On March 17, 2017, George Ngwane was in Geneva, Switzerland, as a guest panelist at the launch of a book titled "Language Rights of Linguistic Minorities: A Practical Guide for Implementation" by UN Special Rapporteur on Minority issues, Rita Ndiaye.
The purpose of this very timely guide is to assist policy makers and rights holders in understanding and implementing the linguistic human rights of linguistic minorities, thereby striking the necessary balance between a state’s official language (or languages) and its obligations to use or respect the language preferences of linguistic minorities.
Here are the Mwalimu's opening comments during the panel discussion:
Reading through Language Rights of Linguistic Minorities, a Practical Guide for Implementation reminds me of Jules Verne’s book title “Round the world in 80 days”. Rita’s “Round the linguistic minorities’ world in 40 pages” takes the reader on a language human rights journey on a highway where cultural pluralism and linguistic diversity could be both hostile and humane passengers.
I intend to look at the work from an African perspective knowing how much the continent offers in terms of linguistic minority voices reclaiming their articulation through complimentary or competitive advocacy. In this regard, I find Rita’s work extremely relevant and intriguing in three of the nine areas she mentioned in her Purpose and Guide of the book. These include:
1) The power of visibility by linguistic minorities
Examples from the book illustrate how much in the words of the African writer Chinua Achebe “a lion needs her own historian since the story of the hunt often glorifies the hunter.” In this work Rita has chosen to be the lion’s historian without denigrating the hunter.
Indeed as misleading as it may be in most cases, most African languages enjoy what Rita calls ‘the principle of active offer” where access to public education and public administration favours language “minorities” like Lingala in Democratic Republic of Congo, Mbambara in Mali, and Wolof in Senegal. States in Africa are recognising this obligation to the point where Kiswahili has now become one of the working languages in the African Union.
2) Strategies for sustaining this visibility
This is what constitutes the main thrust of Section IV of the work even if all through the work one finds her attempt to highlight recommendations and good practice of minority languages in public life. She explores her ‘principle of proportionality’ as a recipe for articulating language minority concerns in education (formal), media and judiciary.
My country Cameroon provides a good practice in official international bilingual education, in the use of home languages in both formal (Fulfude in North of Cameroon) and informal education (home, church, cultural organisations etc). Rita’s examples of the Mali and Guatemala model of how early instructions in home languages can yield academic dividends to the learners is a point to take seriously. She may also add the values of oral traditions (story-telling, theatre, traditional music etc) as a vibrant medium for preserving and valorising the rights of linguistic minorities.
3) Challenges inherent in sustaining this visibility
The writer makes no pretense about challenges needed to recognise what she calls “the principle of inclusiveness and the principle of linguistic freedom hence her “recognise-implement-improve" method.
In all, this work is not just about affirmative action and state responsibility towards “the integral place of language rights as human rights,” it is for me whose country created a National Commission on Bilingualism and Multiculturalism on 23rd January 2017 and one who was just appointed as a member of this Commission on 15th March 2017 a template on how to” put in place legislation and policies that address linguistic human rights and prescribe a clear framework of standards of conduct”
Book Excerpt
Minority Rights: The Key to Conflict Prevention
When minority rights are enshrined in constitutions, and implemented through electoral, justice and education systems before a conflict has the chance to fester, there is a chance that conflict might not occur at all.
"Ethnic tensions and conflicts within a state are more likely to be avoided where language rights are in place to address causes of alienation, marginalisation and exclusion. Since the use of minority languages helps increase the level of participation of minorities, as well as their presence and visibility within a state – and even their employment opportunities – this is likely to contribute positively to unity and stability. Conversely, where the use of only one official language discriminates dramatically against minorities, violence is more likely to occur. This is one of the reasons the OSCE developed the Oslo Recommendations regarding the Linguistic Rights of National Minorities as a conflict prevention tool."
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