Modernism is used in the context of repressive policies and practices; therefore, the Kurds’ relations with modern institutions have always been difficult. The memories of school enrollment are bittersweet for every Kurd, because the modern school is one of these institutions. The pillars of grammar, history, literature, religion and civic knowledge surround children and deprive them of a connection to their world.
At the gates of the school, the children present their existence to the authorities of the colonial state and abandon the language of their fathers and mothers in the same place, next to their existence. The aim of this type of pedagogy is to lead the children into a new existence through language and school science. The basis of this pedagogy is teaching in the “official” language, which at the same time represents modern life with all its signs. My father was also one of the children who learned Turkish for the first time at school. One day he told me a memory of his first day at school.
Sixty years ago, in a village in Diyarbakir, all the students were gathered in a classroom in a junk school. With their dirty clothes, the children look at the teacher. The teacher asks them one by one for their first and last names: “Adın soyadın nedir?” [*] [1] The teacher first points his finger at a student called Hasan. Hasan stands still for a few minutes. He knows what “ad” is, but he doesn’t know what “soyadı” is. Hasan forces himself to find out the meaning of “soyadı/surname”. Then he thinks, “I guess he is asking about sola diya min[**] ”, and he answers, “The name is Hasan and sola diya min is rubber.”
When my father told me this memory, my heart burned with them and my conscience did not accept the rules of school language. Throughout my school years, the shadow of Hasan’s mother was always on me and strongly influenced my path to Kurdish.
Time marches on and the worms turn. In 2012, an academic from the Turkish literature department at one of the universities in Istanbul shared a memory with the PhD students and said:
One day, a very smart and nice student came to me and stood in front of me with a book in his hand that he had gift-wrapped. Excitedly and with a smile, he handed me the book and said: “Teacher, I would like to give you this book as a present. I was very happy about it. I eagerly took out the book and wrapped the present. I took the book, but I could not read it. The language was strange. Two or three times I looked at it carefully to find out what it was. The language of the book is not Turkish. From some of the names of people and places, I realized that it was written in Kurdish. Astonished, I said to him: “But it’s in Kurdish”. He stopped, looked me in the eye and said mockingly: “You don’t speak Kurdish. I never suspected that. You spoke of the millennia-long brotherhood, I said that you had learned the languages of your brothers and sisters in the meantime!
Then the teacher continued,
All these stangings were organized to convey his message to me. I have never been so ashamed in my life. This Kurdish student taught me a life lesson that I will never forget. I smiled and said: “I have received your message, thank you for this gift.
As modern institutions are used as tools of colonialism by the leaders of nation states, modernization takes the form of assimilation. The authorities of the colonial state try to force the colonized people in two ways: either to assimilate in the name of modernity or to imagine their culture and language as something unchangeable outside history.
However, some theorists and intellectuals of postcolonialism have recognized this impossibility and have fallen into the trap of finding other ways and solutions. Instead of abstract formulas, they have defined a different model based on the experiences of some European countries:
Colonized people build their modernisms through their experiences in the struggle against oppression. In this phase, they expose the racism of modern state institutions on the one hand, and create a new perspective of modernity and nationhood for themselves and humanity through their anti-colonial experiences on the other.
The student who gave a Kurdish book to the teacher of the Turkish literature department of the college, whose curriculum had no relation to Kurdish literature, is the member and the result of this struggle. Only with this struggle can the authorities demand that Hasan reveal his existence to them and clear up the question of his “firsthand last name”.
This Kurdish student tried to avenge Hasan and thousands of students like him by giving away a Kurdish book at a Turkish college in the literature department. Because they had been forced to present their existence to the authorities of the colonial state.
Notes and bibliography:
*In English: What is your name and surname?
**The pronunciation of “soyadı” is very similar to the Kurdish “sola diya te”.
1) A similar story was written by Murat Bayram:
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- Akademîsyen û lekolîner e. Derbarê neteweperiyê, teoriyên postkolonyal û rexneyê edebiyatê de xebatan dike. Li ser wan babetan nivîs û wergerên wî hene.
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