What does the inclusion of the Russian and Persian languages ​​in Syrian curricula hide?

Montaser Abu Nabot - Damascus

Smiling, laughing after hearing new letters and words from which he did not understand anything, the student Omar Al-Tawil is surprisingly looking at his new teacher in the class while talking about something incomprehensible to him and the students at large.

Al-Tawil and his colleagues are experiencing a new experience in learning a difficult language that is not universal, without knowing the reason for including it in the Syrian educational curricula.

Cultural dominance
Within an old school in the Syrian capital, Damascus, dozens of secondary and preparatory students receive their education in the Russian language in addition to other courses as a second foreign language that is chosen between them and the French language.

Al-Tawil says that the teachers help them learn and love the new language after they laughed a lot at the beginning of their reception of it, as it injected the language of the most powerful allies of the Syrian regime into the Syrian curricula in 2014 with the aim of perpetuating it and introducing Russian culture to Syrian society through education, and until it becomes a key language in the Syrian curricula later.

The Russian language coordinator at the Syrian Ministry of Education, Radwan Rahhal, confirmed in a previous statement to the Syrian media that more than 24,000 students across the country are currently learning the Russian language, and the demand for it is increasing significantly, noting that the opening of the new classes requires the preparation of specialized teachers, This is preventing expansion further today.

Iranian-Russian competition
Iran and Russia are the most important allies of the Syrian regime, and in exchange for its military and political support, they gain wide influence in the country on the economic and security levels.

The great rivalry between Moscow and Tehran inside Syria has emerged through their efforts to control the port of Tartus, before Russia won it after a long-term agreement with the regime.

As part of its endeavors to consolidate control and spread its culture in the country, the Iranian Ministry of Education sought to sign an agreement with its Syrian counterpart, stipulating the inclusion of Persian culture and language in the Syrian curricula from next year, which aroused the outrage of many Syrians who considered it a colonial behavior similar to the behavior of the occupation countries in The fifties of the last century in the Arab countries.

Private sources confirmed to Al-Jazeera Net that Iran is offering to restore schools in Aleppo countryside, Homs and Lattakia in exchange for the Persian language and culture. And Tehran is the party that the Syrians fear because it seeks to achieve the goals they describe as sectarian, unlike Russia, which deals as a country seeking to achieve purely colonial interests away from religious matters inside Syria.

Strategic goals
The goals that Russia seeks to achieve in Syria have increased after its military intervention alongside Bashar Al-Assad in 2015, and it has provided through the government of the Syrian government grants to hundreds of young people to go and study in Moscow, and prepare them to return to Syria later to receive Russian companies in various fields expected to start their work Within a few years to come.

Commenting on this, the Syndicate of Syrian Teachers in Opposition Areas Ali Lula told Al-Jazeera Net that the introduction of the Russian and Persian languages ​​into the Syrian curricula will change the culture of society as a cultural occupation, stressing that the General Syrian Syndicate of Teachers flatly reject this as part of a clear occupation project in The country.

Ali pointed out that the war that was launched with the support of the regime's allies on the Syrian revolution over the past years, led to the manipulation of sovereign institutions and the inclusion of the Russian and Persian languages ​​in the curricula taught by thousands of Syrian children, including Omar Al-Tawil, who smiled during his study of the Russian language for the first time without realizing What Syria went through until I heard of that language in that old chapter.