[Edling] Decolonizing Language Policy in Africa: A Swahili-monolingual Language Policy for Africa Is not the Answer

[David Balosa via Edling]

"Decolonizing Language Policy in Africa: A Swahili-monolingual Language
Policy  for Africa Is not the Answer" -David Balosa

This post is about my reaction to the BBC News: "Swahili's Bid to Become a
Language for all Africa." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60333796

My critique to this article is that this kind of reasoning about language
issues demonstrates how human, linguistic, and cultural diversity is still
disrespected  and undermined by powerful institutions of this
anti-intercultural global politico-economic system.  This reasoning sounds
the power of neocolonialist language politics.
A reasoning in the sense that if France has refused Breton and Occitan
their political legitimacy as minority languages and the UK has struggled
to  assure the political legitimacy of Irish (Síomóin, 2014), why
should Africa or the African Union adopt a multilingual language policy?
 That's why some global socio-political forces ( susu as big money media)
might start pulling the strings.

This is where  educational linguist philosophers must stand and make their
voice heard!  For example, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o has never argued about Swahili
alone becoming the language of all Kenya-- why should it sundanly become
the language of all Africa? Franco and Rochero and other great
African popular culture/artists icons did not all sing in Swahili. The
independence of the DR Congo in Belgium on June 30, 1960 was sung in
Lingala-- "Independent TshaTsha" , not in Swahili! And the DR Congo where
Lingala is the dominant language of popular culture is 4 times bigger than
France. One of historic and influential empires of Africa, the Kongo
empire, empire that challenged the Portuguese Colonial power for more than
a century before its conversion in Christianity, an empire that covered the
modern Angola, Congo Brazzaville, Gabon, and the 4 times larger than
France, the Democratic Republic of Congo's western states, didn't speak
Swahili but spoke Kikongo.

South Africa has actually about 12 official languages, a perspective that
supports educational linguistic philosophy. How then can Africa and the
African Union suddenly   impose Swahili to al African? To whom, for who,
and for what purpose (Fishman, 1989; Wolfson, 1989)?  Africa and the
African Union cannot blindly follow the Colonial failed language policy
that has undermined the wealth and the epistemic diversity of our common
humanity (Hult, 2008; Spolsky, 2008). It is not surprising  for an
anti-intercultural political system to propagate policies that sustain its
failed ideological mindset. A mindset that has presented Africa, even with
all the mineral resources, and cultural wealth it has, as a continent to
babysit -- as a continent that is not able to manage itself. In my opinion,
African policymakers cannot keep moving from one mistake to another and
expect to be victorious against neo-colonial language policy  which, if
understood within existential sociolinguistic perspective, is also
"anti-sustainable development for all  policy" (Balosa, 2022a, 162).

 BBC should  recognize that the disrespect of English politics toward Irish
and the consequences that this policy has created between the speakers of
these languages is an unethical and an inhumane injustice toward the UK
sociolinguistic space that scholars in educational linguistics and
existential sociolinguistics are not going to allow this anti-intercultural
examples to continue manipulating opinions and policies across the world
(Síomóin, 2014). It is a loss for human, linguistic, and cultural diversity
and a loss for intergenerational intercultural enriching relations.

Africa and the African Union need an equitable language policy that
respects and dignifies linguistic and cultural diversity and democratic
principles (Wa Thiong'o, 1986; Seale & Mallinson, 2017). The sustainable
development project is a project that should use all languages and all
people -- rural/indigenous and urban languages and people. - David Balosa

-- 
David M. Balosa, Ph.D.
Language, Literacy, & Culture
Interculturality GSO President 2012-2013
*University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
**1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250*

https://llc.umbc.edu/home/news-events/?id=56945
https://centerforinterculturaldialogue.org/tag/david-balosa/

The world would be a better place if we all strive for existential unity:
communities' prosperity, social justice, peace, faith, global solidarity
and diversity, human rights, and human dignity for all. -David Balosa
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