Mohammad Babaei – May 29, 2014
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Research shows that children taught in their mother tongue perform better in a second language. |
Over the past hundred years, excessive focus on Persian language and culture in the multiethnic and multilingual land of Iran has fueled deep crises, anomalies, and rifts, many of which remain hidden today.
Examining the behavior of intellectuals in crisis-stricken Afghanistan shows that, despite being socially less developed than Iran in many respects, one can argue that Iran is decades behind Afghanistan in ethnic and linguistic matters.
Afghanistan is a country of minorities. The main division there is between Tajiks and Pashtuns. Both groups are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school. Although Afghanistan is one of the most religious Islamic societies, religion has not been a unifying factor for ethnicity. Linguistic and cultural differences remain pronounced.
From the beginning of modern institutions in Afghanistan, Pashtun intellectuals—who are the most influential ethnic group in the country—recognized the weakness of their own written language compared to Persian, which is the official language. By passing laws and imposing conditions, they partially weakened Persian while instituting positive discrimination for Pashto. A hundred years ago, Mahmud Tarzi wrote in a lengthy article titled “Language and Its Importance” in Siraj al-Akhbar: “One of the moral virtues of every nation is to preserve, reform, and develop its language. The official language of our sacred state is Persian, and the language of our nation is Afghani.” He repeatedly emphasized in his writings: “Every nation lives by its own ethnic and national language.”
The result of such timely and accurate recognition is that the national anthem of Afghanistan, the birthplace of the Persian language, is now in Pashto; whereas the national anthem of Pakistan—a country with no native Persian speakers—is more intelligible to Persian speakers.
Afghanistan currently faces hundreds of internal and external crises. Yet it has managed to become officially bilingual, which is a remarkable achievement. If the linguistic demands of the Tajiks—who, like their Iranian counterparts, have a totalizing view of their language—and the religiously-driven Talibanism among Pashtuns do not narrow the space for Afghan unity, this country is at the end of a tunnel that the people of Iran have not yet entered.
Iran, too, is a country of minorities, with one major difference: the vast majority of Iranians are Shi’a Muslims. If we exclude Gilaki, Mazandarani, Talysh, Lur, and even Shushtari, Dezfuli, and Semnani from being considered “Persian,” no ethnic group’s mother tongue constitutes a majority in Iran.
In Iraq, to distinguish the major groups, one speaks of Kurds, Shi’a, and Sunni. Yet the Kurds themselves are Sunni, and sometimes even more religious than their Arab neighbors. Nonetheless, the ethnic and linguistic element among Kurds is far stronger than religion.
While the ethnically and linguistically homogeneous Iraqi Arabs are still entangled in thousand-year-old conflicts, the Kurds politically focus only on Kurdistan and Kurdish identity. It is common for them to align their interests even with non-Shi’a Arabs. Although no Arab, Turk, Persian, Shi’a, or Sunni politician doubts it, in Kurdish regions, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural identity takes precedence over all other considerations. In Turkey, Iran, and Syria, the situation of the Kurds is largely similar. Perhaps the Kurds are the only people in the region who, for decades, have practically separated religion from politics in their movements. While maintaining deep religiosity, they conduct independent politics. For over half a century, religion has been absent or minimal in all Kurdish struggles across the region. This linguistic and cultural pride of the Kurds is unparalleled and highly respectable.
However, this strong and unique ethnic and cultural element has been completely subdued by Shi’a Islam in Iran. Here, “Kurds” refers to Sunni Kurds. Although a significant portion of Iranian Kurds are Shi’a, their population is comparable to that of Sunni Kurds. Kermanshah, the largest Kurdish city in Iran, is primarily Shi’a. Shi’a Kurds in Iran are entirely separate from other Kurds. Established Kurdish parties know that in Shi’a Kurdish areas, they lack a significant popular base. If the Pashtuns and Tajiks were also Shi’a, Afghanistan’s situation would be entirely different today.
The non-political Shi’a institution, the marja’iyya (religious authority), is very powerful. Moreover, the history of this sect has cultivated a culture of minority consciousness. This powerful, non-political religious institution has become such a strong social adhesive that it has kept Persians and Turks living together for five hundred years with almost no issues. This unity was not achieved by Arab nationalism in Iraq nor by Hanafi Islam in Afghanistan. The Shi’a religion has so far played the central role in ethnic unity in Iran.
Now, society has changed completely. More than three decades of Shi’a-based Islamic rule have passed, and the marja’iyya has lost much of its exclusive influence. Educated and influential segments of society feel less need for religious authorities. In other words, Iran has moved beyond the exclusive coverage of religion. For this reason, ethnic and linguistic issues will be the main concerns for the country’s future.
Simultaneous teaching of Turkish and Persian is a short-lived experiment in Azerbaijan since the advent of modern schools. The main reason for its short duration was not merely suppression by others. The drive for modern nation-building and a problem-free single language made Persian—with its thousand-year literary and bureaucratic heritage and deep religious commonalities—a suitable medium. The government of the time could impose this on diverse ethnic groups with minimal resistance. Azerbaijani intellectuals and politicians played the highest or near-highest roles in this linguistic imposition.
It is unrealistic to assume that, in the future, the people of Tabriz will continue to accept reading and writing exclusively in Persian. Emphasizing the centuries-long presence of Persian in Turkish-speaking regions and insisting on its continuation not only undermines the historical legitimacy of this presence but also provokes strong reactions. The fairest and most polite answer is that Persian is no higher than Greek, Latin, or Arabic. Today, ancient Greek, thousands of years old, is used only in academic circles and is not even a second-tier language. When philosophy, poetry, and literature were produced in Greek, nothing remained in English.
The truth is that Persian-speaking intellectuals in our country either fail to recognize the severity of the crisis or do not care. From Michel Foucault to Ancient Greece, endless philosophy and theoretical debates take place here. As Mohammad Qaed says: “A foreign traveler in Iran is astonished by all the philosophy, critique, theories, paradigms, and lecture halls filled with audiences, which abroad would have one-twentieth of this attendance. There is no lack of critique, difficult books, scholarly attacks, erudite disputes, or exhaustive interpretations.” Yet elites and theorists are unable to grasp real crises. Not only are they incapable, but sometimes they even drum up these crises, knowingly or unknowingly.
Ethnic activists often note that the Persian-speaking civil society and intelligentsia consistently neglect them and sometimes make unfair accusations. Patriotic Persian intellectuals openly ignore or even ridicule the slogan “Haray Haray Men Turkem” in Azerbaijan.
Persian-speaking intellectuals, knowingly or unknowingly, exacerbate the gap. Once the central power in Iran weakens, bridging this gap will become impossible. Many guardians of the Persian language will belatedly realize how unilateral linguistic dominance has fueled resentment. In such conditions, speaking of brotherhood, equality, or dialogue will no longer be effective.
Persian-speaking civil society currently bears the greatest responsibility. It must refrain from tying the unity of Iran—a multilingual, multiethnic country—to the Persian language. The best way to defend territorial unity is to defend the right of other languages to flourish, especially in the present conditions—not when it is too late. Those who currently favor the unilateral status quo already lack credibility among other ethnic groups.
When the experiences of countries like Switzerland and Canada are mentioned, some consider them unattainable. They predict fratricide and chaos and inevitably see no alternative but the current state. Yet the experience of the Pashtuns in Afghanistan is remarkable. Without abandoning Persian, they have succeeded in institutionalizing a united, bilingual country in a noteworthy way.
Keywords: Persian, Multilingualism, Ethnic Minorities, Iran, Afghanistan, Bilingualism, Language Policy
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