Cyberspace

Africa in cyberspace

Cheers and fears as Africans call for diversity of languages on the Internet

Part One
By Thomas L Blair

editor@thechronicle.demon.co.uk

Two images come to mind following the latest UNESCO cyberspace meeting in Paris. The first is the message from many delegates that language and cultural diversity should be promoted on the Internet. The second is of President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela's testament to "mother languages" in the new South African constitution 1996. It guaranteed indigenous African linguistic groups - among them Zulu, Xhosa and Tswana - official status and freedom of expression.

In this information age, Africa stands to gain from these initiatives. The continent's more than 2000 indigenous languages are, with the exception of Arabic and Afrikaans, largely excluded from the Information Highway.

But the message has triggered a major question. Is linguistic diversity on the Internet a great leap forward for African language communities? Perhaps the best way to understand this question is to look at the evidence.

Valuing African languages and "cyber organisers"
UNESCO's new moral commitment is a tremendous opportunity. In an idea that resembles community development work, the commitment may produce a new generation of "cyber-organisers" working to adapt the Internet to the needs of people. Cyberorganisers are local activists with a mission. They teach, inform and encourage local communities to utilise the new media. They assist the expression of local interests, culture and language and serve as windows on the World Wide Web.

Emmanuel Fotso Kings photo Chronicleworld

Emmanuel Fotso Kings, a community activist from Cameroon, expressed his delight at "this momentous day". "The Internet offers us a means of talking and interacting together in our own languages, not in a foreign language that nobody can understand". Others like James W Kindiga, assistant secretary general, Kenyan National Commission for UNESCO, said the new commitment will boost community well-being - at home, in work, health, education, language skills and motivation.

Mogens Schmidt of UNESCO said: "it is good to see Africa taking a determined and imaginative lead". Schmidt is director-general of UNESCO's division of communication and information sector responsible for the conference.

Historical validity of African languages
Cyber-organisers and diplomats believe that African languages have a historical validity. For centuries they have served as vehicles of communication and information exchange of technical as well as social and cultural ideas. Hundreds of writers and scholars from all regions of Africa endorsed this view at an historic first-ever conference at Asmara, Eritrea, in 2000 titled Against All Odds: African Languages and Literatures into the 21st Century.

Of exceptional importance also is the fact that sub-Saharan African languages are capable of creative endeavour and adaptation of western cognitive science and technology. Many African languages, for example, have proven able to impart and improve mathematical and conceptual skills of students. In Senegal the ethno-mathematician Sakir Thiam has promoted mathematics pedagogy in Wolof, making use of base 5 number words to improve early addition skills. Ethno-mathematics is a relatively new discipline investigating mathematical knowledge in small-scale, indigenous cultures.

[We are reminded that Pliny the Elder, the Roman scholar, geographer and scientist (23-79 AD) observed: "There is always something new out of Africa". And, Martin Bernal has argued in Black Athena (1991) that classical civilisations of Rome and Greece have their roots in Afro-Asiatic cultures; a fact that has been systematically suppressed or denied.]

Legitimacy of African languages
Above all, the value of African languages lies in their legitimacy. Language is an expression of people's consciousness of themselves as historic entities of value. The shattering importance of this insight is evident in the cultural, social and philosophical literature.

The Nigerian novelist and literary icon Chinua Achebe avows that language is the embodiment of a people's civilisation, not simply a communication device. The African-American social scientist W E B Du Bois helped us to understand the deep roots of the Souls of Black Folks.

Legitimacy is also evident in the literature of resistance against the "imperialised world". The Palestinian cultural scholar Edward Said says one's own language, be it Arabic, Zulu, Yoruba or other, offers an alternative way of conceiving history in resistance to the coloniser's world view. People are rightly suspicious of the oppressive undertones of the European colonialists' languages.

These writers and intellectuals are not only challenging the European controllers of African expression. They are celebrating the irreplaceable originality of African languages and their contribution to the cultural heritage of mankind.

Principles of cyber-organising
Uniquely, the revered freedom fighter and humanitarian Nelson Mandela has set forth the essential liberatory principles of African language expression and justice. These principles define the cultural elements of a creed that is vital to the cause of cyber-organising.

Mandela said the diversity of African languages reflects the rich cultural heritage of Africa and must be used as an instrument of African unity. "African languages must take on the duty, the responsibility, and the challenge of speaking for the continent," Mandela said.

Mandela believes the vitality and equality of African languages must be recognized as a basis for the future empowerment of African peoples. "Dialogue among African languages is essential: African languages must use the instrument of translation to advance communication among all people".

Furthermore, promoting research on and in African languages is vital for their future. In his view, "The effective and rapid development of science and technology in Africa depends on the use of African languages and modern technology must be used for the development of African languages."

Mandela also points out that: "Democracy is essential for the equal development of African languages and African languages are vital for the development of democracy based on equality and social justice".

Finally, Mandela illustrates how these goals and concepts can be translated into dynamic action. They offer a framework for creating new forms of social action with a clear social value. African languages are essential for the decolonization of African minds and for the African Renaissance. (Surely this is what he had in mind in elevating the nine major Bantu languages to equal status with English and Afrikaans).

Action, he said, must be taken to ensure that "All African children have the unalienable right to attend school and learn in their mother tongues". Every effort should be made to develop African languages at all levels of education. It should also be recognised that "African languages, like all languages, contain gender bias. The role of African languages in development must overcome this gender bias and achieve gender equality".

The future is digital and practical
What counts most, though, is what happens next. Chris Kwabato, promoter of the Highway Africa 2005 conference for journalists in Grahamstown, South Africa says "the future is digital".

Already, techno-social transformations are evident on the continent. Schools in many big cities have been teaching information, communications and computer sciences for a decade. Experts say there are more mobile connections now than fixed telephone lines in more than half the countries in Africa. Cyber cafés are as popular as jitney buses on busy streets.

But, practically, how will these new technologies enable people in linguistic communities to get connected and networked to earn more and do better with local resources? Let's look at the potential.

In rural areas, Internet-linked language communities can search for opportunities for bank loans, higher prices for crops, better wages, and free primary education. Fishermen can even use satellite imaging to locate the best fishing sites.

The poor Chewa farmers of the Kughera, Dowa district of Malawi, where fertiliser prices have doubled, can learn to assess the best sources at the lowest cost.

Networked Swahili speaking coffee farmers in Tanzania could scan and download the price lists of commodity exchanges regionally, and in central cities and abroad.

Yoruba women traders in West Africa, the lifeline of their families, could use a local PC kiosk for video conferencing across villages - on the cost of textiles, on the price of babies' milk, on the best bank loans, and how their grandchildren are getting on in England, France or America.

Family cooperatives could adopt the new technologies to assess the quality of staple products and consumer goods they like, and check the bargains and options available to them.

So, the motivational factors - the potential, the need and desire -- are there. It is the will and the means that need to be mobilised.

At the most elementary level the new media offer an unprecedented aid and support for popular participation and community solidarity. People in linguistic communities can talk to and inform each other and they can find the strength to dialogue with local government officials, politicians and business leaders.The Xhosa call this community solidarity Ubuntu, it means "a person is a person through other people"

Important steps to be taken
Given this prospect, the task of cyber-organisers becomes clear. Now is the time to create a cyber-creed to organise, design and guide the implementation of Mandela's principles. These principles must harness and apply the new information and communications technology to people's needs.

Diplomats, new media professionals and academics are in accord with cyber organisers and the communities they serve. The Internet, World Wide Web, mobile cell phones, digital television, among other new technologies, are essential to the future of Africa and its mother tongues.

They can "open fresh pathways" for transforming the way people live, work, learn and communicate," says William H Dutton, director of the Oxford Internet Institute in his UNESCO publication Social Transformations in an Information Society, 2004.

However, in spite of these hopes there is no guarantee that the new technologies will save the mother tongues of Africa. The warning signs of failure are evident.

Freedom of expression in cyberspace and the struggle to achieve it is not yet a widely accepted principle. Cyber-organisers fight an uphill battle against western language imperialism. Ever-present is the disregard and hostility of African governments and industries. And, in many resource-rich regions the ravages of unthinking, uncaring western-led globalisation are pushing African language communities to the brink of extinction.

(The road blocks to implementing African language diversity on the Internet are high and wide. Some innovative ways of overcoming them are discussed in the concluding part of this two-part series to appear in a forthcoming issue of Chronicleworld.org.)

Copyright Chronicleworld 2005