muslims. In line with its belief in people of
the Book, Islam does not recognize Yezidism as a religion. Moreover,
the negative view of Muslims with regard to the Angel Peacock–who in
the religion of the Yezidis is second only to God–has been the cause
of conflict between Muslims and Yezidis for a thousand years or more.
Many Kurdish Jews and Christians have lived (and many Christians
still do live) in Kurdish areas.
Historically, there have been Christian converts among Kurds since
the 5th century. Nonetheless, today most insist that their ethnic
identity is "Christian," not Kurdish. Pockets of Assyrian, Nestorian
(Jacobite Syrian-Orthodox, Armenian, and very few Protestant Christians
still live in the Kurdish areas today.
By the passage of time, Kurdistan has been exposed to a range of
political, socio-religious and geographical adjustments. But there is
one distinctive verity that most Kurds have in common. And that is
the principle of having practiced Zoroastrianism before the spread
of Islam in the 7th century CE, which is believed to be one of the
oldest religions in the world. Hence, our pre-Islamic religion must
be Zoroastrianism. It is easier for Kurds, the majority of whom are
Muslim, to accept the belief that their pre-Islamic religion was
Zoroastrianism rather than any other religious conviction.
The Islam religion started with Mohammad in the 7th century, in Saudi
Arabia of today. Mohammad included in Islam the idea of jihad (holy
war) to spread Islam by the use of force. Islam was spread rapidly
to all the Arab nations of North Africa and the Middle East.
Having fallen in to the hands of the Arab nations, Islam turned
into an apparatus of Arab nationalism and xenophobia. As lucid,
many Arab extremists are critical of Western influence and seek a
return to the authentic roots of their own traditions. Others – and
extremely small minority – are radical Islamic fundamentalists who
have stepped over the line from extremist rhetoric into the world of
political violence. What is an undeniable truth is that most Muslim
Arabs share an intense hatred of Western nations in general, and the
United States in particular. This hatred is fueled by blind religious
zeal, a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam that is not accepted
by the vast majority of the Muslim world, and the belief that the US
and Americans prevent the emergence of pure and true Islamic society
in many parts of the world. Their primary goals are to force the US
to end its involvement in the Middle East and in all other Arab and
Muslim nations, abandon its support of Israel, and stop its support
of Arab nations they perceive as "corrupt." This is exactly in total
contradiction with Kurdish civilization, philosophy and religion.
Meanwhile, many of us "hold our Islam lightly," meaning that we are
not so vehement about Islam and do not identify as closely with it as
the Arabs do. This is perhaps due to several factors: one being, many
of us still feel some connection with the ancient Zoroastrian faith,
and feel it as an original Kurdish spirituality that far predates
the seventh century AD arrival of Muhammad.
Being a member of the Indo-European family of languages, we are
totally distinct from the Arabs, Turks, and Persians (Iranians)
of their region.
The name "Kurd" was a generic term used to denote nomads and
non-Arabs in particular. In Kurdish, the name "Kurd" means "warrior"
or "ferocious fighter." We are the modern descendents of the Medes,
who are mentioned in the Bible. The Kurds are the descendants of
the Medes, who helped Persia defeat Babylon. The Kurdish belief
that they are the descendants of the biblical Medes reflects this
rich background. Basing this claim on geographical, linguistic and
cultural factors, this claim is ascribed more.
History well lets slip the facts that "the earliest known evidence of
a unified and distinct culture (and possibly, ethnicity) by people
inhabiting the Kurdish mountains dates back to the Halaf culture
of 8,000 – 7,400 years ago. This was followed by the spread of the
Ubaidian culture, which was a foreign introduction from Mesopotamia. In
the 8th century we were conquered by the Arabs, who introduce Islam. We
were also subdued by the Mongols in the 11th century and later by the
Ottoman Turks, under whose rule they remained until the collapse of
the Ottoman Empire following World War I".
Other than through intermarriage over the centuries, we are
not ethnically and linguistically close or related to Arabs or
Turks. Arabs, who form the majority in Syria and Iraq, came during
the 7th century, the period of Islamic expansion, from the Saudi
Arabian Peninsula.
Arabic language in South Kurdistan
Even though Arabic is a sacred religion language to Muslims around the
world, Ninety percent of the world’s Muslims do not speak Arabic as
their native language Arabic and Islam are complementary and mutually
reinforcing. Arabization and Islamization are inseparable parts of a
single cultural ideal that now pervades the Arab world. Every Arab
government, regardless of its political or social character, uses
the symbolic power of the Arab language in its drive toward national
modernization, authentication, and uniformization. All of them see
the Arabization of society, particularly the educational system, as
crucial to their mission. This leads, however, to an unexpected irony:
because Arabs draw so close a connection between classical Arabic and
the faith of Islam, Arabization invariably leads to identification
with the (supranational) Islamic religious tradition.
Even the most secular Arab nationalist (such as the Ba`thist variants
in Syria and Iraq) must appeal to Islamic symbolism to bolster
sagging legitimacy and to mobilize the masses (as Saddam Hussein
did in his wars against Iran and the U.S.-led coalition). Hence,
Arab nationalism has, however inadvertently, contributed to the rise
of Islamism. Indeed, today’s Islamist surge is the natural, perhaps
inevitable consequence of the Arab nationalist policies of thirty
years ago.
We must enhance our cultural and linguistic national personality;
but no, we must not allow it to deprive us of the power of universal
scientific knowledge. It is only extremist Islamists and extremists
who are able to escape such wavering and adopt firm, unequivocal
stances for or against Arabization/Islamization.
We are in need of implementing a foreign language curriculum that can
further improve intellectual skills, helps our students understand
the customs, culture and literature of other societies, and allows
them to better trace their roots. Knowledge of a foreign language
contributes to international understanding of issues and greatly
increases career opportunities for our Kurdish scholars. At present,
proficiency in foreign languages is much in demand in government,
business, industry and research. And this is an indispensable fact
having been adopted by the nations of the world.
An estimated 300-400 million people speak English as their first
language. One recent estimate is that 1.9 billion people, nearly a
third of the world’s population, have a basic proficiency in English.
English is the dominant international language in communications,
science, business, aviation, entertainment, diplomacy and the
Internet. It has been one of the official languages of the United
Nations since its founding in 1945.
Another key language is French. French is spoken by 71 million
people in France and other 24 countries which include Canada
and Belgium. French is also the official language of a number of
International organizations, among which EU, NATO and UN.
There is no incentive for Kurds to totally not eradicate Arabic
language, culture and legacy in South Kurdistan and reinstate it with
a modern and internationally recognized democratic foundation.
Some facts about the Arabization policy in South Kurdistan
Attempts to Arabize instructions in Kurdistan were one of the primary
goals of previous dictator regime. The educational system of South
Kurdistan has gone under qualitative and quantitative changes.
The Education system in Kurdistan, prior to 1991, was one of the
most backward in the region. The Higher Education, especially the
scientific and technological institutions
The majority of Kurdistan institutions of higher education were burnt,
looted, or destroyed.
Kurdistan’s educational system was the target of Iraqi military action,
because education is the backbone of any society. Without an efficient
education system, no society can function. Schools and universities
were bombed and destroyed.
The previous Iraq’s school curriculum was a Baathist -crafted
curriculum In a callous and murderous policy termed "Baathification",
thousands of Kurdish academics, scientists and prominent were executed.
Iraq strategy against Kurdistan went beyond "strictly military
targets". The aim was the complete destruction of the Kurdistan
society and its knowledge-based resources.
In the wake of US liberation of Iraq, Kurdistan’s educational systems
are expected to match with the finest in the Middle East .
After the ‘Gulf War’, 95 per cent of all Kurdistan school age children
are attending school. Attendance at school has gone high in Kurdistan
as primary education is being compulsory.
There are successful government programs under way aimed at eradicating
illiteracy among Kurdish men and women.