Syrians Learn Persian, Russian amid Foreign Hegemony over Their Country

Students are seen at the Faculty of Sharia at Damascus University. (Asharq Al-Awsat file photo)
Students are seen at the Faculty of Sharia at Damascus University. (Asharq Al-Awsat file photo)
TT
20

Syrians Learn Persian, Russian amid Foreign Hegemony over Their Country

Students are seen at the Faculty of Sharia at Damascus University. (Asharq Al-Awsat file photo)
Students are seen at the Faculty of Sharia at Damascus University. (Asharq Al-Awsat file photo)

“Occupying the language is the shortest way to occupy the mind and consequently, future decision-making. It destroys and erases the identity of societies,” said Asma al-Assad, the wife of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, during a speech to students at a university in Beijing in late summer 2023.

The emphasis she placed on remaining attached to the mother tongue stands in contrast to how Russia has imposed the Russian language in Syrian public schools. The language was introduced nine years ago as Moscow expanded its influence in Syria.

Russian is facing stiff competition from Persian as Iran is the other foreign power vying for influence in the war-torn country. Russia and Iran want to control education in areas held by the regime to create a suitable environment for them to thrive and support their military influence at the expense of teaching the native language, Arabic.

Russian dominates

Even though Tehran was first to intervene in Syria’s war, years before Russia arrived on the scene, Persian has taken a backseat to Russian in public education. Russia succeeded in imposing its language as a third option besides English and French. Russia has managed to make strides in this area in the nine years since its intervention.

The trial period for teaching Russian took off in 2015 and was applied to 400 students living in coastal regions. The experience was then adopted at 217 schools in 12 provinces held by the government. By the seventh year, over 35,000 students had learned Russian with 200 teachers being recruited, revealed Syrian government reports.

Public education

Iran tried to follow in Russia’s footsteps in imposing Persian in state curricula in line with an agreement signed between Tehran and Damascus on exchanging expertise and training in the education, technical and academic fields and in rebuilding schools.

In 2021, Tehran managed to impose Persian only in public schools that it had renovated and helped resume operation. The past five years have witnessed the opening of Persian education centers in universities in Damascus and Homs and the Syrian military academy. They join other centers affiliated with the Khomeini seminary and its various branches in Syria, the al-Mahdi husseiniya in Damascus, Sayyida Ruqayya College and others.

Tehran has also opened branches of several Iranian universities in Syria, such as the al-Mustafa university, Al-Farabi university and others. Iran focused its activities on the Deir Ezzor province, especially in the areas of influence it holds in the cities of Alboukamal and al-Mayadeen bordering Iraq. These areas are Iran’s main political, cultural and social strongholds.

Exploiting poverty

Since 2018 and soon after the expulsion of the ISIS extremist group from the region, Deir Ezzor, Alboukamal and al-Mayadeen witnessed the opening of several schools, daycares and cultural centers that teach Persian and the Iranian religious ideology. They follow the example of the Iranian cultural centers in Damascus, Latakia and coastal cities.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in May 2023 said Tehran succeeded in exploiting the deterioration of the education system due to the war and drop in the number of staff and teachers due to corruption and low salaries in Deir Ezzor to “infiltrate” the education sector.

It said Iranian cultural centers are witnessing an “alarming” surge given their great power in influencing youths. It noted how the war destroyed a large number of schools in Deir Ezzor, while others lack basic facilities, such as appropriate classrooms, libraries and science labs.

Attracting children and youths

Local sources in Deir Ezzor said Iran managed to exploit the poverty and living crisis in regions under its control in eastern Syria to attract children and youths. It has lured them through financial aid, monthly wages, meals, food baskets and recreational trips. It has also provided free cources in vocational training, such as first aid, accounting, electric appliance maintenance and others. It has also held courses on “youth empowerment.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the sources said Iran boasts three schools in Alboukamal and one in al-Mayadeen for nine- to 15-year-olds. The schools include over 500 students. It also boasts Persian language learning centers in government-held areas in the Deir Ezzor and Raqqa countrysides.

Iran has hired Shiite Arab and Iranian teachers, including clerics, who speak Arabic. It also holds training courses to Syrian teachers on how to teach Persian, continued the sources. Russia has also sought to train Syrian teachers on how to teach Russian, dispatching them to Moscow where they are trained.

Iran is ultimately seeking to “form a local social environment that can fuel its need for people to join its militias” in Syria.

Food for education

Members of Arab tribes in Syria’s Deir Ezzor have expressed their concern over Iran’s infiltration of education and its exploitation of poverty to pursue this goal. Mohammed, from Muhasan in Deir Ezzor, said: “Some parents agree to enroll their children in Iranian schools in return for aid, not for the love of Iranian culture.” This opposition will not, however, prevent these institutions from brainwashing children and the youths in Iranian ideology and culture.

Other sources in Damascus said it was unlikely that Iran will succeed in spreading its culture in the eastern provinces given that the environment there is “historically hostile to the Persian culture” since the majority of the residents there are Sunni Arabs. The locals there will not provide a “secure and peaceful social environment to Iran,” especially with Russia competing with it in the education sector.

The sources revealed that Russia had offered at the beginning of the year three tons of aid to teachers in Deir Ezzor. It included stationery and books on teaching Russian that have benefitted 300 teachers.

Russian outpaces Persian

The sources said Iran’s attempts to infiltrate the education system in coastal regions have failed. They added that Tehran opened religious schools during the war, but they were all closed in 2017 after the Syrian Awqaf Ministry demanded that Syrian Sharia be included in official curricula and after parents complained of attempts to spread Shiism.

They noted that Russian is more popular in coastal regions where Russian forces are deployed and have mingled with the locals. The same applies in Aleppo, which is an industrial and business hub. Students who have learned Russian have an advantage and could have the opportunity to travel to Russia to pursue higher studies. Or they could remain in Syria and work at Russian ports, airports and industrial investments.

In the Damascus countryside and southern Sweida region, Russian forces are seen more as occupiers who have not integrated in everyday life even though they are preferred to the Iranians. The suspicions towards the Russians pale in comparison to the animosity towards the Iranians. But regardless, both Moscow and Tehran are applying what Asma al-Assad spoke of in Beijing about “occupying language” to erase societies and their identities.



Fireworks, Warplanes and Axes: How France Celebrates Bastille Day

France's President Emmanuel Macron (center-L) and France's Chief of the Defense Staff General Thierry Bukhard (center-R) and French Military Governor of Paris (GMP) Loic Mizon (center-Top) review troops as they stand in the command car flanked by France's mounted Republican Guard (Guarde Republicaine) during the annual Bastille Day military parade on the Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)
France's President Emmanuel Macron (center-L) and France's Chief of the Defense Staff General Thierry Bukhard (center-R) and French Military Governor of Paris (GMP) Loic Mizon (center-Top) review troops as they stand in the command car flanked by France's mounted Republican Guard (Guarde Republicaine) during the annual Bastille Day military parade on the Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)
TT
20

Fireworks, Warplanes and Axes: How France Celebrates Bastille Day

France's President Emmanuel Macron (center-L) and France's Chief of the Defense Staff General Thierry Bukhard (center-R) and French Military Governor of Paris (GMP) Loic Mizon (center-Top) review troops as they stand in the command car flanked by France's mounted Republican Guard (Guarde Republicaine) during the annual Bastille Day military parade on the Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)
France's President Emmanuel Macron (center-L) and France's Chief of the Defense Staff General Thierry Bukhard (center-R) and French Military Governor of Paris (GMP) Loic Mizon (center-Top) review troops as they stand in the command car flanked by France's mounted Republican Guard (Guarde Republicaine) during the annual Bastille Day military parade on the Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

Swooping warplanes, axe-carrying warriors, a drone light show over the Eiffel Tower and fireworks in nearly every French town — it must be Bastille Day.

France celebrated its biggest holiday Monday with 7,000 people marching, on horseback or riding armored vehicles along the cobblestones of the Champs-Elysees, the most iconic avenue in Paris. And there are plans for partying and pageantry around the country, said The Associated Press.

Why Bastille Day is a big deal

Parisians stormed the Bastille fortress and prison on July 14, 1789, a spark for the French Revolution that overthrew the monarchy. In the ensuing two centuries, France saw Napoleon’s empire rise and fall, more uprisings and two world wars before settling into today’s Fifth Republic, established in 1958.

Bastille Day has become a central moment for modern France, celebrating democratic freedoms and national pride, a mélange of revolutionary spirit and military prowess.

The Paris parade beneath the Arc de Triomphe so impressed visiting US President Donald Trump in 2017 that it inspired him to stage his own parade this year.

What stood out

The spectacle began on the ground, with French President Emmanuel Macron reviewing the troops and relighting the eternal flame beneath the Arc de Triomphe.

Two riders fell from their horses near the end of the parade, and it was unclear whether anyone was hurt. Such incidents happen occasionally at the annual event.

Each parade uniform has a touch of symbolism. The contingent from the French Foreign Legion was eye-catching, its bearded troops wearing leather aprons and carrying axes, a reference to their original role as route clearers for advancing armies.

The Paris event included flyovers by fighter jets, trailing red, white and blue smoke. Then the evening sees a drone light show and fireworks at the Eiffel Tower that has gotten more elaborate every year.

What’s special about this year

Every year, France hosts a special guest for Bastille Day, and this year it’s Indonesia, with President Prabowo Subianto representing the world’s largest Muslim country, which also a major Asian economic and military player.

Indonesian troops, including 200 traditional drummers, marched in Monday’s parade, and Indonesia is expected to confirm new purchases of Rafale fighter jets and other French military equipment during the visit. Prabowo, who was accused of rights abuses under Indonesia's prior dictatorship, will be treated to a special holiday dinner at the Elysée Palace.

“For us as Indonesian people, this is a very important and historic military and diplomatic collaboration,'' the commander of the Indonesian military delegation, Brig. Gen. Ferry Irawan, told The Associated Press.

Finnish troops serving in the UN force in Lebanon, and Belgian and Luxembourg troops serving in a NATO force in Romania also paraded through Paris, reflecting the increasingly international nature of the event.

Among the dignitaries invited to watch will be Fousseynou Samba Cissé, who rescued two babies from a burning apartment earlier this month and received a last-minute invitation in a phone call from Macron himself.

‘’I wasn't expecting that call,'' he told online media Brut. ‘’I feel pride.''

What’s the geopolitical backdrop

Beyond the military spectacle in Paris are growing concerns about an uncertain world. On the eve Bastille Day, Macron announced 6.5 billion euros ($7.6 billion) in extra French military spending in the next two years because of new threats ranging from Russia to terrorism and online attacks. The French leader called for intensified efforts to protect Europe and support for Ukraine.

‘’Since 1945, our freedom has never been so threatened, and never so seriously,″ Macron said. ’’We are experiencing a return to the fact of a nuclear threat, and a proliferation of major conflicts.″

Security was exceptionally tight around Paris ahead of and during the parade.

What else happens on Bastille Day

It’s a period when France bestows special awards — including the most prestigious, the Legion of Honor — on notable people. This year's recipients include Gisèle Pelicot, who became a global hero to victims of sexual violence during a four-month trial in which her husband and dozens of men were convicted of sexually assaulting her while she was drugged unconscious.

Others earning the honor are Yvette Levy, a Holocaust survivor and French Resistance fighter, and musician Pharrell Williams, designer for Louis Vuitton.

Bastille Day is also a time for family gatherings, firefighters' balls and rural festivals around France.