Linguistic Cultural and Artistic Studies Association (DISA-DER) was opened after the Kurdi-Der was shut down with a statutory decree (KHK). In one year, 500 people received language classes from the association.
Following the conflict on July 15, 2016 in Turkey, dubbed as a "fight for power", the AKP government declared a State of Emergency on July 20. Statutory decrees (KHKs) issued in the state of emergency shut down almost all NGOs.
One association that was shut down was Kurdi-Der, which used to work on the Kurdish language. In the one year since the closing, another association was founded in Van called the Linguistic Cultural and Artistic Studies Association (DISA-DER).
The association held its first congress on September 2018 and elected its administrators. Within the week, the administrators had their homes raided and most of them were arrested. Despite policies of oppression and intimidation, the people showed great interest in DISA-DER's efforts. The association offers workshops on Persian and English as well as Kurdish.
"WE TRY TO INCLUDE CHILDREN WORKING ON THE STREET IN LANGUAGE CLASSES"
'DISA-DER Van Co-chair Salih Sertkal spoke about the association's efforts: "We founded the association a year ago. After the state of emergency, we held language workshops, reading groups, literature clubs, and various similar workshops. Van has a 95% Kurdish population, but our language workshops are still mostly on Kurdish.
We also have Persian and English workshops. Van has a border with Iran, so every year thousands of tourists come over. To date, some 500 citizens took our workshops. 3 of the workshops were for children. Now it's the summer break so we have more workshops for children. We try to include children who work in the streets, and for this we need everybody's support."
"LANGUAGE IS A MIRROR ON A NATION"
Sertkal said the state must take action on education in mother tongues, especially Kurdish, and added: "Today there is some form of Kurdish language education even in Iran, it should have started a long time ago in Turkey. Unfortunately the bureaucratic mind in Turkey works to shut down Kurdish language classes in Japan.
This is what we are saying: If diverse peoples are a rich cultural mosaic in these lands, we must first keep the languages, the basis for nations and cultures, alive so peoples and cultures can live. In the words of German philosopher Schiller, language is a mirror on a nation. Looking at the mirror we see our true reflection. Language is the raison d'etre for a people. Destroy a language, you destroy a people."
