The ManicaPost
Morris Mtisi
IF some people think defending English Language means defending the English people and colonialism, they need to think again deeply and carefully, if a doctor is too far.In my last instalment “CAMPAIGN AGAINST ENGLISH, XENOPHOBIC AND IRRATIONAL” last week, I said the sentiments of authors who saw nothing good about English, but tragedy only smelled of jingoism and cheap patriotism… may be patriotism excessive beyond measure. Yet come to think of it, they may be politically correct after all.
But here for the purpose of this defence of English Language let us only be rational and look at reality on the ground, not figments of imagination or wishful thinking.
English is an international language. That means every country on earth connects with another through English. It links global communication and crosses all boundaries of geography, colour, creed, religion and culture.
English is the global lingua franca. That means it is the official language of business, administration and socialization. The world is not sociable without breaking language barriers. Even cultural and economic intercourse is made not necessarily only possible, but easy through English Language.
Even when pilots fly, they fly in English, not Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Ndau or Portuguese, what-have-you. This means the safety of the only fastest means of travel today is English. We could fly in Ndau certainly,” Mwaapari apapo sezara woye mundegomwo akiti?” And the pilot answers back, “Kwaani iwewe, fulamachini yakona yotokotsorakotsora wena,” and so forth and so on. But it is not like that…at least for now. Chiyungu chega chinoreketwa by these pilots, to communicate travel in the air. No disrespect meant against our indigenous languages and dialects.
Our examinations in Zimbabwe and most of the countries in Africa and worldwide are set and answered in English. That is not to worship English or to spite people’s vernaculars. It is because that is the language or path via with which formal education was introduced to us. In doing so yes, those who introduced formal education certainly diluted or contaminated our dignity and values in the days’ curriculums…no doubt about that. It was inevitable. But to stand up now and say formal education was not right is to put up a sick argument that only makes sick noise in the ears of serious internationally focused technocrats and educational policy makers. To angry nationalists and armchair political activists wetting their pants to say something and be heard, yes this is politically correct to say. English is a tragedy which deformed us into little British people. But who is not a little British now, today in the suits and neck ties that have become formal dressing in our parliaments and schools and businesses? Everything that defines our dignity today! Who is not a little German today with all these series of Mercedes Benz we drive with glamour and visible swag? With all these i-pads and phones, tablets, who is still not American, Chinese Japanese or Korean?
The films that you watch are not Ndau or Venda films but all English including North African films. Almost all African movies are in English. Is that strange? Even Spanish Telemundo, some don’t know, is Spanish technologised to sound like English for worldwide viewership.
Your own African or Zimbabwean wives look a little too British or American in their swim suit-like fashion on the streets or at work places, some now even in churches. Your own wives, I mean you who say English is a tragedy! The car, the bicycle, the phones, the laptops, the food even, the clothes, the make-up for your women, the houses you have in Chisipiti or Mt Pleasant, Hampden and other Mounts and chakutichakuti-Dales are little Englands in every sense. What are you saying about the language of those who influenced you to be what you are today?
Except for political expedience and sheer academic zeal, intellectual masturbation, what is this argument against English Language? It is nothing but a cheap tired argument not worth making in the 21st century.
Education in the 21st century is informed by a new paradigm shift which is driven by interdependence, not independence; interaction not isolation; knowledge driven economies, not economic imagination and dreams.
Our new curriculum in Zimbabwe was born out of an inspired vision to join global economic trends and demands; new skills possibilitised by new technologies suitable for new economic successes. Thanks to Lazzie D, like him or not!
To reach this goal of equal competition for new economic and social competencies, we need to learn more and more languages to connect us with the world.
We now not only need to learn the English language well and deeply enough, but to master even Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese French, German and more to ease the communication levels needed to proffer serious business, communication and socialization. And most of us are happy that even though we did not quickly understand Lazzie D’s wisdom of the curriculum transformation, albeit because of certain organizational irregularities, one of them being the speed of change and lack of genuine consultative ingenuity, we now fully accept and appreciate the critical importance of a transformed school curriculum. And thanks to LD.
The LD-driven new curriculum recognizes and acknowledges the role played by languages in the new shift towards democratization of education and easing of language barriers through learning more foreign languages and adoption of indigenous languages as formal mediums of teaching and learning. It does not say English is a tragedy. It does not say any language or dialect is a tragedy. It encourages studies of those languages. Because they facilitate developmental interdependence!
Even when STEM emphasizes Sciences, Technologies, Engineering and Mathematics, these are not studied in Ndau or Ndebele. Again no disrespect intended! The command of English Language per individual student pursuing whatever aspect of STEM cannot be underrated or underestimated. English continues and will continue to be the soup with which STEM is eaten if we want to imitate Chinua Achebe’s instinct for African proverb. Those who want to try teaching or learning STEM in Shona or Ndebele because English is a colonial tragedy can do so. Go ahead but don’t forget to update us on the progress. We can say the same to farmers. Those who want to use donkeys and oxen to till their lands, and not tractors, planters and harvesters when it comes to harvesting, because they are not African inventions, can do so. But don’t forget to update us on the progress.
It is my honest submission, opinion and position that continuing to hate the English language but imitating the English people through dress, cars, and lifestyle is intellectual hypocrisy.
Wise people use the wheel to suit their needs and purposes in life but don’t waste time trying to invent a new one.
Wise people accept that every normal person has a shadow following him or her. And trying to run away from the shadow because it does not look that beautiful or handsome is first class madness-politely put ‘not quite necessary or possible!’
It reminds me of my jestful brother who knowing Mtisis must not eat chicken or any bird at all as it is our totem, says after enjoying a scrumptious meal of rice and chicken, “ andiryi huku inini, ndinosheye muto wakona.” I do not eat chicken, but the soup. What is the difference? You cannot use and enjoy your enemies’ everything except their language ; their money, their clothes and fashions, law system, their books, their inventions and experiences but argue that their language is a tragedy. We don’t need such levels of professorial intelligence in the 21st century education. It is too educated for our purposes of modern life?
It is my humble submission that there are much better problems to create than roam around what is bad about English. There are better things to do than staunchly but unwisely appreciating the value of English in modern life. And you use English to eloquently criticize it! You use English language to speak against the evils of the world against you, use English Language to gain the highest levels of education possible; some are now called doctors and professors, but want to stop coming generations to study English Language. What kind of hypocrisy or double standards is that?
You have studied English so well that you speak and write it better than your mother tongue, even to make this argument against it, but say English is a tragedy. Whom do you want to believe you?
It’s like teachers who studied Literature at school and excelled in Shakespeares and the lot but today now say, ‘No Literature in this school or well, there can be some Literature but not Shakespeare.’
English Language sharpens English Literature and Literature in English sharpens the language. Each one oils the other. Every wise teacher knows that.
It is my humble submission too that there are better areas of our development to spend time and intellect on than loudly and angrily denouncing English Language. Even if the people whose mother is that English died today in some special British Noah’s flood, English will never be deleted from the face of the earth. It is now impossible. It is like imagining we can stop death when even God who created Life cannot stop it.
We must spend time on worrying about climate change, droughts, HIV and AIDS, cancers killing people every day, how to end poverty and corruption, how to create employment for ourselves and our children, how bond notes are good or bad for us etc…..the list of our fears is too long. But certainly English Language is not one of fears. I rest my case.
