MESOP : THE SOVIET REPUBLIC OF WEST KURDISTAN – ROJAVA / THE NEW STALIN IN ALL SCHOOL BOOKS – TOTALITARIAN RE-EDUCATION BY PYD/PKK

Syrian Kurdish Party Condemns PYD’s Changing of School Education – KNC accuses PYD of pursuing a totalitarian ideology

Basnews – 15.09.2015 11:15 – QAMISHLI – The Kurdish National Council, a member of the Syrian Coalition, condemned the Democratic Union Party’s (PYD) changing of school textbooks under the pretext of teaching the Kurdish language, in a statement released on the website of the Syrian Coalition on Monday. The Kurdish National Council accused the PYD of pursuing a totalitarian ideology aimed at the abolition of the role of political forces and civil society organizations, rejecting any repeat the Ba’ath Party’s policies of ideological education.

The new schoolbooks are filled with pictures of imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Ocalan, and teach his philosophy to young students. Primary schools will teach Kurdish from the first until the sixth grade, while Arabic will be taught in the fourth grade, and English in the fifth grade, the Ronahi newspaper of the PYD said.the KNC rejected this ‘unfair decision’ by the de-facto authorities. It called upon the Kurdish community to put pressure on the PYD to stop interfering in education and the separation of Kurdish pupils from other ethnicities.

The KNC pointed out that for decades, the Kurdish national movement preserved the Kurdish language even in the most difficult circumstances, noting that it conducted secret courses to teach Kurdish, and is still struggling to preserve the language in education and consider it an official language in Kurdish areas and in Syria generally. The statement stresses that writing school curricula requires high expertise, adding that the teaching staff must be competent and qualified in accordance with educational and scientific standards. It also said that the curricula the PYD forces schools to adopt is not recognised by any international or regional body or even by the Assad’s regime. The PYD has set up several Kurdish language schools since July 2012, after the Syrian regime withdrew from most Kurdish territories, apart from in Qamishli and Hasakah city, and the PYD set up local administrations.