On November 14, the First All-Russian Forum of the Native Language was held in Kazan with the participation of 800 teachers of the Tatar language and literature from 30 regions of Russia. The Rais of Tatarstan, addressing them, urged them to start with themselves in the matter of preserving the Tatar language.
The Moscow-centric unitary power of the Kremlin, by unilaterally violating its own Treaties and obligations, the policy of assimilation and erasing the national self-awareness of peoples, introduced the situation of the Tatars and other non-Russian peoples from Russia to the stage of “self-preservation”, and in the literal sense of the word, when one can only rely on themselves and on their family in the matter of not even development, but PRESERVATION of the Tatar language.
When those who should defend the rights of the Tatar people and, accordingly, the Tatar language, organize only masquerades of the “Tugan Tel” native language forum. If there were a language, then forums would not be needed! “In a multinational environment, Tatars from birth have the opportunity to master Tatar and Russian languages perfectly. Apparently, we do not understand this fortune,” the head of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Tatarstan, Ilsur Khadiullin, stated somewhat disappointedly at the All-Russian forum of the native language “Tugan Tel”.
I would like to remind the head of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Tatarstan that the state-forming language in Russia is Russian and from 2018, teaching the native language has been reduced only to optional, plus its complete absence in social life of the Republic of Tatarstan. Such conditions are not favourable for “mastering to perfection” the Tatar language, which is also the state language in Tatarstan, according to the Constitution of the Republic of Tatarstan. Also, one of The most cynical speeches at the Forum was the speech of Rais of the Republic of Tatarstan, who sees the main task of teachers of their native language in the fact that “the Tatar nation should be known throughout the world.” At least over the past 1.9 years after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, many countries, politicians, journalists, activists and social activists began to recognize the Tatar nation, by your grace, as a nation of occupiers, which is one of the first in Russia to recruit “volunteer detachments” and sends to forcibly occupy the lands and cities of another sovereign state for the sake of Moscow’s imperial ambitions, and Tatarstan is recognized as a manufacturer of drones and military equipment for the destruction of the civilian population and infrastructure of Ukraine, the Tatars are recognized as a nation that has become an accomplice of Russia in the matter of the removal (actual deportation and theft) of Ukrainians children from Ukraine to the territory of Russia, in particular to Tatarstan!
As an ethnic Tatar, I declare that my Tatar people do not need such glory. For 471 years we have been fighting and surviving in the tenacious shackles of the Russian Empire. There is no need to drag the Tatar nation into a criminal war, which is not a war of the Tatar people. After all, no one attacked Tatarstan, just like the Russian Federation. This war is an occupation-conquest war of Moscow, to which Moscow’s collaborator appointees in Tatarstan are involving the Tatar people through deception of propaganda and high monetary promises.
For this hypocrisy and servility before the Moscow Kremlin, you will go down in the history of the Tatar people as traitors and accomplices in the destruction of your Tatar people, including the Ukrainian people who are friendly to us!
Aida Abdrakhmanova, Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Independent Tatarstan in exile for national and religious issues, member of the League of Free Nations.
