Mostafa Malekian's Lecture 'Mother Tongue' at the Kurdistan Book Fair Opening Ceremony

The right to education in and promotion of one's mother tongue is one of the legal and ethical issues. I will mention four reasons, all of which affirm that we must recognize the right to one's mother tongue and uphold it in practice.

The first reason is discussed from an ethical perspective; and that is, ethically speaking, no one's freedom in any domain can be restricted or limited unless that person's freedom impinges upon the freedom of another.

Malekian added: As long as the freedom of others is not violated, a person is free, and they are only not free when they abuse their freedom and violate the freedom of others—others who have just as much right to freedom. This statement is an ethical reason and is universally applicable, and one of its applications is the freedom to speak and teach in one's mother tongue and the freedom to promote one's mother tongue.

This freedom, like any other freedom, is never subject to restriction, and no limit can be set for it unless this freedom violates a freedom similar to itself. Based on this argument, we have no right to restrict the mother tongue of any ethnic group or social community unless the linguistic freedom of this group harms the linguistic freedom of another group, and naturally, it is known, clear, and evident that this freedom—linguistic freedom—does not threaten any other group.

The second reason, which is again an ethical and to some extent legal reason, is a reason discussed not through the concept of freedom but through the concept of justice; our emphasis in this discussion is on justice. One of the characteristics of every concept and every understanding of justice is this: having or not having a characteristic over which I myself had no will, choice, involvement, control, or possibility of change cannot become the basis for me to gain an advantage or suffer a deprivation because of having that characteristic or because of lacking it. I was born with this characteristic, and this cannot be the basis for a deprivation or an advantage for me in comparison to you.

Whether I am born a boy or a girl is not within my control, and since it is not by my own will, it can never be the basis for an advantage for me over others. If I gain an advantage somewhere, a deprivation or advantage whose basis I brought into existence through my own free will can be the basis for an advantage, such as hard work or laziness. Because the assumption is that this hard work is voluntary, but when something is not within a person's will, it cannot be the basis for an advantage or deprivation.

This point, which originates from the concept of distributive justice, means this: when the possessor of a characteristic has no role in its creation, they should not gain an advantage or suffer a deprivation because of it, and on this basis, the language we are born into is not within our control, so it cannot be the basis for an advantage or deprivation. Language is an involuntary matter; the language of a linguistic minority cannot be the basis for deprivation, and on this same basis, that minority should not be deprived of promoting and teaching that language.

Just as in the biological world, the greater the biodiversity, the healthier the environment will be, and health does not come from increasing the number of plants but rather they must become diverse. An environment where there are thousands of trees of one type compared to an environment where there are a thousand trees of 10 types, the second environment is more vibrant, and the result is that the health of biological ecosystems increases with diversity.

The same statement holds true in social and cultural ecosystems. In a society where different schools of thought, different dispositions, different creeds, different religions, different faiths, different rituals, etc., exist, we will achieve social and cultural health in that place, and societies that are administered with only one school, creed, and faith will never attain that health. Health lies in diversity, and the same statement is true regarding language: the more diverse it is, the more vibrant the linguistic life of that society remains. If we all speak English or Persian, sooner or later its immense loss will become apparent, and it is prudent to support diversity, and this support means not allowing mother tongues to become extinct, and this is possible through education.

Ethnic groups, nations, and peoples prefer to live in a society where all their needs are met, and if we fear the centrifugal tendencies of ethnic groups, the solution is to ensure that everyone has the feeling and perception that all their needs are being fulfilled. One of the most important needs of ethnic groups is for their mother tongue to be valued, to hold a place of primacy, and for them not to witness insult, contempt, or humiliation in this regard.

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Audio of this Lecture

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Mostafa Malekian's Lecture 'Mother Tongue' at the Kurdistan Book Fair Opening Ceremony

Text Source: Kurdpress News Agency

2 October 2019

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