That will not be doing our Kurdish brothers any good. A young person who learns Kurdish will come to Ankara and have problems because won’t speak Turkish. Or, I will go to Mardin and say, “May I have half a kilo of baklava?” He will answer me in Kurdish. I will not understand him, and he will not understand me. What is the point? There needs to be a system where we all understand one another’s language. Otherwise, it will compromise our quality of life. I have many brothers and acquaintances in the Southeast. I have guests from the Southeast coming tomorrow. They speak Turkish. How could we communicate if they only spoke Kurdish? These things are very problematic.
But if they say, “Let us revive the Southeast,” that is right. “The Southeast is poor, you must help it.” That is right. They can say that. Or, “Send food and clothing and open factories.” That is right, too. “Let us put an end to poverty there,” that is also right. But the Kurdish language will clearly wrong our Kurdish brothers and wrong us, and is a system that will drive us apart. I will not understand them and they will not understand me. They will write a book and I won’t understand it, and they will be unable to read I book I have written. What is the use in that? They will produce newspapers and we will produce our own. They will be unable to read ours, and we theirs. Is that any good? We are one, the children of the same family. Many of my brothers are Kurds, and many of my sisters. Where did this come from? They will come and say something in Turkish and I will not understand them. What’s the point of that? If they want a cause, there is Islamic Unity. If they are bursting with energy, they can use it for the Islamic Unity.
It is producing unease on a whim. There is Kurdish-language TV. I watch it. Our brothers speak very well, but I do not understand what they are saying. They play music and sing very fine pieces, but I do not understand what they are saying. Is that any good? Our common language is Turkish. We must all know Turkish. You can learn English and German and Kurdish and Circassian. The state can also teach Kurdish. The laws can be amended accordingly.
But I want to speak with my brothers and form attachments. They are very fine and blessed people. Very polite. They can say what is true and what is true is that there is poverty there. That is correct. We must help. There is a lack of knowledge. That is also true. We must mobilize in all the resources we have to provide education. But this matter of language is intended to divide us. Let us imagine the members of a family. If they tell my mother, “We are going to teach you a foreign language,” and they tell my older brother, “And we are going to teach you another foreign language,” then how will I be able to talk to them? What is the point? There is no need for something like that. That system will just damage our quality of life and accomplish nothing else.
For example, Barzani comes and they know Turkish. Good, it is excellent for them to know Turkish. Talabani came, and he knew Turkish. Not knowing Turkish is very harmful. It puts a block on trade and social bonds. It puts a block on tourism. It is harmful in all regards. No, I am not saying that there should be no Kurdish. Everyone must learn Kurdish to their hearts’ content. As I have said before, my father knew very good Circassian, but he spoke Turkish. My uncles also knew Circassian, but they spoke Turkish. All my relatives were like that. We have acquaintances from Mardin, and they speak excellent Turkish, but also excellent Arabic. It is a blessing that they speak Turkish. (Adnan Oktar, January 17th, 2013, A9 TV)
