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Colonisers’ languages major drawback

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AHEAD of the implementation of the Land Reform and Resettlement Programme, the challenge for Zimbabweans and indeed the rest of the colonised societies was how to eradicate the remnants of colonialism.
There was so much to do; like giving back ownership and control of the economy to its rightful owners, redistributing land and having to contend with a wretched education curriculum.
But in the middle of all this, there remained the challenge of maintaining the coloniser’s language, itself the bane of Zimbabwe’s efforts to shrug off the nagging problem of colonialism.
It is still with us today.
Colonialism not only killed our religion, it demolished our culture, identity and most significantly our language.
This is why the on-going digitisation programme is critical in the country’s efforts to not only do away with colonialism but to boost our economy through job-creation, among other benefits.
In the agriculture sector, the concept by local seed manufacturers to give indigenous names to seed varieties is proving to be a masterstroke as our people can easily relate to those varieties.
The local entertainment industry, especially television productions, are yearning for a return to the screens of the days when local dramas like Inongova Njake Njake, Mukadota, Parrafin and Timmy naBhonzo, to name but a few, not only provided entertainment but showed the immense talent in the country.
This abundant talent will be harnessed through the opening of more channels which will provide stiff competition to DSTV, which in all fairness has been a big let-down to subscribers.
Local content production will also contribute towards promoting indigenous languages, as content would be made available from all corners of the country.
South Africa, where the media industry has created lots of jobs and revenue, has seen its industry growing immensely through the use of local languages.
The world over, the impact of local content production has been enormous.
This is through inclusive social development, dialogue and understanding between peoples.
Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, in his book Decolonising the Mind, argues: “The choice of language and the use to which language is put is central to a people’s definition of themselves in relation to the natural and social environment, indeed in relation to the entire universe.”
Put simply, local languages can reach global audiences and this is the route according to the statement by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Media, Information and Publicity, George Charamba, in Binga last week, that there will be adoption of subtitles.
In 2011, global trade of creative goods and services totalled a record of
US$624 billion.
This is according to a special edition of the United Nations Creative Economy Report, ‘Widening Local Development Pathways’, co-published by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through the United Nations (UN) Office for South-South Co-operation.
The creative economy includes audiovisual products, design, new media, performing arts, publishing and visual arts.
Between 2002 and 2011, developing-countries averaged 12,1 percent annual growth in exports of creative goods, the report further states.
“While creating jobs, creative economy contributes to the overall well-being of communities, individual self-esteem and quality of life, thus achieving inclusive and sustainable development.
“At a time when the world is shaping a new post-2015 global development agenda, we must recognise the importance and power of the cultural and creative sectors as engines of that development,” said Irina Bokova, director-general of UNESCO.
“Culture is both a driver and an enabler of human and sustainable development.
“It empowers people to take ownership of their own development, and stimulates the innovation and creativity which can drive inclusive and sustainable growth,” said Helen Clark, administrator of UNDP.
The above points are buttressed by a 2014 report by academic Mawuna Koutoun titled Death of African Languages: What Africans Could Learn From Europe!
Koutoun argues for Africa to develop, it must make use of local languages not empire languages which are drawn from the colonisers.
The report raises the following fundamental points:
“Currently a small organisation like the EU has 24 official and working languages: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish.
Some of those languages are spoken only by half a million people.
In average, most of those languages are spoken by less than 5 million people.
Regardless of those facts, each European citizen is entitled to use (its) mother language in the European Parliament, the European Commission, in their public speech and correspondence with their public administration.
Except Ethiopia, and the Arabic countries, all African countries are using European colonial languages as the only official languages for public administration.
You can’t write a letter in Yoruba, Ibo, Haoussa to the Nigerian public administration and receive an answer in the same language.
Europe is a very small continent, three times smaller than Africa, four times smaller than America.
The combined size of all EU countries is smaller than the US or China and the whole European continent is just the size of the African Sahara area.
Madagascar is more than two times bigger than the UK and Congo is five times the size of France.
If the small EU can manage 24 working languages, how can’t the big Nigeria manage at least three to five working languages in their parliament or public administration?”
As long as we continue to use our colonisers’ languages, we will never realise our full potential as a people and continent.
Let those with ears listen.

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