This is not a story.
When I last wrote about Somalia, I mentioned they had retained their language having been colonized by France, Britain, Italy and some parts under Ethiopian domination. You see on the one hand, I think we, as Africans ( I must admit here the difficulty of having a precise definition of who an African is) have to decolonize the mind. Suggestions have been made to decolonize the social sciences and language education (pdf). There is need for a common language and it doesn’t have to be English which my professor thinks is not rich and I tend to agree because I swear, there were occasions in Somalia I felt so frustrated.
Nabokov in Lolita broaches a very *delicate* topic in sexuality- pedophilia. I am not going to discuss Nabokov’s book, I suggest you read it for yourself. The reason I bring it up is because of another book, this time by Mark Greif; Against Everything where he argues the sex revolution of the 60s and 70s did not liberate sex but led to a liberalization of sex. He argues we will be able to talk about sex liberation only when it is thought of as we would a coffee date. On the subject of pedophilia he asks why the allure in youth when all the adults who engage in it were once youth?
In the same book by Greif talking about Octomom, he makes some very interesting critique of the media in the US of A but this can apply at home here too. He says when the financial meltdown happened in 2008-09, the media concentrated on a woman-Nadya and a Jew- Maddoff but not the bank and insurance execs who swindled peoples savings while these were known to them. The same seems to be happening here with our faux outrage on corruption. The media’s fingers seems to be tied. They can’t bring themselves to type the name of the banks or name the individuals involved in these banks but splash pictures of hapless conduits. For shame, the mainstream media. You are complicit in the crimes committed by governments and their operatives.
To be continued…..
Are you talking about a common language for all of Africa? That would be astonishing, and astonishingly rich.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There are a billion speakers of mandarin. There are just 1 billion Africans. We can make all of them speak Dholuo
LikeLiked by 2 people
And I even love the name!
LikeLike
“For shame, the mainstream media. You are complicit in the crimes committed by governments and their operatives.” YES! That’s precisely what’s going on. We currently have several false narratives in play by the world’s mainstream media, and they are all intent on bending our minds towards war and making it appear inevitable and therefore acceptable. And as for the inadequacies of English – yes again. Though I have to say it’s also becoming greatly impoverished by our tendency to ever use soap-opera, social-media-speak and reducing communications to txts. But a new common language – with words that expand our minds instead of polarising our thought processes.
LikeLiked by 4 people
When you have a moment, have a look at this, it came out recently: https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/071470-000-A/propaganda-engineering-consent/
LikeLiked by 2 people
Just had a quick look – the engineering of consent – horrifying. Will definitely get back to this when I’ve planted out the cauliflowers. Many thanks for the link.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And now it all becomes clear: the Creel Committee construct of Roosevelt has presumably been succeeded by the likes of the Bilderberg Group (wider brief?) meeting in Turin this week https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group Notice today’s MSM – Telegraph, Independent etc – all putting out little vids aiming to ridicule the conspiracy theories associated with this little social gathering. Edward Bernays still in action.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Video can’t play in my location. This is what we call discrimination 😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
This one will give you an idea of what Bernays did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44I3pMouCnM
LikeLike
Thanks for this.
LikeLike
There is no singular “English”, though. That is one of its benefits…its hybridization, its pidgeonisaztion, its flexibility. Common use of English may reflect colonial and domination realities, but attempts to mandate alternatives can be as coercive. Calls for a single African language seems chimerical in a continent so divided by culture and tribe and nation state and religion.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The desire for unity is both a panacea and an illusion. In my understanding of psychology and sociology, cultural and social unity is fleeting at best as well as increasingly problematic in direct proportion to population size. In other words, the greater the number of people, the greater the difficulty in getting them to cooperate with each other.
Strictly from a biological perspective, humans have evolved to function best within small tribal structures. It is our technological advancement – particularly through the agricultural, industrial, and informational revolutions – which has outpaced our evolutionary progress. Therein lays the dilemma. Technology has enabled our population explosion, but our organizational abilities have proved inadequate to keep up.
Look at our history. Empires have risen and fallen. None have endured more than a few centuries. The U.S. is perhaps the empire which initially had the most cultural cohesion – a single language and a similar heritage. Yet, after barely two hundred years, it is fracturing internally before our very eyes. Africa, with its tremendous cultural diversity, would seem much more difficult to unify.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I am not even sure we should pine for such unity. does any one system/religion/ideology/cultural traditional have the “right answer”?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not at all.
A single business language does not have to interfere with culture. We have muslims who speak Arabic but still transact in English. I see no difference.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I really appreciate how you managed to segue from colonialism into sexual freedom right before my eyes and I never realized that it was happening. You are a remarkable wizard, my African brother, with a strong tendency towards illusionist!
Muck love and naked hugs!
LikeLike
I try to tell so many stories at once. I need to have my head in one place😂
LikeLiked by 1 person
No! You need to continue doing what you do best: making us all think! Don’t change my Kenyan brother, I love you just the way you are! Much love and many naked hugs!
LikeLike
I love Lolita and the book which you discuss sounds really interesting. I myself, have always been put off by Octomom especially after her venture into pornography, but the book sounds enticing.
LikeLike
She ventured into porn? I didn’t know that. I found against everything quite interesting
LikeLike
[…] via Random things — Random thoughts […]
LikeLike