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Kurdistan: Language barrier cuts between
Iraqi Kurds and Arabs
5.6.2014 |
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June 5, 2014
SLÊMANÎ,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq',— Ask younger Iraqi
Kurds if they speak Arabic, and they often say no,
or not well -- a linguistic barrier with the
country's Arabs stemming from a nationalist backlash
against Saddam Hussein's brutality.
Most Iraqi Arabs do not speak Kurdish either,
meaning some members of the country's two largest
ethnic groups have no common language.
This language barrier comes in addition to multiple
long-running feuds between the federal government
and the country's autonomous Kurdish region that are
the cause of considerable tension and resentment
between the two sides.
Older Kurds, who grew up when Kurdish areas had less
autonomy than they now do, or none at all, faced
more pressure to learn Arabic. But that has since
decreased, and many younger Kurds now prefer English
instead.
"I can understand Arabic but I don't speak it,"
Joana, a maths teacher, said in the region's
second-biggest city of Slêmanî [Sulaimaniyah in
Arabic], in autonomous Kurdistan region. "I
personally prefer English -- I just don't like
Arabic."
Ayyub Bahaeddin, a university student, agreed: "We
like English more, because Arabic can only be useful
in the Middle East, while English (is used) in most
of the world."
Reaction to being liberated
The regime of now-executed dictator Saddam
Hussein killed tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds in
bloody crackdowns, while Kurds and members of other
minorities were also forced from their homes and
replaced by Arabs in a policy known as "Arabisation."
But after a 1991 uprising against Saddam's regime,
Kurdish areas of northern Iraq gained greater
autonomy from Baghdad and were targeted by an
internal blockade.
The lack of Arabic knowledge among a generation of
younger Kurds stems from a backlash against years of
repression, and from the Kurdish region's isolation
from the rest of the country following the uprising.
Qubad Talabani, who was recently named regional
deputy prime minister and is one of the outgoing
federal president's sons, said the change was "a
reaction to being liberated from Saddam, and maybe
... rejecting Iraq."
"In the early nineties ... suddenly you've got this
new-found freedom to be Kurdish, to have a Kurdish
government, to have your Kurdish flag," he said.
"I think there is a younger generation now that are
being taught Arabic at schools, but there's a group
in between who don't speak Arabic," he said, noting
that the language situation "complicates a country
that's already fraught with complications."
But even younger Kurds who are studying the language
have faced difficulties with Arabic.
Payman Ali Mohammed, the principal of a Slêmanî
secondary school, said the Kurdish regional
education ministry had introduced a new Arabic
curriculum in some schools to address poor
performance.
"Teachers noticed that many of the students couldn't
even write a short composition (in Arabic) -- they
were memorising it," Mohammed said.
Ultimately, "most of them see the future" in
English, she said, noting that students even take
summer courses in the language.
But some younger Kurds say they believe learning
Arabic is important, and Mohammed questioned the
logic behind the backlash against the language due
to its association with government abuses.
"Some people think, 'Why should we learn the
language of a government that has been oppressing
our people?'" she said.
But "if you want to understand your enemy, you
should first learn their language."
A sense of ownership
Kurdish and Arabic are both official languages in
Iraq, but in practice federal business is largely
conducted in Arabic, while the Kurds' regional
government operates in Kurdish.
Educators say students in Iraqi Kurdistan generally
begin studying English before they start studying
Arabic, while Kurdish instructionwww.Ekurd.net
in schools outside the autonomous region is by
comparison more limited than Arabic instruction in
Kurdistan.
Unless Iraqi Arabs go to Kurdistan for vacation or
business, they have little chance to use Kurdish,
while the daily bombings and shootings plaguing
various Arab areas of Iraq discourage Kurds from
leaving their region, where such attacks are rare.
And while most television programmes, newspapers and
books were once in Arabic, Kurdish publications and
media have since proliferated, removing another need
for Kurds to know Arabic well.
Iraqi Kurdistan and the federal government are at
odds over issues including territory, natural
resources, power-sharing and federal payments to the
Kurdish region that politicians say have been
delayed and insufficient this year, causing salaries
to go unpaid.
The disputes have made Kurdish independence
increasingly attractive for some, but major Kurdish
political parties have not called for it, and the
region remains financially dependent on the federal
government for now.
While shared languages play a role, "the key factor
to creating a sense of a unified country is a sense
of ownership over the country. People need to feel
that they are part of a country," Talabani said.
"Iraq today does not have its own identity -- Iraq
today has a multitude of identities. There isn't
something that binds these different identities
together."
Regions and cities names in Kurdish may have been changed or added to
the article by Ekurd.net.
Copyright ©, respective author or news agency,
AFP
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