Foreign Importations

In Africa, Sierra Leone in particular where I was born and bred, and have lived my whole life, we import virtually everything. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the language we speak, the civilization we practice and you name them. I am afraid, soon we will begin to import the water we drink and the air we breathe. Indeed, is this a mark of greatness, a blessing or laziness? I think this is laziness to the utmost.

Yes, if we cannot produce cars, computers, generators and other devices necessary for our well being, fine, and simple enough – we are just not intelligent enough to do so. But the question that comes to mind here again is, have we ever tried? Perhaps some amount of laziness may be playing around here also. 

However, the importations of those things that demand such a high level of intelligence to produce often do not border me much. Perhaps in the future we will give birth to geniuses who will one day begin to produce such things. But simple things like the importation of the language we speak, the food we eat borders me a lot. Why on earth do we need to import the language we speak, something natural, I keep on asking myself – this is laziness to the highest degree. 

No, having taken a second thought on the issue, this is not only laziness, but backed by some amount of folly. Who said we did not have languages? We have, in fact more than we really need. But yet laziness makes us frown upon all of the many languages we have and chose to import a foreign one – the English language. And our neighbors? – The French language. 

We are very proud speaking these imported and foreign languages. One is not considered civilized if he cannot speak any of these languages. One is not considered intelligent if he cannot speak English fluently, even if one is not a linguist, one should speak it very fluently. Woe betides you if you make a simple mistake in English; people will begin to question your education. However, you are safe if you made a mistake in Krio, Themne, Mende or Limba, your very mother’s tongue – what an irony?

I wonder why our independent fighters fought to drive the colonial masters out of our countries but never asked them to go away with their languages (the Indians somehow did). Or was it that they felt these languages were good enough for us? 

Yes, learning and speaking the English language give us (Sierra Leoneans) an advantage. It is the language of commerce, one of the UN official languages and the world most spoken language. But are there disadvantages for us? Do the advantages outweighs the disadvantages or vise versa? These are some of the questions we should be asking ourselves. I strongly believe that the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages.

First, the language of tuition greatly affects the level of literacy in a state. The language of tuition has enormously affected the level of literacy in our country. English being the language of tuition, as pupils we are therefore faced with two great tasks. 1) Learning to read and write and 2) learning a foreign language (which 90% of the pupils will end up not speaking, writing or understanding well like the native English). He is always struggling, trying to strike a compromise between the mother tongue (L1) and the other language. Once, a British English lecturer gave his students some scripts by William Shakespeare to read. A test was set for them later and both his Indians students and English students passed the test. A month later, he asked the Indian students to narrate what they have learned from the scripts and none could do, but the English students did. Lesson learned. The Indians read and memorized everything for the exams and forgot everything later on. The English students learned and retained everything. Blessed are the Indians, for immediately after gaining independent, they adopted both Hindi and English as their official languages and then went further by translating all the English books then in the country in to Hindi. The example of the Indian students above is exactly what is happening in Sierra Leone. Many have dropped out of schools because they could not pass English language at the G.C.E O’Levels. And many others could not pass simple reading subjects like history, governments, literature, etc because they were taught in a foreign language. Do you blame them? No, they were taught in an alien language and in fact even some of their instructors are handicap in the English language – they cannot read Encyclopedia Britannica (for example) and comprehend fully well. Many will need the aid of a sober dictionary in order to open the work of a typical English writer. I cannot go on and on convincing you that the language of tuition is a factor for the low level of literacy. If Themne was the language of tuition, my illiterate mum had one task – learning to read and write – she is already fluent in her native Themne.

Our colonial language prevents a healthy and vibrant parliament. It is true to all of us that many parliamentarians will never say a word in parliament except that “I concur”. Come outside of parliament and see how vibrant they are and the plethora of ideas they have and can share – they are outside of parliament in a free world where they can speak their own native language – their Mende, Themne, Krio or Limba. What a great lose, we cannot tap this man’s knowledge. 

Many of our parliamentarians, ministers, diplomas, permanent secretaries and so on cannot read soon after they live school and not to talk about they writing. Well, many should have liked to but cannot grapple with the challenges of foreign words, expressions and idioms. Hence reading becomes a work rather than a pleasurable thing. And what if our leaders cannot read and learn from the ideas of others in a global village like this? Are we not losing because of our boss’s language? Blessed are the Senegalese, now they can speak Wolof in their own parliament. 

More so, this colonial thing if not well controlled (as it is with us now) is like a sharp knife place among our native languages. The colonial master met us speaking so many languages, and they knew it was not good for us but did nothing about it; rather, they amalgamated different tribes into nation states and imposed their languages on the people. Why had they not imposed one native language as the language of tuition, developed it both in terms of words and expressions and letting the other languages to die a natural death? Certainly, that would have united us, that thing called voting on tribal lines would have not existed, the tribal conflict in Rwanda and Burundi would have not occurred. And above all, they will need to learn our languages at anytime they wanted to come to these countries and that should not be. Look at what happened to me and probable to you too. I went to neighboring Guinea as a refugee and my dad was a Fullah, though I could not speak Fullah and I felt alien in my immediate neighboring country. But I saw several French guys and they were at home in a country over 2,000 miles away from France – their fore-fathers had ever since done it for them. Then I saw the reason why the French never encouraged the development of a language they found in Cameroon. This language had it own special alphabets and it was taught in their native schools. But when the French came, the abolished the teaching of this language and imposed the teaching of French in Cameroonian schools – their children will have a need to come to Cameroon! But back home, they made a deliberate effort, during the Third Republic to kill all other languages for the sake of national unity. In schools, pupils were encouraged to speak only French and French was the only language of tuition. In this way, all other language gradually faded away. They see themselves as one people – French and there is a sense of nationhood in them. 

You see how many educated Sierra Leoneans we have and yet we produce very few books? This is because we write in English. Devote all your time, energy and resources and produce a book. Majority of the educated Sierra Leoneans will not buy it. The culture of reading is not there. And it won’t be there for reading in a foreign language is like a hard work. And if we cannot read, we are losing the vast knowledge others are generating and trying to share with the rest of mankind. And if we cannot write? We are definitely not generating our own ideas which mean we have no knowledge of our own to transmit to future generations.

Let’s give the English language a second position in our country and we shall be far in developments. Though we cannot absolutely do away with it, because of the prominence it has gained in the world but we shall be better if we make it the second official language. And teaching it (and indeed any other foreign language) in our schools should be optional, let it be the choice of the pupil. Let us use one of our local languages as the official language and the language of tuition in our schools. Which language to choose will be a bone of contention I am aware but with debates, meaningful deliberations, we shall certainly reach an amicable compromise. 

If we do, in the next twenty years to come, the literacy rate will increase to sixty or more percents. We shall have a society of writers and readers and consequently, we shall have a well informed and enlightened society. We shall have a very vibrant and articulating parliament. People shall no longer vote on tribal lines and people shall gain offices not base on tribal lines but on merits. We shall see ourselves as a nation and that thing which occurred in Burundi, Rwanda and quite often in Nigeria will never occur in Sierra Leone. But all these can only occur if the imported guy is asked to play a secondary role rather than a primary one.

Be yourself!