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<h1 class="gmail-headline__title">Panyaza Lesufi: 'Language Policies A Crude Form Of Racism'</h1>
<h2 class="gmail-headline__subtitle">"Racial division and cultural and
language individualism remain entrenched in our education system,"
Gauteng education MEC says about Overvaal.</h2> </div>
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By Panyaza Lesufi
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<p>One of the basic tenets of racism is the
notion that an individual is meaningless and that membership of a
collective – in race, culture and even language – is the source of
identity and value. To the racist, the individual's moral and
intellectual character is the product not of his own choices, but of the
genes he or she shares with all others of his race, language and
culture.</p>
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<p>This philosophy of racial division and cultural and language
individualism remains entrenched in our education system. That is why
Hoërskool Overvaal's legal victory in keeping out 55 Grade 8 English
learners from the Afrikaans school in Vereeniging was a major setback
for transformation and the struggle for a nonracial society, and should
be repudiated.</p>
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<p>Believe [it]; I am the first to admit that there has been a huge
transformation in schools since the dawn of democracy. Gone are those
monochrome school classes; in are multicoloured, multiethnic schools
that reflect the composition of our society.</p>
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<p>Of course, many schools reflect their catchment areas – and their
composition can be determined by patterns of settlement and housing
policies over which schools have no control.</p>
<p>The GDE believes that in order to promote and encourage a true
multicultural, diverse education, the public education system must
advocate:</p>
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<ul><li>an authentic multilingual curriculum with competent instructors and administrators committed to the agenda, and</li><li>an ethnic self-identification process that goes beyond the use of
appropriate ethnic labels, but explores intrinsic idiosyncrasies of a
nonracial society and a genuine multicultural education that promotes
ethnic constancy.</li></ul>
<p>What our rainbow nation urgently needs is a ruling that recognises a
language policy for what it is: a malignant policy that harms everyone
[and] is the very essence of racism. Unlike the policy of racial
integration, some language policies propagate all the evils inherent in
racism.</p>
<p>The advocates of language policies believe that admitting other
language groups creates a diversity of viewpoints in schools; the major
reason why racial division remains entrenched in our society.</p>
<p>The value of racially integrated schools lies entirely in the
individualism it implies. It implies that the learners were chosen
objectively, with skin colour, language or culture ignored in favour of
the standard of individual merit.</p>
<p>But that is not what diversity advocates of language policies want.
They sneer at the principle of colour-blindness. They use language as a
proxy of racism. They want admissions to some schools to be made exactly
as the vilest of racists make them: by bloodline. They insist that
whatever is a result of your own choices – your ideas, your character,
your accomplishments – is to be dismissed, while that which is outside
one's control – the accident of skin colour – is to define your life.</p>
<p>It is time for our society to identify language policies as nothing more than crude forms of racism.</p>
<p>Racism is pernicious – a behaviour [that] some may like to dress up
as language policy, but [that] is in fact too low to be accorded that
degree of respectability.</p>
<p>Believe me, the job market and the educational field have influenced
and altered societal trends. It is not a secret that professionals
capable of mastering two or three languages have an edge in the job
market. Paradoxically, our school governing bodies have been sending
mixed messages through language policies.</p>
<p>On one hand, multilingualism is seen as an asset for educators and
business people. On the other hand, second-language education has been
systematically suppressed by some SGBs in favour of monolingual
education.</p>
<p>So in the light of the Hoërskool Overvaal ruling, it seems
appropriate to ask what our schools can do to ensure a more stable,
inclusive, diverse society, an inclusive ethos and robust anti-racism
policies?</p>
<p>Our schools need a real inclusive practice as part of the school's
culture in all activities, [whether] informal and formal programmes –
including sports games, clubs and other extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>That is why the GDE supports the department of basic education's
South African Schools Act, 1996, and the Employment of Educators Act,
1998, to promote social inclusion, create social consciousness and
foster a strong sense of belonging to all of us. These acts seek to:</p>
<ul><li>give the head of department the final authority to admit a pupil to a public school,</li><li>make a public school take into account diverse cultural beliefs and religious observances of learners,</li><li>limit the powers of an SGB in recommending candidates for admission,</li><li>empower the head of department to dissolve an SGB that has ceased to perform functions allocated to it in terms of the act,</li><li>prohibit educators from conducting business with the state or from
being a director of a public or private company conducting business with
the state, and</li><li>require the SGB to submit the language policy of a public school,
and any amendment thereof, to the head of department for approval.</li></ul>
<p>As role models, teachers should be involved in mentoring through open
relationships between teachers and learners. Teachers need continuing
professional development, particularly in cultural and linguistic
knowledge.</p>
<p>Learners need to be given the opportunity to socialise and learn in
an open, tolerant and supportive environment where high standards are
set and expected for all, and everyone is treated with respect and
dignity.</p>
<p>Language cannot be viewed as an isolated construct, but must be
analysed as an extension of culture. In this global world, the idea
supporting the total suppression of one language against the other is
inconsistent and detrimental to a nonracial society.</p>
<p>That is why no school should exclude a learner on the basis of
language. The right to education is one of the most fundamental rights
in the Constitution, and if any school in applying its language and
admissions policy acts contrary to the Constitution, that policy must be
disregarded.</p>
<p>Hoërskool Overvaal – and [schools in] other cases before – have
actually disregarded language rights. Language rights are protected by
the Constitution, and will be respected by the department – as they have
[been] in the past.</p>
<p>The issue is about access to education, and the question of language
is being used as a false shield to exclude those who are entitled to an
education at a school in which they qualify in terms of the legislation.</p>
<p>At the centre of our nonracial crusade is how much equal opportunity
we as a nation are willing to sacrifice as we pursue diversity and a
nonracial culture.</p>
<p>The point is, if we want the virtue of our kids being exposed to kids
of different races and backgrounds, then we have to be willing to
accommodate any pupils, irrespective of language, culture and race.</p>
<p>Protecting a language such as Afrikaans as the sole basis of
communicating will not only hinder progress, but place this country in
jeopardy of losing its justified title as an emerging economic giant.</p>
<p>Few people of open minds and good hearts would deny that social
cohesion and nonracialism are not just an admirable goal, but a
necessary one for schools that aim to prepare learners for life in the
real world.</p>
<p><em><strong>Lesufi is the Gauteng MEC for education</strong></em></p>
</div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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