The General Directorate of Syriac Culture and Arts, in cooperation with the District Commissioner of Ankawa District, the Directorate of Syriac Education, the Directorate of Education of the outskirts of Erbil, and the Department of the Syriac Language, Faculty of Education, Salahaddin University, organized a festive day on the occasion of International Mother Language Day corresponding to 21 February 2023.
The festive day included a morning activity at the Ankawa Mixed Secondary School Hall, in the presence of Rami Nuri Siawsh, District Commissioner of Ankawa District, Kaldo Ramzi Oghanna, Director General of Syriac Culture and Arts in the Kurdistan Region, Nizar Hanna, Director General of Syriac Education, and a number of government and administrative officials. The ceremony began with a number of pupils of the Syriac Mixed Arbaello School singing the new song (Lashani), which was produced by the General Directorate of Syriac Culture and Arts on this occasion, written and composed by Youssef Aziz. on behalf of the District Commissioner of Ankawa District and the General Directorate of Syriac Culture and Arts, Syawsh said, “All the events we organize today are very important to celebrate our Syriac language, but the most important thing is that we continue as much as we can to speak this language everywhere we are, without being ashamed.” The General Directorate of Syriac Education pointed to the importance of language and land for any nation, while Fahmy Sliwa, Director of Education for the outskirts of Erbil, stressed the importance of the role played by the Syriac schools established in the region after 1991. The words were interspersed with a group of songs presented by the students of Ankawa Schools.
The morning curriculum for the celebration also included a tour for the employees of the General Directorate of Syriac Culture and Arts, the Directorate of Heritage, the Syriac Museum and the Syriac Library, to schools in Ankawa district to distribute souvenirs to students, decorated with Syriac letters. The Directorate of Syriac Culture and Arts / Dohuk distributed souvenirs to students of Syriac schools in Dohuk and Alqosh. Numbers of souvenirs were also distributed in Kirkuk and Soran / Diana. Preparations for the celebration included decorating the streets of Ankawa with banners bearing the celebration’s logo, and a prelude to the opening of the Ankawa model, which bears the Syriac letters.
And at the Gilgamesh hall in the Social Academic Center, the General Directorate of Syriac Culture and Arts organized an evening session within the curriculum of the festive day. It is associated with Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian, citing the saying of the filer Naoum Faiq, “He who does not know his language does not know why he was created. Anu Jawhar, Minister of Transport and Communications of the Kurdistan Regional Government, in which he praised the linguistic and cultural diversity in Kurdistan, praising the role of the regional government in preserving it by approving the Syriac Education Law, and he also referred to the cultural openness that followed the March 11 agreement and the opening of the space for the establishment of cultural clubs and schools and the issuance of magazines and newspapers in the language the mom. Then came a speech by Arian Salahuddin, Undersecretary of the Minister of Culture and Youth, in which he praised the interest of the government, especially the ninth booth, in the person of Prime Minister Masrour Barzani in the mother tongue for all the components of the region.
Ugna presented an honorary shield in the name of the General Directorate of Syriac Culture and Arts to the Etoti Organization, as an expression of thanks and appreciation for its supportive initiative.
Then the exhibition of the Syriac calligraphy was inaugurated by the artist Bashar Al-Baghdaidi, followed by a dialogue session centered on (the Syriac language between the rooting of modernity and the modernization of heritage). The session was moderated by Nizar Hanna, the general director of Syriac Education. Behnam Soni, Dr. Kawthar Najeeb, Head of the Syriac Language Department at Salah al-Din University, and writer Boutros Nabati.
