This report was read by Sudad Rasoul.
Dear audience,
I am pleased to be appointed by Kurdshop as a representative of the Zara Award Selection Committee and a member of the jury to read the report of the committee and select a candidate for the Zara Award for the Kurdish Language. The establishment of the Zara Award for the Kurdish Language by Kurdshop is an important and effective step to honor the struggle of a female teacher who was sentenced to five years in prison for teaching our children in their mother tongue. It also showed us and the whole world how afraid they are of studying in Kurdish.
Why was Zara Mohammadi imprisoned for the Kurdish Language? This imprisonment has a political and cultural dimension that we must focus on. Why are the invaders of Kurdistan, especially in Turkey and Iran, so afraid of education in Kurdish? Because language is the most important identity of a nation, language is like a mirror in which the nation finds its whole existence; In that language, it finds its history and culture, through which the nation is the inventor of that culture; Therefore, as long as the language is alive and stable, the nation is alive. The Kurdish invaders know that if Kurds study in their own language and become an advanced language of reading and writing, a Kurdish nation with a high culture will emerge and reach the ranks of Persians, Arabs, and Turks, so their existence as an occupying state on Kurdistan territory will be shaken.
After the establishment of the nation-states of Iran, Turkey, Iraq, and Syria in Kurdistan, what these states have worked on most was the erasure of the Kurdish language, because erasing the language means killing the nation; that is why they are afraid of studying in Kurdish and want the Kurdish Language to be repressed and subjugated forever; If in Turkey, speaking Kurdish was banned and punished, in Iran, speaking Kurdish was not banned, but it was considered a local Iranian dialect and behind of Persian; Because the Iranian authorities believe that Kurdish is not an independent language, the Kurdish people are not a nation and are one of the Iranian ethnic groups, and believe Kurds are originally Iranian and must stay.
The Kurdish language in East Kurdistan is a group of dialects that covers a wide geography in the west of Iran: Central Kurdish, also known as Sorani, Kurmanji Kurdish, Luri, Laki, Kalhuri, and Hawrami are the different dialects of Kurdish in the East of Kurdistan whose speakers are different in Religion, tribe, and ethnic. Instead of viewing these linguistic and dialectal differences as a colorful garden full of beautiful flowers, the Iranian authorities have viewed them with fear. They consider education in Kurdish a threat to the integrity of the Iranian state. Therefore, since the beginning of the 20th century, they have constantly tried to undermine the identity of the Kurdish language, widen the gap between Kurdish dialects to make each Kurdish dialect a language, and fragment the unity of the Kurdish nation and its language. What they did to the Lorestan to separate them from the Kurds, they are now doing to the Lak; tell them you are not Kurd, you are Lak, and your language is separate and is not a Kurdish dialect. They are doing it with Hawrami to recognize it as an independent language and separate it from Kurdish. In the present and future, they will try to dissolve their Kurdish in order to fade their Kurdish dialect to some extent, to speak Kurdish that is like Persian, or to become a Persian dialect and no longer be Kurdish. This language policy that Iran is pursuing against the Kurdish language is called linguicide in linguistics, and killing a language means killing the soul of a nation. This is the plan of the Kurdistan invaders for the Kurdish language. What has been done to the Kurdish language in Iran for a century, from the time of Reza Shah until today, in the policy of killing the language and assimilating it, has been done to the Northern Kurds (Kurmanji) in Turkey.
Establishing an award named Zara for the Kurdish language is a defense against this linguistic policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran and other invaders of Kurdistan and encourages the struggle to preserve and continue education in Kurdish in all parts of Kurdistan.
I have always believed that any Kurd who struggles for their language in an environment full of subjugation and oppression is much better than a Kurd who reads and writes in Kurdish in a free environment. Therefore, as a citizen of South Kurdistan, I prefer a Kurdish writer from North, West, and East Kurdistan to receive this award than a Kurd from South Kurdistan. This is even though the right to language in the south has been difficult and full of struggle and sacrifice until the Iraqi authorities were forced to recognize the Kurdish language rights and enshrine them in the new Iraqi constitution. Fortunately, today, the South is no longer subject to language oppression.
Six Kurdish writers from different parts of Kurdistan were nominated for this year's Zara Award. A judge was appointed in each part of Kurdistan to select a candidate for this award. I was a member of the jury with three other judges, Saied Varoj in North Kurdistan, Hashem Ahmadzadeh in East Kurdistan, and Khalid Jamil in West Kurdistan. Unfortunately, Mr. Khalid Jamil could not attend the judging day. All three of us voted transparently and democratically for a candidate; Our vote was mostly for a female writer: Amina Omar, also known as Kecha Kurd in West Kurdistan, who has spent a long life protecting her language from the Syrian regime; Therefore, I and the other judges considered this struggling woman worthy of this award. The failure of the other candidates does not mean that they do not deserve the award. Any Kurd who writes in Kurdish and fights to preserve his language deserves an award and honor. Every Kurd should be proud of their language and try to preserve it, and pass it on to their children. If Kurdish is banned in their country, they should prepare a school at home and teach their children to read and write in Kurdish.
Long live those who are fighting for education in Kurdish and preserving Kurdish national identity in all parts of Kurdistan.
