Appeal to International community to support our campaign for teaching mother tongues in Iran

Appeal to International community to support our campaign for teaching mother tongues in Iran

60 to 70 percent of Iranian people are not Farsi-speaking. The Arabs, Baluch, Kurds, Turks, Turkmens, Lors and few other ethnic groups in Iran have their own mother tongues but they are not allowed by the Iranian government to learn or teach them in schools and universities. The none-Farsi-speaking children are forced to get education in a language they don't know and they do not speak in their homes and communities.

It is a devastating ordeal for the majority of Iranian children to learn anything in a language they do not know and understand. These children listen to teachers who speak in a language they do not comprehend at all. The teachers do not know the languages of the children and the children do not know and comprehend the language of the teacher and therefore, for many years, they cannot communicate with each other thoroughly.

The teachers usually exert immense pressure on the children to learn what the teachers teach but when the children do not know the language of the teacher, how they can understand what the teachers say? Just imagine that you do not know a word of a foreign language and then you are under pressure to learn what the teachers say from the first day that you go to school! This is the ordeal that the majority of the children of Iran go through for few years.

About 30 to 40 percent of Iranian population have Farsi as their mother tongue and when their children go to school, obviously, they know what the teacher talks about from the first hour and the first day of the school. They can communicate with the teachers thoroughly; they can learn from the first day and consequently, they can respond to educational system while none Farsi-speaking children do not understand a word of what the teachers say and cannot learn anything on any subjects for a considerable period of time. The none-Farsi-speaking children of Iran therefore begin education in a very disadvantageous position. It takes them several years of ordeal and beatings and humiliation before they can learn Farsi adequately to understand what the teachers say and teach.

The government of Iran has deliberately formulated and implemented this policy of discrimination to humiliate the non-Farsi-speaking children and undermine their self-confidence and intellectual growth in order to make them subordinate to Farsi speaking community. The consequences of this official policy of different Iranian governments are the comprehensive advancement of Farsi speaking people and underachievement and underdevelopment of none Farsi-speaking people of Iran.

The amazing comparison in level of achievement between Farsi speaking and non-Farsi-speaking people of Iran in the Western world is very revealing. The non-Farsi speaking children of Iran are able to achieve higher grades in schools and universities of the West than Farsi speaking population.


The Iranian government is not even prepared to teach none Farsi-speaking children of Iran Farsi first to prepare them for their formal education. The teachers go straight to teaching pupils in different subjects and the children are just not aware of what the teachers teach.

The Iranian governments have refused to allow the non-Farsi-speaking children to be educated in their own languages. The governments have also refused to teach mother tongues simultaneously with Farsi language. Consequently the majority of Iranian students have not been able to perform well at the higher standards compared to the Farsi speaking students. This is a deliberate policy to keep the non-Farsi-speaking children of Iran backward and underdeveloped.

At the same time the government has encouraged the policy of humiliating the children and students because of their accents as each child and student develops his own accent because of his own mother tongue influences. The governments encourage the Farsi-speaking children to ridicule and bully the non-Farsi-speaking children and therefore, a kind of hatred begins to develop from early childhood among Iranian children and manifests itself in different aspects of life at later stages. The popular belief among the Farsi speaking community of Iran that the Turks are "donkeys" and Gilakis and Mazendaranis are "stupid" are the results of this policy of domination and discrimination.

The successive Iranian governments have refused this fundamental right of the Iranian children to be educated in their mother tongues because they believe that this policy will undermine national interests and national solidarity. Under the pretext of this argument, they have monopolised political, economic, social and cultural power and decision-making. The Iranian governments have not only prohibited the promotion and teaching of mother tongues in Iran, but they have used all their forces and resources to suppress anybody who raises the issue.

This claim has proved to be completely false scientifically that the teaching of mother tongues in Iranian schools will erode national unity and tarnish national solidarity. The Indian government teaches 80 mother tongues in 80 parts of the country. This experience has allowed all children of India to begin education on an equal basis and level. The psychologists and researchers believe that children learn much better and faster in their own mother tongue and in their own culture and environment. The Indian children have been able to manifest their potentials in different fields to a higher level which is comparable to the best education in the world.

Recognising the diversity of people as a great asset, India has enabled its different diverse communities to produce different types of knowledge and expertise in many different areas of life including turning the diversity into a great business and tourist attraction. Each community is capable of attracting a different kind of tourists. Each community is also capable of producing a different culture which is capable of generating different products and ideas.

If India has been able to use its different communities to produce different assets, ideas and products, Iran also will be able to use its diverse people for generating diverse ideas and products that are required for the international market. Promoting and strengthening different Indian languages and cultures have been strengthening national unity and solidarity and have paved the way for the nurturing of diverse talents and potentials.

The Iranian regime must realise that the Iranian people are its greatest assets. They can break or make the country. They can build the country if there are equal opportunities in all areas of life starting with mother tongue teaching in schools and universities along the national language. And they can break the country too if they do not see any decent future for themselves in the present framework. What ever happens in future, the Iranian government is responsible for it.

If the teaching of 80 mother tongues in India has contributed a enormously to strengthening of national unity, the teaching of 5 mother tongues in Iran can definitely strengthen the national unity and brings about in the people a sense of shared destiny.

There is consensus in almost all educators and experts that learning in mother tongues can make a great difference in the advancement of people in their lives in various stages. All researchers have proved that the teaching of two or more languages at the same time can help children process different subjects and thoughts more effectively and understand them more comprehensively.

UNESCO as the representative of United Nations in educational and cultural issues has undertaken many researches about the importance of mother tongue and has come to this clear outcome that teaching in mother tongue can have considerable impact on the development of potentials of children.

Mother tongue languages should be favoured in education systems from the earliest age, said UNESCO Director-General Koпchiro Matsuura in his message for International Mother Tongue Language Day 2004.
It is widely acknowledged nowadays, he added, that teaching in both the mother tongue and the official national language helps children to obtain better results and stimulates their cognitive development and capacity to learn.1

Because of the importance of mother tongue in development of children, UNESCO has adapted The Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. .


"The Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2001) mentions the importance of languages in promoting cultural diversity.

These documents all detail UNESCO's position, which can be summed up as:

1. Promoting education in the mother tongue to improve the quality of education.

2. Encouraging bilingual and/or multilingual education at all levels of schooling as a means of furthering social and gender equality and as a key part of linguistically diverse societies.

3. Pushing languages as a central part of inter-cultural education."2

Teaching two languages in the schools in diverse communities provides the children with a multilevel and multidimensional thinking system. This system enables them to use different parts of their brain at different levels and process thoughts and subjects constructively and purposefully and prepares the children for multitasking professions in their adult lives. Those diverse communities that teach two or three languages at the same time are lucky enough to create professionals that speak several languages and are able to approach different issues from various perspectives. Each language brings in a new prospect and a new way of thinking and therefore, the more languages somebody speaks, the more perspectives he becomes aware of. The multitask professionals have a superior advantage over those who speak either one language or think one-dimensionally as they all issues only from one perspective.

These differences could be easily seen in Iranian professionals who come from different backgrounds. Those who have been raised and brought up in multilingual environments have a great capability in being engaged in multitasking professions and looking at different issues from a wide variety of perspectives while those who have been raised in Farsi-speaking regions are mostly one-dimensional.

More than 2 00 comprehensive researches have been conducted in the last four years about the importance of mother tongue. All of these researchers
strongly support what Goethe, the German philosopher, once said: "The person who knows only one language does not truly know that language." If a child learns a second or third language he will be able to learn his own language more than before.

Jim Cummins of University of Toronto believes, "When parents and other caregivers (e.g. grandparents) are able to spend time with their children and tell stories or discuss issues with them in a way that develops their mother tongue vocabulary and concepts, children come to school well-prepared to learn the school language and succeed educationally."3

Teaching and learning in mother tongue is not only a fundamental human right but also an emotional element which is crucial in development to of a balanced mind. Jim Cummins of University of Toronto emphasises, "That to reject a child's language in the school is to reject the child. When the message, implicit or explicit, communicated to children in the school is "Leave your language and culture at the schoolhouse door", children also leave a central part of who they are-their identities-at the schoolhouse door. When they feel this rejection, they are much less likely to participate actively and confidently in classroom instruction." 4

Today you can see a great deal of tension among different communities in Iran which are the direct results of different kinds of discriminations and specifically the prohibition of Lori, Arabic, Baluchi, Kurdish, Turkish, Turkmenian, and few other ethnic languages in Iran. The Iranian nationalities have become greatly aware of their identities and the role that their languages play in the maintenance and promotion of their identities.

There are 6000 to 7000 languages in the world. Half of them are on the brink of extinction. With the disappearance of each language, the world loses one civilisation. The people of Iran must not allow their civilisations and languages to disappear. They are responsible for preserving and promoting different ingredients of Iranian civilisation with all their power. The Iranian people must force this regime to make all provisions for revitalising all Iranian cultures, languages, traditions and archaeological sites and remnants. Each Iranian language and culture that disappears one part of Iranian history will disappear too.

It must be remembered that this regime is a self-centred regime with only one culture and one religion. To preserve their isolated religion, they are determined to eliminate all traces of Iranian old civilisations, cultures and traditions. While Iranian people are doing everything to preserve their civilisations and cultures, the Iranian governments are doing everything they can to destroy a great part of Iranian history.

Since this policy of destroying various civilisations and cultures all over the world is pursued by different dictatorial regimes, the United Nations adapted a new declaration for the preservation of civilisations and languages of indigenous people.

The universal declaration on the rights of indigenous people asserts in its introduction that,

"Affirming that the indigenous peoples are equal to all other peoples, while recognising the right of all peoples to be different, to consider themselves to be different, and to be respected as such,

"Affirming that all doctrines, policies and practices based on, or advocating superiority of people or individuals on the basis of their national origin or racial, religious or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust."

This United Nations declaration which was passed on September 07 recognised the importance of human civilisation as our shared heritage thoroughly and concluded that every culture and language has been created by a group of people in one part of the world. The collection of all these cultures and languages constitute common human civilisation and therefore, it is the duty and responsibility of all human beings to actively preserve and promote the totality of human civilisation through local cultures and languages. Each language is the manifestation of one civilisation and has its unique characteristics that cannot be found in any other language and civilisation. This was the language, culture and civilisation of Sistan and Baluchistan area that produced the greatest hero of Iran, Rostam who symbolises wisdom, strategy, victory, success, and all elements of good in their perfection. It was the language, culture and civilisation of Kurdish people that created Kaveh Ahangar that symbolises courage and determination of a nation to stand firm against tyranny and succeed. It was the language, culture and civilisation of Azerbaijan that created Starr khan and Baqer Khan who led constitutional revolution in Iran to victory.

Articular 14, part 1 of this declaration clearly emphasises that, The indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their own educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning."

The part 2 of the same article recommends that, "States, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, take effective measures, in order for indigenous individuals, particularly the children, including those living outside their communities, to have access, when possible, to an education in their own culture and provided in their own language."

All United Nations organizations and similar rights institutions agreed that each people's civilisation and culture contribute enormously to the richness of common human civilisation and therefore all the civilisations and languages must be revitalised, and promote effectively.

We the undersigned are quite aware of our responsibilities for the preservation and promotion of all Iranian languages and cultures and request you, as an organization, a journalist, intellectual, politician, human rights activist and teacher to support this petition by putting your signature under it and asking other people to support it too.

Congress of Nationalities for a Federal Iran