Turkey sets date for first lessons in Kurdish



ISTANBUL // At a little-known university in south-eastern Turkey that was founded only two years ago, history is being written. With its 700 students, Mardin Artuklu University, named after a 10th-century regional principality, finds itself spearheading a political initiative designed to fundamentally change the way the country deals with its estimated 12 million Kurds and to end a conflict that has cost tens of thousands of lives. Mardin has become the first university in Turkey to receive official permission to teach Kurdish courses. Strengthening language rights of the Kurds is a key element of a plan by the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, to solve the Kurdish question and stop a Kurdish rebellion that started in 1984. "It is very, very important," Bulent Ayanoglu, an aide to the rector, Serdar Bedii Omay, said by telephone yesterday. "It will calm the social climate here; it will have positive effects." In a landmark decision last week, Turkey's Board of Higher Education (YOK) allowed the state-run Mardin university to set up an Institute of Living Languages, including Kurdish, Persian, Arabic and Aramaic, the language spoken by a small community of Syriac Christians in a region close to Mardin, a provincial capital in Turkey's Kurdish area. "This is a solution that encompasses not just Kurdish but also other languages," Yusuf Ziya Ozcan, the head of YOK, said after the decision. "This is the model we will use if other universities want to serve citizens who speak different languages." YOK wants staff in Mardin to concentrate on postgraduate studies first. The aim was to "train academics that we will need when there are undergraduate studies at universities", Mr Ozcan said. Mardin had been preparing for Kurdish courses for some time and even enlisted the help of experts from universities in northern Iraq, Mr Ayanoglu said. But the university had its focus on courses for students fresh out of high school, not on postgraduate studies. As a result of the YOK decision, the start of undergraduate courses had to be postponed. Mr Omay told Turkish media he hopes to begin postgraduate classes with about 30 students in February. Mr Ayanoglu said he expects undergraduate courses to start within two to three years. Even with these academic and organisational hiccups, the step Turkey has taken with the YOK permission for Mardin is significant. The public use of Kurdish was prohibited in the 1990s because the Turkish state saw the language as an instrument of separatism. Parliamentary deputies from the Kurdish region in south-eastern Anatolia were stripped of their seats and sentenced to long prison terms after one of them spoke Kurdish during her swearing-in ceremony in 1991. Some restrictions have been lifted in the course of Turkey's EU bid in recent years. But now, the language issue has taken centre stage in Ankara's efforts to end a 25-year-old rebellion by the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, an armed group that has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy. A state-run Kurdish television station went on the air at the beginning of the year, and the highest representatives of the state have been talking about how important it is for Turkey to widen language rights for its Kurdish citizens. Even if there were no plans to make Kurdish a second official language alongside Turkish, "Kurds must be able to speak their own languages", Abdullah Gul, the president, said last week. The YOK decision for Mardin also marks the first concrete step of what has become known as Mr Erdogan's "Kurdish opening". The government has promised to tackle social, economic and cultural reforms for the Kurds this year. "We are closer to a solution than ever before," Mr Erdogan told a meeting with foreign ambassadors on Monday evening, the Turkish press reported yesterday. He said his government was committed to see the "Kurdish opening" through. "We are extremely determined, we will not take a step backwards, we will make no concessions." Besir Atalay, Mr Erdogan's interior minister, met representatives of dozens of political parties and associations as well as leading intellectuals in recent weeks in an effort to forge a broad consensus on the issue. Legislative work is scheduled to begin when parliament returns from its current recess in early October. Critics say the government has been promising much without saying what actual legal changes it seeks. The two main opposition parties say they will not participate in the reform programme and have even rejected talks with Mr Atalay. Still, polls conducted for Mr Atalay's ministry show that between 55 per cent and 64 per cent of Turkish voters support the government's plan, the English-language daily newspaper Today's Zaman reported yesterday. The media are also mostly in favour of the initiative. One reason why Mr Erdogan's "opening" has seen that level of support is that military pressure on the PKK, the main method employed by Ankara to solve the Kurdish issue for a long time, has failed to end the conflict in 25 years. "To repeat the same thing over and over for years and to expect a different result is not smart," Hasan Cemal, a respected columnist, wrote in the Milliyet daily. tseibert@thenational.ae

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Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Company profile

Name: Dukkantek 

Started: January 2021 

Founders: Sanad Yaghi, Ali Al Sayegh and Shadi Joulani 

Based: UAE 

Number of employees: 140 

Sector: B2B Vertical SaaS(software as a service) 

Investment: $5.2 million 

Funding stage: Seed round 

Investors: Global Founders Capital, Colle Capital Partners, Wamda Capital, Plug and Play, Comma Capital, Nowais Capital, Annex Investments and AMK Investment Office  

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
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Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
 
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
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5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed

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You may remember …

Robbie Keane (Atletico de Kolkata) The Irish striker is, along with his former Spurs teammate Dimitar Berbatov, the headline figure in this season’s ISL, having joined defending champions ATK. His grand entrance after arrival from Major League Soccer in the US will be delayed by three games, though, due to a knee injury.

Dimitar Berbatov (Kerala Blasters) Word has it that Rene Meulensteen, the Kerala manager, plans to deploy his Bulgarian star in central midfield. The idea of Berbatov as an all-action, box-to-box midfielder, might jar with Spurs and Manchester United supporters, who more likely recall an always-languid, often-lazy striker.

Wes Brown (Kerala Blasters) Revived his playing career last season to help out at Blackburn Rovers, where he was also a coach. Since then, the 23-cap England centre back, who is now 38, has been reunited with the former Manchester United assistant coach Meulensteen, after signing for Kerala.

Andre Bikey (Jamshedpur) The Cameroonian defender is onto the 17th club of a career has taken him to Spain, Portugal, Russia, the UK, Greece, and now India. He is still only 32, so there is plenty of time to add to that tally, too. Scored goals against Liverpool and Chelsea during his time with Reading in England.

Emiliano Alfaro (Pune City) The Uruguayan striker has played for Liverpool – the Montevideo one, rather than the better-known side in England – and Lazio in Italy. He was prolific for a season at Al Wasl in the Arabian Gulf League in 2012/13. He returned for one season with Fujairah, whom he left to join Pune.

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Company Profile
Company name: OneOrder

Started: October 2021

Founders: Tamer Amer and Karim Maurice

Based: Cairo, Egypt

Industry: technology, logistics

Investors: A15 and self-funded 

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How to improve Arabic reading in early years

One 45-minute class per week in Standard Arabic is not sufficient

The goal should be for grade 1 and 2 students to become fluent readers

Subjects like technology, social studies, science can be taught in later grades

Grade 1 curricula should include oral instruction in Standard Arabic

First graders must regularly practice individual letters and combinations

Time should be slotted in class to read longer passages in early grades

Improve the appearance of textbooks

Revision of curriculum should be undertaken as per research findings

Conjugations of most common verb forms should be taught

Systematic learning of Standard Arabic grammar

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Director: Kangana Ranaut

Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry 

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UAE rugby season

FIXTURES

West Asia Premiership

Dubai Hurricanes v Dubai Knights Eagles

Dubai Tigers v Bahrain

Jebel Ali Dragons v Abu Dhabi Harlequins

UAE Division 1

Dubai Sharks v Dubai Hurricanes II

Al Ain Amblers v Dubai Knights Eagles II

Dubai Tigers II v Abu Dhabi Saracens

Jebel Ali Dragons II v Abu Dhabi Harlequins II

Sharjah Wanderers v Dubai Exiles II

 

LAST SEASON

West Asia Premiership

Winners – Bahrain

Runners-up – Dubai Exiles

UAE Premiership

Winners – Abu Dhabi Harlequins

Runners-up – Jebel Ali Dragons

Dubai Rugby Sevens

Winners – Dubai Hurricanes

Runners-up – Abu Dhabi Harlequins

UAE Conference

Winners – Dubai Tigers

Runners-up – Al Ain Amblers

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