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The Struggle for Linguistic Identity in Post-Colonial Africa w/Salikoko Mufwene
What if your native language was sidelined in favour of a foreign one in your own homeland? In a discussion with Salikoko Mufwene, a distinguished linguist from the Democratic Republic of Congo, we navigate the intricate web of language, culture, and colonisation in Africa. Our conversation embarks from the rich and diverse pre-colonial African civilisations, highlighting the seismic shifts brought on by the arrival of Arabs and Europeans. Mufwene offers deep insights into the origins and roles of African languages, exploring how they have historically served as bridges between ethnic groups and how language contact has shaped cultural interactions.
Transitioning to the present, we scrutinise the remnants of colonialism in African education systems. We dissect the prioritisation of European languages like Portuguese, English, and French in schools and governments and examine the resultant conflict with African cultural identities. This underscores the urgent need to prioritise indigenous languages to achieve true cultural and intellectual independence, questioning whether the current educational system truly serves Africa's future or perpetuates a European worldview.
Finally, we confront the enduring power dynamics and exclusionary practices maintained through language in post-colonial African societies. Mufwene shares poignant anecdotes and critiques that illuminate the marginalisation of indigenous languages and the cultural impact of colonial legacies.
Host:
Fungai Mutsiwa
Guest:
Salikoko Mufwene
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We need also some sort of cultural emancipation. So in a way, we are so much trapped in the colonial frame, and maybe because we struggle so much in order to come out of poverty, that when we do it we forget that there are many, many more people that are in worse predicaments than ourselves. I have a dream today are in worse predicaments than ourselves.
Speaker 2:I have a dream today. Is it too much to ask you to grant us human dignity? Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair?
Speaker 1:Who taught you to hate the color of your skin to such extent that you bleach?
Speaker 2:For so many, many years, we were told that only white people were beautiful. You're afraid that if you give us equal ground, that we will match you and we will override you. Black is beautiful. Free Say, I want it free.
Speaker 3:Free, which means don't forget who you are or where you came from. Welcome to Black for 30. Thank you for coming through and joining us in another discussion on Black for 30. And, of course, before the episode begins, we just need to observe 15 seconds of just being quiet, just so you know you can wrap up whatever that is Black for 30. For 30.
Speaker 3:Today, you know we're going to be talking about the effects of language and how it influences culture, identity, and we'll also touch a little bit on you know how that's played out during colonization, slash, decolonization. You know, before Africa was discovered by the rest of the world, it had thriving civilizations. So you had the arrival of Arabs and Europeans and that in a lot of ways, divided the continent and introduced foreign languages, foreign religion and customs as well. So in this discussion we're going to look at the profound influence of language on the African culture, identity and identity as well, right, and we'll look at how the introduction of foreign languages during colonization has affected the African communities today and the urgent need to preserve and value our local languages. So we'll delve into the roots of African languages, the power of words in shaping our narratives and the significance of linguistic unity for Africa and to get into that really dope conversation, I have a very distinguished guest and I would love for them to introduce themselves. Hand it over to you.
Speaker 1:Well, I go by he, his and him. So my name is Salikoko Mufwene. I'm a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which I left in 1974 when I came to the United States, precisely to Chicago, as a graduate student. As a graduate student, and then I, in January 1981, I went and started my first job at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. And then in did I say 1981?
Speaker 3:I should have said 1980.
Speaker 1:In January 1980, I went to Jamaica to start my first job at the University of the West Indies, the West Indies Monocampus in Jamaica, and then I returned to the United States in September 1981 as a Narcissist and Professor at the University of Georgia, and in December 1991 I moved to the University of Chicago, where I have been teaching ever since and I do research on language contact.
Speaker 1:Originally it was just about how Creoles have emerged, and then I have compared Creoles to other colonial varieties of European languages and eventually the whole thing brought me into what I call evolutionary linguistics. That includes how language emerged in mankind. You know how we went from not being speakers or signers of any languages to becoming speakers and signers of any number of the 7,000 languages about 7,000 languages spoken around the world today and also because languages come in contact with each other, and when they come in contact with each other they also bring different cultures in contact with each other. And when they come in contact with each other, they also bring different cultures in contact with each other, and to what extent these experiences have influenced modern humans in different parts of the world. That's more or less the summary of my academic background. You can bring in the role of globalization in shaping languages. So it depends on the specific questions that you are going to ask me today, and then I'll try to explain things from the point of view of my scholarship.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think we'll definitely touch on different parts, so you might be wearing different hats depending on the question, and a good place, I think, to start would be just, you know, with our imperial languages, right, Like African imperial languages. So I understand those to be, I think, Sarakoli and I might be pronouncing these wrong Sarakoli, which is from Ghana, and then there's Mandingo, which is from Mali, and Songhai as well and Songhai Song history languages such as Arabic. They were used as languages of religion and learning, as far as I understand, religion and learning, as far as I understand. So can you shed some light on the roots of African languages, you know? Do they originate from the same linguistic family?
Speaker 1:No, these particular languages don't originate in the language, they don't belong in the same language families and we don't really refer to those specific languages as imperial languages. They are, you know, some people call them vehicular languages. In English, the more common term is lingua franca. They are lingua francas, so languages that enable people that do not speak the same ethnic languages to communicate with each other. Graphically dominant in a particular part of the world, and people operating in that particular part of the world learn it in order to communicate with other people that don't share with them an ethnic language. So that's the situation and, of course, the languages that you mentioned, including Songhai, mandinka, they are associated with empires that emerged in West Africa. You will see a number like Mali and what now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, people talk a lot about Mali, but there were different kinds of empires. They succeeded one another. They all emerged in the same geographical area, but replacing each other until they came in contact with the Arabs or with the Europeans that't immediately colonize Africa in the exploitation model in the way that we know today, until the middle of the 19th century, but before that it was trade colonies that emerged on the coast of Africa. So there's a different kind of contact, and so there's a different kind of contact where the contact between Europeans and the Africans were more egalitarian Egalitarian in some sense, that is, between the European mercantile companies that traded with African rulers, whereas the rest of Africans didn't really interact with the Europeans directly and as a matter of fact, a lot of Africans had to try to save themselves from being traded as slaves.
Speaker 1:So that's part of that context. So things are quite diverse in this particular case.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know. One of the interesting things you know when we talk about colonization for me is you know where European languages were imposed across the continent and you know the effects of that. You know weakened local languages and cultures and you know the the effects of that. You know weakened local languages and and cultures. You know the as far as, as I understand it, you know the first cultural aspects that european settlers infiltrated were education, religion and language. Can you explain the importance it served for them to enforce their own languages in our social structures?
Speaker 1:in our social structures. The earliest contacts between the Europeans, especially the Portuguese, originally in the middle of the 15th century, but later on the Dutch, the French and the English joined the Portuguese in the trade in the early 17th century, and these were contacts that also involved a form of colonization, but it's known as trade colonization during which the European and it was mostly European merchants, mercantile companies trading with African rulers, the only people that were really in a position to sell commodities such as tons of ivory and human beings, because not every human being is capable of selling another human being to another person. So that doesn't happen. It requires a certain amount of power, economic power, political power to engage in that kind of activity, and this lasted until the middle of the 19th century. By the middle of the 19th century, what happens is that in the late 18th century came the Industrial Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. This was a major change in the industries of Europe, and Europeans needed a lot of raw materials for the industrial and economic development, of raw materials for the industrial and economic development. But then they were losing the settlement colonies of the Americas since the American Revolution, since the Asian Revolution, and now they had to change, switch to a more reliable source of raw materials, and they were turning to Africa and Asia, which they had kind of overlooked before.
Speaker 1:Now, these parts of the world, africa and Asia were becoming quite critical to the Industrial Revolution and the Europeans realized that they shouldn't colonize Africa in the same way that they had colonized the Americas. They had colonized the Americas on the settlement models, like developing new Europes outside Europe. In the case of Africa and Asia, they chose the exploitation model of colonization you come and exploit the land in order to develop Europe. And Africa and Asia became important sources of raw materials for the Industrial Revolution, and in this case they had to make sure that the Europeans that came to Africa didn't settle. They came as agents of colonization, working for particular companies or the colonial administration, and they stayed for a certain period of time. And of course there weren't enough Europeans to you know man, the colonial enterprise. And they had to use indigenous people too. And then they created a small group of people that are referred to as colonial auxiliaries, and these people were taught European languages and they would interface between the Europeans and the majority of the colonized people and then the rest of the colonized people.
Speaker 1:They didn't really care very much for them, they didn't dispense much schooling for them until fairly late and they communicated with them through the colonial auxiliaries.
Speaker 1:So when you look at the histories of Africa, you have an elite class today that are quite fluent in the European languages and of course, with the introduction of schooling a lot of us have learned the European language, but in many cases not in a way that would enable us to speak them so fluently. And for a number of people, when they graduate from elementary school or from high school, they don't have much use for the European languages and they just operate in indigenous languages. But the kind of economy that developed in Africa, introduced by Europe, was mostly blue-collar work, the people that had to work in the mines and produce minerals that would be processed in the industries of Europe and the outcomes of that processing would be sold to Africa and Asia in the form of all sorts of metal artifacts that people could buy. Or in the case of textile industry like cotton, the clothing would be produced in Europe and the clothes would be sold back to Africans and so forth.
Speaker 1:So, in the words of Walter Rodney in the book how Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Africa is the only continent that paid for its own underdevelopment, definitely.
Speaker 1:So colonization took a different meaning in Africa and the European languages became the language not only of administration, but also the language of exploitation. Sadly, that particular system has been inherited in the African nation since independence, since our governments in Africa are still operating in the European languages, the European languages have become our official languages and still there is an elite class that use the European languages as emblems of their positions in society, and what we notice, according to my own interpretation, is a replacement of external colonization with colonization from within. You know, the people in power who are indigenous to Africa, who are exploiting their own fellow Africans, and we would expect that all this is done for the development of Africa, but in many cases, there is no such development in Africa. It's still for the development of Europe. Yeah, in Africa is still for the development of Europe, yeah.
Speaker 1:So raw material sold to Europe and a few people making enough money to become very wealthy. And the materials are sold to Africans, very often at prices that Africans themselves cannot afford.
Speaker 3:Africans, very often at prices that Africans themselves cannot afford. And that element of the almost psychological impact of that period of decolonization is very interesting because I think a lot of conversation people like a lot of the conversations. People focus on the effects of colonization, slash, decolonization, but they look at it from, you know, an economic point of view, a political point of view. But it's interesting when you look at the human psyche, or at least the African psyche in this sense, in terms of how they left. You know, I mean, it's not that long ago, so it's within a hundred years that they left. You know, I mean it's not that long ago, so it's within a hundred years that they left, or actually maybe 50 is a bit more accurate.
Speaker 3:But the vestiges of what they did has continued on and you know to what you're saying, it's saddening that the people who are still the vehicles of um, this um, I guess, neo-colonization, if that's what you want to call it, are africans. You know, and you'd mentioned before how you know, yeah, english, english and french obviously, like, I guess, the two most dominant um, because they're obviously the most active within Africa, the British Empire and the French, and those two languages are often prioritized in a lot of African curricular, you know, and while local languages are relegated to a secondary status, what would it take for us, you know, to be able to replace, you know, english or French as the language of instruction in our schools and governments?
Speaker 1:Yeah well, let's be honest, Put it with a little bit of history. In the exploitation model, Europeans colonized Africa for almost 80 years. You add another decade for places like Zimbabwe and.
Speaker 1:Mozambique. It took a little bit longer. So most countries in Africa have been independent for some 60 years now. It's more or less the same period, and when you look at it in the 1960s especially so, africa became politically independent, but it has not become economically independent and in many ways Africa is also struggling to become culturally independent. So when you put it that way, then you find a number of things that are really. I don't have to get into economic colonization because you know it's already obvious from what I said before.
Speaker 1:But when it comes to education, for instance, the question is what is the role of informal education in Africa? Is it there in order to prepare Africans to I mean African children to become future citizens of Africa working for the development of Africa? Or is the role of education to produce people that know the foreign world better than they know Africa itself? Because the contents of our curricula in school, mostly dealing with the history of Europe and less about the history of Africa, the view of the world from Europe rather than the view of the world from Africa, and using European languages to acquire knowledge rather than indigenous African languages, represent not having succeeded in school or not having been lucky enough to afford schooling. That is what dispense in a European language.
Speaker 1:And so the prioritizing of European languages, of African languages, is like you get education in order to operate in a universe that has been fashioned by Europeans, and the delusion you realize it when you leave Africa and you think that you have learned the European language well enough, and then you can compete with Europeans or Americans in their own language, but that language becomes a barrier for you because you don't speak it like Europeans, you don't speak it like Americans, and the language is used against you, to isolate you as an outsider, as a person that doesn't quite fit.
Speaker 1:You know, a number of us have succeeded, of course, but we have had to work extra hard and we had to depend very much on luck rather than on our competence, so these are things that we really have to remember. Of course, luck alone won't do it, but it means you have to work extra hard in order to operate like everybody else. Now, for Europeans coming to Africa, everything has been facilitated for them. It's like the education that we are receiving in Africa is designed to make life easier for Europeans when they come to exploit us, but re-articulate it as to help us in Africa, and so, in many cases, they don't have to learn our languages, which is actually quite strange, because you come to help people who are the majority in their own countries and unless these people know your language, you cannot really communicate with them because you are not learning their language.
Speaker 3:There are, of course, good exceptions, but the system is set up in such a way that Europeans don't experience the same pressure when they travel in Africa as when Africans travel outside Africa into Europe to private primary schools growing up and part of what that meant and this is in Zimbabwe, and I still remember I would have been in second grade and it was compulsory for us to speak in English. The only place we're allowed to speak, shona, was in a Shona class. So that means probably once a day, every day, I was only allowed to speak in Shona and of course, at home I'd speak in Shona, but for as long as I was at school I had to, and everybody else had to, speak in English. And I remember asking why? Because that was quite strange for me, because, coming from home, you're speaking in Shona, and the explanation was that they were catering for international students, which was so bizarre because when you then look at the number of international students in a whole school, mostly full of Zimbabwe, we had to speak English from a very young age and that partly explains why I think, like you know, with a lot of Zimbabweans, they're fairly articulate and fluent in English.
Speaker 3:It's because it's been ingrained in our system from kindy right. So I'm learning Shona at the same time as I'm learning English from a very young age, you know, and so, and the thing is, language influences how we think and how we perceive the world right. So there's an element of me that's, you know, learning it from a Shona perspective. But because Shona is not learned at a, I guess, at a much more deeper or ingrained level, more than English. So the way I move is more oriented with, I guess, the English or the British way of seeing the world.
Speaker 1:But when you think about it, when you are six, at home you've been speaking Shona and you are put into this private school and the teacher is speaking English and you don't understand a whole lot of what the teacher is saying, at least for the first few months. But what happens is that you also realize that by the end of elementary school your knowledge of English is still imperfect and there is a whole lot that you are missing from what the teacher is telling you. And the irony of it is that by the time you have completed your university training, you cannot share the knowledge that you have acquired so easily in Shona.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:You know and therefore you are more useful to that small minority of classmates that you have had that have had English as a mother tongue than you are to the majority of the Zimbabwean population.
Speaker 3:I relate with that because a few weeks ago I thought about that. So I write articles from time to time and it kind of helps me reflect. And as I was sitting there I realized I have so many thoughts that I want to share but I am incapable of doing that in shona. I have to write in english. I have to write my articles in english for me to be able to express exactly how Right.
Speaker 1:And so we are really trapped, yeah, you know, between two worlds and the one in which we have developed all this academic knowledge, and still people are going to tell us that our knowledge of that language is imperfect and not acceptable in some situations and not acceptable in some situations. And then, to your own people, you cannot use that language to really share the knowledge with them unless you re-educate yourself. And it requires so much work, much additional work, okay, and there should be a way of changing this. And the usual way has been well, we're going to start from elementary school.
Speaker 1:But when you start from elementary school, the parents say why are you wasting your time teaching our child in an indigenous language? Look, in all the best positions that are lucrative economically, people are speaking this European language. So teach my child in the European language too. Okay, my solution is do it in a global way. You know, for a period it's going to be chaotic, but force all the establishment to operate in an indigenous language, and then there will be some inspiration at the bottom layer of the population for learning in the indigenous language. How it's much easier actually to learn in an indigenous language, and by the time we have graduated we will probably be operating better than the people in the upper layer of the society who are still, you know, mixing the European language and indigenous languages.
Speaker 3:That's the chaotic period of transition, but eventually things are going to be equalized yeah, you know, there definitely should be pathways, especially for african diasporas, pathways for to be able to facilitate that. You know you you're talking about how. How do we then remedy that, where you're finding that there's a lot of brilliant talent and minds but they can't speak their own local languages?
Speaker 3:you know, um, so I guess this is me being hopeful that you know we can start to create pathways to allow the diaspora, I guess, to come back to the basics, so to speak. There's an interesting quote, I think it's either from Steve Biko or Mandela, right? And so they were addressing the issue of apartheid, and they were talking about how, you know, because Afrikaans is the language of the oppressor, you know, and so they were encouraging South Africans to learn its literature, its history, to be able to understand the strengths and weaknesses of their opponent, almost like an elementary principle when engaging in war, when engaging in, you know, in war, right.
Speaker 1:Do you see language as an instrument for a cultural or intellectual revolution for Africans? Well, you know, language per se is a neutral thing. It depends on how it is used. So in the case of South Africa in the 1970s, when Afrikaans was imposed on black South Africans, the black South Africans protested against it. It's because, well, it was the language of the oppressor, but it was also, and it is, a language that is not widely spoken around the world. So if you are going to impose a non-Indigenous language to Africans, you may as well impose a language that is widely spoken around the world. So it was a good reason to reject it. But the other thing is that the language was going to be used also for exclusion, because it was going to be a nice excuse. If the system is operating in Afrikaans and you are black and you don't speak Afrikaans as fluently as an Afrikaner, then you can be excluded too. There are different reasons. Race is really the primary reason why you would be excluded, but that would be an additional excuse.
Speaker 1:But before the Afrikaners in post-Afrikaans, they had also set up. Before that they had set up a Bantu system that the Africans, the black South Africans, were going to be taught in Bantu languages. So with that, they were not going to be competitive in a society where knowledge of Afrikaans or English would be better valued than knowledge of Bantu languages. Okay, so the Bantu languages were going to be used also as a language of exclusion. But now, when you look at South Africa, english has emerged as the dominant language, the language of the government, although there are 11 official languages, but not all of 11 languages are used. None of the government, although there are 11 official languages, but not all of 11 languages.
Speaker 1:None of the indigenous ones are yeah right and the indigenous languages are not economically empowered. So we are still in that situation where, you know, non-indigenous languages are favored over Indigenous languages and in this respect, south Africa is like Zimbabwe, it is like the Democratic Republic of Congo, it is like Ghana, nigeria and so forth. So a language is just a tool of communication, but it is also associated with power, and the people that have more power impose their language, and the people that have more power are not necessarily the majority population. Okay, and that's where we see that language is not necessarily at the surface of the majority population.
Speaker 3:And it's very interesting as well, like when, because I'm drawing, you know, the comparison between the South African context and Zimbabwe as an example, right?
Speaker 3:So us being colonized by the British, whereas in South Africa they had the Afrikaners. And it's quite interesting, right? Because you're saying how they in South Africa, the way they set it up, was so that it was an exclusionary language, whereas for us it was more I don't know how exactly to put it, but like more inclusive, in the sense that it made people envious to want to you know, you were talking about the social status it made people envious to want to learn and understand English and look English and present themselves as English, right, and I find that the latter example of Zimbabwe way more interesting, because I feel as though that has a longer lasting impact, because it takes you longer, as a Zimbabwean, to realize how much you've been played, whereas in the South African context, you already know that Afrikaners don't like you because they've set up Afrikaans as something that's exclusionary, right? So there's that clear distinction. Whereas in the British sense it was almost as if black face, white mask, right, so you're black on the outside but white in the inside.
Speaker 1:Well, you say it well, but I think that it's more accurate to say that the system in Zimbabwe was less exclusionary.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, but not necessarily different from the apartheid system. Yeah, you know, but not necessarily different from the apartheid system, exactly, okay, and people could fight against Afrikaans because it is also a minority language on the scale of world languages. Okay, so Afrikaans doesn't even count as a world languages, so African doesn't even count as a world language. On the other end, what led to this reality in South Africa is also largely British colonization itself, because the British controlled the country until 1948, when they passed the power to the Afrikaners. Okay, and the British had been very exclusionary too. They colonized the Afrikaners too and they downgraded the status of Afrikaans in South Africa During the colonial, the British rule.
Speaker 1:Afrikaans was just treated like other languages in Africa that the British didn't want to see used in the public sphere. Okay, although the Af Africanas being white, they could fight for the right and so forth, and, starting in the late 19th century, they could have their parallel education in Afrikaans. So that was an important difference. But not much is said about the kind of education that the Bantu people got. Not much is said about the Khoisan people, the Khoi and San people, and it's even, you know, the Khoi and San people even today. How many times are they mentioned in the politics of South Africa? Okay, how many times do. Among the official languages, which language is Khoi or Sam Zero? So it's on that scale.
Speaker 1:But when we go to Zimbabwe, what we notice too is, you know, you come across people that speak, many people that speak English in Zimbabwe, but what is the proportion of those people that speak of Africans that speak English fluently in Zimbabwe? You know what's the proportion of people that can go outside in an English-speaking country and say, okay, I speak English, and the like. So these are situations that should be remedied. It's outrageous to be in a country where the language of power is a foreign language and not an indigenous language.
Speaker 1:Of course, there are many languages spoken in Zimbabwe, but that is not an excuse. It should be possible for a person that lives where Shona is spoken to use Shona, and a person living in a place where the Bele is spoken to use the Bele and so forth.
Speaker 3:So you were talking about the Khoisan, you know so.
Speaker 1:It is official languages.
Speaker 3:Official exactly, I'm sure the.
Speaker 1:Khoisan people speak the languages among themselves, but the languages are even being displaced by Bantu languages.
Speaker 3:So, like you know, when you consider that language conveys traditions, ideologies, origins and so forth, right. But similar to most things in life, it evolves. Know us, I guess, I guess cultural erasure, um uh, or loss for for africans, right. So your your work. You also, you know, look at examining the historical and genetic relationships between um languages, right to to uncover, you know, what drives linguistic evolution. So do you have any insights you can share regarding how you see Bantu languages, for example, evolving in the future and what that means for Africans?
Speaker 1:Yes, first of all, it's not languages that drive ideologies. People use languages to spread particular ideologies. So what we wind up doing with languages reflects how we interact with each other in society. And what are the attitudes of the people in power to the people that don't hold power? And you know what kind of system they set in place so that either they can change the status quo or they can maintain it, and so far it's been in favor of maintaining the status quo than changing.
Speaker 1:It should do things in such a way that the development of Africa is oriented toward inside Africa and not outside of Africa, because when you're oriented toward outside Africa, you are working for the development of economic systems outside Africa, so the investment should be within Africa. So there should be a way of reorganizing things so that, first of all, the education system is geared toward operating efficiently within Africa. But in order for the education system to succeed, the institutions political institutions, economic institutions within Africa should be operating in indigenous African languages and not in languages brought from outside. Okay, that means there should be a lot of pressure for the president of the country to talk to the citizenry in at least one of the indigenous languages and things can be translated into other indigenous languages, and that language, I I hope, is a language of wider communication, a lingua franca rather than necessarily the ethnic language of the president, that the assembly should be functioning in some of the major indigenous African languages and not in European languages. The reward system should reward the people that are operating well in indigenous languages and not the people that speak European languages fluently, and so forth. So these are the initial steps that should be taken and we should be developing the terminology to be taught, to be used in school materials and so forth, as the people that have succeeded already. It's the people that have succeeded already that are struggling to find ways of communicating the same ideas in indigenous languages.
Speaker 1:We have to start there. You don't rely on an academy. If you rely on an academy, a lot of people in the academy. They don't know the technical terms of the specific professions. It's the people in the professions that should be finding indigenous terms to use and, of course, not all of them are going to be adequate. But little by little, we'll reach the point, the change, yeah, the point. So the development of Africa should be based on Africa and geared toward developing Africa and not developing the outside world and we're going to have to go through a period of sacrifices where these things can be implemented.
Speaker 1:So now China has emerged as a world power. What did China do for a while, you know? Until the 70s or so, china closed itself in and kept the outside world out and designed ways of overcoming their problems. So the Chinese are operating in Chinese. They have developed an economic system that is operating in Chinese. They have developed an academic system that is operating in Chinese, and they have managed to become very successful. They have developed an academic system that is operating in Chinese, and they have, you know, managed to become very successful, even technologically.
Speaker 1:You know they are in the space venture and all that is done in Chinese.
Speaker 3:There is nothing that you cannot do with your own language and to your point. I think something that really lacks is courage, like the bravery to actually to step outside of, you know, the system that we have been operating in for a really long time and overhaul a complete revolution in terms of how we see the African context. You're talking about China closing itself in, and we need to have that courage to be able to just almost tear out the script and start again. One of the things that bugs me when I go home right, I remember having this conversation with my brother.
Speaker 3:So when you go home, there's a slang term that people will call you, especially if you're coming from diaspora, because you know, coming from the diaspora, you're perceived as being well-off, right? So when they see you, they'll call you murungu, which basically is white person, right? Yes, and yeah, and, and casually, people keep referring to each other in that sense. You know, and before you, before you know, like when I was younger and I was, when I was back home, I didn't think much of it. Now, as I've grown and I've kind of seen the world differently, it is. So I guess it's a jarring feeling when you have another Black person telling you that you know because obviously it really highlights where we are in terms of. You know how early I'd mentioned, you know the, the, the process of you know going from the transition of going from colonization to decolonization. You know how, although on paper it says that we are independent or we're decolonized, but I don't think mentally we are right, because we are still using such phrases and it's acceptable, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and especially if the Murongo is given some privileges in the system, okay, that doesn't help very much and it disadvantages people that have remained inside that could find indigenous solutions to indigenous problems, rather than a person that returns and a Murungu and he thinks or she, they think that the best way to develop the country is to copy a particular European model. That is not going to work because that's going to perpetuate colonization, cultural colonization. People ask me would you run for politics in the Congo? I say no because I don't know the Congo the same way as the people that are in the Congo know, the Congo.
Speaker 1:If anything, I should support people in the Congo that are fighting for change rather than trying to find a position in the Congolese politics. And, for that matter, if the Congolese are really insightful, they should eliminate me as a dangerous person because I represent foreign influence. But I can advise them to think.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think that there's got to be a way where we can create those connections where the diaspora are not disconnected from the the continent and, you know, leveraging off that like we. We talk a lot about brain drain, for example, right, how a lot of really talented, uh, africans then migrate to Europe, america, australia or wherever it is, and they don't have any pathways for those same people to then come back to the continent and share what they've learned.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, that is true, but it is not universally true and in many ways ways based on my experience it has been disappointing. So in the late 1990s, when Mobutu Sese Seko was toppled from the presidency in the Congo, his successor invited Congolese in the diaspora to return and help him rebuild the Congo, and they were given positions in the government. What happened? They didn't behave better than the people they replaced, because a lot of them were focused in building wealth for themselves rather than really helping the nation rebuild itself. So it depends on the personalities of individuals.
Speaker 1:We are not going to generalize things here you know, we depend on people that are committed to the development of African nations and not people that want to privilege their own chances of building wealth, accumulating wealth, building power and not doing much better for the development of the country?
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:So there is something. It's very interesting. We need also some sort of cultural emancipation. So in a way, we are so much trapped in the colonial frame, so much trap in the colonial frame, and maybe because we struggle so much in order to come out of poverty, that when we do it we forget that there are many, many more people that are in worse predicaments than ourselves Okay and we don't challenge the system. I think that African economic systems and political systems need thorough, drastic changes and I definitely agree with you and I definitely agree with you.
Speaker 3:I'm a fan of Chimamanda Adichie and I was watching one of her talks on.
Speaker 3:She was in Germany and she was talking about the repatriation of African art and she quoted one of the German publications which is very interesting, you know, and the headline was something along the lines of where does African art belong, you know, and of course, to the Germans that's a headline that you know makes sense, but I guess, when you're looking at it from an African perspective, you wonder that assumed um or, I guess, like that position of authority or power, you know, for someone who has your property to ask you, you know, where does your property belong, with me or with you?
Speaker 3:You know, there's, there's, there's um. And the reason I bring this up is, like you know, sort of going back to the whole idea about how how we relate with certain words highlights that power dynamic in terms of whether you feel inferior or superior, right, and so, like, I think, like personally for me, I think I don't really know where it started or how it started, but I've been very careful and, like, really mindful of, I mean, not only the words that I use, you know, when I'm speaking about myself, but then also the words people use, because they tend to say a whole lot more from a subconscious level, right. They tend to say a whole lot more about where someone's at and giving that article or that headline as an example, right? So can our relationship with words, or rather, how does our relationship with words, change our self-perception?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that is all part of that cultural revolution that we did Not cultural revolution in terms of abandoning African traditions no, abandoning African traditions, no, but the kind of colonial African set of practices that we have become engaged in. We need to sort things out. What are the things that must be kept and what are the things that must be changed, and we cannot keep blaming Europe for our wars, because we have contributed to probably keeping Africa from developing to where it should be. So if we talk about arts, for instance, I think that it is scandalous that the best of African art should be found in European and Western museums and not in Africa. On the other end, people have asked legitimate questions. When we return this art to Africa, where is it going to be turn this art? To Africa. Where is it going to?
Speaker 1:be. You know, are there places that are well-designed, not necessarily in the European model, can be on any model, but where the art crafts are going to be safe because they are for the public and they shouldn't be the properties of some individuals that keep them in their private houses. They wouldn't be accessible to the public. So there's something that must be changed in the culture of thinking first about oneself rather than thinking about the nation.
Speaker 3:Definitely. Like going back to what you said earlier, right about how it comes down to the individual, right, like is this person really I guess about or for the people? Otherwise, we're just perpetuating the same problems, the same issues that we face.
Speaker 1:Right. At least, when Europeans stole African art, they took it to institutions where this art is accessible to many people. There are people that stole some of it privately but eventually, you know, it's all been. Most of it has been put together in institutions where they can be visited by the public. And if the art is returned to Africa, and if the art are going to say we're going to sell it and make millions out of selling it rather than preserving it for the sake of African tradition being kept in Africa, so, whenever you look at English speakers versus non-English speakers, right?
Speaker 3:One of the things I found interesting once, once I moved here, is that so let's use me as an example, right, myself being Zimbabwe, and then another person here who happens to be German, and we both move here to Australia, so English is a second language for both of us. However, when Europeans are seen as fluent in English, they're given the benefit of the doubt because of, obviously, the fact that it is their second language and the difficulties of learning another language. Of the doubt because of, obviously, the fact that it is their second language and you know the difficulties of learning another language, whilst for me, if I'm in unable to speak english, or at least fluently, somehow it's indicative of my intellect or level of competence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so language becomes a proxy for different kinds of things. Okay, you may have I mean your shortcomings in English, the German and you may be more or less the same, but they are not evaluated the same ways, are going to focus on that, reflect attitudes that they have towards you that are independent of language. Right, and you may be equally competent in your common areas of expertise and so forth. On areas of expertise and so forth, still, you may not be appreciated the same ways because there are other factors that are taken into account that are not explicitly articulated.
Speaker 1:Well, if we return to Africa, unfortunately, we see the same biases that we apply. We see the same biases that we apply An African and a European with the same competencies in a particular domain of expertise and both communicating in English as a foreign language, who do you think is going to be appreciated more and who is going to be paid a better salary than the other? These are ironies of Africa, but they reflect the extent to which we have accepted those biases of non-Europeans toward us, and that is what we are experiencing and brought to. When we started talking and so forth, I said, you know, we learned English and then we thought we were fluent enough in English to operate outside our countries, and then, when we are in places where people speak English as a mother tongue, we are disadvantaged and our English becomes a liability. In certain ways, it is an asset, but also a liability.
Speaker 3:Because, at the end of the day, because at the end of the day, what's more obvious is your race before the competency of, for African diaspora, versus you know, someone who's been, you know, born, raised and lives on the continent, right, because if I went back home and not not personally, right, I'm just using myself in this example you cause, you do find that certain diaspora didn then think that they are better because they've lived in Europe or they live in America or in Australia. So now, even though I have, I face the same discrimination when I'm here, but when I go back home, I do the same thing to my brother or my sister, because I can speak a better version of English than they do, right? So therefore, I then you know that same power dynamic still exists. That's right.
Speaker 1:We perpetuate it. There's so ingrained in the system that we perpetuate it and we use it against each other.
Speaker 3:Yes, and we don't realize it. Yeah, again, really appreciate your, your time and you know you sharing some of your thoughts on this, because I think we've obviously touched on a lot of different elements. Um, and I hope at the very least it allows people to reframe how they think or see the African context.
Speaker 1:Yes, Well, I'm glad you are doing it and I'm grateful that you thought of me, and so it was a pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 3:And for anyone who would want to you know, check out some of your work or whatever you may be doing, is there some way where people can reach you?
Speaker 1:Well, usually now it's very easy. You go to Google Scholar Search and you type Sally Kokomu Fuene and a lot of things will come up and a lot of things will come up.
Speaker 1:Researchgate is what makes most of my publications public, so I have uploaded my work there and people can download papers. At ResearchGate and their tool, salicoco Mufene, my name will come up with a list of publications or papers that I have posted. Yeah, but otherwise Google Search, google Scholar Search, is a nice way to start if you don't have a subscription to ResearchGate or Academia EDU.
Speaker 3:Okay, if you've heard, you've heard. So Google Scholar and you'll find what you need to Thank you for coming through and to the listener, thank you for pressing play and, as always, stay black. I hope this was a learning experience to adopt and change the way you think and live. The goal is for us, and that includes you, to be able to see ourselves for who we are, so we can accept the person in the mirror and begin to value ourselves.
Speaker 3:Whether you agreed, opposed or were offended by some of the content, I encourage you to engage with me so we can have positive discussions. Whether you agreed, opposed or were offended by some of the content, I encourage you to engage with me so we can have positive discussions in trying to understand each other. So send your comments, reviews or feedback to our Instagram, blackfor30, or an email to admin at blackfor30.com. If you believe someone would benefit from this episode, please share it. When you get to the end of this recording, please subscribe to black for 30, wherever you get your podcast. Thank you for your time and I wish for you to join me again.
