Resisting Linguistic Imperialism
Singapore has always been predominantly Chinese, but with a
strong and highly visible Malay minority. But when it came time to choose a
language both for government and as primary me-dium of instruction, it resisted
the temptation of nationalism in favor
of rationalism. After se-ceding from the Malaysian
Federation in 1965, Lee Kuan Yew and his government determined, dispassionately
and accurately, that English --- not Mandarin or Malay or
Tamil --- was going to be the primary global language not
merely of international trade and commerce, but of diplomacy and technology as
well. Without discarding or denigrating their indigenous tongues, they chose
English, in spite of the fact that for centuries it was "the language of their
oppression." They chose English, but used that language to help enrich, rather
than erode, Singaporean identity ---
to complement, rather than
weaken, their distinctive cultures. This choice, which our nationalists refused
to make, helps account for the Singaporean success story. For decades now,
average Singaporean high school and college graduates have spoken and continue
to speak and write much better English than virtually all of their Asian
counterparts, providing them a huge and decisive edge in regional and global
competition. Are Singaporeans --- because they made this
choice --- "unpatriotic"? I doubt it. If you ask me, seizing
what used to be an oppressive colonial tool and reshaping it to a nation-state's
distinct advantage is patriotism of the highest
order.
The lesson for us is crystal-clear:
Yes, an indigenous national language can build bridges of
basic
conversation between the nations of a multicultural state, but to privilege that
language
at the expense of equally
authentic tongues is totally unacceptable. Further, when that conver-
sation
produced is sterile, i.e., when fluency is not uniform, what with a markedly
inferior class
of speakers [such as our promdi, of which I'm a
proud member], then its imposition creates im- mensely more harm than good, and
the storm that it generates will ultimately prove stronger than the bridge it
has built.
Whenever the eloquent overwhelm the inarticulate, whenever the
fluent overpower the falter- ing, there is intolerable injustice. And this will
remain the case for as long as all the regions of the Philippines are required
to be trilingual --- except the Tagalog region. In his
introduction to Michel de Certeau's enlightening
work The Capture of Speech and Other
Political Writings,
Luce Giard asks, "Who has the right
to speak? How is this right acquired? What happens when this right is denied or
inhibited?"
These are the questions examined by
Michel de Certeau in this foundational exploration of political expression and
participation. [D]e Certeau identifies "communication" as the irre-
ducible
element in the politics of modern societies. Moving beyond formal or legal
definitions
of rights, he argues that to "communicate" in a contemporary
political system means not only having the abstract possibility of utterance,
but possessing the conditions that allow being heard. De Certeau emphasizes that
all too often free speech is upheld in the abstract while
social institutions
work in such a way as to deny access to effective
communication.
The late Renato Constantino's argument
against the privileging of English was, and remains,
well-reasoned:
Now we have a small group of men who
can articulate their thoughts in English, a wider group that can read and speak
in fairly comprehensible English, and a great mass that can hardly ar- ticulate
in their native tongues because of the neglect of our native dialects, if not
deliberate attempts to prevent their growth.
Paraphrased,
his logic remains just as valid:
Now we have a small
group of men who can articulate their thoughts in Tagalog, a wider group that
can read and speak in fairly comprehensible Tagalog, and a great mass that can
hardly ar-
ticulate in their native tongues because of the neglect of our
native languages, if not deliberate attempts to prevent their
growth.
Our Tagalistas pay lip service to
"free speech," but do so in a language that favors the few at the expense of the
many. They would compel us to master their native tongue and abandon ours. The
Wolof [Senegal] poet Use no Gay Conan
grieves: "Our language is shedding tears because
its own children are deserting it, leaving it alone with its heavy burden. /
This tongue of mine
I use to taste; how can one taste with someone
else's tongue?" The Portuguese poet Fernando
Pesos sings, "my homeland is my
language." If these men are
right --- if they speak from their
hearts --- then we, the dispossessed, must act, act now, and
act together to resolutely protect our respective tongues, without which our
authentic identities, already seriously eroded, are
doomed.
