Commentary (by Ali Mazrui) - English’s successes have also resulted in its setbacks

Ref: http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143983699&cid=190
Published on March 23, 2008, 12:00 am

By Ali mazrui

The struggle against apartheid was a Pan-Africanising experience, creating a sense of solidarity among black people in Africa and worldwide.

Pan-Africanism often flourished, paradoxically, through the unifying force of European languages.

Figures like W E B DuBois and Marcus Garvey would never have become founding fathers of trans-Atlantic Pan-Africanism without the mediation of the English language. Aime Cesaire and Leopold Senghor would not have become founding fathers of Negritude movement without the French language.

Racism and apartheid in South Africa helped to consolidate the solidarity.

But a new contradiction emerged with the end of political apartheid. Governance in South Africa itself was more Africanised almost by definition as Mr Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress assumed control. But across the African continent, the end of political apartheid was an experience in dis-Pan-Africanisation. A major stimulus of solidarity was diffused. Pan-Africanism was wounded by its own success.

And yet narrower forms of African nationalism, less dependent on European languages, began to assert themselves. Ethnic nationalism among black South Africans and elsewhere became a new manifest destiny. What are the implications of this shift for European languages like English?

With the end of political apartheid in South Africa, the English language has clearly gained. Although South Africa has declared eleven official languages (theoretically reducing English to one-eleventh of the official status), in reality the new policy demotes Afrikaans, the historic rival to English in South Africa.

Before the 1990s, English was officially the co-equal of Afrikaans. But the end of political apartheid has raised the question of whether Afrikaans should be treated in the same camp as the nine indigenous languages. Should Afrikaans be treated as just another ‘vernacular’? Distribution of language resources for the media for education is at stake.

The end of political apartheid in South Africa represents triumph of a particular kind of African nationalism: The struggle against overt racial oppression and cultural denial. Paradoxically, this struggle (but not its triumph) sometimes enhanced the status of the English language among the oppressed. English became not just a language of oppression but also, by a strange destiny, a language of liberation. This was true not just in Africa but also in other parts of the British Empire.

While on balance the English language has been truly triumphant as a world language, there is a tendency to overlook its setbacks within the grand picture. What has English been up against? Sometimes its successes have resulted in its own setbacks.

Although French has been a bigger loser than English since World War II, there are other areas where English has also received setbacks.

Firstly, there have been the post-colonial indigenisation policies. Some former colonies of Britain have attempted to reduce the role of English in their societies. Originally the Indian Constitution envisaged replacing English completely with Hindi as the official and national language. This ambition was not realised partly because of objections from Southern India.

Promoting local institutions

Tanzania has pursued policies of increased Swahilisation deliberately at the expense of English in education, the media and politics. South Africa, after apartheid, is experimenting with a policy of eleven official languages. What do they mean as official languages? South Africans are grappling with that problem.

Hong Kong is a special case where the use of English is declining since the country ceased to be a British colony. English is also declining in spite of Hong Kong’s expanding role as one of the major financial markets of Asia, if not the world. Among the main reasons for the decline of English is Hong Kong’s incorporation into the People’s Republic of China since 1997. People are now learning the second Chinese language (Cantonese vs Mandarin).

Then there are the post-colonial or post-revolutionary policies of Islamisation or Arabisation.

These policies sometime result in the reduced role of the imperial language and the promotion of the Arabic language (or Persian) sometime. This is what has been happening in the Sudan since the 1990s as the Arabic language has been promoted as the medium of instruction at almost all levels of education, including most departments at universities. Previously English was the main medium of instruction at the University of Khartoum.

In post-Shah Iran, English has lost some ground against the increased use of Persian (Farsi) and Arabic in the reformed educational syllabi within the post-revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran. However, in international relations, Iran has used English more than any other language in a bid to influence political and diplomatic trends in Africa. Iran has resorted to English language more than any other language when attempting to reach fellow Muslim militants. In Islam, Arabic is the chosen language of God; but in the politics of the 20th century, English is the chosen secular language of global diplomacy.

Another setback for English is the rise of the numerate culture (culture of numbers), as the aftermath of the colonial experience.

As people communicate in fewer words and greater numbers, English and other literate languages pay part of the price. The debate about Ebonics (Black English) is a case in point in countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Sierra Leone. While West Africa has evolved its own dialect and pidgin of English, East and Southern Africa have not.

East and Southern Africa’s closer approximation to Standard English has been influenced by stronger presence of white settlers. More recent colonisation of Eastern Africa (covering only Jomo Kenyatta’s lifetime) and the more dynamic indigenous cultures of West Africa have imposed their own personality on English in a manner as yet underdeveloped in Eastern and Southern Africa.