This is another prompt from Moye, but was very apt to describe what happened last week in a virtual meeting.
We sit at the end of a wireless connection, waiting for something interesting to happen in the TEAMS meeting. So far, it has definitely been a Focus Group. We are Focused on understanding Terminology. But it has not been a discussion. There are over 40 people attending the meeting, and only 5 are speaking up. They speak up in English, in response to the clipped RP of the person facilitating the FGD. He has admitted that he speaks no Indigenous languages, and that he has experience only in working with Maths terminology. He has also, despite using technology quite capably, shown himself incapable of working with questions or comments in the chat. So there’s a whole subtext of things happening in the background of the meeting, and he only gets to them by the end of the meeting. By which time the moment has passed, and the comments sit out of context. Thus ends Meeting 1.
But the comments get bolder, as a consequence. In Meeting 2, he begins to ask what the difference is between a term list and a dictionary, and he keeps mentioning ‘language’. My friend Pule, a fellow multilingual anarchist, asks in the chat ‘What do you mean by ‘language’, Prof?’. There is no answer. Then there are a flurry of other questions. And Statements. The Statements begin politely, but then end up going directly to the point: ‘Prof, why are you conducting this only in English?’ and ‘Prof, you’re not getting engagement because you are talking Big English here, and many of the people in the group do not speak it as a first or even second language’. I get kicked off the meeting, for some reason. Ngenhlanhla, apparently.
Ngakho-ke I text my friend, telling him ukuthi, “Vele, angisakwazi ukungena emhlanganweni ngenxa yeNetwork. Nami ngivalelwe ngaphandle”. Then I manage to connect, and say “ngilapha, kodwa ngiyangena ngiphume”. Finally, in response to the bullshit being spoken, I say “hhayi, ngikhathele”. His response is “yazi umphathisihlalo athi ‘Please can you restrict your comment to English’ ngavela ngathi “Hhayi no chair that’s a red card”. I reply by saying “kungani sithweswe ngamaNgisi?”.
But when I return ngokuphelele I am greeted by one of the group members speaking isiZulu, and the numerous language practitioners in the group offer translations of what was said. We are jubilant. This is Praxis. This is Dissent, made clear. You cannot, you must not, limit the range of our expression because you cannot follow it. We cannot follow you, in your coloniser’s discourse and your Big English. So fuck off. Give us words that we can understand, and concepts that we can debate and understand, or else this Focus Group is just focusing on perpetuating the problem. The problem of ubukoloni, of using the status quo as an argument for stagnation and a lack of revolution.
Revolt. Vuka. Dissent. Phika. Cause discomfort. Bazwisise. Because without them feeling your discomfort, they will not know the oppression that you have felt.
Of course, when the call came for the third focus group, I was not able to attend in full. I wonder if the Praxis continued. I hope that it did. It is, after all, the only way to make any sort of change. The frustrating thing is that the response of so many people is to complain about how ‘everyone should just speak English because it’s the lingua franca’, completely oblivious to the fact that the very term Lingua Franca implies a lack of critical awareness, a lapse into the norm because to change and be truly multilingual is to abandon one’s comfort zone and embark on a journey where one might be forced to admit one’s own inadequacies. After all, uma thina sonke sizidayisa ngezinga lethu lokukhumsha, siphinde sizidicelele phansi uma kukhulunywa noma kuthethwa ngesintu, umthelela usobala: sizozama njalo ukufana nalabo abasicindezelayo.
Phansi nesilungu, phezu nesintu! Amandla! A luta continua!
Le, yi-praxis. ngumsebenzi. yisenzo. yindlela esizonqoba ngayo. Uma kunokuthusayo, yilapho kunomsebenzi odingakalayo. Akukho lapho kufanele khona ukuthi sisebenzise isilungu kuphela. Sihlala kwaNtu. Asisahlali kwaMlungu. Vele.
uMabhengwane 