Roghayeh Rezaei – IranWire – February 3, 2022
There are still more than two weeks left until International Mother Language Day, which falls on February 21. Nevertheless, thousands of individuals whose mother tongue is not Farsi have shared stories of their pain and suffering related to the Farsi language, as well as the humiliation and discrimination stemming from being non-Farsi, using the hashtag #MeAndFarsi on social media.
What is the #MeAndFarsi hashtag? Why has it been embraced by social media users? And what are the demands of the storytellers and campaign organizers? In this report, IranWire seeks answers to these questions through conversations with Sevil Suleymani, an Azerbaijani Turkish civil activist based in Virginia, USA, and Mohsen Rasouli, an activist for the right to mother-tongue education. Both are founders of the "End Monolingualism" campaign.
In recent days, approximately 1,000 tweets have been shared using the hashtag #MeAndFarsi on Twitter. Iranian users, primarily non-Farsi speakers, have used this hashtag in Farsi and English to talk about the hardships they face in life, education, and work due to Farsi not being their mother tongue. Others have also highlighted the structural discrimination and humiliation imposed on them by Iran’s political and social systems or by Farsi-speaking Iranian citizens.
The "End Monolingualism" campaign’s website, which initiated this movement, has compiled many of these posts, linking back to the original tweets by the storytellers.
As Sevil Suleymani, an Azerbaijani Turkish civil activist, told IranWire, this campaign was launched to raise awareness about the systematic and structural discrimination against non-Farsi peoples and to give voice to their pain and suffering in a society where Farsi is the only official and teachable language.
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| Sevil Suleymani |
Explaining the motivation behind starting the campaign, she said:
"I started first grade in Parsabad Moghan in a class of 35 students, none of whom knew Farsi. Our first-grade teacher was a young woman from Tabriz who had just graduated from a teacher-training college. She came to implement what she had learned—teaching in Farsi—but assumed we could all speak fluent Farsi, which was far from true. On the first days, she raised and lowered her ruler threateningly. When she called my name, I was so scared that I wet myself because I didn’t know a single word of Farsi."
Sevil Suleymani, who is now pursuing a PhD in sociology at a university in Virginia, continued:
"A few years ago, I shared a similar story on Facebook, which resonated widely. My post was shared multiple times by people from various ethnic groups such as Kurds, Lors, Baluchis, and Arabs. I received many messages saying how familiar my experience felt to them. They, too, had endured similar fears on their first day of school because Farsi wasn’t their first language."
Commenting on Iran’s education system, which recognizes only the Farsi language, she added:
"The Iranian educational system is not designed for language instruction. It assumes that all children already know Farsi and is only aimed at teaching literacy. But at least 50% of the students have no understanding of Farsi when they start school."
What Stories Have Been Shared Under the #MeAndFarsi Hashtag?
The accounts shared by non-Farsi citizens, regardless of which corner of Iran they hail from, are deeply painful. These individuals speak of experiences of humiliation and ridicule, the imposition of ethnic and gender stereotypes, and even discrimination within the education system simply because Farsi is not their first language.
Behrouz Boochani, a renowned Kurdish author currently teaching in exile at the University of Sydney, wrote on Twitter about the campaign and the hashtag #MeAndFarsi:
"#MeAndFarsi is one of the most significant cultural events in public discourse. Within hours, hundreds of painful stories and memories of humiliation, insult, and racist behavior towards Gilaks, Turks, Arabs, and others were documented. If you want to see the real Iran, follow this hashtag."
Another user, Tara, tweeted:
"When I started elementary school in Tabriz, I didn’t know any Farsi! I was good at math and science, but not in dictation, composition, or Farsi. In fourth grade, I failed composition. Even though I now have a PhD and teach at a university in the US, I still carry the negative effects of those school years with me."
A user named Barish shared a bitter experience of racism during his military service:
"During military service in the city of Baneh, when I entered the barracks, someone asked me where I was from. When I said Tabriz, another person from the top bunk said loudly, 'Guys, quiet down! I want to sing you a Turkish song,' and then put his hands to his mouth and brayed like a donkey. I responded, and this earned me three months of additional service and exile."
According to Sevil Suleymani, the common thread in all these stories is systemic and structural racism in Iran.
She elaborated:
"All these accounts reveal traces of systematic humiliation and discrimination against non-Farsi peoples. This shows how serious the issue of racism is in Iran. People haven’t been educated to understand that making a joke about an ethnic group isn’t just a simple joke—it reinforces a structure of discrimination."
Suleymani further added:
"These documented narratives show how ineffective Iran’s political and administrative systems are, as they fail to address the needs of over 50% of its population. Instead, one group has made life miserable for the rest."
Mohsen Rasouli, a civil rights activist living in Malaysia, also believes that a significant portion of the narratives shared by users participating in the Mano-Farsi campaign revolves around racism.
In this regard, he explains:
“The narratives mostly focus on humiliation and discrimination against individuals because of their accents while speaking Persian. These incidents have occurred often in life, especially during job hunting, and have prevented individuals from realizing their full potential.”
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| Mohsen Rasouli |
This civil rights activist, who along with Sevil Suleymani launched the End Monolingualism campaign about a year ago, demanding the recognition of other languages within Iran’s geographical boundaries, further states:
“Another aspect these narratives cover includes insults and ethnic humiliations that intersect with gender.”
Rasouli continues:
“For instance, if a woman has a Gilaki accent, she is immediately faced with moral stereotypes and ethnic prejudice, and if a man has the same accent, he is labeled as ‘lacking honor.’ This situation applies similarly to other ethnic groups. This structural racism, perpetuated by a monolingual system, has created derogatory stereotypes targeting each ethnicity, tying these stereotypes to their language, accents, and even their children’s names.”
This civil rights activist refers to some narratives in which users have described facing racism and discrimination, particularly upon the discovery of their ethnic origins. Others have shared that even if they didn’t have an accent, they were asked intrusive questions about their religion and whether they practiced certain rituals, reflecting deep-seated prejudices.
These accusations trace back to fabricated claims propagated by pro-Islamic Republic forces during the 1980s against Kurdish citizens as part of dehumanization strategies aimed at further suppression. At that time, as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was suppressing Kurdish activists in Kurdistan, many rumors circulated in central Iranian cities—especially Tehran—claiming that Kurds engaged in violent rituals like “slaughtering with tin cans.”
What is the Mano-Farsi Campaign's Demand?
Sevil Suleymani, one of the founders of the End Monolingualism campaign, explains the central demand of this campaign and the Mano-Farsi hashtag to IranWire:
“We demand the end of monolingualism and the acceptance of ethnic, linguistic, religious, and gender diversity. Iran is a country of differences, and it should not be the case that only one group imposes its language, religion, and gender identity on everyone.”
Mohsen Rasouli also defines the main goal of the Mano-Farsi campaign and the hashtag as raising awareness about discrimination against non-Persian-speaking people and documenting their suffering related to the Persian language:
“Our goal was to discuss the pain and suffering of living in a monolingual system within a multilingual society and raise awareness about it. Many people deny discrimination against non-Persian-speaking people upon encountering these narratives. That is why we wanted these experiences to be documented. We are now collecting posts shared on Twitter and other social media under the Mano-Farsi hashtag into a single database to serve as a resource for research and further studies in the future.”
Rasouli also points to some users' reactions to the campaign and Mano-Farsi hashtag, adding:
“There is also talk of separatism in both the virtual and real worlds. I believe this is a tool for suppression. Mother tongue rights and education are fundamental human rights recognized in many international treaties. Even in the Islamic Republic’s constitution, Article 15 explicitly emphasizes the education of literature in native languages, but even that has not been implemented.”
He concludes:
“We are facing a totalitarian group that is centralist, having built its nation-state on the foundation of one language, one religion, and one ethnicity. Therefore, anything that challenges their hegemony is labeled as being against the Iranian nation.”
The link to the original article in Farsi on Iran Wire:
رنج، تبعیض و تحقیر به زبان مادری؛ هشتگ منوفارسی چیست؟