Who Delivers the Olive Leaf: the Dove or the Raven? – Part I

"So, it came to pass, at the end of the forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he has made. Then he sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth..... And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark. Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth." (Genesis 8: 6-7,10-11)

Whenever I read some one suggesting English or Arabic for the national language of Eritrea, the story of the big flood during Noah's times comes into my mind. Here we are a small population living in a country the size of New England (USA) facing the threat of being swallowed by two mighty cultures- the West and the Arab world. We are people who sacrificed a lot to secure our national sovereignty and have the added burden of preserving our cultural heritage. And the pressure on us is so great that we often are tempted to compromise our Eritreaness. But our resilience has been our asset so far.

This dilemma is not limited to us. The whole African people, throughout the centuries, have been subjected to foreign dominance. Occupiers, who neither have the best interest of our people at heart nor the respect for our skin color, race and cultural heritage, have been using dubious techniques to "civilize" and acculturate us. They considered us as sub humans that need to be tamed. To them, our languages were no better than the languages of the primates. Even the Amharas who are Africans like us use to call our language, "the language of the birds" (Ywef QuanQa) when they use to rule our land. In early periods African chiefs prostrated to alien intruders and cooperated with them and threw African heritage and languages to the back burner. They took bribes and cheap gifts from colonizers and slave traders and learned how to talk and walk like them. They considered European or Arab cultures and values as their modus operandi. The Arabs, who were the engine of slave trade, kidnapped millions of able bodied Africans and sold them in the open slave market. While doing so they also spread their language and religion in Africa. Some hybrid languages such as Swahili evolved replacing most of the indigenous languages in Eastern and South Eastern Africa. Swahili became the most widely spoken language in Africa. In Southern Africa, the British and the Dutch disintegrated the mighty Zulu nation and ruled under Apartheid for centuries. Afrikaans, a hybrid of English and Dutch became the lingua franca of Apartheid South Africa.

The African liberation movements of the mid to late 20Th century waged wars to dispel foreign dominance and reestablish the dignity, rights and privileges of Africans in their own homelands. Unfortunately, the colonial powers and slave traders have left their strong foot prints in Africa, so much so that many African countries continued to honor their legacies. So we entered the era of neo-colonial post Independent Africa where the former colonizers and slave traders still, directly or indirectly, have the power to engineer African economic, political, social and linguistic affairs in spite of the fact that many African countries have been officially declared independent nations by a world body of nations. The spill over of Western colonialism and Arab expansionism still haunts Africa. And it is from this backdrop that we Eritreans need to examine our options carefully when it comes to the official language issue.

There are many Eritrean political pundits, with dubious motives, who strongly argue that English or Arabic should be the official or working language in Eritrea. These protagonists of foreign languages often state that our local languages such as Tygrina and Tigre lack the level of sophistication required to carry out education programs, diplomacy, court deliberations, business and technology, music appreciation and liberal art development and other official government business. They tell us that we would be better served to adopt English or Arabic instead of struggling with Tygrina, Tigre or any other local language. Some pundits carry these arguments even further by saying that denying our people the right to speak and write in English or Arabic is a gross human rights violation. There are still others who think of themselves as Arabs first and Eritreans second and who are in the business of downgrading and belittling Geez, Tygrina, Tigre and consider speaking in English or Arabic as the only viable and fashionable alternative. Most of these pundits got their education either in Western Universities or in North African or the Middle Eastern institutes of higher learning. They have swallowed Western or Arab values like a pill with no questions asked and have been subjected to decades of sub acculturation into an alien value system. But their attitude towards their fellow Africans and their presumption of knowledge is none different than the European or Arabian scouts who rummaged through the African continent before the colonial armies and slave traders arrived with their guns and cannons to colonize and kidnap Africa peoples.

The Internet is replete with writings of the above nature. I recently read an article written by Omar Jabir, entitled Arabic in Eritrea - Its History and Its Realty III (awate.com - Sep 14, 2009). Jabir points out how Arabic was used as a lingua franca in Eritrea when the Egyptian armies occupied Massawa in 1865 and later expanding to the Keren and Senhit regions, during the reign of the Turkish caliphate. He also states how later intruders like the Portuguese and Italians and the British followed the precedent created by the brutal Egyptian and the Ottoman Turk Sultans and used Arabic to conduct their official business. The era of Ottoman Turkish rule of Eritrea is often referred to as "GezAt Turki" and has no parallel in its cruelty in Eritrea's occupation-era history. Omar marvels this era and he wants to use this historical precedence as a justification for adopting Arabic as the national language of Eritrea. Another writer who advocates for English maintains that since English has become the language of the Internet and business and commerce, it should be the national language of Eritrea. The expediency for English is always there for any body that can use it. Whether it is Communist China, Japan, Taiwan or even Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran -every body uses English for expediency. But no nation seems to be so carried away by expediency as to adopt English or Arabic as an official language.

Well, there seems to be a big disconnect between liberationist Eritreans and acculturated pundits in the way they see the language issue in Eritrea. For liberationists, the Arabs, Egyptians, The Ottoman Turks, The Italians, the British and later the Ethiopians and their corresponding languages are cruel reminders of how these ominous occupiers imposed their will on the Eritrean people by the barrels of their guns. The whole idea of liberation, as we know it during the 30-year struggle and now, is not limited to ejecting colonial armies from Eritrean territories, but also aims at reinstating Eritrean dignity and identity. It encompasses the grand mission of reviving Eritrean culture, language, norms and national spirit. It aims at freeing the people psychologically from colonial mentality. The injustices inflicted on our people by former colonizers and slave traders are part of our dark historical past and we must recuperate from that tragedy by starting to value our languages and cultures and committing ourselves to develop them.

We the Eritrean people may be poor economically, but we are not destitute when it comes to languages and heritage. Among many local dialects we have two sisterly languages of Tygrina and Tigre that emanated from Geez - a language that probably predates Arabic and English. More than 80% of our population speaks these two almost identical south Semitic languages. Our pundits were trying to force us into believing that the Tygrinas and Tigres are not related ethnically and linguistically. They attempted to create antagonism between the two brotherly people. There can't be anything far from the truth than this. The Tygrinas and Tigres belong to the same ethno-linguistic baseline. We have the Geez script and vocabulary and an archive of thousands of years to refer to, to develop our local languages. This is part and parcel of our liberation efforts. Any one who devalues our languages is no better than the arrogant colonizers we have had to deal with during our dark colonial past. Historical and cultural heritages are very important considerations in making a determination on language policies.

South Africa is a multilingual country. Besides the eleven officially recognized languages, scores of others - African, European, Asian and more - are spoken here, as the country lies at the crossroads of southern Africa. The country's Constitution guarantees equal status to eleven official languages to cater for the country's diverse peoples and their cultures. Eritrea should follow the example of South Africa to accommodate its people.

However, this does not mean that there are no other ramifications for considering to find an appropriate and practical use of Arabic or English in Eritrea other than those unworthy conjectures that were being posted by several shadowy opinion leaders that have been spreading their venom in some websites these last few weeks. I tend to believe that these detractors are like our biblical raven and will not deliver the olive leaf. We should give up on them and be pessimistically cautious of their dangerous maneuvers. Their approach is divisive and polarizing to say the least. So, we need to approach the issue from a different shade of light. To do that we need to first establish an unwavering pledge to a continued existence of an unadulterated and uncompromising Eritreaness and love and compassion for one another regardless of our religious and ethnic origins. We have a big task ahead of us. In spite of our formal Independence in 1991, we have not still earned our full liberty. And most important national policies, including that of languages, have not been formulated by engaging our people in a democratic fashion. The fight for the honor we dreamed of when the first bullet was fired by Idris Awate that sparked the three decades of struggle for Independence should continue until full liberty is guaranteed under the rule of law and participatory democracy. We should keep sending the dove to bring us the olive leaf. We need somebody to tell the Eritrean people that the flood has subsided and we can descend from the ark to lead a peaceful and prosperous life. We have to do that because the ravens are wondering in hotel lobbies of foreign capitals and the cyber world too and will never come back to us with the good news.