The following column from the South African paper Mail & Guardian
Online was seen at
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=312268&area=/insight/insight__comment_and_analysis/
... Don
Spare us your patronising assumptions
Robert Balfour: COMMENT
24 June 2007 11:59
When I glanced through the June 8 Mail & Guardian, I noticed the
article "Selebi se galery kry nog 'n rakker". I confess to being
surprised, pleased, intrigued and then, as I read, troubled.
Surprised because, yes, in this very English-language publication, it
was surprising to find an article written in another South African
language (in this case Afrikaans). Initially, I was pleased; I
wondered if this signalled a shift towards acknowledging that South
Africa is a multilingual society.
I was then intrigued that Afrikaans should have been chosen at all. It
occurred to me that, with the burgeoning readership of
African-language newspapers, wouldn't it be more appropriate to
publish an article, at least initially, in another language Zulu or
Xhosa perhaps? I did not think that Afrikaans was the wrong choice,
but it was a puzzling choice since it appeared on its own in the M&G.
It was only after I had read three-quarters of the article that I
noticed the ad at the bottom that read: "If you think it's tough
reading your Mail & Guardian in Afrikaans, try writing matric in it."
The ad went on to say: "On June 16 1976, the school students of Soweto
rose up against the apartheid government's policy of compulsory
Afrikaans schooling. In next week's M&G, we remember the youth of 1976
..." and so on.
At that point, ambivalence set in. Certainly, the point made by the
newspaper is valid. The imposition of Afrikaans was symbolic of an
order that brutally sought to oppress communities, adults and
children, literate and illiterate, who were denied access not only to
quality education, but also to such education in our languages,
underdeveloped, neglected and marginalised as they were in the shadows
of English and Afrikaans. So I felt that the point being made, to
remember the past, was right.
But I also felt co-opted, wrongly, as a reader. Coerced, in fact.
Coercion, it seems to me, is what makes this ad problematic, not
because of what the ad says, or the article above it, but because of
what is not said. Maybe this was intended; the newspaper sought to
provoke an unsettling reaction. Perhaps it was a mistake.
The ambivalence comes not from what is said about our past, but what
is said about the present and the future; about English and other
languages. If the point of the ad was to suggest that the absence of
freedom to choose a language in which to read is wrong, where are the
articles in other languages to celebrate the choices we can now make
after 1994?
Afrikaans is my second language. I am pleased that I have a second
language, and at least it is a language born here that makes me
bilingual and gives me some access to communities and people with whom
I might not otherwise be able to communicate. What the ad achieves is
to target that language and locate itself, the language, and the
reader, only in the past. There is nothing to indicate how the freedom
attained through June 16 enables us to choose Afrikaans and any
indigenous language used by South Africans for print in the M&G. Why
should reading in any of these languages (other than English) be tough
now? What is the point of a memorial if it speaks only of the past,
and so ambivalently about the present? And this brings me to a second
point.
The ad acknowledges one context (the past) but makes wrong assumptions
about another (the present) to which it nevertheless addresses itself
(June 16 2007). It is both a cheap shot at multilingualism and a
minority language, and in its silence, an arrogant celebration of
English its colonising and hegemonic tendencies somehow forgotten.
In the history books, the struggle against the imposition of Afrikaans
in 1976 found partial expression as a struggle for access to English,
as it represented for many an education freed from the hatreds
enshrined in apartheid language policies, and that the use of English,
if secured as a right, would be a means of freeing people from the
binaries of superiority, inferiority, black and white, literacy and
illiteracy. What the ad neglects to mention is not so much that
Afrikaans came to represent all of what was wrong with education, but
that English remained the second "official" language as well:
hegemonic, inaccessible, powerful. If you think its tough reading your
M&G in English, try writing matric in it in 1976, 1986, 1996, 2006,
2016, 2026.
June 16 1976, as far as the language question is concerned, was not
only a partial struggle to choose English in the short term, but also
a struggle to assert freedom of choice for future generations.
Finally, is it "your" M&G or is it your South African M&G? When it
grows up, perhaps it might reflect inclusiveness in the real sense,
through a variety of languages, Afrikaans included.
Robert Balfour is professor of language education at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal
**************************** Disclaimer ******************************
Copyright: In accordance with Title 17, United States Code Section
107, this material is distributed without profit for research and
educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material posted
to this list for purposes that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain
permission from the copyright owner.
Content: The sender does not vouch for the veracity nor the accuracy
of the contents of this message, which are the sole responsibility of
the copyright owner. Also, the sender does not necessarily agree or
disagree with any opinions that are expressed in this message.
**********************************************************************
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
