Title: linguistic imperialism in zimbabwe Post by: erzulie on October 01, 2004, 10:37:20 AM LAUNCHING ZIMBABWE'S FOURTH CHIMURENGA:
IN STRUGGLE AGAINST LINGUISTIC IMPERIALISM By Redgies Ziteya The struggles waged in Africa are not about the past but they contain the solutions to the ideology crises of the African world. These struggles have been necessitated by the fact that there is a scramble for Africa going on, not for material wealth (though that still continues) but for the African culture, way of life, spiritually and languages. After the successful undertaking of the agrarian revolution in Zimbabwe, the war is not over, there is need to restore the languages to the people. Zimbabweans must at the deepest possible level fight to curb linguistic imperialism and seek out to regain and rejuvenate their languages in the same manner the late Julius Mwalimu Nyerere launched a linguistic revolution in Tanzania. KiSwahili became an official and national language ahead of colonial languages. Colonialism was part of and a stage in, the globalizing process of western expansion which started in the 15th century. Globalization, as the term is used today is, the historical process of the emergence and rise of what has become imperialism since the late 19th century. It is a system, which is enabling groups in the west to siphon off value and commodities from the wider world of enrichment. While its foundations are preeminently economic, it is practice a total system which affects all areas of the social life of the colonized. When political independence came to Zimbabwe, the structure of the relation between colony and metropole was largely inherited, but an African elite was left in charge of the system which has over the past two decades proved to be the faithful guardian of Western interests. This has been the basis of contemporary linguistic imperialism in Zimbabwe. Ngugi Wa Thiongo had this to say "the economic and political dependence of the African neo - colonial bourgeoisie is reflected in its culture of apemanship enforced on a restive population through police boots, barbed wire, a gowned clergy and judiciary; their ideas are spread by a corpus of state intellectual, the academic and journalistic laureates of neo - colonial establishment." It is from within mass society that effective resistance against neo - colonial culture in Africa can be contested. There is need for the launch of a fourth Chimurenga and an alternative vision which intellectually and effectively contest and contradicts the prevailing sorry language story on Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe appears to be caught between the reality of a social, political and cultural legacy inherited from her former masters, the British, and the visions and hopes for a new order are still conceptually vague in the minds of those engaged in shaping her future. With almost three decades of post - colonialism, there is a loss of a convincing sense of direction, in most areas that concern language usage. English is the language of administration, science, education and instruction despite the fact that it is spoken by less than 10% of the population. Indigenous languages such as Shona and Ndebele are spoken by well over 90% of the population but shamefully the black - led government of Zimbabwe is doing nothing to alleviate such colonial legacies. In most of Asia, post - colonial societies have more or less moved towards the usage of their indigenous languages in education and development while Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular continues to labour in languages of colonial powers, which ruled and plundered Africa for almost a century. In that regard the use of indigenous languages for education and development is one of the most important factors for Asia's rapid economic, scientific and social development. In Thailand, the Thai use their own language, so do the Laotians, the Koreans, the Chinese and the Japanese. Over the past two decades, the Filipines have developed Togalog as a language of science, education and technological development. Local languages such as Shona and Ndebele should be made languages of science and education. This is the reason why Zimbabwe is lagging behind in matters of development and this is the reason why Zimbabwean universities are producing useless graduates. It has been observed that policy - makers in Zimbabwe are neo - westerners who are there to preserve colonial legacies whilst during the day they preach the gospel of "Zimbabwe to the Zimbabweans". Kwesi Prah (2003) observes that linguistic neo - colonialism, resting on the use of colonial languages for policy - making is also favourable to top - down approaches to policy - making and policy implementation. Because in Zimbabwe policy - making in English is by its nature a privilege of a minority , it becomes a socially lop - sided and skewed process, in which those who use the colonial languages are the powerful, the movers and shakers of society. Under such circumstances, policy - making becomes part of the arsenal for maintaining the neo - colonial order and its culture. In his text From Empire to Nation, Rupert Emmerson argued that all colonial peoples have been brought into the modern world under the aegis of an imperialism, which superimposed a European language on the native tongue. In the Zimbabwean context, English, the imperial language serves three principal purposes, which have an obvious bearing on the effort to secure a concrete cultural identity. It is the language of instruction up to tertiary level, it is the instrument through which intercourse of all varieties can be maintained with the advanced European descended peoples. The imperial language, English, is tied to the prestige system of the whites since the white man, with the partial exception of missionary and scholar generally learn Shona and Ndebele only as an act of grace of better to interact with the local people whereas it is assumed that the locals who want to advance must rise to the level of the foreign languages. This is the reason why there was an uproar when Minister of Education, Sport and Culture, Cde Aeneas Chigwedere called for the replacement of colonial names with local names in schools, why Jonathan Moyo's 75% local content was met with discomfort by Zimbabwean "Euroclones" and the reason why Gwisai was laughed at for taking his oath in Shona. What this implies is the fact that the cultural hegemony of colonial languages like English have come as part of colonial conquest and the attendant cultural impositions. Antonio de Nebrija, the 15th century Bishop of Avilla who in his Granitica Castellona (Castillian Grammar) of 1492 suggested that "language has always been the perfect instrument of empire making" this view the blueprint of Spanish colonialism in the Americas, in the centuries that followed. The expansion of Arabic into North Africa came with the fire and sword of imperialism and the cultural expansion which is described as Arabinization in the Afro - Arab boarder lands is premised more on the Arabic language than Islam. In contemporary Zimbabwean society the fact that the cultures of the masses are expected to thrive and flourish is in all senses most questionable. National prestige demands that national languages take priority. It is both proper and inevitable that the extension of education on a mass scale should normally be conducted in the language of the Shona people, the Ndebele people and other indigenous linguistic circles. Declaring that English could not continue to occupy the place of a state language, the Indian Commission on universities once stated that "Use of English as such divides the people into two nation, the few who govern and the many who are governed." This is what Zimbabweans have to do. They have to undertake linguistic revolution. Mugabe and his government need to revise the language system in Zimbabwe. Redgies Ziteya Norton Zimbabwe |