Dear friends, Happy Nawroz!
Most countries in the world carry out census of their population once every ten years in order to know the population of their cities and towns, their ages, race, religion, language and dialects in order to use the statistics in their decision-making processes in many areas.
As you may know, this year’s census is taking place in England and Wales in a few weeks’ time on 21st March (the Nawroz day). It is expected that a form concerning the census be sent by post to all houses, flats and dwelling places in those two parts of UK. In the free and liberal societies of the West participating in the censuses and answering the questions in the correct format is an important social and national duty that everybody should do.
We, therefore, urge you not to ignore the questionnaires and please fill them in.
In previous censuses, some members of the Kurdish community, unfortunately, have wrongly filled in the boxes of Ethnicity and Language. As a result, in Germany, most of the Kurds registered as Turks, even though it is estimated that up to half of the three million people from Turkey in the country, are ethnically Kurds! Similarly, according to a study conducted by a member of the Kurdish community, at a school in Haringey, north London in 1990s 70% of the children who were registered as ethnic Turks, were in fact Kurds!
This is legally and socially incorrect. It puts the institutions of the national and local governments in precarious positions where they do not know who is who and whom they should direct their services to. This also raises a major hindrance for the cultural and social activities of the Kurdish communities in UK and Europe because the government’s records reflect much a smaller sizes of the Kurdish communities. As a result, we do not get the deserving recognition within the societies we live among.
We call upon the Kurdish citizens residing in the UK, firstly, to fill in the forms exactly on the same day of 21/03/2021 or after, and secondly, in the sections where asked about the ethnicity and spoken language to register themselves as “Kurds” and speakers of “Kurdish Language” as these are factually and unambiguously true. Then, the Kurds from Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria will not wrongly be registered as Turks, Persians and Arabs. This would also prevent governmental institutions from misunderstanding the realities.
In addition to the political and symbolic significance of this action, one of the consequences would be to create more work opportunities for the community, for instance; the major supermarket chains, such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s, may start stocking the commodities favoured by the Kurdish community and also employing Kurdish speaking workers to attract more Kurdish customers. Moreover, local governmental bodies would require translating their information literature into the Kurdish language. Most importantly, once the true larger size of the Kurdish communities become apparent, the British political parties, in their quest to attract the Kurdish votes, would review their policies towards Kurdistan, and may even field Kurdish candidates in the areas with high numbers of Kurdish-speaking voters.
Since it is expected that other European countries would carry out their own censuses, either on the same day as 21st March or shortly afterward, it is appropriate for all Kurds residing in the European countries to consider the seriousness of the issues mentioned above.
Kurdish Volunteering Group for the Campaign for the 2021 census in the United Kingdom,
London
2021/3/5