The Demand for Education in Kurdish Mother Language and Human Rights Cover Image

Kürtçe Anadilde Eğitim Talebi ve İnsan Hakları
The Demand for Education in Kurdish Mother Language and Human Rights

Author(s): Aytekin Ersal
Subject(s): Language studies, Language and Literature Studies, Education, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Ethnic Minorities Studies
Published by: Karadeniz Araştırmaları Merkezi
Keywords: Kurdish mother tongue; human rights; minorities; nationstate;

Summary/Abstract: Modern nation-states have increasingly encountered with the ethnic identity problems from the 1990’s on, when the Cold War ended. Minority issues, which were conventionally regarded as internal affairs of nation-states, then became an important issue for international organizations, too. In this discourse, the demand that minorities should be educated in their mother languages entered official documents emphatically. Concerning Turkey, the demand for mother language education for the Kurds has been expressed by the separatist political milieu, the EU, and some academicians claiming to search for solutions in accordance with liberal values. Turkish is not a foreign language to the individuals belonging to Kurdish ethnicity. There has not been any autonomous Kurdish administration, too, that may be a source for reference to their ethnic minority status. Thus, it is viewed here that the demands for education in Kurdish mother language are not consistent with the social reality.

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 44
  • Page Range: 143-166
  • Page Count: 24
  • Language: Turkish