The Coordinating Council of Non-Persian Language Cultural Associations in Iran is on the path to destruction.
Today, February 21st, 2nd of Esfand 1402 in the Iranian calendar, is International Mother Language Day. This day has been designated by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to protect linguistic and cultural diversity in countries around the world, and is marked on this organization’s calendar.
The Coordinating Council of Iranian Cultural Associations, in a statement on this occasion, referred to the right to education in one’s mother tongue and the connection between language eradication policies and the emergence of dictatorship in non-democratic countries. It wrote about the situation in Iran and the continuation of single-language policy engineering, stating that the dynamism of a society is linked not to the killing and suppression of differences, but to creating a fair and equal environment for their growth and flourishing. This council considers the continuation of the single-language policy in education to be an unjust action that overlooks the collective rights of non-Persian nations within the political geography of Iran.
The statement mentions the beginning of the suppression of non-Persian languages and the single-language educational policy during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi. It states that due to completely erroneous policies from the first Pahlavi era, which have continued and been reproduced without any change to this day, the rainbow of different non-Persian languages has been exposed to governmental discursive and physical violence. Of all these languages, only those that have found a place outside Iran’s political borders where a government or quasi-governmental structure has provided the opportunity for education in these languages have survived. As for the non-Persian languages entirely confined within Iran’s national borders, they have either completely disappeared or are effectively on the path to permanent extinction.