Islam in Ukraine - Ukrainian language

Russia-controlled Donbas “republics” remove Ukrainian language from schools

editor — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 15:51:59 +0000

Although Russia repeatedly claims that Russian speakers were under threat in Crimea and Donbas, it is the Ukrainian language that has come under attack as soon as Russia took actual or effective control. That is the case also with Ukrainian history and culture. In the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (DPR and LPR), there are no Ukrainian classes anymore, with the Ukrainian language taught as a subject for one hour a week. This is very clearly a Russification program, with the textbooks for schools being brought into occupied Donbas by the so-called “humanitarian” convoys from Russia.

The official line taken in both occupied Crimea and the Donbas is identical: supply has not been terminated, it’s just that the number of those demanding Ukrainian has radically decreased. During the preliminary hearings into Ukraine’s case against Russia at the U.N.’s International Court of Justice in March 2017, Russia tried to counter Ukraine’s accusation of discrimination against ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars by, among other things, citing the fact that Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar are all officially state languages. The court was unconvinced, and ordered Russia to ensure availability of education in the Ukrainian language. This is just one of the orders Russia has flouted to the present day.

In an important study published on September 2, Dmitry Durnev explains that the self-proclaimed Donbas “republics” have also stated in their so-called constitutions that Ukrainian is the second “state language” after Russian. In fact, however, no official proceedings are carried out in Ukrainian, and all Ukrainian schools and classes are now in the Russian language, after a transitional phase from 2014 to 2016.

Mr. Durnev spoke with several teachers, including some who are currently teaching in Donbas schools. All agreed to speak with him only on strict condition that their names were concealed, and voices on recordings distorted. Judging by cases of persecution that human rights groups are aware of, it seems quite likely that objecting to the lack of Ukrainian in schools could easily result in a person being arrested and incarcerated on charges of “collaborating with the Ukrainian SBU” or some similar trumped-up charge. There are very likely many people who are unhappy about the situation, but worried about being denounced to the militants’ so-called “ministry of state security” if they speak out.

Tatyana is now a former teacher of junior classes who has left Donetsk, but she still insisted on total anonymity and voice distortion, as she does visit the occupied territory. She says that pupils were able to finish the fourth grade still in Ukrainian, however after that, there was no choice, they simply had to go over to Russian. Older teachers of Ukrainian language and literature in senior classes simply lost their jobs. Other teachers of all subjects were given the option of retraining to teach in Russian. In 2015, they received textbooks with the syllabus now according to the School of Russia. The only exception is nature studies, where instead of learning about nature in Russia, they study the nature of the Donbas. The one hour a week the children have of Ukrainian is divided in half between language and reading literature.

Tatyana notes that there are five hours of Russian language, but this, of course, is in addition to all the classes taking place in Russian. An additional compulsory subject, titled “civic awareness and spirituality of the Donbas” has been introduced. She adds that “patriotism” is also given a huge amount of attention, with the first lesson of the school year titled “Five years of DPR – we grow together with the republic.”

“We were told that if it’s impossible to replace some topic about Ukraine by Donetsk or the Donbas, then we should change it to any other about our own area,” she explains.

Mr. Durnev says that in both unrecognized “republics,” a system of education has been created since 2014 that is based on the Russian grading system and on the Russian textbooks that Russia transported to the occupied Donbas in its “humanitarian convoys.” These convoys are illegal, and there are grounds, including boasts from the militants themselves, for believing that they have often carried weapons. Given the acute need for all kinds of basic items, it is also noteworthy that they should have instead brought books aimed at strengthening Russia’s grasp and influence over the Donbas.

Students can later travel to Rostov-on-Don (across the uncontrolled border into Russia) and take Russian matriculation exams. There are special quotas for students from the Donbas to enter Russian universities. What is significantly harder is for these young Ukrainians to pass the Ukrainian school exit exams and compete for a place in Ukrainian universities. There are concessions for young students from the Donbas, but they will need to have separately studied Ukrainian to an adequate level, getting additional instruction in both the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian history.

Another teacher, one still working in Donetsk, told Mr. Durnev that the situation now reminds her of 1984, when she first began teaching. In the Russian-controlled “republic,” there is the same amount of Russian in secondary schools as during Soviet times (six to seven hours a week of Russian language and literature).

Mr. Durnev says that, while there is very little commercial advertising in Donetsk, you can find political agitation about the “republic” everywhere. A recent study also found much disinformation about Ukraine in the “republics,” with most of the favorites for fake news the same as in the Russian state-controlled media. If in 2017, 11 percent of content constituted disinformation, while in April of this year 21 percent of news about Ukraine was of dubious accuracy or outright fakes or disinformation.

Such a high level of disinformation is of major concern, given that the vast majority of people in these areas have no access to Ukrainian media. One of the first things that happened as soon as the Russian and pro-Russian militants seized control of an area in 2014 was that Ukrainian television channels were taken off the air, with Russian or militant channels using their frequencies. A large number of Ukrainian Internet sites, especially ones like News of the Donbas that report honestly on events in the “republics” are blocked. This means that the population in the occupied Donbas is receiving information from channels that are overtly propagandist and anti-Ukrainian, while children are growing up using the aggressor state’s textbooks and learning dangerous fiction about essentially fake republics.

Source: www.ukrweekly.com

30/09/2019

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What is Ukrainian Islam? Or the Phenomenon of Ukrainian Islam.

Михайло Якубович — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 07:53:25 +0000

Nowadays, the spiritual and national identities are the particularly acute problem for Muslims living outside the "Islamic world" (considering all convention of this term today). The ethnic groups, who have practised Islam for centuries, decide this issue in easy way: the national identity has undergone a certain Islamization, so the national manifestations (from clothes to marriage ethics) are mostly religious, "Islamic". Of course, there are certain exceptions. For example, many Muslim authorities quite reasonably condemn the celebration of Nowruz by Turkic peoples, considering that as a foreign borrowing with Zoroastrian origin. However, most European Muslims cluster about their own ethnic identity, which was Islamized centuries ago. If we are talking about the natives of Arab countries, there is generally a formal synonymy: Arab culture = Islam (of course, if we are not talking about Arab Christians).

Against this background, Muslims of those ethnic groups, where the majority practice other religions, are in another situation. Very often, after converting to Islam, they faced the cultural challenge. And the corresponding "scripts", which form their identity, depend on the particular environment. Today, many new Muslims are subjected to a variety of cultural influences (Arabic, Tatar, Turkish, Iranian, Caucasian and so on). How do Ukrainian Muslims look like under these conditions: both new converts and those who have already lived in Ukraine? Is there a phenomenon of Ukrainian Islam?

Some Muslims immediately reply that there could not be another Islam except Islam, opened by the Koran — God's Word — and explained by the Sunnah — the practice of the Prophet (peace be upon him). It is talked not of Aqidah ("doctrine"), which is the first-hand understanding of the faith, but it is talked of the practical aspects. According to the classical classification, we don’t mean ilm ("knowledge", "science") but we mean concrete a'mal ("action"), the specific way of realization of this ilm in the life. And, as we know, it is regulated not just by "principles" (usul) but also by circumstances (shurut). For example, the fatwa, religious and concretized legal thought, depends on hal ("fact"), makan ("place") and zaman ("time"). It means the concrete realities of concrete country.

Eid al-Fitr is coming. So is it possible theoretically to determine the amount of zakat al-fitr for Ukrainian Muslim, without taking into account the Ukrainian prices? Of course it is not. For example, there are the specific conventions of prayer time in accordance with the position of the Sun relative to the equator (about 20 so-called "conventions" of the counting). The difference between the beginnings of the prayers is a few minutes. The most accurate way is to use the convention, which is close to Ukraine according to astronomical characteristics.

These basic things are related to Islamic law, which in turn deduces judgments (hukm) in accordance with the circumstances. There is, however, an even broader context of the national question, which particularly concerns a lot of new Muslims.

Muslim-Ukrainian can carry out obligatory prayer in the mosque as well as his brother from another ethnic group, but he prefers to hear the khutbah on Friday in a language that he understands. As well as the concepts of halal and haram for Muslim-Ukrainians and for Muslims from other ethnic groups may be the similar (if we are not talking about such controversial issues, as smoking or makruh haram). But, when a Muslim-Ukrainian hears from some brothers that to speak only Ukrainian is a kind of a forbidden by Islam "nationalism", — that is a difficult problem. According to which rules of shariah can the other language be more important than Ukrainian? In Islam, there is only one language that requires special veneration. It is Arabic, the language of the Koran and the daily prayers. For example, Ibn Taymiyyah in his famous work “Iktidaa Sirat al-Mustaqim” ("Necessity of the straight path") urged on Muslims to preserve the Arabic and to avoid its mixing with other languages. But when somebody of contemporaries openly condemns any national manifestations, in fact he does ignore the Qur'anic statement "O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another" (Qur'an, 49:13). For instance, the issue about national dress, which now causes debate among Muslims, should be solved in the same way. On what grounds does anybody forbid the Muslim to dress vyshyvanka (embroidered shirt), if it does not have any specific Christian or other religious signs? Yes, to some extent, it is a demonstration of Ukrainian identity. But if all relevant criteria for the men's and women's clothing, which has vyshyvanka, are in accordance with the requirements of Shariah, why cannot it be worn in the same way as Arabic saub, Pakistani or Indian dhoti, which, incidentally, were common in those areas still in pre-Islamic times? Moreover, in the near future, specific "Muslim vyshyvanka" may appear in Ukraine, like the clothes, which is common among the Balkan Muslims. And nobody doubts in its compliance with Shariah requirements of length and width.

Of course, there are a lot more complex issues associated with the participation of Muslims in public life of Ukraine. For example, many Muslims say ATO is "not our war", because it is not going, in their view, "under the Islamic flag ". For others it is a struggle for their land and the freedom to practice their religion (that is much more difficult in the Russian-occupied Crimea or the self-proclaimed republics). In general, this dilemma is quite complex and it transcends the scope of the Ukrainian question. It depends on the position of the particular society about the present. It is significant, however, that many Muslims, who consider that such war is "not ours" and actively criticize the democratic system, are looking for the shelter in the West, in the EU, rather than in North Korea, Iran and the Russian Federation. Despite some limitations, in Ukraine, you can freely call others for Islam. There are no laws that specifically are "against" this religion ("anti-minarets" or "anti-hijabs", "lists of extremist literature", etc.). And therefore the question arises, whether the role, which Muslim communities play in Ukraine today, is achievement of Ukrainian Islam, which is not “separate” but the kind of the manifestation of religiosity in the particular region.

Muhammad al-Assad, a well-known Muslim author of the twentieth century, born in Lviv, wrote in his commentary to the Koranic ayah, mentioned above, the following: "The mankind evolution to "nations and tribes" rather promotes than underestimates their desire to understand and appreciate the fundamental human singularity, emphasizing their differences in appearance. So it condemns all racial, ethnic or tribal prejudice". Does such openness to dialogue, promoted by Ukrainian Muslims (to overcome prejudice) for years, perform the realization of the nation in a positive rather than a negative sense? According to the terminology of the prominent Islamic thinker of the Middle Ages, Ibn Khaldun, who widely used concept asabiyya ("attachment to the tribe [family, ethnicity]") as an instrument of social progress, we can say that this asabiyya is "positive". It unites, rather than divides, and it contributes to comply with the Qur'anic ayah "Cooperate in righteousness and piety" (Qur'an, 5: 2).

Ukrainian Islam is not a phenomenon of the "nationalization of Islam". But it is the idea of Muslim solidarity on the principles of joint civil benefits, which in the modern Islamic law is termed al-maslaha al-'amma ("public interest"). It is not "blood" identity (because, even in the ethnic meaning, Ukrainian is a broad notion), but it is the civil identity, that has the relevant national attributes. And these attributes do not conflict, but promote and contribute to the "goals" of God's law (Maqasid Al-Shariah). That is how this problem is formulated and solved in the "fiqh of minorities" (fiqh al-akalliyyat), the modern approach of answering the questions of Muslims, who are living in "non-Muslim" countries. For example, Yusuf al-Karadauvi points out that for preserving Islamic identity in the "fiqh of minorities" we should focus on the Islamic community as a whole, rather than on individuality of every Muslim. This, in fact, shows a social imperative role of Islam, protecting religion from becoming the individual affair of every person. The particular community creates this social categoricity in its regional or national limits, due to its specific needs and circumstances.

It is impossible to consider Ukrainian Islam as a service for the secular state (just as it has happened with the "official" Islam in Russia). It is rather the solidarity of Muslims, who are belonging to a particular cultural field and, in turn, trying to Islamize it "with wisdom and good instruction, and argue with them in a way that is best" (Qur'an, 16: 125). And it would be possible only if there were any bridges for dialogue. Actually, one of the best links is the Ukrainian national identity as one of the concrete manifestations of the human community.

22/06/2016

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1 Comment

Anis Ahmad Khan replied on Thu, 06/30/2016 - 19:41

Good thinking and views for Islam. Inshallah I will reach to Bila Tserkva on 29 Sept and on 3 October to Kiev required your help for Salat. Haji Anis from India.
D

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Crimean Schools Shortened Crimean Tatar Language Classes

oleg — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 15:19:19 +0000

Association of Crimean Tatar educators “Maarifci” approached the Crimean Minister of Education, Science and Youth Ms.Natalya Honcharova with a proposal to eliminate the problem in the sphere of tutoring in Crimean Tatar language.

According to the latest information, they started questioning the quantity of classes taught in Crimean Tatar language at schools with tuition in Russian, as the teachers are overloaded and some parents don’t find it necessary.

Three hours per week must be given for learning the Crimean Tatar language as a Mother Tongue at schools with Russian language of tuition as a part of regional component of the schools’ study plan. There are less problems at schools with the Crimean Tatar language of tuition and in the Crimean Tatar forms based at Russian-tutored schools, however, they started studying 6 days per week in order to keep all the Crimean Tatar classes in forms 5 to 9.

Ms.Honcharova, on her part, said that the matter of facilitating classes with either Crimean Tatar or Ukrainian language of tuition hasn’t solved yet, named the lack of applications from the parents for their children to be tutored in those language as the main of the reasons for that.

It bears reminding that the “State Council” of Crimea is to revise the two drafts these days, “On Education” and “On languages in the Republic of Crimea” that are called to determine in what terms tutoring in Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages must be held - as general or additional courses.

Annexed Crimea’s officials declared earlier that there would no longer be tutoring in Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar languages on the peninsula.

15/09/2014

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