DEFYING BABEL
Some have argued: How can we be possibly be characterized as one country when we don't have a common official language?
To such agile intellects, with the thousands of tongues and myriads of cultural practicises that accompany them, we are asking for a bit too much with all this talk about Africa our one country. Language reflects the culture of a people often better than most other tangible aspects of a people's ways of life. Well if they should tax their minds a little more, they would that thread of gold that runs through us all.
We are and continue to be addressed as Africans wherever we find ourselves on the global arena. This cannot be wished away; it should rather be our premise.
Our school curricula should be designed to accelerate this move by, stressing more on what we have in common. By emphasizing our commonality rather than our differences, and with a little more studying of the history, we could even begin to see the similarities-however remotely-in our vocabulary.
Then the nagging question resurfaces: How do we do it without a clear cut common language? First, let's remember that it's the will to faithfully function as One that must be the overriding factor. Others have done it without a common language. The EU has started off with a common currency. And money sure has a curious way of uniting people. But we need to do some verbal communication (without the translators)to artculate issues if not to share some heart.
For goodness sake, languages aren't very hard to learn if you really want to. Here we are writing in English. Why can't we learn another one that's closer to our soul. For our purposes, some of us can shed a little, distance ourselves from the turf-protection, and learn some basic Swahili. Some Hausa may also come in handy as it seems the majority of our people speak one or both.
It is also clear that in the interim, the ever colorful and dynamic pidgin as a lingua franca has kept us communicating in style, fusing vocabs from other dialects where appropriate. The Nigerian example is worthy of note. A fair majority of the vary diverse peoples of our continent's most populous natin across the board. O what intriguing flavors we hear when they open their mouths and utter. Who can tell how pidgin has kept out worse social conflict than we've seen.
We will find common ground by starting of with more positive verbal interaction. As this glues us together, we will harmonize with greater ease, our voices as we defy the gravity of the disadvantageous world economic and political order by speaking strong as one.
It's cliche now to say Africa's the richest land. Not to mention our human resources. Imagine for a second what we'll become with a population of more than three times that of USA communicating and working effectively together. Some have been literally killed for advocating this that we've just discussed. But unfortunately for those who were ill at ease with their position back then, these voices have not been silenced. We're back again saying the same thing till we see it become a reality.
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AFRICA OUR ONE COUNTRY
AFRICA OUR ONE COUNTRY
AFRICA OUR ONE COUNTRY