Media Development Vol. XLVI 4/1999
Published four times a year by the World 33 What fate awaits the world’s languages? Association for Christian Communication Tove Skutnabb-Kangas 357 Kennington Lane London SE11 5QY England Telephone +44 (0)20 7582 9139 Fax +44 (0)20 7735 0340 38 First public hearing on languages and E-mail: [email protected] human rights http://www.wacc.org.uk
Editors Pradip N. Thomas 14 Language and the right to communicate Philip Lee Cees J. Hamelink
Editorial consultants Clifford G. Christians, Professor, University of 18 Rehabilitating language Illinois, Urbana, USA. Philip Lee Marlene Cuthbert, Professor Emeritus, University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada Regina Festa, Director, Workers’ Television, São Paulo, Brazil. 22 Selective protection: Guarding language in South Africa Cees J. Hamelink, Professor, University of Amsterdam, David Wanless Amsterdam, Netherlands. Karol Jakubowicz, Lecturer, Institute of Journalism, Warsaw, Poland. Kong Zhiqiang, Professor, Fudan University, 25 F rom our mothers’ arm s Shanghai, China. Linda Slough Fernando Reyes Matta, Director, Instituto Latinoamericano de Estudios Transnacionales, Santiago, Chile. Michèle Mattelart, Professor, University of Paris, France. 28 Tok Pisin and Tok Ples as languages of identification in Emile G. McAnany, Professor, University of Texas, Papua New Guinea Austin, USA. Philip Cass Breda Pavli˘c, Unesco, Paris. Usha V. Reddi, Professor, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. Robert A. White, Director, Centro 34 In the event . . . Interdisciplinare sulla Comunicazione Sociale, Gregorian University, Rome, Italy. 37 On the screen . . . Subscriptions Individual subscribers world-wide £20 or US$ 30. Libraries and institutions in North America and Europe £40 or US$ 60. 39 Web wars and interfaith futures in India Libraries and institutions elsewhere in the world Pradip N. Thomas £27 or US$ 40.
WACC personal and corporate members receive 47 War in Bosnia – moving images Media Development as part of membership Dina Iordanova privileges. The contents of Media Development may be reproduced only with permission.
Opinions expressed in this journal are not necessarily those of the editors nor of the WACC.
Cover design John Bury
Printed by Battley Brothers Ltd 37 Old Town, Clapham London SW4 0JN In the next issue Communication and the globalisation of poverty’ will be the theme of the first ISSN 0143-5558 issue of Media Development in the 21st century. It will focus on poverty as an all-pervasive factor in global politics – one which needs urgent attention. denied their prior humanity or, worse, corporate endeavour. denied them the right to their own The Argentinian novelist Ernesto Editorial language. To many people, whose Sabato refuted this individualism lands were expropriated, children when the millennium of the Spanish forcibly taken away and environments language, supposedly founded by a destroyed, the death of their language Spanish monk from the monastry of was the final insult – it severed San Millan, was celebrated in 1978. historical memories and destroyed His words capture the dynamism their humanity. inherent in all languages, its corporate One of the most poignant moments at Unfortunately, linguicide is not only basis, its changeable qualities and the the WACC/PCC ‘Public Hearing on a historical fact but it is also a contem- fact that dominant languages too are Languages and Human Rights’, held at porary reality. Hundreds of languages liable to become a historical footnote. The Hague, 1-3 May 1999, was a continue to be made redundant by fiat ‘Since Spanish is a living language, testimony from a young Kurdish and decree, by destructive modernisa- not an invented one, we must refuse participant. He did not know his own tion and monocultural globalisation, the good monk the honour of having language and as a result he had never by short-sighted educational policies, invented it. All he did was to put into been able to communicate with his by assimilative cultural politics and writing some words of a dialect that grandmother in their native tongue. Darwinian designs. Unesco, along had developed over the centuries in This seemingly innocuous statement with other organisations committed to the clumsy and poorly articulated utter- was an extraordinary testimony to the linguistic rights, has documented the ances of illiterate peasants, who had emotional, cultural, and human costs steady disappearance of languages no need to read Cicero in order to of linguicide – the death of language. in many parts of the world. Oral raise their pigs, shout for food, scold It brought into sharp focus the persecu- traditions have been the worst hit, but their wives or berate their children. It tion of languages, in this case Kurdish, ‘literate’ traditions too are in decline. is impossible to know how long it took by the Turkish state and its courts, and And many others, such as sign to “corrupt Latin”, as one purist has the language predicament of a languages that are vitally important to put it – but then Latin had already migrant, who has been forced to significant minorities like the deaf, are been corrupted by the Roman soldiers, reckon with the power dynamics of not recognised and treated as official and would continue to be so through a host language in an environment languages on a par with spoken the development of other tongues. The characterised by the general devalua- language or given adequate logistical same point could be made about the tion of all ‘minority’ languages. In that or financial support essential for their languages of other nations once sense he was doubly oppressed – by a development. invaded by so-called “barbarians” state that denied him his mother Dominant language strains at times and now celebrated for their culture.’* tongue and by an adopted state that tied to religion and nationality con- If there is a valid argument against continued the process of shaping him tinue to make inroads into an already neo-liberalism, it is that we cannot into an émigré without a real home. fragile language environment. Islami- place a price tag on all those The issue of language rights is sation in North Africa has led to the aspects that are basic to the survival of pecial and unique because language ascendance of Arabic and to the mar- humanity. The commoditisation of the is fundamental to human identity and ginalisation of indigenous language environment and ways of life has led integral to what it means to be human. groups such as that belonging to the to the investiture of value on all that Human beings are creators of culture Amazigh (Berbers). The influence of can be bought and sold on the market because of language. Language helps Hindi has cut into large swathes of and to the divestiture of value on life’s us to name our world and in that indigenous, tribal India, and English, intangibles such as the need for process we become a part of the by virtue of being the basis for inter- language rights and language world. As Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and national popular culture, science diversity. If there is a valid basis for the others have noted, there are enduring and technology continues to make its right to communicate and communica- links between linguistic diversity hegemonic presence felt. tion, it is surely the recognition that and bio-diversity. In addition, it is Many believe that the death of that right can only be fulfilled in the language that allows us to apprehend language is an entirely natural phe- specificity and locality of languages worlds that are beyond the frame of nomenon, that only those languages and not in their absence. I common experience. Remove the right that are sufficiently conversant with the to language and all that is left is a project of neo-liberalism are destined * Sabato, E., ‘Latin America: A mere husk, a shadow, a self without to survive into the next millennium. Different Way’ (pp.52-55), The real substance. Others individualise and essentialise Unesco Courier, July/Aug., 1992. The colonial enterprise – the Span- language to such an extent that they ish in Latin America and the English are in danger of losing sight of the fact settlers in Australia, for example – did that the origins of language are not as exactly that. They created puppets out important as the fact that language is of those who were once a people by for ever inventing itself in the here educating them in a language that and now and that this is always a
2 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 ow many languages are there in the world? languages each (the Philippines, Russia, USA, Malaysia, Most linguists say around 6-7,000. The China, Sudan, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Chad, Vanuatu, The H Central African Republic, Myanmar/Burma and Nepal), most useful source is still The Ethnologue, edited we see that 22 megadiversity countries have around 75% by Barbara Grimes from the Summer Institute of the world’s languages. More than 80% of the world’s of Linguistics, a missionary organisation – languages are endemic: they exist in one country only. see
Tove Skutnabb-Kangas Table 1: 208 languages with more than 1 million native users Achinese, Afrikaans, Akan, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Assamese, Aymara, Azerbaijani, Bai, Balinese, Baluchi, Bambara, Bashkir, Batak, Bemba, Bengali, languages – we still know too little about sign Berber, Bete, Beti, Bhili, Bhojpuri, Bikol, Buginese, Bulgar- languages even if the literature is growing fast. ian, Burmese, Buyi, Byelorussian, Catalan, Cebuano, Chinese, Chokwe, Chuvash, Congo, Czech, Danish, Dinka, Dong, Dutch, Edo-Bini, Efil-Ibibio, English, Estonian, It is impossible to ‘know’ the number of (oral and sign) Ewe, Finnish, Fon, French, Ful, Galician, Ganda, languages precisely, because there are no research-based Garhwali, Georgian, German, Gisu, Gondi, Greek, definitions about the difference between language and Guaraní, Gujarati, Gurma, Hadiyya, Haitian, Hani, dialect. On linguistic grounds Danish, Swedish and Hausa, Haya, Hebrew, Hehe, Hiligaynon, Hindi, Ho, Norwegian could be seen as one language, with several Hungarian, Igbo, Ijo, Iloko, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, dialects: they are structurally similar, and the speakers can Javanese, Kamba, Kannada, Kanuri, Karen, Kashmiri, understand much of what the others say, or at least what Kazakh, Khmer, Kirghiz, Kisii, Konkani, Korean, Kumauni, they write. A political definition is the only possible one: A Kurdish, Kurukh, Kuyu, Lao, Latvian, Li, Lingala, language is a dialect with an army and with state borders. Lithuanian, Low German, Luba, Luhya, Luo, Macassar, Or: a language is the dialect of the elites. Macedonian, Madurese, Magahi, Maguindanao, Maithili, Makonde, Makua, Malagasy, Malay, Malayalam, Where are the languages of the world? Malinke, Manipuri, Marathi, Marwari, Mbundu, Mende, Europe is poor – we have only some 3% of the world’s Miao, Minangkabau, Mongolian, Mongo-Nkundu, languages. North, Central and South America have Mordva, More, Mundari, Nahuatl, Nandi, Nandi-Kipsigis, around 1,000 oral languages, 15%; Africa around 30%; Ndebele, Nepali, Nkore-Kiga, Norwegian, Nuer, Asia a bit over 30%; and the Pacific somewhat under Nupe, Nyamwezi, Nyanja, Occitan, Oriya, Oromo, 20%. Two countries, Papua New Guinea with over 850 Pampangan, Pangasinan, Panjabi, Pashto, Pedi, Persian, languages and Indonesia with around 670, have together Polish, Portuguese, Quechua, Romani, Romanian, Ronga- a quarter of the world’s languages. When we add those Tsonga, Russian, Rwanda-Rundi, Santali, Sasak, Senufo, seven countries which have more than 200 languages Serbo-Croatian, Serer, Shan, Shona, Sindhi, Sinhalese, each (Nigeria 410, India 380, Cameroon 270, Australia Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Songe, Songhai, Sotho, 250, Mexico 240, Zaire 210, Brazil 210), we get up to Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swazi, Swedish, Tagalog, almost 3.500 languages, i.e. 9 countries have more than Tajiki, Tamil, Tatar, Teke, Telugu, Temne, Teso-Turkana, half of the world’s oral languages. Thai, Tibetan, Tigrinya, Tiv, Tonga, Tswana, Tulu, Turkish, Taking the next 13 countries, those with more than 100 Turkmen, Ukrainian, Umbundu, Urdu, Uygur, Uzbek,
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 3 Vietnamese, Waray, Welamo, Wolof, Xhosa, Yao (Man), 5,000 species disappear every year. Pessimistic evalua- Yao (Chiyao), Yi, Yoruba, Zande, Zhuang, Zulu. tions claim that this figure may be up to 150,000. Using the most ‘optimistic’ estimate of both the number Languages are threatened – we may have only 10% of of species (30 million) and the killing of species the languages left (= unthreatened) in a 100 years’ time. (5,000/year), the extinction rate is 0.017% per year. Languages are today being murdered faster than ever With the opposite, the most ‘pessimistic’ estimates before in human history. The media and the educational (5 million species; 150,000/year disappear), the yearly systems are the most important direct agents in language extinction rate is 3%. murder today; indirectly the culprits are the global On the other hand, researchers who use the high extinc- economic and political systems. tion rates, often also use higher estimates for numbers of Linguists are today working with the description of the species. If the number of species is estimated at 30 million world’s linguistic diversity in the same way as biologists and 150,000 disappear yearly, the rate would be 0.5 per describe and list the world’s biodiversity. There are Red year. Many researchers seem to use yearly extinction rates books for threatened languages in the same way as for which vary between 0.2% (‘pessimistic realistic’) and 0.02 threatened animals and plants and other species. (‘optimistic realistic’ – these are my labels). Have a look at the list of web-addresses in Table 2. According to the ‘pessimistic realistic’ estimate, then, A language is threatened if it has few users and a weak 20% of the biological species we have today might be political status, and, especially, if children are no longer dead in the year 2100, in a hundred years’ time; accord- learning it, i.e. the language is not transmitted to the next ing to the ‘optimistic realistic’ the figure would be 2%. This generation. can be compared to the numbers of plants and animals which are on the Red Lists on threatened species (start with Table 2. Red books for threatened languages
4 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 Table 3. Endemism in languages and higher vertebrates: a comparison of the top 25 countries
Endemic languages Number Endemic higher vertebrates Number 11. PAPUA NEW GUINEA 847 11. AUSTRALIA 1346 12. INDONESIA 655 12. MEXICO 761 13. Nigeria 376 13. BRAZIL 725 14. INDIA 309 14. INDONESIA 673 15. AUSTRALIA 261 15. Madagascar 537 16. MEXICO 230 16. PHILIPPINES 437 17. CAMEROON 201 17. INDIA 373 18. BRAZIL 185 18. PERU 332 19. ZAIRE 158 19. COLOMBIA 330 10. PHILIPPINES 153 10. Ecuador 294 11. USA 143 11. USA 284 12. Vanuatu 105 12. CHINA 256 13. TANZANIA 101 13. PAPUA NEW GUINEA 203 14. Sudan 97 14. Venezuela 186 15. Malaysia 92 15. Argentina 168 16. ETHIOPIA 90 16. Cuba 152 17. CHINA 77 17. South Africa 146 18. PERU 75 18. ZAIRE 134 19. Chad 74 19. Sri Lanka 126 20. Russia 71 20. New Zealand 120 21. SOLOMON ISLANDS 69 21. TANZANIA 113 22. Nepal 68 22. Japan 112 23. COLOMBIA 55 23. CAMEROON 105 24. Côte d’Ivoire 51 24. SOLOMON ISLANDS 101 25. Canada 47 25. ETHIOPIA 88 26. Somalia 88 each other. And if the long-lasting co-evolution which committing genocide in their educational systems, accord- people have had with their environments for millions of ing to UN definitions, both those which are in the 1948 years is abruptly disrupted, without nature (and people) UN International Convention of the Prevention and Punish- getting enough time to adjust and adapt, we can expect a ment of the Crime of Genocide (Articles II(e), ‘forcibly catastrophe. If, during the next 100 years, we murder 50- transferring children of the group to another group’, and 90% of the linguistic (and thereby mostly also the cultural) II(b), ‘causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of diversity which is our treasury for historically developed the group’; emphasis added) and the specific definition of knowledge, including knowledge about some of the most linguistic genocide which was in the final Draft of the Con- vulnerable and most biologically diverse environments in ventions but was voted down in the UN General Assembly the world, we are also seriously undermining our chances (Article III(1) ‘Prohibiting the use of the language of the of life on earth. The planet does not need us – but we group in daily intercourse or in schools, or the printing and might need the planet. circulation of publications in the language of the group’). ‘Prohibition’ can be direct or indirect. If there are no Linguistic genocide minority teachers in the preschool/school and if the minor- Linguistic human rights in education are one possible tool ity language is not used as the main medium of education, for supporting linguistic diversity. But most countries in the the use of the language is indirectly prohibited in daily world violate them every day. Most countries participate in intercourse/in schools, i.e. it is a question of linguistic
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 5 WACC and PCC jointly organised a hearing on language rights in May 1999 (see following article).
genocide. Assimilationist submersion education where standing of the children’s cultural and linguistic back- minorities are taught through the medium of dominant ground. Towards the end of this period, a few practical languages, cause mental harm and lead to the students or non-theoretical subjects should be taught through the using the dominant language with their own children medium of the State language. Wherever possible, later on, i.e. over a generation or two the children are States should create conditions enabling parents to linguistically forcibly transferred to a dominant group. avail themselves of this option. Most countries do not follow the OSCE High Commis- • (13) In secondary school a substantial part of the sioner on National Minorities’ Hague Recommendations curriculum should be taught through the medium of the Regarding the Education Rights of National Minorities & minority language. The minority language should be Explanatory Note (October 1996, The Hague). These taught as a subject on a regular basis. The State lan- guidelines were worked out by a small group of experts on guage should also be taught as a subject on a regular human rights and education (including the author of this basis preferably by bilingual teachers who have a good article). They represent an interpretation of present human understanding of the children’s cultural and linguistic rights standards; they are also valid for immigrant background. Throughout this period, the number of sub- minorities. In the section ‘The spirit of international instru- jects taught in the State language, should gradually be ments’, bilingualism is seen as a right and responsibility increased. for persons belonging to national minorities (Art. 1), and • (14) The maintenance of the primary and secondary states are reminded not to interpret their obligations in a levels of minority education depends a great deal on restrictive manner (Art. 3). the availability of teachers trained in all disciplines in In the section on ‘Minority education at primary and the mother tongue. Therefore, ensuing from the obliga- secondary levels’, mother tongue medium education is tion to provide adequate opportunities for minority recommended at all levels, including bilingual teachers in language education, States should provide adequate the dominant language as a second language (Articles 11- facilities for the appropriate training of teachers and 13). Teacher training is made a duty of the state (Art. 14): should facilitate access to such training. • (11) The first years of education are of pivotal impor- Finally, the Explanatory Note states that ‘[S]ubmersion- tance in a child’s development. Educational research type approaches whereby the curriculum is taught exclu- suggests that the medium of teaching at pre-school and sively through the medium of the State language and kindergarten levels should ideally be the child’s lan- minority children are entirely integrated into classes with guage. Wherever possible, States should create condi- children of the majority are not in line with international tions enabling parents to avail themselves of this option. standards’ (p.5). • (12) Research also indicates that in primary school the Most Western countries participate in murdering the curriculum should ideally be taught in the minority lan- chances that they might have to increase the linguistic guage. The minority language should be taught as a diversity in their countries, because they do not give immi- subject on a regular basis. The State language should grants and refugees much chance of maintaining and also be taught as a subject on a regular basis prefer- developing their languages. Development co-operation ably by bilingual teachers who have a good under- also participates, with very few exceptions, in murdering
6 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 small languages and supporting subtractive spread of the big killer languages, especially English. ‘Subtractive To ban or not to ban? spread’ means that new languages are not learned in addition to the language(s) people already have, but instead of them, at the cost of the mother tongue(s). The whole homogenisation process that globalisation is made to ‘demand’ has to be problematised and nuanced before it is too late. UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program) It was recently reported that the ANC is to outlaw ‘hurtful’ organised, together with others, the world summit on bio- words, provoking a diversity of responses within South diversity in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. In connection with the Africa. Rio conference a megavolume was published, summaris- The South African government plans to introduce legisla- ing our knowledge on biodiversity (Heywood, V.H. (ed.) tion banning the use of ‘hurtful and abusive’ words such as (1995), Global Biodiversity Assessment, Cambridge & ‘kaffir’ and ‘boer’, and establish special courts to combat New York: Cambridge University Press & UNEP). A racial discrimination. Critics have denounced the African companion volume on other types of diversity is now in National Congress’s planned law as draconian and a press (Posey, Darrell A. (ed.), Cultural and Spiritual Values violation of constitutional guarantees of free speech. They of Biodiversity, New York: UNEP (United Nations Environ- say the promotion of the ‘equality and prevention of unfair mental Programme) & Leiden: Intermediate Technologies, discrimination’ Bill will curb reporting and political debate. Leiden University). In the article on linguistic diversity, Luisa The Bill’s defenders say ‘hate speech’ is still very much a Maffi and I argue that ‘the preservation of the world’s part of South African life and needs to be curbed. The Bill linguistic diversity must be incorporated as an essential forbids the publications of ‘propaganda, ideas or theories goal in any bioculturally-oriented diversity conservation based on unfair racial stereotypes’ and the promotion of program’. For more detail, see Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove inequality or prejudice. Publication is defined as ‘any (in press). Linguistic genocide in education – or worldwide speech or any form of communication which seeks to diversity and human rights? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence convey a message or expression of ideas, opinion or Erlbaum Associates; 540 pages). beliefs’. This would include the press, political speeches A good place to continue is Terralingua’s web-site and art.
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 7 very day somewhere in the world a child, a Christian Communication (WACC), the Institute of Social E woman, a man stops speaking their mother Studies (ISS), The Hague, and Olon, Nijmegen, took the 1 initiative to organize the first public hearing on the PCC at tongue. The world’s languages are disappear- the ISS from 1-3 May, 1999, the theme of which was ing faster than ever before in human history. ‘Languages and Human Rights’. Some predictions are that 90% of the world’s languages are in danger of dying out within a Methodology century. The linguistic diversity that has been an The hearing was organized around five exemplary cases of threats to linguistic human rights, selected by PCC, essential characteristic of the human species is WACC, ISS and Olon. These were: Creole Language being replaced by a system in which some lan- (Kwéyòl); Sign languages 2; Kurdish language; Bilingual guages are expanding at the cost of others. This education in California; and the Berber language is now true within nation states and the global (Tamazigh). system. Control over someone’s language has To consider these test cases on the basis of dossiers and become one of the primary means of exerting hearings of witnesses and experts, the organisers invited five experts in the fields of communication, language rights power over other aspects of people’s life. and international law to form an international panel of independent judges: • Ariel Dorfman, author and Distinguished Professor of Literature and Latin American Studies, Duke University, USA; First public hearing • Barbara Losier, Community Development Consultant and Treasurer of AMARC; • Robert Phillipson, former Dean, Humanities, Roskilde on languages and University, Denmark; • Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, Professor of Minority Education and Linguistic Human Rights, Åbo Akademi, Vasa, human rights Finland and Vice President of Terralingua; • Paul de Waart, Emeritus Professor of International Law, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. Dr Skutnabb-Kangas acted as chairperson. The panel focused its public hearings on Article 9 of the PCC, which Language is one of the essential keys to cultural and per- reads: sonal identity. People construct their identities in the house of their language. The present situation poses therefore a All people have the right to a diversity of languages. This includes the right to express themselves and have access to great risk to human diversity. Since linguistic and cultural information in their own language, the right to use their diversity and bio-diversity mutually influence each other, languages in educational institutions funded by the State, and this also contributes to a major ecological crisis. the right to have adequate provision created for the use of This crisis has led social movements and organizations, minority languages where needed. human rights advocates, scientists and many others to address the world-wide problem of disappearing and The panel based the hearings of the witnesses particularly oppressed languages. Among these attempts is the People’s on: Communication Charter. 1. the 1948 UN draft definition of linguistic and cultural The People’s Communication Charter (PCC) was drafted genocide 3 and Article II(b) and (e) of the Convention 4; in 1995 as the common framework for a permanent 2. the International Bill of Human Rights; particularly movement on the quality of a sustainable communication Article 27 of the 1966 International Covenant of Civil and environment. It resulted from an initiative of the Third Political Rights 5; World Network, Malaysia; the Cultural Environment Move- 3. the 1994 General Comment of the Human Rights ment, USA; and the World Association of Community Committee on Article 27 6; Radio Broadcasters (AMARC). 4. the 1992 UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons The Charter contains 18 Articles dealing with communi- Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic cation rights and responsibilities, such as the right of Minorities; access of all people to communication channels indepen- 5. the 1992 European Charter for Regional or Minority dent of governmental or commercial control, the protection Languages; of journalists, the right of reply and redress, cultural 6. the 1995 European Framework Convention for the identity, diversity of languages, children’s rights, cyber- Protection of National Minorities; space, due process and accountability of media. 7. the 1996 Hague Recommendations Regarding the In order to gain the support of civil society at national Education Rights of National Minorities 7; and international levels, the People’s Communication 8. the 1998 AMARC Declaration on Communication and Charter, Amsterdam (PCC), the World Association for Human Rights.
8 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 The following experts argued the cases: contexts that there is a serious threat to the cultures and • Kennedy Samuel, Folk Research Centre in St Lucia, for languages of a wide range of peoples. Kwéyòl; 7. There is an urgent need for international bodies and • Jan Pieter Govers and Herman Schepers from the Dutch national governments to be more energetic in ensuring Deaf Association, for Sign languages; observance of clauses in international covenants and the • Surtaç Bucak, The International Association for Human PCC relating to language rights, to elaborate strategies for Rights in Kurdistan, for the Kurdish language; monitoring violations and for preventive diplomacy. • Peter Roos, lawyer, for Bilingual education in 8. As conflicts between groups can be articulated in terms California; of linguistic difference (Hungarian speakers in Romania, • Belkacem Lounes, for the Berber language (Tamazigh). Albanians in Macedonia), there is an urgent need for In addition, several witnesses were heard. examples of good practice in the management of linguistic In structuring the hearings, the panel employed the diversity (Switzerland, Finland, the Danish-German taxonomy of Juan Cobarrubias (1983:71) which distin- border), to be analyzed, for politicians and journalists to guishes the following five State attitudes towards minority be better informed about language policy, and for myths languages: (1) attempting to kill a language; (2) letting a and ignorance in this field to be attacked vigorously. language die; (3) unsupported coexistence; (4) partial 9. In the light of such knowledge about communication support of specific language functions; (5) adoption as an rights and language rights, and their contribution to peace- official language.8 ful, democratic societies, there is an urgent need for To judge the evidence, the following questions guided dialogue between state authorities and minority language the international panel of independent judges: groups such as the Deaf, Kurdish and Berber speakers, 1. Was Article 9 of the CPP violated in each context? Chicanos/Chicanas, and Creole speakers. 2. Where can each state be placed on the five-point taxonomy of ways of killing/unsupported co-existence or Creole language promoting a language? Creole languages have a history of stigmatization, margin- 3. Does this represent genocide according to the defini- alization and official neglect, but there is increasing recog- tion approved by the UN in 1948 at the time of the pass- nition of their major cultural significance in the communi- ing of the UN Convention on the Crime of Genocide and ties where these languages have evolved, the central role according to Article II (b) and (e) of the Convention? that Creole languages play in the local economy, the links that unite Creole speakers in different parts of the world General considered opinions (Caribbean islands with Mauritius and the Seychelles), 1. The panel was very satisfied with the selection of the and the role that Creole should play in education, political test cases. The co-operation of the witnesses and experts and cultural life. was excellent. The hearings were open, frank and often The Creole language of St. Lucia, Kwéyòl, is the product moving. of the merging of African and European, primarily French, 2. The information gathered by the panel from the very languages. English is the official language of the island, extensive and substantial documentation as well as from and the exclusive language of the Parliament, the courts, the hearings provided an adequate basis for drawing con- public administration, and formal business and trade. clusions and presenting recommendations to civil society Attitudes to Creole have traditionally been hostile, even in and to national and international organizations. the home, where there is a tendency to see the use of 3. The overall impression is that the five test cases are Creole as correlating negatively with acquisition of the representative of serious, generalized and systematic prestige language, English. Creole thus leads a marginal violations of linguistic rights around the world and under- existence, although it is the mother tongue of most inhabi- line the importance of the People’s Communication Charter tants and an expression of a vibrant popular culture. initiative. In scientific circles there is now a realisation that Creole 4. The panel is alarmed that States and international languages are not deficient forms of language, but fully- organizations are insufficiently aware of the fact that fledged linguistic systems. Kwéyòl now has an appropriate respect for linguistic rights is essential to cultural and orthography, and there is a conviction in educational personal identity, as a cornerstone for human rights protec- circles that what is needed is bilingual education in tion and tolerance, and in conflict prevention. All too often Kwéyòl and English. Changed attitudes to Creole are also States parties to human rights conventions are not beginning to permeate political circles, where there is prepared to allocate resources for the implementation of appreciation of the role of Creole in national development. linguistic rights. Hitherto the linguistic human rights of Creole speakers 5. The panel expresses its deep concern about the con- have not been respected at all, and official policy has stant misinformation regarding the significance of linguistic neglected Creole. rights and their violation as well as the way in which the The panel is convinced that an increased use of Creole mainstream media consistently ignore these matters. in all spheres of life would be in the best interest of Creole 6. While there is substantial variation between the overtly speakers and humanity as a whole. It therefore endorses linguicidal policies of countries like Algeria and Turkey, the recommendation that the government should be con- and the covert measures in the USA and Western Europe, gratulated on its openness to greater official recognition of the evidence submitted to the panel indicates in all five Creole in public life and education. It is therefore desirable
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 9 Attending the public hearing on abuse of language rights 1-3 May 1999 were (left to right) Carlos A. Valle, General Secretary of WACC; Ariel Dorfman, Walter Hines Page Research Professor of Literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University, USA; and Cees J. Hamelink, Professor of International Communication at the University of Amsterdam. Photo: David Shanks.
that a language policy should be elaborated that would ologically possible and the Deaf people so wish in the allocate resources to the development and elaboration of oral modes of understanding and speaking. Use of Sign Creole, its increased use in technology and modern languages in the care of deaf children should start as media, teacher education, and collaboration with Creole- early as possible, in order for the children to have early using communities in other countries. access to the only language they can fully express them- selves in; Sign languages • the right to express themselves and have access to The number of Sign languages in the world is not known, information in the Sign languages, including adequate but there may be as many Sign languages as there are provision for the learning and use of Sign languages, spoken languages, i.e. 6-7.000. Sign languages are also for hearing people and most importantly for the fully-fledged, complex languages which can be used for all relatives and friends of the Deaf. This also includes the purposes, provided enough resources are available for right to adequate services with signing staff in many their development. official situations, including health care. In many parts of the world, a pathological view of the Two aspects of information specifically stressed by the Deaf still prevails. This incorrectly sees deafness as a witnesses were lack of adequate information to parents of medical condition, an auditory deficiency, a handicap to deaf children (some 90% of deaf children have hearing be remedied, so that the deaf person can become as much parents) about the long-term consequences of various like a hearing person as possible. Means used for this choices the parents have to make (medium of education; include the teaching of speech and lip-reading, use of cochlear implants, etc) and adequate information to the hearing aids and cochlear implants, etc. general public about the Deaf and Sign languages (includ- A socio-cultural view which the witnesses, national and ing information to the medical community). Likewise, the regional Deaf organizations and the World Federation of witnesses emphasized the need of access to media by the Deaf advocate, sees the Deaf as a socio-cultural and the Deaf, including obligatory sub-titling for as many linguistic minority (‘different’ but not deficient) which programmes as possible and extended use of video. shares characteristics with other minorities and where the There is clear evidence of violations of basic linguistic problems which the Deaf face can be seen as human human rights of the Deaf all over the world. In a few coun- rights problems. In terms of Article 9 of the PCC, they can tries, including the Netherlands, substantial progress be analyzed as problems about: towards addressing the language rights of the Deaf has • the right to have Sign languages recognized as official been made in recent years. The judges urge governments languages in all countries in the world, which should to consider granting full rights to Sign languages as official include cultural activities in Sign languages; languages and to offer real bilingual education and public • the right to have Sign languages recognized as the only services to the Deaf. possible mother tongues of the Deaf (also because they cannot have full access to any spoken languages); Bilingual education • the right to use Sign languages as the main media of On 4 June 1998, the voters of California approved instruction in educational institutions, funded by the Proposition 227, which mandates schools in the State to state, as well as to learn the dominant official (oral) terminate bilingual education of students who were earlier languages in the countries where they live, fully in terms qualified for bilingual education under the ethically of reading and writing, and to the extent that it is physi- dubious category of ‘Limited English Proficient’ (LEP), and
10 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 immediately adopt what is known as the quick-exit submer- (seen by the witnesses as being essentially a single Berber sion method of teaching English to children who are not language) have been used in the region for at least 2500 proficient in that language. This is basically a strategy that years, with a script that pre-dates Phoenician, Roman, states that after one-year of heavy and exclusive exposure Arab and European invasions. The testimony provided to English in the classroom at an early age, students will be by the witnesses (resident in North Africa and Europe) prepared to go on to a productive and equal academic life documents convincingly that in all the relevant states in English only. speakers of Berber languages are subjected to strong The panel has heard compelling evidence that the imple- assimilation pressures, primarily Arabo-Islamization. In mentation of this Proposition will lead, according to Article the Canary Isles Berber is no longer in use. In Africa II (b) and (e) of the Genocide Convention, to irreparable Berber is not used in public services, the media, or the harm to hundreds of thousands of children in the State of administration of justice. California, violating their linguistic rights under the Consti- The Berber languages are not recognized in the constitu- tution of the United States and many International Conven- tions of Morocco or Algeria. In contrast to what is indicated tions to which the United States is signatory. Proposition in some UN reports, government pronouncements in 227 also largely prohibits the use of all other languages Morocco and Algeria, and some scholarly analysis, Berber except English in education. is apparently not taught at any level of mainstream educa- Scientific research overwhelmingly proves that the tion subsidized by the State. After a boycott of formal method proposed by Proposition 227 will not help young- education in Algeria lasting one year, some experimental sters learn English and will furthermore diminish their use of Berber has been allowed, but in such a way that it is capacity for other curricular education. An unstated conse- marginalized in mainstream education. This neglect of the quence of this Proposition is to turn the children into mono- mother tongue of Berber speakers continues in the educa- lingual English speakers, thus depriving them of being able tion of migrants in Western Europe (notably Moroccans in to practise their mother tongues. the Netherlands and Algerians in France), who are treated The panel is particularly worried about how defenders as though Arabic is their mother tongue. of Proposition 227 have incorrectly used and blatantly Berber speakers in France, of whom 1 million are misrepresented European and Canadian experiences of French citizens, have petitioned the French Government to bilingual education, stating that these experiences prove have Berber recognized as a language entitled to recogni- the benefits of educating minority children in the dominant tion under the European Charter for Regional or Minority language only, or educating children in one language only Languages. whereas all serious studies prove exactly the contrary: Witnesses felt that recognition of the rights of speakers bilingual education grants the best results. of Berber language(s) was not an issue that needed to be Most alarming, perhaps, are the long-term trends that seen in ethnic terms, since they regard the entire popula- underlie the implementation of Proposition 227. By stigma- tion of North Africa as Berber, some of whom have been tizing the child’s primary language as useless for acade- arabized. mic achievement and knowledge, what is being implied is There is clear evidence of violation of linguistic human that the United States should be an entirely monolingual rights, Art. 9 of the PCC. Government policy in North nation. The movement to establish English as the sole Africa aims at the extinction of Berber. Government policy official language of the USA fails to see other languages in western Europe does not provide speakers of Berber as valued and valuable resources to the whole nation and with any support. There is therefore a clear need for its communities and their maintenance and use as a awareness raising in the political, scholarly, educational linguistic human right. and media worlds, and for substantial policy measures to The panel finds, therefore, that Proposition 227 violates be introduced in Western Europe to remedy these Article 9 of the PCC by not providing support and violations. In Morocco, Algeria and other states in which resources for immigrant and minority children to preserve Berber is part of the national heritage, Berber needs to be their language and identity. accorded constitutional rights and the language needs to The panel urges the Congress of the United States to be institutionalized so that linguistic human rights are enact legislation on linguistic rights for the implementation respected. of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, especially Articles 28, 29 and 30, and to implement the Hague K u rdish language Recommendations Regarding the Educational Rights of The evidence submitted on the oppression of the Kurdish National Minorities of the OSCE. language focussed primarily on the experience of Kurds in Turkey and Kurds in exile, but there are strong similarities Amazigh (Berber) language between the violation of the linguistic human rights of There are speakers of Berber languages, referred to as speakers of Kurdish who are citizens of Iraq, Iran, Syria Amazigh by themselves, over much of North Africa, from and Turkey. In all cases the use of Kurdish is seen by the Morocco (where Berber speakers represent 60% of the governments as a threat to the State. The Turkish authorities population) and Algeria (25-30% of the population) to thus see the use of Kurdish not as a matter of human rights Egypt in the east, and across the Sahara (Tuaregs) to but as a security question. These policies indicate that the Niger and Mali. The Amazigh people are original speakers of Kurdish, that has been used in the Middle East autochthonous inhabitants of the area. Their languages for thousands of years and is spoken as a mother tongue
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 11 by between 25 and 30 million people, have few if any the official languages of the countries where the parents rights. In the past Kurdish was permitted for a wide range come from). Recently, the only Kurdish television channel, of purposes in Iraq (where it is a second official Med-TV, broadcast from Britain, had its licence withdrawn. language), just as it was widely used in the former Soviet Western governments operate with double standards when Armenia, but at present the language is the object of Turkey, a full member of NATO and the Council of Europe, serious oppression in all countries except Armenia. manifestly commits many human rights abuses, including The testimony, both what was presented orally and serious and brutal violations of linguistic human rights. I submitted in writing, taken from human rights scholarly journals and articles, documents unambiguously that con- Notes stitutional legislation in Turkey explicitly deprives Kurds of 1 A mother tongue can be defined on the basis of several their basic linguistic human rights and constitutes a gross criteria: Origin (the language – or languages- one violation of every aspect of Article 9 of the PCC. Criminal- learned first). Identification: (a) Internal identification ization of the use of Kurdish is a present reality, even (the language/s one identifies with or identifies as a though some laws passed in the 1990s attempt to create native speaker of); (b) External identification (the the impression that Kurdish can be used in domains other language/s one is identified with or is identified as than the home. a native speaker of, by others); (3) Competence (the In fact Turkish policy in education, in the public sphere, language/s one knows best; (4) Function (the political life and the media, is genocidal and linguicidal language/s one uses most). according to all the international and regional documents The definition that respects the linguistic human rights of indigenous peoples and linguistic minorities (and minoritised majorities) best, regardless of whether they use spoken languages or sign languages is the definition by internal identification. The panel uses this definition of the mother tongue/s: the language/s one identifies with. 2 Sign languages are those natural languages that developed in Deaf communities approximately in the same way as spoken languages developed in hearing communities. Examples are AUSLAN (Australian Sign Language), ASL (American Sign Language), or Swedish Sign Language. Sign languages are complex, abstract linguistic systems, with their own grammars. 3 The Ad Hoc Committee that prepared the 1948 Inter- national Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which entered into force in 1951, included linguistic and cultural genocide in Article III of the final draft of the Convention. The UN General Assembly, however, rejected this provision. Sertaç Bucak (above) gave evidence on behalf of the Nevertheless, most UN members were prepared to Kurds. He is Head of the Department of International accept the definition in the draft: ‘Any deliberate act Affairs of the Internationaler Verein für Menschenrechte committed with intent to destroy the language, religion der Kurden, Bonn, Germany. or culture of a national, racist or religious group on grounds of national, religious or racial origin or the panel refers to above. Only those who deny their religious belief, such as (1) Prohibiting the use of the Kurdish cultural and linguistic identity can function as full language of the group in daily intercourse or in schools, members of Turkish society. Severe prison terms are or the printing and circulation of publications in the imposed on those who campaign for Kurdish (including a language of the group; (2) Destroying or preventing peaceful solution to ‘the Kurdish question’), refer to Kurdish the use of libraries, museums, schools, historical in public or the media, demand teaching in the Kurdish monuments, places of worships or other cultural language or education through the medium of Kurdish, institutions and objects of the group.’ and a number of other activities which are expressions of 4 Article II (b) defines as one type of genocide: ‘causing cultural identity. serious bodily or mental harm to members of the The oppression continues in western Europe and other group’. Article II (e) adds: ‘forcibly transferring children parts of the world where Kurds live as immigrant minorities of the group to another group’. or refugees; the evidence suggests that in many countries 5 Article 27 reads: ‘In those States in which ethnic, Kurdish parents are prevented from giving Kurdish names religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to their children, and Kurdish children cannot get Kurdish to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in com- mother tongue teaching. They can only receive teaching in munity with the other members of their group, to enjoy languages other than Kurdish (i.e. if they receive any their own culture, to profess and practise their own ‘mother tongue’ reaching in the first place, this is given in religion, and to use their own language.’
12 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 6 The General Comment reinterpreted Article 27 in a avail themselves of this option. substantially broader and more positive way than (13) In secondary school a substantial part of the arlier. The Committee sees the Article as ‘stating that the curriculum should be taught through the medium of the existence of a minority does not depend on a decision minority language. The minority language should be by the State but requires to be established by objective taught as a subject on a regular basis. The State criteria; protecting all individuals on the State’s territory language should also be taught as a subject on a or under its jurisdiction (i.e. also immigrants and regular basis preferably by bilingual teachers who have refugees), irrespective of whether they belong to the a good understanding of the children’s cultural and minorities specified in the Article or not; recognizing the linguistic background. Throughout this period, the num- existence of a “right” and ‘imposing positive obliga- ber of subjects taught in the State language, should tions on States’. gradually be increased. Research findings suggest that 7 In order to prevent ethnic conflict, the OSCE High Com- the more gradual the increase, the better for the child. missioner, Max van der Stoel, published authoritative (14) The maintenance of the primary and secondary guidelines in October 1996 for minority education for levels of minority education depends a great deal on the 55 member states (which include the United States). the availability of teachers trained in all disciplines in The High Commissioner (1997: 153) stated when the mother tongue. Therefore, ensuing from the obliga- launching The Hague Recommendations Regarding the tion to provide adequate opportunities for minority lan- Education Rights of National Minorities that ‘. . .in the guage education, States should provide adequate facili- course of my work, it had become more and more ties for the appropriate training of teachers and should obvious to me that education is an extremely important facilitate access to such training. element for the preservation and the deepening of the Finally, the Explanatory Note states that ‘[S]ubmer- identity of persons belonging to a national minority. It is sion-type approaches whereby the curriculum is taught of course also clear that education in the language of exclusively through the medium of the State language the minority is of vital importance for such a minority.’ and minority children are entirely integrated into classes The guidelines are an interpretation and concretisa- with children of the majority are not in line with inter- tion of international human rights standards about national standards’ (p.5). minority education. Even if the term used is ‘national 8 Cobarrubias, Juan (1983). ‘Ethical issues in status minority’, the guidelines also apply to immigrated planning’. In Cobarrubias, Juan & Fishman, Joshua A. minorities, and one does not need to be a citizen in (eds). Progress in language planning: International order to be protected by the guidelines – this follows perspectives. Berlin: Mouton, 41-85. from the UN Human Rights Committee’s General Comment on Article 27 (Note 6). In the section ‘The spirit of international instruments’, bilingualism is seen as a right and responsibility for per- Back issues of sons belonging to national minorities (Art. 1), and states are reminded not to interpret their obligations in a Media Development restrictive manner (Art. 3). In the section on ‘Minority education at primary and secondary levels’, mother still available tongue medium education is recommended at all levels, including bilingual teachers in the dominant language as a second language (Articles 11-13). Teacher training 3/1999 Changing perspectives in Europe today is made a duty of the state (Art. 14). 2/1999 Key issues in global communications (11) The first years of education are of pivotal impor- tance in a child’s development. Educational research 1/1999 Children and media suggests that the medium of teaching at pre-school and 4/1998 Media ownership and control kindergarten levels should ideally be the child’s 3/1998 Migrants, refugees and the right to language. Wherever possible, States should create conditions enabling parents to avail themselves of this communicate option. 2/1998 Communication and disability (12) Research also indicates that in primary school 1/1998 Communication in the Caribbean the curriculum should ideally be taught in the minority language. The minority language should be taught as a Back issues of Media Development can be bought subject on a regular basis. The State language should singly or in bulk (when available). A single copy also be taught as a subject on a regular basis prefer- costs £3 including postage. A 50% discount will be ably by bilingual teachers who have a good under- given for orders of 10 or more. Make cheques standing of the children’s cultural and linguistic back- payable to ‘WACC’. Order from: WACC ground. Towards the end of this period, a few practical Publications, 357 Kennington Lane, or non-theoretical subjects should be taught through the London SE11 5QY, United Kingdom. medium of the State language. Wherever possible, States should create conditions enabling parents to
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 13 espite promising beginnings, there is still a Rights’ focused on Article 9 of the PCC which claims the long way to go in the realisation of the right people’s right to a diversity of languages. The Hearing D was organised in response to the prediction made by to communicate. The following article argues language experts that 90% of the world’s languages are that ‘Global civic organizations that represent in danger of dying out within a century. Control over public interest issues need to mobilize them- someone’s language has become one of the primary selves and form alliances with other interested means of exerting power over other aspects of people’s parties for active intervention in the fora of life. At the end of the 20th century the world’s languages are disappearing faster than ever before in human history. world communication governance.’ This is the During the Hearing a panel of five independent judges fundamental challenge on the communications heard witnesses that made cases in support of Creole agenda of the 21st century. language, Kurdish language, Sign languages, Bilingual education in California, and Berber language. The outer space observer visiting the Earth for a day might Among their recommendations and opinions the judges easily return with the distinct impression that whatever may stated that ‘There is an urgent need for international be wrong with the human species, it seems to be involved bodies and national governments to be more energetic in guaranteeing that clauses in international covenants and in the PCC relating to language rights, to elaborate strategies for monitoring violations and for preventive diplomacy.’ The recommendations of the Public Hearing will be put to intergovernmental bodies such as Unesco and to the Language and the national governments involved in the five cases examined by the judges. The organizers of this first Hearing (the PCC Amsterdam right to communicate chapter, the World Association for Christian Communica- tion, the Institute of Social Studies and the Organisation of Cees J. Hamelink Local Broadcasters in The Netherlands) have agreed to explore the feasibility of holding hearings annually on different articles of the Charter. Eventually these Hearings could develop into a permanent institution for the enforce- in free, open, global communication in unprecedented ment of the PCC. This could take the form of an Ombuds- speed, volume and with total neglect of times, places, and office for communication and cultural rights. This idea borders. largely follows a recommendation made by the Unesco A somewhat deeper assessment would however have World Commission on Culture and Development chaired shown that around the world old and new forms of State by Javier Pérez de Cuellar in its 1995 report Our Creative and commercial censorship are rampant. They not only Diversity. threaten the independence of conventional mass media but The Commission recommended the drawing up of an also the right to communicate through such new channels International Code of Conduct on Culture and – under the as the Internet. There is a growing shortage of public auspices of the UN International Law Commission – the set- spaces where information, opinions and ideas can be ting up of an ‘International Office of the Ombudsperson freely exchanged and debated. State censorship and for Cultural Rights’ (World Commission, 1995: 282). As providers’ self-censoring of social debate, copyright rules, the Commission writes, ‘Such an independent, free-stand- laws on business defamation, are all hindering political ing entity could hear pleas from aggrieved or oppressed debate and public exchange on socially important matters. individuals or groups, act on their behalf and mediate with Although many different languages continue to be governments for the peaceful settlement of disputes. It spoken and most people in the world can only communi- could fully investigate and document cases, encourage cate with their fellow-human beings in their mother a dialogue between parties and suggest a process of tongues, ‘English is used in almost 80% of Websites and in arbitration and negotiated settlement leading to the effec- the common user interfaces – the graphics and instructions. tive redress of wrongs, including, wherever appropriate, Yet less than 1 in 10 people worldwide speaks the recommendations for legal or legislative remedies as well language’ (UNDP, 1999: 62). as compensatory damages’ (Ibid. 283). An essential task for those who are concerned about The PCC initiative supports this albeit with some the questionable state of the human right to communicate hesitation so far as the governmental standing of the new is to identify and organize forms of implementation that institution is concerned. Full independence from State are effective and sustainable. A very encouraging and interests would have to be secured as well as adequate inspiring concrete example of implementing the right to financing. Both are difficult to achieve. communicate is the First International Public Hearing on Obviously, an Office that operates from a non- Violations of the People’s Communication Charter that took governmental background would have no possibilities for place early May 1999 at the Hague in The Netherlands. effective remedies in the sense of compensation or other The theme of the Hearing ‘Languages and Human sanctions. But the question is whether this is the most
14 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 important feature. Amnesty International cannot hand out case the international governmental community and prison sentences to those who violate human rights. How- national governments of affluent countries should be ever, its politics of shame and exposure is certainly effec- reminded that solutions are not hindered by a paucity of tive and provides a good deal of protection for victims of financial resource but rather by political will. Creating human rights violations. Ideally one would like to see the world-wide adequate access to ICT resources should be no establishment of an institution that is fully independent, problem in a world economy of some US $ 22 trillion receives funding from both governments and industries, income. The core issue is that the expenditures for develop- and that develops a strong moral authority on the basis of ment assistance represent only US $ 55 billion and thus a its expertise, its track record and the quality of the people mere 0.25% of this income. As the UNDP reports in 1998, and the organisations that form its constituency. Building ‘Official development aid is now at its lowest since this new global institution constitutes one of the most statistics started’ (UNDP, 1998: 37). exciting challenges for the 21st century! If one makes an educated guess as to the funds needed to provide universal access to basic ICT equipment and The immediate agenda services, the calculation would have to include basic infra- ‘The network society is creating parallel communication structural investment costs and recurrent service charges. systems: one for those with income, education and – Adding one billion telephone lines, subsidizing over 600 literally – connections, giving plentiful information at low million households that cannot afford basic telephone cost and high speed; the other for those without connec- charges, providing PCs and access to the Internet for tions, blocked by high barriers of time, cost and uncer- schools, the annual costs for all developing countries – tainty and dependent on outdated information (UNDP, over a period of ten years – could amount to US $80 to 1999: 63)’. Against the back-drop of this polarization in 100 billion. This should not be an insurmountable level of world communication, the realisation of the right to com- funding. It represents some 11% of the world’s annual municate demands that we urgently address the following spending on military projects, some 22% of total annual five questions: spending on narcotic drugs, and compares to the annual ‘Who pays?’, ‘Who speaks?’, ‘Who listens?’, ‘Who spending on alcoholic drinks in Europe alone (UNDP, polices?’, and ‘Who cares?’. 1998). ‘Who pays?’ It is not so difficult to think of myriad For a variety of political and economic reasons many creative programmes to implement human rights in poor donor governments are presently cutting down on their countries, but then the question is how will the necessary financing of ICT-development. Between 1990 and 1995 resources for these programmes be mobilised: by the multilateral lending for telecommunications decreased international community, by the rich nations? from US $1,253 million to US $967 million. Bilateral aid There is a clear and urgent need for infrastructural for telecommunications decreased from US $1,259 provisions to facilitate distribution and exchange. Data on million in 1990 to US $800 million in 1995 (ITU, 1997). the skewed availability of these resources are by now ‘Who speaks?’ Even with improved levels of availability, widely disseminated, among others through recent ITU and accessibility and affordability, there would not necessarily UNDP reports. It is also sufficiently known that consider- be egalitarian participation in public dialogues. People able funding is needed to arrange a more equitable world- have very different information needs and different wide communication infrastructure. information interests. Massive investments are required for the renovation, Capacities to retrieve, process, organize and apply upgrading and expansion of networks in developing information and knowledge are highly unequally countries, for programmes to transfer knowledge, for train- distributed across societies and social groups. The French ing of ICT skills – in particular for women. In 1985 the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1985) has proposed that the Maitland Commission estimated that an annual investment position of social actors is not only determined by of some US $ 12 billion would be needed to achieve its economic capital, but also by their cultural, social and aspiration that early in the 21st century all people in the symbolic capital. Cultural capital is made up of such world should have easy access to a telephone. In 1996, features and skills as knowledge about wines, fine arts, Gautam S. Kaji, managing director of the World Bank, music and literature, good manners, and mastery of said in a talk to the WTO Ministerial Conference foreign languages. Social capital is based upon the social (December 8, 1996), ‘We estimate that telecommunica- networks that people develop. Symbolic capital represents tions infrastructure investments in developing countries, social prestige and reputation. which averaged roughly US $ 30 billion over the 1990- To these forms of capital, the category of ‘information 1994 period, will need to double over the next five years, capital’ should be added. This concept embraces the in order to implement the necessary upgrades. The financial capacity to pay for network usage and informa- magnitude of these investments is clearly beyond what can tion services, the technical ability to handle network infra- be financed from tax revenues and internal public sector structures, the intellectual capacity to filter and evaluate funding sources. The private sector will need to come in’ information, but also the motivation actively to search for (I-Ways, 1996: 32-34). information and the ability to apply information to social It can be debated whether the expectation that private situations. funding will create world-wide equity in access to and use Just like other forms of capital, information capital is of ICT resources is fully justified. It would seem that in any unequally distributed across societies. Its more egalitarian
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 15 distribution would require an extensive programme of only depends upon equality in the distribution of informa- education, training and conscientization. To have more tion but also upon the ways in which citizens use the avail- ‘surfers’ on the Web does not equate with equal able information. Citizens themselves will also have to be possession of information capital. ready to participate actively in public decision-making processes. This participation is wanting in many societies The ‘cyberdemocracy’ debate and it is too simple to just blame the failing provision of ‘Who listens?’ With more channels and capacities for information. A much more basic problem is low citizen’s people to talk, the intriguing question arises as to who interest in politics and the lack of credibility politics has. If would listen to all the global talking. This is particularly rel- people were to choose between the political discourse of evant in the context of the debates on ‘cyberdemocracy’. the Athenian Agora and the Roman Coliseum (where A fundamental feature of the egalitarian society is the Christians were devoured by lions) many might indeed democratic modality of decision making. At the end of the prefer the entertainment over the political debate. Even 20th century most societies pretend to be democratic. At where there are possibilities to access alternative informa- any rate most states call themselves democratic. They do tion sources, there is usually only a small minority that this ‘because rulers of modern states discover that effective actively engages in the search for information. Defence of government demands the active acquiescence of subject the public interest needs, however, active intervention by populations in ways that were neither possible nor civic coalitions that represent the voices of those whose necessary in pre-modern states’ (Giddens, 1991: 167). lives are deeply affected by the quality of the world’s infor- Cyberspace technology offers great chances to give mation flows. citizens information about public policies and to involve Global civic organizations that represent public interest them in the decision-making process. However, is this what issues need to mobilize themselves and form alliances with governments want? Although governments often claim that other interested parties for active intervention in the fora of general access to public information is essential, they will world communication governance. Promising beginnings usually want to draw the lines of what is accessible them- have been made by the various organizations that make selves. Not only should state institutions have to make up the Platform for Co-operation on Communication and information physically accessible, the information should Democratization. The platform that was established in also be presented in formats that are intelligible for the 1995 is at present made up of AMARC, APC, Article 19, average citizen. And, even more importantly, the whole Cencos, Cultural Environment Movement, GreenNet, exercise is futile if the citizen’s input is not seriously Grupo de los Ocho, IDOC, IFJ, IPAL, International listened to and reflected in the decision-making. Women’s Tribune Centre, MacBride Round Table, MedTV, In many contemporary societies, the democratic struc- One World Online, Panos, People’s Communication ture is critically eroded because those in power govern Charter, UNDA, Vidéazimut, WACC, WETV, Worldview through arrogance. Citizens can talk however much they International Foundation. Members of the platform have want, decisions have already been taken or will be taken agreed to work for the formal recognition of the right to irrespective of the citizen’s preferences. There is little communicate to be recognised. Members also emphasize reason to believe that a system in which the governors do the need to defend and deepen an open public space for not listen to those they govern, will fundamentally change debate and actions that build critical understanding of the once its communication channels are digitalized. ethics of communication, democratic policy and equitable ‘Who polices?’ The implementation of human rights, as and effective access. Hossain (1997: 20) rightly observes requires ‘good gover- The fundamental challenge, however, is still whether nance’. ‘Governments as well as powerful corporations sufficiently large numbers of people can be made aware must adhere to respect human rights and be accountable of how critically communications affects their daily lives for their conduct measured by human rights standards.’ and how vitally important it is that they take action. Deal- The serious obstacle here is that increasingly governments ing with this challenge should have top priority on the are (often voluntarily) losing the regulatory instruments to agenda for the realisation of the right to communicate. I control the powerful corporations and global governance is increasingly the arena of private business actors. The R e f e rences trade mark of these actors is the refusal to adopt mecha- Bourdieu, P. (1985), Reprint of Social Space and Genesis nisms for the public accountability of their conduct. of Classes, in: Theory and Society, 14: 723-744 The implementation of the right to communicate requires Hossain, K. (1997). Promoting Human Rights in the Global global governance. As the UNDP 1999 Human Develop- Market Place. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit. ment states, ‘The currently dominant governance institu- Giddens, A. (1991), The Consequences of Modernity, tions (such as the World Trade Organization) hamper this Oxford, Polity Press. potential since their policy frameworks are guided more by I-Ways (1996), Digest of Electronic Commerce Policy commercial than by public interest considerations. Leaving and Regulation, Fairfax Station, Transnational Data governance to the market place is not likely to stop social Reporting Service, 19 (2). exclusion and marginalization. . . . the market alone will UNDP (1998), Human Development Report 1998, New make global citizens only of those who can afford it’ York, Oxford University Press. (UNDP, 1999: 62). UNDP (1999), Human Development Report 1999, New ‘Who cares?’ The democratic nature of a society not York, Oxford University Press.
16 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 World Commission on Culture and Development (1995), Our Creative Diversity, Paris, Unesco Publishing. Interfaith dialogue in
Cees J. Hamelink is Professor South Africa of International Communication at the University of Amsterdam and was President of the International Association for Hundreds of spiritual and religious leaders from around the Mass Communication Research world are expected in South Africa to take part in a major (IAMCR) 1990-94. He is the gathering of theologians and representatives of the world’s author of more than ten books main religions. Between 6000 and 8000 participants are on international communication, expected at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, which culture and technology, including will take place in a picturesque setting at the foot of Table Cultural Autonomy in Global Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa, 1 to 8 December Communications (1983), The 1999. Technology Gamble (1988), According to the organisers, the Chicago-based Council The Politics of World Communi- for a Parliament of World Religions (CPWR), the gathering cation (1994) and The Ethics will be more than a scholarly interreligious dialogue – it of CyberSpace (forthcoming will also be a celebration and joyful sharing of different 1999). faiths by salt-of-the-earth, grassroots believers. The Parliament – described as a ‘non-legislative, educa- tional and celebratory international gathering across credal, racial and national lines’ – follows a similar gather- ing in Chicago in 1993. That event recalled an historic inter-faith meeting 100 years earlier in the same city, the first formal meeting between religions from East and West. Among the hundreds of religious leaders expected at the Cape Town gathering are: the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists world-wide; Dr Abdullah Omar Nasseef of Saudi Arabia, president of the World Muslim Congress; Sir Sigmund Sternberg of London, from the Inter- national Conference of Christians and Jews; Maha Ghosananda, Supreme Patriarch of Cambodia Buddhism; Master Hsying Yun of Taiwan, founder of the Fo Kuang Shan Buddhist Order; Catholic theologian Hans Küng from Switzerland, principal author of the 1993 Parliament document, Towards a Global Ethic: An Initial Declaration; renowned Hindu leader Swami Chidananda of India; and Christian feminist theologian Chung Hyun Kyung of South Korea. Interviewed by telephone, Jane Kennedy, the Parliament’s media liaison officer in Cape Town, denied that this conglomeration of divergent beliefs would lead to syncretism, the blending of religions. ‘We want to honour and fall in love with our differences, and see God in our differences,’ she said. The gathering will bring together not only theologians and academics, but also lay people. ‘We will have a wide cross-section in Cape Town, so that the inter-faith gathering becomes a celebration of our diversity instead of a level- ling out of our beliefs, a celebration instead of a fear of our differences.’ The programme will also include academic discussions about the identity of the various world religions.
From ‘Cape Town will host century’s last great inter-faith event’ by Noel Bruyris, in ENI Bulletin, Number 17, 29 September 1999
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 17 anguage, the essence of what it means to be seen, it is in the context of conflict that extreme language human, can be perverted into ‘hate speech’. and incitement to violence are ‘justified’ in the name of L political expedience. When used by the media, many virulent expressions acquire the stamp of respectability, A rgentina 1976-83 ensuring that language is the last social system In 1976 a ‘Gentlemen’s Coup’ took place in Argentina, to recover from such degradation. The following so-called because, on hearing the news, the famous writer article explores this hypothesis with particular Jorge Luis Borges said, ‘Now we are governed by gentle- men’. It initiated what came to be called the ‘Dirty War’. reference to Argentina and Rwanda. Army General Jorge Rafael Videla became president of a three-man junta that included Admiral Emilio E. Massera It is more than 30 years since George Steiner published and Brigadier General Orlando R. Agosti. These men his collection of essays ‘about language and the crisis of arrived with a plan called the Process for National language in our time’ (Steiner, 1967). In it he argued Reorganisation, the language of which legitimised a that ‘language is the defining mystery of man’ in which regime of political and civil terror whose repercussions are ‘identity and historical presence are uniquely explicit’ still evident in the country today. During the Dirty War, (Steiner, 1969: 16-17). some 30,000 civilians were kidnapped, tortured and ‘disappeared’ (murdered). In a landmark book, Marguerite Feitlowitz has exten- sively documented the sadism, paranoia and deception that the military dictatorship unleashed on the Argentine Rehabilitating people. She pays particular attention to the perversion of language as it was used to conceal and confuse and to language domesticate torture and murder. Brutal, sadistic and rapacious, the whole regime was intensely Philip Lee verbal. From the moment of the coup, there was a constant torrent of speeches, proclamations, and interviews; even certain military memos were made public. Newspapers and magazines, radio and television all were flooded with messages from the junta. The barrage was constant and there One of the essays first appeared in 1959 and caused was no escape: Argentinians lived in an echo chamber. With considerable controversy. However, Steiner made no diabolical skill, the regime used language to: (1) shroud in apology for reprinting ‘The Hollow Miracle’ since he took mystery its true actions and intentions, (2) say the opposite of the view that the relationship between language and what it meant, (3) inspire trust, both at home and abroad, (4) political inhumanity is crucial. The essay argued that after instil guilt, especially in mothers, to seal their complicity, and (5) sow paralysing terror and confusion. Official rhetoric 1945 the German language, repository of Goethe, Heine, displays all of the traits we associate with authoritarian Brecht, Thomas Mann, Rilke and Kafka, had ‘gone dead’. discourse: obsession with the enemy, triumphal oratory, Why? exaggerated abstraction, and messianic slogans, all based on ‘absolute truth’ and ‘objective reality’ (Feitlowitz, 1998: 20). It was one of the peculiar horrors of the Nazi era that all that happened was recorded, catalogued, chronicled, set down; that words were committed to saying things no human mouth Apart from the usual political relabelling, in which should ever have said and no paper made by man should ever human rights are applicable only to people of good will have been inscribed with’ (Steiner: 1969: 141). (i.e. those who support the regime), the enemy is anyone who criticises the regime, subversive, aggressive, cowardly, The German language had been cynically perverted etc. Feitlowitz identifies a whole other vocabulary in which and words had become conveyors of terror and false- previously innocuous words are given new meanings that, hood. In the post-war years, a kind of rehabilitation subsequently, are impossible to disentangle from the began, hampered by a denial of the past, by revisionist period of oppression. historians and by an unwillingness to recognise what had For example, the centrepiece of the Argentinians’ taken place. ‘Everything forgets. But not language. When beloved barbecue is called, in Spanish, la parrilla. It is the it has been injected with falsehood, only the most drastic horizontal grill on which meat is grilled and is also used to truth can cleanse it’ (Steiner, 1969: 150-1). indicate the restaurant where such meat is served. But in A considerable difficulty lies in the fact that language concentration camp slang, la parrilla was the metal table is like the air we breathe. Imbibed from childhood, on which prisoners were laid out to be tortured. uncritically and ignorant of its socio-cultural and political Similarly, in a conversation with the mother of a girl trappings, we use language in a myriad different contexts who was ‘disappeared’ – itself both a euphemism and a and with varying degrees of intent, so that what may grammatical perversion – the author discovered that the be acceptable in the context of a football match becomes word for ‘parsley’ had been appropriated to refer to irredeemably tainted elsewhere. Most often, as will be young children:
18 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 ‘Parsley’, she says, perejil. ‘That’s what they called our 159). The English-language Buenos Aires Herald was children. Parsley is so abundant here, so cheap, greengrocers particularly outspoken, especially James Neilson, a well- traditionally give it away. No, I always tell them, no, I won’t known Anglo-Argentine journalist. For example, it was the say it, I won’t have it. That’s how they thought of our children – only newspaper to give reliable coverage to the Mothers cheap little leaves made for throwing away’ (Feitlowitz, 1998: of the Plaza de Mayo, in direct contrast to La Prensa which 49). one day (16 June 1978) ran an article called ‘Plaza de Mayo: Yesterday and Today’ that failed to make any Feitlowitz found that the slang that developed among mention of the Plaza’s grisly history or of the Mothers them- torturers was an amalgam of borrowings and inventions. selves, who had been a salient feature since 1977. The word perejil seems to have derived from the French persil, used against agitators for Algerian independence in Rwanda 1990-94 the 1950s. Other expressions have their roots in Nazi In April 1994, Presidents Habyarimana of Rwanda and rhetoric and probably originate among the Nazis that Ntaryamira of Burundi, together with other officials and Argentina sheltered after the Second World War, many of dignitaries, were assassinated when their aeroplane was whom trained Argentine military and police officers. brought down. This act plunged Rwanda into turmoil and Such misuse of language helps to ritualise torture, to triggered what has come to be known as the Rwandan provide a reason, explanation or objective. One genocide. euphemism for torture itself was ‘persuasion’. Part of a Within hours of the presidential aeroplane crash, the 380-page secret manual issued by the junta was devoted selective assassination of opposition politicians began. to a series of orders on terminology. Instead of ‘subversive Secondary targets were dissidents, journalists, human forces’, ‘subversive elements’ was to be used. Instead of rights activists, lawyers and civil servants. The primary tar- ‘guerrillas’, ‘armed bands of subversive criminals’. Instead gets were Tutsi men and boys. Any Tutsi with education of ‘wearing uniform’, ‘usurping the use of insignias, was particularly in danger. They were killed by hacking emblems and uniforms’, etc. The stigmatisation, dehumani- with machetes, shooting, burning alive, drowning in pit sation and criminalisation of ordinary people was an latrines and forcing family members to kill each other. essential strategy for encouraging acquiescence and These atrocities were reported in large part by the world’s complicity. mass media. In this way Feitlowitz is able to compile a lexicon of In total, some 800,000 people were killed, mainly Tutsi, terror in which ‘to disappear’, an intransitive verb with no because of their ethnic background, or on the assumption object, becomes transitive and acquires an object: to make that they were supporters of the ‘rebel’ Rwandan Patriotic someone disappear. People are, therefore, ‘disappeared’, Front (RPF). Hutu and Tutsi political leaders were assassi- i.e. it will be impossible to discover any information as to nated because of their actual or supposed alliance with the where they are or what their fate is. Many were, of course, RPF. In retaliation, hundreds of thousands of Hutus were murdered. Trasladar, meaning to transfer or to move, killed by the RPF in the zone it controlled because of their becomes a euphemism for ‘to take away to be murdered’. ethnic background, and tens of thousands of Twas (the ‘Interrogation’ equals torture. ‘Operation’ equals kidnap- third ethnic group in Rwanda) were also victims of RPF ping. ‘Submarine’ – a traditional Argentine children’s treat massacres (in which three-quarters of the Twa population consisting of a chocolate bar slowly melting in a cup of were decimated). The genocide left the country with warm milk – becomes a form of torture in which a thousands of widows and orphans and was followed by prisoner’s head is held under foul water. And so it goes an exodus of approximately three million people to the on. neighbouring countries of Burundi, Tanzania and former As the wise novelist Julio Cortázar said, ‘Under authoritarian Zaire. regimes language is the first system that suffers, that gets Rwandan society is largely rural and agrarian. Kin- degraded.’ I have come to believe that, even after the regime yarwanda, its language, contains many words, expres- has ended, language may be the last system to recover sions and proverbs that reflect this reality. Consequently, (Feitlowitz, 1998: 61). when the genocide began, ordinary words took on double meanings. For example, inyenzi (cockroach) and inzoka At first, the government-controlled mass media sup- (snake) were used to refer to the Tutsi. A call to deal with ported the military dictatorship, reporting the ‘convales- an infestation of cockroaches or to kill a nest of snakes cence’ of the nation after a period of ‘sickness’ and came to mean killing Tutsis. Many other expressions took ‘delirium’ (La Prensa in the early days of the coup). on sinister meanings: ‘Cleansing’ was also a theme taken up by the news- • Uwica imbeba ntababarira ihaka means ‘When you kill papers: cleansing the walls of graffiti, i.e. erasing recent a rat, don’t spare the one that’s pregnant’. In other history, cleansing the streets of rubbish and crime, eradi- words, don’t just kill the Tutsi man, kill the pregnant cating the villas miserias (shantytowns). mother as well. Later, courageous journalists began to speak up against • Urandura urwiri arandurana n’imizi means ‘To get rid the repression, although ‘By August 1976, some 100 of of a weed, you have to uproot it.’ In other words, kill the the country’s most prominent reporters had been forced to father, mother, and grandparents, and, even more leave. And over the course of the regime another 92 barbarously, rip the unborn child out of the pregnant journalists would be disappeared’ (Feitlowitz, 1998: mother.
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 19 A cartoon from the newspaper Kangura. It appeared in issue no. 58 of May 1992.
The man of the left is saying: ‘There are not enough dead. Tell them to try harder.’ He is thinking: ‘Now who can accuse me of stealing and killing?’ On the right, one of the witnesses is saying: ‘Why are we fighting each other? Aren’t we being manipulated?’
• Gukoresha umupanga means ‘To work with a machete’. but rather to utterly destroy the opponent. Occasionally the Normally this would mean to work in the fields or analogy of the battlefield was dropped in favour of something forests using the standard Rwandan tool to cut down more direct... ‘continue to keep your eyes open, remain vigi- plants and trees. But since the tall Tutsis were referred to lant and give them the punishment they deserve’ (Broadcasting Genocide, 1996: 116). as ‘trees’, it meant use a machete to cut down the Tutsis. These expressions and many more were regularly broad- cast on radio in order to incite violence. The ‘punishment they deserve’ was spelt out in subse- Studies have shown that in the prelude to the events of quent broadcasts: ‘he should be arrested and maybe lose 1994, the Hutu-led government of Rwanda actually spon- his head’, ‘fight them with the weapons at your disposal: sored ‘hate media’ against the Tutsi. As early as May you have arrows, you have spears’; ‘you kill him, you burn 1990 Kangura newspaper began systematic abuse of Tut- him’. It became an endless litany of hate. sis. In December 1990 it published the notorious ‘Ten Hutu Despite this evidence, it would be naive to assume that Commandments’, inciting mistreatment of and discrimina- the genocide in Rwanda was in some way ‘caused’ by the tion against Tutsis. For example, ‘any Hutu man that mar- mass media. At worse they abetted the process, in the spe- ries, befriends or employs a Tutsi woman will be consid- cific instance of RTLM by identifying targets, broadcasting ered a traitor’; ‘every Tutsi is dishonest in business, so any vehicle number plates, refuges where potential victims Hutu who does business with a Tutsi is a traitor’; ‘Hutus were hiding, and so on. Nevertheless, the demonising of should stop having mercy on Tutsis’, etc. the Tutsi, the twisting of language and the use of Kangura also began to identify and denounce people euphemisms to condone mutilation and murder, remain a as ‘enemies’, ‘accomplices’ and ‘traitors’ secretly working source of incitement that cannot be easily disregarded. for the RPF. Whatever the newspaper called for usually happened, especially when it related to individuals, and Sensitivity to language and public expression this added to the fear that the newspaper inspired. Eventu- It is too simplistic to blame language for the ills of society, ally, some ten other newspapers joined the ‘hate speech’ yet it is language that portrays and defines how issues and bandwagon and engaged in varying degrees of incite- people are perceived. Propaganda, conveyed by lan- ment to ethnic hatred. guage and defined as verbal or non-verbal communication Yet the most notorious channel proved to be an ‘inde- that attempts to influence motives, beliefs, attitudes or pendent’ radio station devoted entirely to an extremist actions, is as old as history (which, ironically, is itself agenda: Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). It propaganda). All we can do is to sensitise people to began broadcasting in July 1993, conducting a persistent language use and the ways it can be manipulated. In this, campaign against the Tutsi: the modern mass media can undoubtedly play a signifi- cant role in constructing a different dialogue about beliefs The language RTLM used to incite genocide indicated that the and attitudes. But a form of journalism that is for peace aim of this ‘battle’ was not simply to win the armed combat and against conflict will depend on the implementation of
20 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 new criteria for the way language is used. right into the far more demanding realm of justice and In this sense ‘language’ goes beyond the individual equality. meaning of a word or phrase to the discourse in which it is Would that it were so simple. Rehabilitating language situated. To this end, some experimental techniques have implies rehabilitating history, religion, education, in short been explored in a series of conferences organised by the everything that comprises ‘culture’. Failing that, what Freedom Forum, based in London. Towards the end of realistic possibility is there of ensuring that language, 1998 they revisited the traditional notion that journalists especially public expression, promotes genuine co-opera- simply report the facts and re-examined the political, social tion and understanding instead of sowing discord and and cultural biases that influence news-making. division? The group has made a number of recommendations that In his autobiography, Nelson Mandela, perhaps the deserve in-depth reflection and discussion (see ‘What are 20th century’s greatest humanitarian and statesman, journalists for?’, 1998: 54-55), among which are the writes: following: • Slogans such as ‘terrorist’, ‘extremist’ and ‘fundamental- Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their ist’ should be avoided because they reproduce and history, appreciate their poetry or savour their songs. I again sustain essentialist assumptions about human nature realised that we were not different people with separate and the reasons for conflict. languages; we were one people, with different tongues • The opinions of marginalised parties should be sought (Mandela, 1994: 78). not as victims but as participants in a dialogue for creative solutions because unaddressed grievances Without language, human beings cannot ‘tell each foster a culture of violence. other what is good and bad, and what is just and unjust’ • The mainstream remains the mainstream by accepting (Aristotle). The supreme value of language is that it makes and reproducing distinctions between the ‘legitimate’ relationships possible and it is the quality of those relation- and the ‘deviant’. Rehabilitate the ‘deviant’ by interro- ships that will determine the survival of humankind. I gating the ‘legitimate’. • Challenge the mainstream by discovering ‘deviant’ R e f e rences initiatives and perspectives in ways that do not present Broadcasting Genocide: Censorship, Propaganda & them as aberrant. State-Sponsored Violence in Rwanda 1990-1994. • Invite activists to consider the process by which real London: Article 19. change might result from their actions. Feitlowitz, Marguerite (1998). A Lexicon of Terror. • Challenge the binary opposition of ‘self’ and ‘other’. Argentina and the Legacies of Torture. New • Flesh out identity by constructing it from many perspec- York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. tives, not limited to politicians or military or strategic Mandela, Nelson (1994). Long Walk To Freedom. experts. London: Little, Brown and Company. • Take standards routinely applied to the’ other’ and turn Steiner, George (1967). Language and Silence. London: them on the ‘self’. Faber & Faber. Abridged edition published in Pelican • Interrogate perspective by comparing logic in the Books, 1969. situation at hand with other similar situations. What are journalists for? Ways of working for media pro- To which might be added: monitor language use for fessionals in the age of spin, chequebook journalism prejudice, bias, covert and overt distortion. and globalisation (1998). Conflict & Peace Forums, Of course there is little new in a call for objective report- Taplow Court, Taplow, Bucks. SL6 0ER, United King- ing. In 1983, journalists around the world agreed a set of dom. International Principles of Professional Ethics in Journalism Whorf, Benjamin L. (1964). In Hoyer (ed.), New which, among others, call for: ‘honest dedication to objec- Directions in the Study of Language. tive reality whereby facts are reported conscientiously in their proper context, pointing out their essential connec- tions and without causing distortions... so that the public is Philip Lee studied modern provided with adequate material to facilitate the formation languages at the University of of an accurate and comprehensive picture of the world in Warwick, Coventry, and conduct- which the origin, nature and essence of events, processes ing at the Royal Academy of and states of affairs are understood as objectively as Music, London. He joined the possible’ (Principle II). staff of the World Association for In other words, as American linguist Benjamin Whorf Christian Communication in (1964) pointed out, ‘Language is not simply a reporting 1975 where he works in the device for experience, but a defining framework for it.’ Forum Sector on studies and Definitions matter but the problem, as ever, is one of imple- publications and is Regional Co- mentation. If the media are to be objective and to offer fair ordinator for Europe. He is the editor of Communication and balanced representations of reality, they have to For All: New World Information and Communication begin with language. The words and images they employ Order (1985) and The Democratisation of Communication must carry truthfulness beyond the norm of getting the facts (1995).
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 21 n a country like South Africa, several isations, refused even to countenance the proposal, which languages are dominant and many others are would have ended the status Afrikaans had hitherto I enjoyed, with English, as an official language. used by smaller communities. How is it The result was essentially a constitutional compromise, possible to protect this diversity and to and consensus was reached that all eleven major encourage the survival of words as ideas? languages spoken in South Africa would have the status of ‘official’. There are many who welcomed the entrenchment Most South Africans recognise Kole Omotoso’s face. He of language rights in the new constitutional dispensation features as a somewhat shabby, but street-wise African in that was agreed upon. In this way, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, what is arguably the most successful recent advertising isiZulu, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, Siswati, Xitsonga and campaign in the country – for a cellular telephone service Tshivenda were elevated to the status of official languages. provider. The protection of all eleven languages was given formal Far fewer know that the Nigerian born ‘actor’ is a legal safeguard with the enactment, by Parliament, of the Professor of English on the staff of the University of the Pan South African Language Board Act (Act No 59 of Western Cape. In a recent article in Cape Town’s English 1995), which was amended on 23 February 1999. morning newspaper (Cape Times – 27 July 1999), he There is a considerable body of opinion however, which considers this seemingly inclusive policy to be flawed. South Africa, with a population of over 42 million, has at least 1 million citizens of Indian and Pakistani extraction. No official status is accorded to Hindi, Tamil, Telegu and other languages of the Indian sub-continent. Neither Selective protection: the Constitution nor the Act offer any protection to the languages of the original inhabitants of what today is geographic South Africa – the !Khoi and the San, referred Guarding language to in the past as the Hottentot and Bushman people. Still others lobbied against the exclusion of South African Sign Language from the legal provisions of in South Africa the Board. Requests for recognition were also received from the Baputhi Language Programme, the Northern David Wanless Amandebele National Language Organ-isation and a group identified in the Board’s 1998 Annual report simply as Valovedu. From the outset, the sceptics had a field day, suggesting that the Board would have an impossible task lamented the popularisation of English as a global ensuring that road signs were correctly displayed in all language. Professor Omotoso argues that as English eleven languages. The potential for disorder was nowhere has increasingly stretched itself to become the language of more acutely experienced than in the field of broad- science and technology, the less ‘it was able to handle casting. human feelings without sounding fake, jaded or clichéd.’ From the inception of radio in the 1930s and television His comments are timely, not just for the safeguarding of in 1975, only the Roman Catholic and ‘mainline’ Protes- languages in the newly democratic South Africa, but also tant churches were allocated broadcasts. The only excep- in the global arena where indigenous languages are in tion was the Jewish faith, whose major festivals were such marked decline. Perhaps more so than in many other broadcast live from synagogues four times a year. Until countries, the whole question of language rights in South 1994, the South African Broadcasting Corporation Africa is particularly fraught, given three centuries of enjoyed a near total monopoly in broadcasting, and was intercultural confrontation which culminated in the heresy firmly under government control. A process of transforma- of apartheid. tion began in 1993, within which it was agreed that, as the public broadcaster, the SABC had a duty to give air- Constitutional compro m i s e time to all major faiths. The early 1990s were a period of negotiation which saw Only the die-hard traditionalists had difficulty with the the ending of the hegemonic control of the apartheid principle that each major faith community should be government, whose members were predominantly white allowed broadcast rights in proportion to each member- and Afrikaans speaking. This led, in 1994, to the country’s ship, as reflected in the national census from time to time. first free and fair election under universal adult suffrage, The practicality proved to be more difficult to implement and the accession to power of the former liberation move- than the theory had been to devise. Combining religious ment, the African National Congress. equity and encouraging language diversity produced a During the negotiations, the ANC, together with some of virtually insoluble conundrum. With the public broadcaster the smaller political organisations, had proposed that, like statutorily required to offer radio and television services Namibia, which became independent in 1990, English that reflected the language demographics, the SABC should be the sole official language. The National Party, maintained separate radio services for all eleven language along with other more extreme right-wing Afrikaans organ- groups.
22 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 Members of a group of young musicians and dancers performing in their mother tongue, Xhosa, during WACC’s Central Committee meeting held in Cape Town, South Africa earlier this year.
The difficulty came in trying to decide, for instance, how atic. In its 1998 Annual Report, the Board highlights that many Jewish Xhosa speakers or Muslim Venda speakers fact that it is under-resourced. All Board members serve in there were, and how to allocate religious airtime equitably an honorary, part-time capacity. Its only income in the to each language group. Neither the SABC nor the 1997-8 financial year was a government grant of 1.65 PANSALB have been able thus far to establish a clear policy million South African Rands (equivalent at current exchange rates to 160,000 pounds sterling) – hardly a A language policy for the whole of South Africa sufficient amount to carry out its extensive mandate. The Pan South African Language Board, established under The report notes, inter alia, that ‘Due to lack of staff, the the Act, is charged with: sub-committee could not implement its plans for a national • creating the conditions for the development of, and language awareness campaign and a week-long festival’. equal use of, all official languages; It does, however, reflect genuine attempts to interact with • fostering respect for and encouraging the use of other official bodies such as the Department of Arts, Culture, languages in the country; Science and Technology. It has also actively co-operated • encouraging the best use of the country’s linguistic with the Department of Education, in promoting home resources, in order to enable South Africans to free language instruction in the school system. themselves from all forms of linguistic discrimination, The Board organised a Consultative Meeting on Transla- domination and division, and to enable them to tion and Interpretation on 11 & 12 June 1998. It was exercise appropriate linguistic choices for their own attended by over 250 delegates, including resource well being as well as for national development; and persons from Kenya, Malaysia, Australia and Sweden. A • developing the previously marginalised languages. sub-Committee has been formed to establish a database The Act laid down how the Board was to be constituted. and liaise with tertiary institutions on the status and It was to include practising language workers – an inter- development of African language programmes. preter, a translator, a terminologist or lexicographer and a It is in this area that the Board’s greatest challenge and literacy teacher. It also provided for the appointment of potential for endeavour lie. Although not yet dealt with for- three persons who were ‘language planners’; five persons mally in its structures, two anecdotal incidents can high- with special knowledge of language matters in South light the enormity of the problem. Africa; and one expert with legal knowledge of language Newspapers and academic journals occasionally legislation. report the fact that the languages spoken by South Africa’s If we allow that such bureaucratically restricting require- earliest inhabitants – the !Khoi and San – are threatened ments are theoretically sensible and legally necessary, with extinction. Researchers in the Kalahari desert area implementing the theory has once again proved problem- are engaged in a process of recording the lexicography of
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 23 one particular !Khoi dialect, of which there is only one ‘I am an African’, he said. ‘I owe my being to the Khoi and surviving speaker, whose estimated age is in the 90s. A San whose desolate souls haunt the great expanses of the group of San, whose origins in the !Xu and Khwe tribes of beautiful Cape – they who fell victim to the most merciless southern Angola are lost in the mists of time, have been genocide our native land has ever seen. I am formed of the migrants who left Europe to find a new life in our native land. caught in the changing political dispensation of southern Whatever their own actions, they remain still, part of me. In my Africa. veins courses the blood of the Malay slaves who came from the They supported the Portuguese army during the East. I am the grandchild of the warrior men and women that colonial years in Angola. The group then aligned them- Hintsa and Sekukhune led, the patriots that Cetshwayo and selves with the South African army during its campaign Mpephu took to battle, the soldiers Moshoeshe and Ngungun- against the then liberation movement SWAPO, which yane taught never to dishonour the cause of freedom’. fought for the independence of Namibia. Unable to He continued: ‘I have seen what happens when one person remain in Namibia after independence, they are now has superiority of force over another, when the stronger settled on land within South Africa, 18 kilometres from the appropriate to themselves the prerogative even to annul the 2 diamond-mining centre of Kimberley. The Johannesburg injunction that God created all men and women in His image.’ newspaper the Star, in its edition of 13 July 1999, reports that the Bathlaping tribe has lodged a claim to the land. South Africa has embarked upon a process of re-discov- It quotes an expert on San culture, one Major Charles ering its rich history and the diversity of its people, their Hallet, as saying that they are ‘a tribe staring extinction in languages and ideas. The Constitution acknowledges that the face as modern values absorb tribal customs. Their we will refuse to accept that our race, colour, gender or complex language with 2,000 sound combinations will historical origins shall define our Africanness. We are com- also eventually disappear.’ mitted to celebrating our diversity, and the establishment of The report further indicates that 2,000 young people a Language Board to safeguard and promote linguistic out of a total population of 4,400 ‘are part of the Nike diversity and heritage is just one small step in that larger and T-shirt era. This is very worrying to the tribal elders, process. who fear absorption by other cultures and the extinction of Professor Omotoso’s words in his critique of English are an ancient people. It is a form of ethnic absorbing rather salient. He posits the thesis that ‘English has abandoned than ethnic cleansing,’ Hallet concludes. religion, spiritualism, truth – human concepts which used to be understood before the arrival of Western civilisation.’ The death of ideas Those who promote the universalistion of one tongue The author’s wife was a junior schoolteacher at the Red ‘forget that the languages we are asked to abandon are Cross Children’s Hospital School in Cape Town. In the not just words but the bearers and containers of knowl- process of teaching short- and long-term patients, she had edge. Knowledge from which the world should benefit. to give instruction in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa. She What faiths and languages of value have controlled our was not particularly disturbed at the use of English by the earth till now? And next, since their gods have failed, may children learning computer literacy. In addition, Afrikaans ours not yield forgotten ways that remedy?’ is a language that developed from the original Dutch and The words of a traditional San song come to mind: has, over three centuries, diverged from the original due to ‘The day we die the incorporation of many African and English words. A soft breeze will wipe out A worrying trend for her was that Xhosa speaking our footprints in the sand. children regularly, and seemingly without thinking, did not When the wind dies down, use the Xhosa words, but rather indigenised English words who will tell the timelessness to denote common objects. Thus, instead of using the word that once we walked this way for fish – ‘intlanzi’ – they would refer to a picture in a living in time?’ I lesson book as ‘iFish’ or ‘iLion’ instead of ‘ingonyama’. In addition, they, along with speakers of other languages 1 Nida, E: (1960), Message and Mission. Harper Row, who are part of the McDonald’s generation, consider ‘thru’ New York. as the correct way to spell through. The extinction of Xhosa 2 Mbeki, T: (1996), 70/00/govdocs/speeches/1996/ is a long way off compared to the situation of the !Khoi sp0508.03 and San languages referred to earlier, but the same process is at work. Ultimately the problem is not simply one of words, but David Wanless is an ordained minister who has worked of ideas. As Eugene Nida noted some years ago: ‘Words professionally in the media. He was announcer/producer are symbols, par excellence.’1 When we consider the for the SABC English radio service for four years and has disappearance of ancient languages, we are grappling broadcast on radio and television in South Africa and with the possible death of the ideas that words, as Zimbabwe for over 25 years. He is former director of symbols, convey. communication for the South African Council of Churches South Africa’s then Deputy President, Thabo Mbeki, (SACC), editing its publications Kairos and Ecunews. He understood that truth well when he addressed is currently co-ordinator of the Ecumenical News Network Parliament on the occasion of the adoption of the country’s southern Africa and media officer of the United Constitution: Congregational Church of Southern Africa.
24 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 epriving a person of their mother tongue is The term ‘residential school’ only came into formal use an evil comparable with isolating them from during the 1920s; prior to then such institutions were D officially called ‘industrial’ or ‘boarding’ schools. At these their history, culture and spirituality. The follow- schools, in all areas of their lives – eating, sleeping, play- ing article touches on the sensitive issue of the ing, working, speaking – the children were isolated from United Church of Canada’s involvement in the the traditions, culture and language of their home Nations. Indian Residential School system and the pain Separation time varied, but it was not uncommon for chil- and suffering it caused. It calls for reflection on dren to be away from their parents and villages for years, except for a brief period of time in summer vacation. the issues raised as people of faith continue to The United Church of Canada was one of the churches travel ‘the difficult road of repentance, reconcil- that, on behalf of the federal government, administered the iation and healing.’ residential school system. In part, the Indian work, as it was known, arose out of a desire to share the Good News ‘The most terrible result of my residential school experience was of Jesus Christ and a deep sense of compassion and they took away my ability to hold my children. They took that commitment to justice. from me, the ability to hold my children.’ – Inez Deiter, in From The church, and its predecessors, the Methodist and our Mothers’ Arms, written by her daughter, Constance Deiter. Presbyterian churches, had long demonstrated the belief that education should be available to all children. Access to education for children of low-income families was an important strategy in the struggle to secure greater justice. As the traditional economies of First Nations peoples came From our under heavy pressure, with the killing of the buffalo and the creation of reserves, many in the church felt the best way to assist First Nations was to provide means to mothers’ arms educate the young in new economic systems and trade, hence industrial schools. The Moderator’s Taskgroup on Linda Slough Residential Schools (1991) notes that the residential schools were seen by the churches not only as a vehicle for converting Native people to the Christian faith, but also as a way of equipping the younger generation of Native When the WACC Central Committee met in Cape Town, people to survive in a world where the old ways had South Africa in June 1999, we heard and saw the either been destroyed or were considered unworkable or evidence of the long struggle with apartheid and the unworthy or both. efforts of the people of South Africa to now find reconcilia- ‘The problem was that the church required Native people to tion and healing. For me, the stories and discussion made repent of being Native people if they wished to follow the real connections to the history of Aboriginal peoples in Christian way’ said the Moderator’s Taskgroup on Residential Canada. Currently, my church, The United Church of Schools (1991) Canada, is just coming to terms with its part in this history as it becomes more and more aware of the damage done The residential schools were built on a racist under- by a system of removing Aboriginal children from their standing of the superiority of European civilization and the homes and placing them in residential schools. inferiority of Aboriginal societies. Natives were considered The practice of sending First Nations children away to ‘savages’ and as British Columbia Indian Commissioner school began in the 1840s, often with the support of First I. W. Powell noted: ‘Barbarism can only be cured by Nations leaders. By the 1860s, resistance mounted when education.’ This racist premise was reinforced by the the practice became more widespread and, from the churches in their theology and their attitudes toward perspective of First Nations communities, more coercive Native spirituality. and paternalistic. Prior to the western treaties, the official Canadian policy was to protect, civilize, and assimilate Denying language the Indian.1 The Gradual Civilization Act, passed in 1857, Different cultures have different ways of transmitting their called for the eventual assimilation of Indians into culture. Institutions, like schools and churches, played a Canadian society. In 1876, the Parliament of Canada major role in European based cultures. The traditional passed the Indian Act, which effectively rendered all native way was heavily dependent upon oral traditions. Aboriginal people children before the law, legal wards of Removal from their home Nation and denial of language, the Crown. An Indian Affairs department was created in a prime carrier of culture, meant many people had no 1889, and Indian agents placed across the country. As the sense of history or home – they did not know who they local authority, which dispensed the money promised to were. While residential schools removed the basis for a First Nations peoples in treaties, the Indian agent could native identity, they were not able to construct a new white threaten to withhold the money from increasingly destitute identity. The result was that many left residential school Aboriginal parents if they did not send their children away unsure of who they were and where they belonged. A to school. Saulteaux Nation friend told me that the people from her
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 25 reserve spoke of the returnees from residential school as extreme. In addition, children were forbidden to speak the ‘crazy ones, good for nothing’. They didn’t know their their native language. As well, children from different own people’s ways and language and could not fit in to tribal groups were often placed together, which discour- their own society. aged use of a common native language. All of these The most eloquent descriptions of the pain and the reasons contributed to the start of some silent means of courage and the resourcefulness of First Nations children communication – a sign language. come from these stories told by First Nations people There has not been anything written about this silent themselves. form of communication used at the schools. To my From the book Bridges in Spirituality, First Nations knowledge, this will be the first. I knew about the language Christian Women Tell Their Stories, published jointly by as a young girl. My father and mother would use the sign the United Church Publishing House (UCPH) and the language when they did not want my siblings and me to Anglican Book Centre, Gladys Taylor Cook’s story: know what they were communicating. I forgot about their “I was four when I went away to residential school. I’ll use of the language until many years later. My father had always remember—I didn’t want to leave my mother. My passed away, and my younger sister’s daughter was diag- grandmother made me a beautiful string of beads when I nosed as profoundly deaf. I asked my mother if my niece left. She tied them around my neck saying, ‘This is so you’ll could use the sign language that she and my father used know you’re loved. Always remember this, no matter how when we were children. She said no, that that was the sign far away you are.’ language they used at residential school. When they took us away, I looked back and saw my As a student of anthropology at the University of mother crying. When I got to residential school, they took Alberta, I found the sign language fascinating. First of all, off all our clothes, and then they cut our hair, and they cut it was children who devised a standardized sign language the string of beads from my neck, the beads my grand- that was used across western Canada. I believe it was mother gave me. I cried in my own language, ‘No! No! standardized in that my father and my mother understood Don’t do that! That’s from my granny.’ I scrambled to try to each other. Yet my father was sixteen years older than my pick them up; I was crawling on the floor clutching them, mother and had attended the File Hills residential school trying to get as many as I could. ‘Put them in the garbage,’ and the Birtle school in Brandon, while my mother the woman yelled, and she hit me on the hand with a ruler attended the Roman Catholic schools and Anglican to make me let them go. I managed to keep one by hiding residential school at a much later date… it in my mouth. I was afraid to lose the tie with my grand- The sign language consisted of a two-handed letter mother. I kept that bead for a very long time. I didn’t tell system and body gestures. As an adult, Inez Deiter my grandmother what had happened. To tell her what had attended an American sign language course for her grand- happened would have hurt her, so I carried that pain. daughter. She showed the instructor the sign language she I’ll never forget the first time I was caught speaking used at residential school. The instructor informed her that my own language. We were playing tag, a whole group the language she used was the British form of signing. This of us, laughing and running around outside. One of the particular form is no longer in use in the Americas, indicat- children was ‘it’, and I tagged her. Being ‘it’, she was now ing that whoever introduced the sign language into the a ‘monkey’ until she tagged someone else. Then she would residential school did so before American sign language tag her to be whatever she wanted to call her, and so became the norm for the deaf community. we were having our fun. When I called in my language While there needs to be further research done on the ‘monkey! monkey!’ to warn the other children, I didn’t introduction of this sign language, to me its very existence even see the teacher standing close by, partly hidden by puts a new perspective on the residential school experi- the side of a building on the girls’ side. ence. The idea that these children, despite the hardships, She asked me what I said, and I told her, laughing. But found a means of communicating with one another is she grabbed hold of me, took me to the bathroom and told remarkable. The method in which the language was taught me to open my mouth and shoved a bar of soap in my to newcomers is very much like any other language instruc- mouth. It was the old-fashioned strong soap we used to tion. Inez Deiter said it took her a year to learn all the have. It just made me gag. I felt so sick. I tried to brush my signs and gestures. The fact that this language endured teeth again and again. It took so long to get the taste of over several generations is even more astounding and that soap out of my mouth. Sometimes I can still taste it.” more language-like. Mel H. Buffalo attended the Edmonton In the book, From Our Mothers’ Arms, The Intergenera- residential school during the 1960s where he says the tional Impact of Residential Schools in Saskatchewan, gestures were still in use – for example, a pulled ear meant published by UCPH, author Constance Deiter describes the a supervisor was coming.” development of sign language: These children were denied the basic right to speak, let “While no doubt there were other forms of resistance alone the right to speak in their own language, so they used by the children, one of the most interesting was sign developed a language they could use. This language language. The language was developed in response to the should be a testament to the intelligence, spirit, and need for children to communicate; not unlike the start of resourcefulness of First Nations children. sign language for deaf children. For the children at the In 1986, the highest governing body of The United schools, not talking was the norm. The Victorian ideal Church of Canada, the General Council, issued the follow- ‘children are to be seen and not heard’ was carried to the ing apology to its First Nations brothers and sisters.
26 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 North American Indian languages west Canada, and south-west central USA. Most of the languages belong to the Athabaskan family, whose The Amerindian languages have been classified into over best known member is Navaho, with around 120,000 50 families, showing many kinds and degrees of inter- speakers – one of the few Amerindian languages which relationship. However, this allows a great deal of scope for has actually increased in size in recent years. further classification, and Amerindian linguistics has thus The Algonquian family is geographically the most proved to be a controversial field, generating many pro- widespread, with over 30 languages covering a broad posals about the links between and within families. It is area across central and eastern Canada, and down not known whether the languages have a common origin. through central and southern USA. Many well-known Eskimo-Aleut is the name given to a small group of tribes are represented. languages spoken in the far north, in Alaska, Canada, There are also over 30 languages whose relationship and Greenland, and stretching along the Aleutian Islands to the main language groups in North America has not into Siberia. Eskimo is the main language, spoken in so far been determined. Over 20 of these are the Salish many dialects by around 90,000. Its two main branches languages, spoken along the Canadian/USA Pacific – Yupik in Alaska and Siberia, Inupiaq (Inuit, or Inuktitut) coastline, and some way inland. They include Bella elsewhere – are sometimes classified as separate Coola, Okanogan, Shuswap, and Squamish. These languages. Greenlandic Eskimo has official status in days, the numbers of speakers are very small – fewer Greenland, alongside Danish. A standard written form than 1,000. dates from the mid-19th century. There are also a few hundred speakers remaining of Aleut. Adapted from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Further south, the Na-Dené group consists of over 30 Language, by David Crystal. Cambridge University Press languages, spoken in two main areas: Alaska and north- (1987, revised 1991).
‘Long before my people journeyed to this land, your people out of this apology in our actions in the future. were here, and you received from your elders understanding of We know that many within our church will still not under- creation and mystery that surrounds us all, that was deep and stand why each of us must bear the scar, the blame for this to be treasured. We did not hear you when you shared your horrendous period in Canadian history. But the truth is we are vision. In our zeal to tell you the good news of Jesus Christ we the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors, and there- were closed to the values of your spirituality. We confused fore we must also bear their burdens. We must now seek ways western ways and culture with the depth and breadth and of healing ourselves, as well as our relationships with First length and height of the gospel of Christ. We imposed our civi- Nations peoples. This apology is not an end in itself. We are in lization as a condition of accepting the gospel. We tried to the midst of a long and painful journey. A journey that began make you like us and in doing so we helped destroy the vision with the United Church’s Apology of 1986, to our Statement of that made you what you were. As a result you and we are Repentance in 1997 and now moving to this apology with poorer. And the image of the creator in us is twisted and regard to Indian Residential Schools. As Moderator of The blurred and we are not what we are meant to be. We ask you United Church of Canada I urge each and every member of to forgive us and to walk together with us in the spirit of Christ the church, to reflect on these issues and to join us as we travel so that our people may be blessed and God’s creation held.’ this difficult road of repentance, reconciliation and healing.’ Robert S. Smith, Moderator of The United Church of Canada, Sudbury, 1986. The journey continues. I And on 27 October 1998, twelve years later, after the Executive of General Council spent two days reflecting on Linda Slough received her the meaning of repentance, the Moderator of the United teaching accreditation through Church, the Right Reverend Bill Phipps said: the University of Saskatchewan, ‘I am here today as Moderator of The United Church of Canada, took further classes at Canada to speak the words that many people have wanted to the University of Regina and hear for a very long time. On behalf of The United Church of worked for 16 years as an ele- Canada I apologize for the pain and suffering that our church’s mentary school teacher in Regina. involvement in the Indian Residential School system has She expanded her interest in caused. We are aware of some of the damage that this cruel learning of all kinds and in 1994 and ill-conceived system of assimilation has perpetrated on received a Dip[loma in Adult Edu- Canada’s First Nations peoples. For this we are truly and most cation from St Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova humbly sorry. Scotia. For many years she worked as a volunteer in the To those individuals who were physically, sexually and United Church of Canada (UCC), chairing the mentally abused as students of the Indian Residential Schools in which The United Church of Canada was involved, I offer you Saskatchewan Division of Mission 1982-85 and working our most sincere apology. You did nothing wrong. You were with the Saskatchewan Programme Staff Team 1987-96. In and are the victims of evil acts that cannot under any circum- March 1996 she moved to Toronto to become General stances be justified or excused. We pray that you will hear the Secretary of the UCC’s General Council Division of sincerity of our words today and that you will witness the living Communication.
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 27 fter the Second World War missions in territory.1 The then Australian Minister for Territories, Sir Papua New Guinea faced new imperatives Paul Hasluck, had already outlined the objectives of the A Territory administration as being, among others, to: driven by the reaction of the Australian administration to UN directives. As a result the ‘…achieve mass literacy, that is to say, to attempt to teach all administration decided to use English as the sole native children to read and write in a common language. language of education. These changes led to [and]…when, in generations to come, they may be required to manage their own affairs to a greater degree, they may feel a the closure of Tok Ples schools and the end of common bond among themselves as people.’ 2 Tok Ples as the primary language of education for indigenous people. Most significantly, The significance of Hasluck’s statement is that the idea however, Tok Pisin came into its own as a lingua of national identity, of creating a national consciousness franca. These factors combined to shift the among 1000 tribes, was already linked, however role of language as an identifier from a purely unconsciously, with literacy and education by the 1950s. village or regional level (Tok Ples) to a national Until then, the identity fostered by such education as there had been through the mission schools, had been with a one (Tok Pisin) Subsequent educational policies particular mission or region. The administration’s hope of establishing English as the national language failed, for while it produced the elite desired by the UN, it has remained a language of the elite. What nobody seems to have anticipated is that it would be Tok Pisin, the much Tok Pisin and Tok Ples reviled language of the plantation worker and haus boi, which would become the lingua franca. The decision to use English as the sole language of as languages of instruction in schools was, in terms of the UN demands, perfectly rational. With up to 1000 local languages, there was at this stage no effective lingua franca that could identification in serve in both the Australian territories. Tok Pisin prevailed in some parts of New Guinea, but was regarded with suspicion elsewhere. Motu was widespread in Papua and Papua New Guinea might eventually have provided a national lingua franca. English was widely spoken only in Milne Bay. Philip Cass Because of Australian neglect of Papua and New Guinea before the Second World War, in most places not only education, but health services, shipping and in some cases trade for natives was solely in the hands of the 3 missions. have reversed this situation. This article argues The first missions to reach Papua and New Guinea in that for a country with so many languages the 19th century were, naturally, concerned with local the temporary sacrifice of a few indigenous language issues and of necessity used Tok Ples languages languages was justified. Implicit in the paper is for evangelisation and initial communication. The local language thus used became identified with membership the argument that Tok Pisin should be treated as of a particular mission, or lotu, and can be regarded as a language indigenous to PNG and that having been used as a Tok Lotu. In some areas there was attempts to suppress it or dismiss it by metro- one dominant language, while some found themselves in politan administrations and missions failed an area with one dominant or at least widely recognised completely because it was a language that grew language, such as Kuanua on the Gazelle peninsula or Dobuan in Milne Bay. In rare cases a mission might out of the people themselves. choose a range of local languages and then export them to other language areas, as the Lutherans did on the north As the result of pressure brought about by the United coast with Kate, Gaged and Jabem. The Divine Word Nations in the 1950s and 1960s, the Australian adminis- missionaries in the Sepik, however, found that because of tration in the then Territory of Papua and New Guinea the linguistic diversity of the area they could find no decided to adopt English as the sole language for educa- common language and ultimately settled on a policy of tion in territory schools. This recommendation was using Tok Ples for evangelisation and contact, but used intended to hurry the development of an educated native German in the mission schools. After the First World War elite which would serve as the core leadership of an inde- they were forced to abandon German and decided to use pendent PNG. The changes in education policy which Tok Pisin, thus giving it the status of a lotu language. were adopted by the administration should be seen in the The Australian administration faced a completely context of earlier Australian decisions about its role in the different task after the Second World War. If they were to
28 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 have any chance of uniting the territory it had to be The different missions approached the question of Tok through language. The only way to implement this policy Pisin in different ways. Even when a mission ostensibly was to use English as the sole language of education and devoted its energies to working in Tok Ples and maintain- this meant teaching in any other language had to be ing them as lotu languages it still used Tok Pisin for general actively discouraged. The administration placed pressure communication. Some missions which had been instrumen- on the mission Tok Ples schools through a policy of subsi- tal in transliterating local languages began preaching in dies, new teaching standards and inspection regimes. The Tok Pisin as a matter of necessity as early as the 1940s. administration refused to subsidise mission schools which The movement of plantation workers meant that there were did not have properly qualified staff and since these were Methodists and other Protestants in Rabaul, for instance, generally the village schools where Tok Ples was used, who could not be ministered to in their own Tok Ples. They it meant the end of these schools and the end of the were catered for with Tok Pisin services and a book of Tok missions’ financial independence from the government.4 Pisin hymns was produced.8 Tok Pisin services were held There was debate then, as now, about whether the for indigenous workers from other districts, but until these administration’s policy made sense in terms of education were established workers from New Ireland and Nakani and whether children learn best in their own language for attended Kuanua services at Malakuna village.9 the first few years and then switch to English or whether In the 1950s Tok Pisin services continued to be held for they should they use English all the way through.5 What is Rabaul workers. Lutheran and LMS missionaries in Rabaul certain is that for the purpose of establishing a universal held services in many languages for workers from around language of instruction and rapidly creating the national the country, such as Toaripi for LMS people. The elite demanded by the UN, that the administration Methodists held Dobuan services for workers from Milne believed that Tok Ples had to be temporarily sacrificed. Bay. Methodists, LMS, and Lutherans worked closely By insisting on the use of English as the only language together and the Methodists often preached in LMS and of instruction, the administration effectively eliminated Tok Lutheran services through interpreters or in Tok Pisin.10 Ples as a language by which people could identify them- Close co-operation with other Protestant missions had selves through the lotu. Being able to speak English meant wider effects. By the 1960s the Methodist bookshop/ being able to leave the village, work for the Australians, to printery in Rabaul was buying Tok Pisin material from other travel and generally to leave the influence of the mission, and selling it alongside its own Kuanua literature.11 As the thus eliminating at a stroke the role of the mission as the Methodists moved towards the creation of the Uniting chief identifier outside the clan and family system. Church in 1965-67, the mission used explanatory litera- To travel meant coming into contact with people who ture in both Kuanua and Tok Pisin.12 By the 1970s Tok Pisin spoke other languages and thus the need to speak Tok was being used as language of debate in Synod and from Pisin fluently. I would argue that Tok Pisin became for many 1972 minutes were recorded in Tok Pisin, not English.13 people a new identifier language, a process expressed The Lutheran mission in PNG placed just as much most succinctly in the term wanpisin which can now be emphasis on the use of lotu languages as the Methodists, found as a replacement for wantok. If before a person but also used Tok Pisin to preach when necessary. The identified themselves through their Tok Ples or Tok Lotu, official acceptance of the language did not occur until then we now find people identifying themselves through 1956 and even then care was taken not to endanger the the dialect of Tok Pisin they speak. The Australian adminis- existing policy of using the three Tok Lotu, Jabem, Graged tration’s one language was later compromised by the intro- and Kate, for purposes of evangelisation. Once the duction of Tok Pisin and the re-introduction of Tok Ples as Lutherans (reorganised as the Evangelical Lutheran Church languages of instruction, but in its initial implementation, of New Guinea in 1956) had accepted that Tok Pisin was the one language policy can be seen to have unwittingly acceptable for official purposes, it was used for other opened the way for the development of Tok Pisin as a purposes as well. The three church newspapers became lingua franca. bilingual and the Lotu Book appeared alongside Tok Ples publications.14 A lingua franca for work The significance of this should not be underestimated. The missions fought the changes vigorously, not just from a The Lutheran and Methodist missions had been the pedagogical standpoint, but because they saw the move first people to produce newspapers in New guinea, and as damaging the relationships that were framed by the certainly the first to produce written material for the school, the local church and the community.6 However, all indigenous population. By making Tok Pisin material the missions had to contend with the fact that the popula- available at a time when the number of Tok Pisin speakers tion movements caused by labour recruiting meant that was growing, the churches were, wittingly or not, tapping people had to learn Tok Pisin to be able to work and con- into a new market. verse on plantations in other districts. When they came ELCONG’s response to the changes in the administra- home they brought Tok Pisin with them, just as the Tolais tion’s language policy was reluctantly pragmatic. While returning from sandalwood ships and the Samoan planta- fighting to retain vernacular education through its village tions had done in the 1880s. Tok Pisin provided a ready Bible schools, it established a Tok Pisin school system. The made lingua franca, but many missions remained opposed loss of the vernacular school system meant that increasing to it on the grounds that it was not a real language or numbers of students became illiterate in their own capable of expressing complex ideas.7 language (or at least their lotu language) and so the
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 29 church was forced by circumstance to communicate with to produce an academically acceptable dictionary was them in Tok Pisin. Lutheran records show the majority of Fr Frank Mihalic’s Jacaranda Dictionary and Grammar of Tok Pisin materials being created from the mid 1960s, Melanesian Pidgin in 1971. And yet even Mihalic initially such as a pastors’ refresher course in 1964. However, saw Tok Pisin as a transitional stage towards the wide- there are records of a few earlier documents such as a Tok spread use of and literacy in standard English. Pisin/Kate pamphlet on the relationship of the church to the secular world (Zurewec, 1958). Lists of Tok Pisin docu- ‘I am looking forward to the day when Neo-Melanesian and ments from this period include Sampela Litugi bilong Lotu this book will be buried and forgotten, when standard English (Amman, 1967). However, the records still show most and the Oxford dictionary will completely replace both.’ 23 work being produced in this period as being in Kate, Jabem and Graged. The earliest school materials in Tok By the second edition he admitted that Tok Pisin had not Pisin date from 1967, but most are from 1969.15 Most gone away: ELCONG publications are now printed in Tok Pisin. The publication of the Nupela Testamen in 1969 was what ‘Despite his admiration for and use of English, the New gave Tok Pisin respectability.16 Produced in collaboration Guinean does not identify with it. English to him is and will with the Catholic SVD mission, it was also a manifestation remain a status symbol, a prestige language... It will always be of the growing ecumenical spirit in PNG. his first foreign language of choice. But it does remain a for- eign language. It is never really his, whereas he feels that Pid- Having been so intimately involved with the media since gin is.’ 24 their earliest days it was only natural that the mission churches should recognise their obligations to the contem- In the second edition spellings were revised to conform porary media. The most tangible expression of this is with usage in the Nupela Testamen. It was decided to Word Publishing, a company whose major shareholders standardise the Tok Pisin orthography using the north coast include the Anglican, Catholic, Uniting and Lutheran dialect as a ‘high Pidgin’ because Madang Pidgin was churches. Word publishes, among other newspapers, held to be the least affected by Anglicisation. Wantok, the country’s only Tok Pisin newspaper.17 Mihalic’s greatest achievement was to bring to fruition an idea that had begun with Bishop Adolph Noser and Origins of the W a n t o k n e w s p a p e r been supported by Bishop Arkfeld, that of beginning a Tok To trace the origins of Wantok, we have to go back to the Pisin publication for PNG. Wantok fulfilled a long standing earliest days of the Catholic Divine Word (SVD) mission. commitment by the mainstream churches to the media in As we have already seen, the SVDs were forced by PNG. circumstances of history and geography to accept Tok Quite apart from Mihalic’s sheer obstinacy Wantok’s Pisin as a lingua franca. It became the official mission success was probably due as much to the fact that it language in north east New Guinea from 1931.18 Before emerged at a time when a critical mass of Tok Pisin had the Second World War broke out some catechital literature developed. Some correlation could be drawn between the had been printed. A Tok Pisin newspaper, Frend Bilong Mi growing number of students at the end of the 1960s and was also published intermittently by the mission, but it early 1970s and the growth of the paper. Official figures was no longer lived than any of the later commercial or showed more than a quarter of a million students enrolled administration Tok Pisin publications.19 in primary, secondary, technical and tertiary education in As the SVDs began to expand into the Highlands in the 1971.25 Despite this, English did not take hold as a lingua 1930s, it became clear that the policy of adopting Tok franca. This could be due to the fact that Tok Pisin proved Pisin was beginning to pay off. Bishop Leo Arkfeld adequate for the needs of the bulk of the population who asserted that resistance in the Highlands to imported Tok felt no need to become fluent in English and who were Ples had been strong and he stressed the flexibility of in any case regularly and exposed through schools and Tok Pisin as a language that could be carried from one various formal and other media to written Tok Pisin.26 language group to another.20 However, not all the SVD School leavers literate in Tok Pisin appear to have been missionaries were enamoured of Tok Pisin. Fr Ernst Montag regarded as a primary market for Wantok. In the paper’s complained in his memoirs that: 100th edition Mihalic wrote:
‘Pidgin was a synthetic language, one that was composed ‘Planti student I pinisim praimeri skul tasol, na bikpela lain purposely to suit the primitiveness of the aborigines. The gen I save lusim haiskul long Fom 2. Tru, ol I no inap ritim gut vocabulary is meagre. Many words have several meanings. ol buk na niuspepap long tok Inglis. Wantok I wok long helpim Just this gives rise to the possibility of misunderstandings and ol dispela lain na ol narapela bikpela manmeri tu long ritim na inaccuracies.’ 21 raitim tok pisin. Nogot edukesen bilong ol I pundaun nating. Wantok I wok long givim ol kain kain nius I laik kamap insait The possibility of misunderstandings and inaccuracies long PNG – bilong gavman, bisnis, na ol misin bai ol pipel I existed because there was no standard orthography. save gut long kantri bilong ol.’ 27 Although Frs Kirschbaum and Meisner had produced Tok Pisin dictionaries, the fact that different pronunciations and This is not the place to give a complete history of loan words obtained in different districts, made it difficult Wantok – Fr Mihalic will hopefully do that himself, one to pin the language down precisely.22 The first real attempt day – but the Tok Pisin newspaper that began life at the
30 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 ‘Wantok’ newspaper was supported by WACC as a ‘strategic periodical’ in the 1980s. This unusual picture shows a local celebration including a boat sailing under the Wantok logo.
Wirui mission in 1970 serves to illustrate two important language in a developing country is to divide or unify it. points. Firstly it shows the correctness of adopting Tok Pisin Languages can be reclaimed, national unity cannot. as a lotu language and it shows that Tok Pisin has devel- oped as a lingua franca in a way that English never could. This is a revised version of a paper presented at the It also showed that the question of lotu languages was Society of Oceanists’ conference, Leiden University, the utterly redundant. The extent to which Tok Pisin had Netherlands, in June 1999. As with any paper about the become a lingua franca and the way in which had begun media, languages or the Pacific, it is necessarily a work in to play a role as a unifying agent was exemplified when progress. journalist Kumalau Tawali quoted Professor Lynch at UPNG as saying that because the government and media did not Glossary use Tok Pisin they were failing to keep people informed • Tok Pisin – The lingua franca of Papua New Guinea. and only informed people truly participate in development. Closely allied with Bislama (Vanuatu) and Solomon ‘The result is inevitable: We make little progress as a Islands Pidgin. nation. It’s as important as that.’ 28 • Tok Ples – Literally ‘the talk of the place.’ With its 1000 Today Tok Pisin is the national lingua franca of Papua or so languages, language populations can range from New Guinea. It is still changing: Although creolised in Port 2000 to 200,000, so a Tok Ples might be confined to Moresby, it is still in a state of flux elsewhere, but it would one village or valley. Conversely, it used as a trading be hard to argue with the sentiment that ‘without it, there language it might be understood more widely. would be no unity in this land.’29 This is not to say that • Tok Lotu – I have used this term to mean a local Tok Ples itself is redundant. The Australian administration language given a special status by a mission as the eventually allowed some government controlled Tok Ples language of evangelisation and primary communica- village schools and after independence the PNG govern- tion within the mission community. The Tok Lotu became ment adopted a policy of allowing Tok Ples to be used as the language by which adherents of a mission were the initial language of education. If the role of Tok Ples in identified, particularly if it was not their own Tok Ples. uniting a lotu had passed, they remain powerful signifiers • Lotu – A Polynesian word used to mean church, mission of group identity, as witnessed by the survival of Kuanua or Gospel as required. on the Gazelle Peninsula.30 The loss of Tok Ples as lotu languages should not be mourned. Bibliography The real issue is whether or not the primary role of Bishop Leo Arkfeld, interview, Wirui mission, Wewak,
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 31 29/4/92. M. Turner, Papua New Guinea: The Challenge of Indepen- L.Cass, ‘PNG Changes in School Languages Postwar,’ dence, Penguin, Melbourne, 1990. MS, May 1999. E. Wagner and H. Reiner (eds) The Lutheran Church in R.Cleland, Pathways to Independence, Cottesloe, 1981. Papua New Guinea: The first Hundred Years, Lutheran -, ‘Current Notes’ in Papua New Guinea Journal of Educa- Publishing House, Adelaide, 1986. tion, V:5, (October 1968) K. Willey, Assignment New Guinea, The Jacaranda Press, L.Douglas, ‘From Christendom to Pluralism in the South Brisbane, 1965. Seas: Church-State relations in the 20th Century,’ PhD Rev Dr R. Wiltgen, ‘Catholic missions plantations in main- thesis, Drew University, 1969 land New Guinea: Their origin and purpose’ in S. K. W.Fey, ‘Culture, Language and Formation’ in Catalyst Inglis (ed) The History of Melanesia: Papers presented at XVII:4 (1987) the second Waigani Seminar Canberra/Port Moresby, H.Hage, List of Duplicated Materials, MS, 1969, UPNG 1969. Library/Micheal Somare collection. Wurm S. A., (ed), New Guinea Area Languages and Lan- - , Katolik Nius, November 1967. guage Study Vol 3: Language, Culture, Society and the R.Litteral, ’Language Policies in Melanesia,’ in Media Modern World, ANU, Canberra, 1977. Development (1/1992) C.Zinkel, ‘Pidgin schools in the Highlands,’ in Papua New R.Litteral, ‘Language Development in Papua New Guinea’, Guinea Journal of Education, VII:2, June 1971. SIL Electronic Working Papers 1999-002, February @ http://www.sil.org/silewp/1999/002/SILEWP1999- 11 Not all of the effects of the educational changes that 002.html followed were good. One result was a form of educa- R.Litteral, ‘Four Decades of Language Policy in Papua New tional apartheid in PNG, with European Chinese and Guinea: The move towards the vernacular’, SIL Elec- some mixed race children being educated in Primary tronic Working Papers 1999-001, February 1999 ‘A’ schools while indigenous children were separated @ http://www.sil.org/silewp/1999/001/SILEWP1999- into Primary ‘T’ schools. 001.html 12 G.Souter, New Guinea: The Last Unknown, Angus R.Loving (ed), Workers in Papua New Guinea Languages and Robertson, Sydney, 1974. p247 Vol II, Summer Institute of Linguistics, Ukarampa, 1975. 13 L.Cass, ‘PNG Changes in School Languages Postwar,’ Fr Ernst Montag, SVD, 31 Years a Missionary, SVD MS, May 1999. Archives Mt Hagen. 14 Les Johnson, the Director of Education in PNG, was Fr Frank Mihalic, SVD, The Jacaranda Dictionary and opposed to the system of imposing a Tok Ples from one Grammar of Melanesian Pidgin, Brisbane, 1971. area onto another, precisely the method used by the Fr F. Mihalic, SVD, Introduction to New Guinea Pidgin, Lutherans to evangelise with Graged, Kate and Jabem Jacaranda Press, Brisbane, 1969. and, to a lesser extent, by the Catholic and Methodist Fr F. Mihalic, SVD, ‘Wantok kamap 100 taim,’ in Wantok, missionaries who spread Kuanua to New Ireland. 18/9/74. H.Nelson, Taim Bilong Masta, Australian Broadcast- Fr F. Mihalic, SVD, ‘Tok Pisin: Yesterday, Today and Tomor- ing Commission Sydney, 1982. p153 row’ in Catalyst, XVI, (1986). 15 There may be sound reasons for starting primary H. Nelson, ‘The press in Papua New Guinea,’ seminar school with Tok Ples education as now happens in paper, UPNG, Port Moresby, 1967. some places. There has been some argument that H. Nelson, Taim Bilong Masta, Australian Broadcasting bilingual students do better and that language skills Commission Sydney, 1982. acquired in one language are transferred to another. C. Ralph, ’Some Notes on Education in German New Litteral argues strenuously in a series of papers for the Guinea 1884-1914’ in PNG Journal of Education, Port virtues of Tok Ples schools, but Turner, reports that the Moresby, July 1965. re-introduction of Tok Ples school in some regions has G.Souter, New Guinea The Last Unknown, Angus and been met with suspicion by some communities which Robertson, Sydney, 1974. feel that they are receiving a second rate education. Fr Paul Steffen, SVD, letter to author, Banz, PNG, M.Turner, Papua New Guinea: The Challenge of 24/11/92. Independence, Penguin, Melbourne, 1990, p81. See Kumalau Tawali, ‘Stap na Ting Ting’ broadcast on also R.Litteral, ‘Language Development in Papua New National Broadcasting Corporation, PNG, 10/6/79. Guinea,’ SIL Electronic Working Papers 1999-002, The Rev Esau Teko, Acting Bishop of the Uniting Church, February 1999 and ‘Four Decades of Language Policy interview, Rabaul, July 1993. in Papua New Guinea: the move towards the Rev N. Threlfall, One Hundred Years in the Islands, vernacular’, SIL Electronic Working Papers 1999-001, Toksave Buk, Rabaul, 1985. February 1999, both at http://www.sil.org/silewp. Fr John Tschauder, SVD, interview, Madang, 3/12/92. 16 H.Hage, ‘Languages and Schools,’ in Wagner and Fr John Tschauder, SVD, The Tschauder Translations. Six Reiner (eds) The Lutheran Church in Papua New volumes of annotated translations of letters and articles Guinea: The first Hundred Years, Lutheran Publishing by the original Divine Word and Holy Spirit missionar- House, Adelaide, 1986, p417. There is evidence of a ies which appeared in the Kleine Herz Jesu Bote and the desire by the local people for government schools and Styele Missions Bote. attempts by some missionaries – both Protestant and
32 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 Catholic – to thwart these wishes. My father, a senior pick a number somewhere between 750 and 1000. education officer with long experience in PNG, This remarkably prescient quote was made by Keith recalled incidents involving French priests and a Willey 35 years ago. K.Willey, Assignment New senior Anglican clergyman who tried to stop people in Guinea, The Jacaranda Press, Brisbane, 1965. p89 what is now Oro Province asking for government 30 However, when the church newspaper A Nilai Ra schools in the 1950s. Davot – the second oldest in the country – was revived 17 It was also seen as a threat to attempts to introduce a in 1993, the then Acting Bishop of the Uniting Church, ‘proper’ European language. Ralph quotes an the Reverend Esau Teko said that it could no longer be unnamed missionary blaming the failure of the a purely Kuanua publication because of the demand German administration’s language policy on ‘this for Tok Pisin from migrant workers and public servants miserable pidgin English.’ C.Ralph, ‘Some notes on from other parts of the country. education in German New Guinea 1884-1914’ in Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, July 1965, p77. Philip Cass is Principal Lecturer in 18 Neville Threlfall, One Hundred Years in the Islands, Journalism at the University of Toksave Buk, rabaul, 1985, p140 Teesside, United Kingdom. Born 19 ibid, p166 in PNG, he has worked as a jour- 10 op cit p184 nalist and academic in Australia 11 op cit p192 and the Pacific. He taught journal- 12 op cit p215 ism at the University of the South 13 op cit p224 Pacific before taking up his pre- 14 H.Hage in Wagner and Reiner (eds) pp413-414. sent position. He was awarded 15 H.Hage, List of Duplicated materials, MS, 1969, an MA by Central Queensland UPNG Library/Micheal Somare collection. University in 1997 for his thesis ‘The Apostolate of the 16 H.Hage in Wagner and Reiner (eds) p414 Press: Missionary language policy, translation and publi- 17 Confusingly, the Micheal Somare collection holds a cation in German New Guinea.’ copy of a newsletter for New Zealand missionaries, which is also called Wantok and which also appeared about the time Fr Mihalic’s newspaper first appeared. 18 Fr Kirschbaum was in charge of the language commis- sion. Fr Paul Steffen, letter to author, Banz, PNG, 24/11/92 19 The date of publication is the subject of debate. Steffen says it came out from 1935-41, Tschauder remembers seeing a Tok Pisin newspaper of some kind when he went there in 1927. Fr John Tschauder, SVD, Interview Madang 3/12/92 20 Bishop Leo Arkfeld interview Wirui mission, Wewak, PNG 29/4/92 21 Fr Ernst Montag ‘31 Years A Missionary’ SVD archives Mt Hagen p37. Kundiawa 1989. 22 Note, for instance, the spelling in the November 1967 edition of Katolik Nius, produced by the MSCs at Vunapope: ‘Vonem naem bilong yu?’ rather than the more standard ‘Wanem naim bilong yu?’ 23 Fr Frank Mihalic The Jacaranda Dictionary and Grammar of Melanesian Pidgin Brisbane 1971. Preface to first edition pix) 24 Mihalic pxv preface to second edition 25 ‘Current Notes’ in Papua New Guinea Jounal of Education, V:5, October 1968. 26 C.Zinkel, ‘Pidgin schools in the Highlands,’ in Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, VII:2, June 1971. 27 Mihalic, ‘Wantok kamap 100 taim,’ in Wantok, 18/9/74. 28 Kumalau Tawali on Stap na Ting Ting, broadcast on the National Broadcasting Corporation on June 10, 1979. 29 Nobody ever seems to agree on quite how many languages there are in PNG. Most people seem to
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 33 Conference on ‘Media, The WACC-sponsored religion and culture ’ panel at the conference gather for a photo-call. Left to right: ‘The religious sphere and the media Georgekutty A. L. sphere are coming together in ways (India), Arnis Redovics we have yet to realise or understand,’ (Latvia), Gaye Ortiz stated Stewart Hoover setting the scene (United Kingdom), for the third in a series of international Jolyon Mitchell (UK, conferences on ‘Media, Religion and conference organiser), Culture’. It took place at the University Alyda Faber (Canada), of Edinburgh, 20-23 July 1999, and and Carlos A. Valle was attended by some 150 academics (Argentina). Photo: and practitioners. Philip Lee. The aim of the conference was to build on discussions that began in Uppsala, Sweden (1993) and Boulder, USA (1996), investigating the evolving relationship between the media and different religious and cultural contexts. Stewart Hoover tackled ‘The converg- ing worlds of religion and media’. In response, Albert van den Heuvel (WACC President) called for ‘a new alliance of prophetic voices from both camps – religion and the media.’ Participants attended a mix of plenary and group sessions in which they heard presentations and counter- opinions and were able to raise questions and issues for further debate. In ‘Global billboards, religions and and founding director of the Centre for that ‘Much may be made of a Scotch- human rights’, Cees J. Hamelink – the Study of Islam at the University of man, if he be caught young.’ Professor of Communications at the Glasgow, Scotland. Using a computer-linked display, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, A change of venue for the fourth Anne Foerst, director of the ‘God and and a speaker at WACC’s Congress plenary took participants to the Computer Project’ at the Massachusetts ’95 – attacked the insidious spread of recently opened New Museum of Scot- Institute of Technology, USA, explored international marketing, contrasting it land. Described as ‘the finest Scottish ‘Myth and ritual in cyberspace’. Bear- with the lack of implementation of building of the 20th century’, it ing degrees in computer science and basic human rights in many countries. presents the history of Scotland, its theology, she outlined how the study Hamid Mowlana, Professor of Inter- land, people and their achievements. of artificial intelligence and robotics national Relations at the American Housing more than 10,000 of the raises exciting and profound moral University, Washington DC, guided nation’s most valued artefacts, the dis- questions. A more traditional point of listeners through the intricacies of plays follow a chronological journey view was expressed by Gregor classical Islamic beliefs in ‘Media, from Scotland’s geological formation Goethals, former Professor of Art Islam and culture’. His views were and earliest people down to the 21st History at the Rhode Island School of contested, in part, by Mona Siddiqui, century. It goes some way towards Design, USA, and well-known author lecturer in Arabic and Islamic studies proving Samuel Johnson’s observation of The Electronic Golden Calf: Images
34 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 Second World War. Struck by remorse, The media machine’s intrinsic nature always compromises, and sometimes his former lover commits suicide absolutely corrupts, its search for truth and its interpretation of events. because it was she who betrayed him But it is difficult for it to acknowledge these intrinsic distortions, because, as and his comrades to the Germans. Marx accurately diagnosed, power is always blind to its own partiality and is Redovics observed that ‘the past does expert at manufacturing theories to legitimate its own position. The tendency change. In the same way that the past of all power structures to this kind self-delusion means that the challenge to the changes the future, so the present abuse of power usually has to come from outside the system, and rarely comes changes the past.’ from within it. Finally, Alyda Faber, researcher A good example of the delusive blindness of power is provided by and lecturer in the Faculty of Religious the debate on the ordination of women in my own church. When we were Studies at McGill University, Canada, debating whether to ordain women, the thing that frustrated us most in our examined dominant trends in current discussions with those who opposed it was not that the men in charge said understandings of reconciliation in honestly that they did not want to share power with women, or that they liked Christian theology. Illustrated by all the male language about God in the Bible, because it confirmed their own Secrets & Lies, she showed that ‘acts of sense of the metaphysical superiority of the male urinary tract – there would reconciliation – of listening to another have been a certain kind of honesty in that, and the laughter it provoked might person’s pain, of facing reality in itself have been cleansing and transforming. But that’s not what they said. some way, of compassion for recalci- They said, ‘We ourselves have no prejudices against women; indeed, if trant human limitations – take place in it were up to us, we would alter things to accommodate their obvious a context of enduring habits of frustrations; unfortunately, God has different ideas. He has fixed these estrangement and human desires for fundamental gender distinctions for ever, and who are we to fight against communion.’ God?’ Plenary 6 witnessed a sparring con- Marx would have slapped his thigh with delight at that claim, because it is test between the media, in the left-hand a perfect illustration of his thesis that people in power always find theoretical corner, and Richard Holloway, Episco- ways of justifying their self-interest. The media is a power centre, and it pal Bishop of Edinburgh, and Wesley provides similar self-justificatory legitimations of its role, usually by invoking Carr, Dean of Westminster in the right- important values, such as the freedom of the press and the need to challenge hand corner. ‘The nature of truth in a the abuses of other power centres, such as government. media saturated context’ tackled the We should neither despair nor be surprised by any of this. It is the way trend towards ‘infotainment’ and the all human systems work. What we need to keep in place is the important media’s propensity for shallowness. principle of oppositional criticism. All power should, by definition, have Bishop Holloway, a writer and broad- organised against it structures of challenge and opposition. The difficulty caster currently developing a series for about this, where the media is concerned, is that we need to co-opt the media BBC 2, is regularly attacked in the in the task of invigilating the media. Inevitably, therefore, we get involved in a press for his outspoken views on kind of circularity, whichever way we turn. The press likes to police itself – all politics and society. The Dean of West- power centres like that arrangement. I am simply wondering out loud whether minster was responsible for organising that can be real policing. Each time there is a particularly gross abuse of the the funeral service of Diana, Princess power of the press in this country there is a call for some kind of legislative of Wales, and was recently in the news response. I am not quite sure how that could be framed, but it has to be one of for dismissing the Abbey’s organist. the great moral issues of our time, and it is surely a worthy subject for a con- Jeremy Begbie, Vice-Principal of ference such as this to take a view on. Ridley Hall, Cambridge, and director of the research project ‘Theology From ‘The nature of truth in a media saturated context’, an address given through the arts’, performed rather by the Rt. Revd. Richard Holloway, Episcopal Bishop of Edinburgh, at the than presented plenary 7. Called third international conference on ‘Media, Religion and Culture’, Edinburgh, ‘Music, media and God’ it surveyed Scotland, 20-23 July 1999. different understandings of the role of music in society. Using recordings and the Making of Meaning. George Kutty Luckose, long-time and illustrating many arguments at WACC sponsored the fifth plenary editor of Deep Focus film quarterly, the piano, he called on media practi- ‘From revelation to reconciliation’ Bangalore, India, identified elements tioners and academics to pay greater introduced by Carlos A. Valle, WACC of ‘the history of forced dislocations attention to music as an essential General Secretary. Based on Mike that created a global African and dimension of culture. Leigh’s award-winning film Secrets & Asian diaspora.’ Arnis Redovics, The last plenary session of the con- Lies, three presenters looked at how theologian from Riga, Latvia, con- ference was titled ‘Back to the future: the discovery of long-hidden secrets in trasted Secrets & Lies with The Nest, Media, religion, culture and faith com- a British family changed their attitudes directed by Aivars Freimanis (Latvia, munities’. Presented by Peter Horsfield towards one another. This coming-to- 1995). This film shows the home- of the Uniting Church in Australia, it terms with the past offered a starting coming of an emigrant who barely took a close look at the ongoing point for future relationships. escaped from the Germans during the process of transition and restructuring
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 35 on the first sub-theme was Prof. Leonor particularly that set by Post-Modern Magtolis Briones, who currently holds and Post-Colonial theories. Hyondok the post of Treasurer of the Philippines. Choe, for example, in her concluding Her analysis of the Asian economic remarks referred to the cultural scenario was very incisive. That it was guerrilla wars in South Korea as heavily dependent on statistics culled leading to new forms of solidarity. rather liberally from the UNDP 1999 These wars are self-contained local report did not take anything away acts of rebellion and instances of from the presentation. She concluded solidarity – that are interesting and her paper with a series of forthright valid in their own right, but lacking in suggestions – that the church in Asia any larger understanding of solidarity explore alternatives to globalisation by beyond the confines of the local and using the subversive potential of the the immediate. But this seems to be the Net and more interestingly that theolo- emerging understanding of solidarity – gians explore ‘process theology’ which specific, limited, narrow. There are no contends that God evolves along with larger points of reference – for all these human beings. have been discredited by the new This is not something new for theolo- theories. Roxanne (Claire Rushbrook ) and gians involved in the science-faith In a context characterised by the Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn) in Mike encounter have been advocating new decentring of grand narratives, I was Leigh’s Secrets & Lies. Film Four ways of apprehending and under- surprised by the presence of God! To Distribution. standing God in a world structured by me the Congress was too economic advances in science and technology. centred in its analysis and I was of mainline religious institutions. Point- But very few Asian theologians have among very few people who pushed ing to ‘the re-institutionalisation of seriously considered the challenges theologians to take issues related to religious faith within the institutions of posed by the following comment: ‘If culture and communication seriously. It commercial mass media’, he called for God doesn’t change, we are in danger reminded me of the old Marxist ‘the reformation of vital religious of losing God. There is a shift to the debates where the economic base was communities’ and ‘the recovery of faith idea of God as a process evolving with the main focus of analyses at the stories as oral events’. us. If you believe in an eternal, expense of the superstructures, i.e. In conclusion, Stewart Hoover unchanging God, you’ll be in trouble.’ culture, politics, etc. Communications announced that a new journal of I guess that the Bishop of Edinburgh is unfortunately a low priority issue and ‘Media, Religion and Culture’ is being will be a handy ally for Asian theolo- subject among Asian theologians. The negotiated with Routledge. The first gians as they explore this area! status quo remains. And I think that it is issues will contain some of the papers It was announced that the Templeton going to be a long while before Asian presented during the week. In Foundation had given Korean theolo- theologians discover the presence of addition, a fourth conference is being gians US$12 million to explore this God in the context of the everyday planned for Los Angeles in 2002. encounter and I did see them enlisting and the material. support for the cause from other theolo- The most moving of the evening Report by Philip Lee. gians present. Anne Pattel Gray, who presentations was undoubtedly the one is currently visiting professor at the presented by members belonging to United Theological College, Bangalore, and working with the Narmada dealt with the second sub-theme and Bachoa Andolan( Save the Narmada Second congress of Hyondok Choe from South Korea with Valley) – a project supported by the Asian theologians the third sub-theme. World Bank that will involve the These themes were explored further making of hundreds of dams on the The theme of this congress was ‘Asian in inter-disciplinary workshops. Com- Narmada River in North/Central Theology in a Changing Asia: Towards munication was one of nine areas India. It has already led to the an Asian Theological Agenda Towards explored that included church history, submergence of many ‘tribal’ villages. the 21st Century’. More than 90 systematics, feminist theology, etc. The The interesting thing about this move- theologians from Asia took part, paper that I presented was entitled ment is the involvement, commitment including more than 20 from South ‘Globalisation and Christian Commu- and support given by many thousands Korea who had taken part in an earlier nications: Some Implications for the of people in India from all walks of Minjung-Dalit dialogue that was held Church in Asia’. life, the latest being the Booker prize in Chennai, the city formerly known as I came away with the feeling that, winner Arundhati Roy. It is an on-going Madras. in spite of real breakthroughs and struggle whose success or failure will The Congress dealt with new advances in Minjung and Feminist determine the future of development in theologies from the perspectives of theologies for example, many of these India. three sub-themes: economics, spiritual- theologians are captive to the agendas ity and solidarity. The key-note speaker set by their theoretical frameworks, Report by Pradip N. Thomas
36 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 Montreal film festival 1999
At the 23rd Montreal World Film Festi- val (27 August to 6 September 1999) the cinema of 68 countries was repre- sented and the 19 films that competed for the official prize were from 16 countries. For this reason the Festival deserves to be called World Film Festival. It offered, in several sections, the opportunity of appreciating some of the films that reflects current Carlos Saura with members of the Ecumenical Jury. concerns and realities: World Greats, World Cinema: Reflections of our time (Belgium), Carlos A. Valle (Argentina) dealing with the experience of being and Cinema of Tomorrow: New and Bertrand Oullet (Canada) – exiled that reflect similar situations. trends. Special attention was paid to president of the Jury. Until We Meet by Cho-Moon-Jin from Latin America and Irish cinema along The Ecumenical Jury unanimously Korea is the story of a North Korean with a panorama of Canadian film- awarded its prize to the film Goya en soldier who defects from the army and ography. There was also room for new Burdeos (Goya in Bordeaux) because: crosses the border to the South. Unfor- blood in the section ‘Student Film & ‘This genuine work of art is a vibrant tunately he steps on a land mine. He Video Festival’. testimony to the importance of art, survives but is stricken with amnesia. The Festival created a particular inner life and memory as forces for Three men who escaped from North atmosphere in the city of Montreal. social evolutions. The borders Korea many years ago were identified People were queuing at the various between memory and imagination, art as possible fathers of the soldier. All cinemas to watch films from countries and reality, past and present dissolve the memories of the past, the sense of and cultures that generally are not part into a woven tapestry, wherein the betrayal and guilt, and the need to be of the regular offering of distributors hard realities from the past inspire the forgiven and at the same time to forget and local theatres. always relevant struggle for freedom.’ are now inescapable. It is a way of In 1979 an Ecumenical Jury was Saura, perhaps Spain’s best-known saying that our past cannot be put established for this Festival. Montreal’s director was born in 1932. His first aside and ignored. One day it will Ecumenical Jury is the only one in films reflect the search for a new path become present in our personal and North America. Its task is to grant an and life out of the oppressiveness of social lives. Ecumenical Prize to a film among the Franco’s regime. Films like his first Los Which Side Eden by Vojtech Jasny feature films in the Official Competi- Golfos (1965) followed by The Hunt from Czech Republic is the story of a tion. The Jury is appointed by OCIC (1965) and Anna and the Wolves professor who has found his home in and Interfilm/WACC. These organisa- (1972) are examples of a rich and the US and plans to return to visit his tions understand that ‘the Ecumenical challenging creativity that has found old town in Moravia. But after the war Prize aims at promoting movies a peak in his latest film. Saura has everything has changed. He too has that distinguish themselves not only said: ‘I have tried to show what Goya changed. Unfortunately the film by artistic merit, but also by their was like in his last years, exiled in spends too much time on a tourist trip exploration of the ethical, social and Bordeaux – what were his passions, around New York and the countryside spiritual values that make life human.’ his loves and his hatred, his hallucina- of Moravia, instead of reflecting on The members of the 1999 Ecumenical tions, his dreams, his demons. All in a the pros and cons of what it means to Jury were: Janet Lee Clark (Canada), world where the imaginary exists side be an exile who escaped the horrors Florence Desmazures (France), Hilly by side with the mundane.’ of war and poverty and found far G. Hicks (USA), R. Ferdinand Poswick There were at least two other films away a prosperous personal situation.
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 37 The richness of childhood’s memories; Locarno 1999 the sense of being considered a for- eigner in his own country; the sense of visiting a country that is no longer ‘his country’; the paradoxical reality that his new adopted country is not totally his own. In the film all these elements are only insinuated. There are, at least, two other films that should be mentioned. Both deal with the meaning of duty and responsi- bility in life in relation to daily work. In both cases long preserved traditions are called into question in the light of new historical times. The first is Post- men in the Mountains by Huo Jianqi from China. Jianqi was born in Beijing in 1958 and graduated from the Bei- jing Film Academy. He made his debut as director in 1995 with The Winner followed by The Singer in 1996. Post- men in the Mountains is the story of a man from a remote village of southern China who for decades has acted as postman delivering the mail in the mountains. Now it’s time for his son to The prize of the ecumenical jury at the Locarno film festival went to La vie take the mailbag. Father and son will ne me fait pas peur by Noémie Lvovsky (France, 1999). The film sympa- go together on the father’s last round. thetically portrays the search by four adolescent girls for their place in the Full of symbolism, the film reflects on world. Torn between joy and sorrow, relationships and loneliness, their the need for dialogue among genera- friendship gives them mutual support. While recalling her own youth, the tions, what to preserve and what to director uses the young actresses to create a vivid picture of the difficult change or improve. In this context car- time of growing up. (Still above courtesy of Filmcooperative Zürich.) ing for people and the role of the job as a service is beyond question. A special mention went to the film Barak by Valerij Ogorodnikov (Russia, Poppoya by Yasuo Furuhata from 1999). By creating symphonic unity with artistic expression, the director Japan is the story of a stationmaster in shows that community can overcome hatred and sorrow. The film shows a small town who never leaves his sta- tion, even when his only daughter falls estrangement giving way to mutual understanding and how an authentic ill and dies. He has a deep sense of picture of a certain period of time becomes a symbol of love which can loyalty to his work. But in the end he effectively change difficult circumstances. regrets what he has sacrificed. His dilemma is between his beloved daughter and his duty. He opts for the latter. The film was beautifully shot by Daisaku Kimura during a very harsh winter. The vast scenery covered by persistent snow imprints a dramatic tone of solitude and anguish. The Montreal World Film Festival offered the chance find out that in many parts of the world cinema is in good health and continues to be a valuable instrument for expressing the inner nature of human beings, their sufferings, struggles and dreams. As Robert Bresson, the French filmmaker, reminds us ‘Make visible what, without you, might never have been seen.’
Report by Carlos A. Valle
38 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 he reports of an upsurge in inter-religious of minorities, in particular Muslims and Christians in India conflicts in India – that peaked in December today. The dominant ‘Hindutva’, meaning Hindu Nation T version of this story, is made up of many strands supplied 1998 in the state of Gujarat, and of sporadic by certain groups of people – as for example: violence against religious minorities and (1) disaffected Hindu priests and mahants,3 mainly missionaries in the Indian states of Orissa, Brahmin, whose ritual, sacral powers have been margin- Bihar, Karnataka and Kerala during the first half alised in the context of secular India. of 1999, once again brought into sharp relief (2) Hindu nationalists and their intellectual supporters who are a) keen to restore the physical and spiritual unity, some of the tensions besetting democracy in meaning the Hindu ethos, of India through righting the 1 India. While Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs have wrongs inflicted by countless Mughal rulers on India in the suffered the consequences of planned and past; b) united in their efforts to counter the perceived random inter-religious, ‘communal’ violence hegemony of socialists and secularists in present-day India for years, it is only recently that the Christian in education and opinion making; c) committed to resisting minority has become a target of such violence. the expansionist zeal of adherents belonging to the Semitic religions in India and their allies abroad; d) united in The following article explores this scenario. deploying the symbol of a militant and virile Lord Rama in their efforts to mobilise Hindus against the enemies of the nation within, particularly non-Hindu minorities, and with- out, the geo-political aspirations of China and Pakistan in particular, along with the threat from the immediate West, Web wars and inter- the hard-line Taliban in Afghanistan, and in the East, the Sino-Myanmarese axis; and e) wedded to the project of institutionalising and centralising an all India version of faith futures in India Hinduism. (3) Hindu traders who have had to compete with their Pradip N. Thomas Muslim counterparts in the retail of brassware, handicrafts, textiles, and other goods. (4) The diaspora Hindu community from the USA, Europe and elsewhere and their many fears and griev- ances against exclusionary policies in their adopted According to some newspaper reports, particularly the country, and who have articulated trans-national longings vernacular press in the Hindi belt, the issue of ‘conversion’ and pan-Hindu desires via movements such as the World was the primary reason for the violence. Other news- Council of Hindus. papers, especially sections of the moderate English press, (5) High caste Hindus who are against the practice of were of the opinion that the violence was premeditated, positive discrimination in favour of the ‘scheduled castes’ and orchestrated by the Hindu nationalist network, collec- and ‘Dalits’ in government, educational institutions and tively known as the Sangh Parivar, with the tacit encour- employment in general, perceived pandering to minority agement of one of its members, the ruling Bharatiya Janata interests, and who blame Christian missions and NGOs Party (BJP). Members of the Sangh Parivar include the for the empowerment of the lower castes and indigenous Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu peoples. Parishad (VHP), the Shiv Sena and the Bajrang Dal, (6) The many Hindus living in North India, the victims among others. The gradual but deliberate ascendance of of the Partition, who have not reconciled themselves to the RSS network, from relative obscurity in the 1920s, and memories of the loss of family, friends and property during its marginalisation after an ex-member, Nathuram Godse, that violent episode in Indian history. was found guilty of assassinating Mahatma Gandhi in These strands, along with others, form a complex web 1948, to become the power behind the throne recently, is of longings, fears, aspirations and counter-aspirations that according to some observers, very similar to the rise has been over-simplified for popular consumption by of National Socialism in Germany in the 1930s.2 While nationalist Hindu politicians. Popular sound-bites – that there are differences, the continuities between these two India is a Hindu nation, that Indian identity is co-terminous types of nationalisms run deep, and RSS stalwarts like with Hindu identity, that minorities must recognise the M. S. Golwalkar and K. B. Hedgewar, and in particular primacy of the Hindu state or face being alienated – the Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray, have sometimes are some of the popular slogans that have extensive commended Hitler and the ideology of Nazism. legitimacy, particularly in the Hindi-Hindu heartland. In The politics of religious nationalism in India has been a context characterised by widespread economic and fuelled by a variety of fears and interests – imagined, political insecurities, the exploitation of such primary fears manufactured, resurrected, real – that have coalesced to through the naming of enemies, the emphasis on identity form part of the national imaginary of a large section of and the framing of exclusive Hindutva futures, guarantees people belonging to the majority community, i.e. the certainty and hope to some sections of society at the Hindus. It has also correspondingly affected the worldview expense of others.
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 39 The key beneficiary of this project has undoubtedly Counter fundamentalism been the BJP-led central government. It has assiduously It is tempting to place the entire blame for the breakdown built upon the failures of previous governments in the of inter-faith relationships on the Sangh Parivar, but that arena of minority politics, in particular the Congress, would be far from the truth. Their role in the many acts of created alliances with other nationalist groups and organi- violence against minorities and the complicity of BJP-run sations, manipulated popular religious sentiments based state governments and the tacit support given by the on an exclusive version of identity-speak and exploited central government to the initiators of violence cannot be religious symbolism to great effect through spectacles like denied. The prevarication shown by the BJP government the Rath Yatra,4 televised mythologies and a variety of and its unwillingness to condemn such violence, especially information/communication channels. In fact, the BJP is, that carried out by members belonging to the Sangh by a long shot, the first thoroughly modern political party arivar, have been interpreted as an example of their in India. Its image was assiduously created and promoted inherent anti-minoritism.9 by the media. It employed a wide array of spin-doctors However, religious conflict in India has also been and enjoyed extensive electronic coverage. fuelled by groups from within minority religions, by Muslims and by people belonging to the Christian commu- Against the grain: Inter-faith relationships in nity who have, for instance, in their zeal to convert all India ‘non’-Christians – in particular indigenous tribes and Such a selective manufacture of reality inevitably fails to Hindus – antagonised many by their insensitivity, narrow- account for the many lived correspondences between mindedness and disrespect for local belief systems and majorities and minorities, even in the heart of the Hindi cultures. It can be argued that fundamentalist evangelical belt, where Muslims and Hindus continue to live by side in Christian groups, by their actions, have often contributed the most unlikely places. Nandy et. al. (1997:2-3) in a to undermine the development, relief, dialogue and social study of the Ramjanmabhumi Movement that led to the justice work carried out by mainstream Christian groups in destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya nearly a India, such as the Catholics, mainline Protestants and the decade ago allude to lived realities in this city.5 They make Orthodox over many years. Additionally, revival move- the point: ‘Even today, despite the bitterness of the last ments within the mainstream churches, along with eight years, the flowers offered for worship in the Ayodhya positions taken by hard-line evangelical Christian commu- temples are almost all grown by Muslims. The Muslims still nities, have contributed to a rise in inter-faith tensions. weave the garlands used in the temple and produce every- Mainstream churches, concerned over the exodus of their thing necessary for dressing the icons preparatory to flock to evangelical churches, have increasingly begun to worship.’ They say: ‘Until some years ago, the making of accept multi-church attendance and seem unwilling to the crowns of the gods was the near monopoly of Muslim antagonise members who entertain narrow views on master craftsmen such as Rahmat Sonar and Nannu inter-faith matters. Sonar; the thrones for the gods are even today made by There is also a widely held feeling among the majority the likes of Balam Mistri, a highly respected Muslim community that minorities have benefited from their carpenter.’ Manuel (1996:122) writing of the develop- position as a convenient vote bank for political parties, the ment of Hindustani music in North India, notes its emer- Congress in particular, in exchange for the protection of gence in creative collaborations between Hindu and their religious rights and institutions from state interfer- Muslim artists and patrons in colonial India.6 Even in South ence.10 This stands in marked contrast to the situation of the India, where the classical tradition of Carnatic music majority community, whose religious institutions, such as is dominated by the Brahmins, the discerning ear can temples, fall under the purview of state-run boards and still hear the ‘Other’ as one of ‘Us’ – like the late Sheik who therefore have had to contend with occasional state Moula Sahib’s nagaswaram-based rendition of the song, interference. Such an example of perceived bias in Mahaganapathim (Venkatasubramaniam:1998).7 favour of minorities has become a matter of controversy. A great many Christians too have contributed to an Minorities tend to invoke the Constitution as the basis for inclusive vision of India – a vision communicated through a their right to practise religious freedom, but as contempo- variety of service institutions – notably in education and rary events in Indonesia have borne out, the text of the medical establishments. But by far the most significant Pancasila is not necessarily upheld by its implementation witness to inter-faith life in India is what one may term the in real life 11 – an implementation rendered difficult by the ‘daily dialogue of life’ which characterises living in many micro-politics of innumerable identity negotiations which parts of India. These countless instances of intricate involve the state, religious organisations, personalities and inter-community weavings, both formal and informal, are ordinary people. rarely if ever highlighted by the media. On the contrary, In other words, the negotiations of daily life are, despite local media in the Hindi belt, in particular Hindi news- constitutional guarantees, necessarily fragile – a fact that is papers such as Aaj and Dainik Jagran have on made even more complex in pluralist societies. It would innumerable occasions been accused of misinforming the seem that unless the concept of a multi-faith society public, misinterpreting events, adding a communal twist becomes institutionalised as a practical norm, plural to reporting, and generally supporting the cause of societies like India are bound to remain in thrall to Hindutva.8 ominant ‘interpretive’ communities and to their visions and versions of religious futures.
40 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 The South Asia correspondent for Le Figaro, François event that it does become available, will it further erode Gautier, in an article that appeared in The Hindustan inter-faith relationships in India? Local satellite channels Times, reprinted in Himal (March 1999) has criticised the such as Raj TV and Vijay TV already offer evangelical fare warped, non-objective, pro-Christian bias shown by many and some non-Indian satellite-based evangelical content is reporters in their coverage of communal conflicts, in already available to viewers in India. Will the ecumenical contrast to their reticence to highlight the plight of Hindu community in India be in a position to take a stand on victims of such violence, as an example of their captivity to issues that arise from much of this sort of broadcasting or colonial frames of mind – a view that must have been will they back-off from confronting the indigenous Christian welcomed by the then beleaguered government.12 The Right whose allies in the USA have, for instance, used article also refers to ‘the aggressive methods of the broadcasting as a key weapon in their strategy for Pentecost and Seventh Day Adventist missionaries’ and evangelisation? It is clear that the air-waves are being ‘their muscular ways of converting’ as contributing factors used by religious communities for narrow ends in India – in the rise of inter-faith tension in parts of North India, a the satellite channels Maharishi Veda and Muslim TV view also echoed by William Dalrymple (March 20,1999) Ahmediya are examples of this. In this light it would be in The Guardian Weekend.13 interesting to see the outcome of the joint Catholic- Dalrymple refers to the new-wave Pentecostalist move- Protestant Christian satellite service that is being ments spreading through India, their connections with a negotiated today in India. variety of fundamentalist Christian missions located in the While fear is a legitimate human response to the Bible belt in the USA and to their overtly anti-Hindu web- prospect of an uncertain future, the cultivation of a nation- sites. While Gautier’s inference that journalists in India are wide fear psychosis, restricts self-criticism, reinforces captive to colonial frames of mind is misplaced, given that escapist withdrawal which, in turn, will preclude possibili- journalists in India are recognised for their independent ties for a meaningful search for long-term solutions. reporting standards – a tradition that stands vindicated in The following section will address issues related to contrast with the coverage by the Western press of the war the new media and the politics of fundamentalism and in the Balkans – his comments on insensitive Christian revivalism in India. It will, in particular, deal with the use of evangelism in India remain a fair critique. the new media by the Christian right in India, who, for all Such robustly critical and provocative pieces of journal- practical purposes, are an extension of their counterparts ism stand in marked contrast to communiqués from the in the USA, and their use by the Hindu right. It will point to ecumenical Christian community in India, who have in the ways in which this ‘transcendent’ agenda is pursued general opted for a defensive, rather than self-critical through an aggressive fronting of web-sites, maintained by position on the tensions in Gujarat and elsewhere.14 While rival supporters who are generally located outside the sub- it is necessary to condemn violence against any given continent, and will conclude with a section on appropriate community, it is, as far as I can see, equally important that information policies for a pluralist society. the ecumenical community responds by opening up spaces for reconciliation and dialogue on the one hand, while Web wars simultaneously using such opportunities on the other hand, Instant communication has its uses and abuses. I would to rein in the zealots in the Christian fold. I would argue argue that in the cyber era, the web-site has become an that the articulation of a merely generalist response will, extended space for inter-faith net wars fought by, among given the present level of ignorance on religious issues, others, the religious right, for the minds and souls of precipitate a general backlash against all Christians in people. The Internet is an unregulated domain used by all India, who are by no means united in their understandings manner of people and communities in their pursuit of inter- of mission, Christian identity and purpose in a pluralist activity, identity, and association. However, its specific context. Lest this be interpreted as a strategy to ‘save ones architectures also place limits on interactivity. While own skin’, I expect the response from the church in India to Usenet groups on the Net are based on the freedom of be articulated from within a conscious conviction of open access, the World Wide Web is less participatory, in Christian ‘rights and responsibilities leading to what one the sense that those who access any given web-site do not might term a covenantal approach to reconciliation. generally have the freedom to alter a web page or There are, of course, obvious benefits to be gained by a determine its contents. That function is determined by web movement for religious rights and responsibilities in a maintainers or managers. country like India. In addition, such responses would Web pages created by organisations and associations, prepare mainstream churches to deal with potential regardless of their ilk, attempt to present as complete a challenges to inter-faith relationships in India such as that rendering of a project, association or worldview as posed by global religious satellite broadcasting that is possible, enhanced by text, images, graphics and links. presently controlled primarily by Christian fundamentalist- While hypertext functions give users browsing, linkage evangelist interests. The Rupert Murdoch-owned News and route options to any information on the world wide Corporation’s channel International Family Entertainment, web, they do not correspondingly give opportunities for Inc., which until very recently was part of the US tele- users directly to manipulate web texts, except in a limited, evangelist Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, can without too functional sense, for web-site assessment purposes and for many technical difficulties be offered for general availabil- transactions of an administrative kind. ity in South Asia through DTH satellite broadcasts. In the In other words, organisational web-sites are identity
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 41 statements and affirmations and, in this sense, are to survey the land the Israelites were to inhabit, God is grounded, less transient and ephemeral than other features helping to ‘spy out the land’ that we (meaning Christians) of the Internet. Mitra and Cohen (1999:199) refer to what ‘might go in and claim both it and its inhabitants for they term the unique characteristics of the web text ‘ . . . its Him’.20 The Sam P. Chelladurai Outreach Mission web inherent intertextuality, its lack of centre, its volume, its page describes India as ‘a land of opportunity’, ‘a free multimedianess, its international scope, its impermanence, country’ that allows ‘the right to preach and propagate the and the resulting altered sense of authorship’.15 However, Gospel’, a country where one ‘can preach, make disci- it would seem that its uniqueness lies not so much in its ples, baptize and add people to the church’.21 Dr Roger technological features per se, but in the many ways in Houtsma’s World Outreach Ministries web site refers to his which these features are used by people to appropriate work in Vyara and Songadh, cities in North Western and interact with web texts for particular ends. Gujarat, the state which incidentally experienced a Religious web-sites communicate global, transnational number of religious conflicts in late 1998 – ‘India is identities that signify particular, exclusive intent. Some of experiencing the greatest harvest in its history. Now is the these sites afford opportunities to understand the ‘other’ time that we must reap’.22 and to network. But since Internet traffic is not determined The Accelerating International Mission Strategies (AIMS) by its content and is not policed except through self-regula- home page 23 refers to the Caleb Declaration 24 and people tion, it also provides limitless space for all manner of sites, signing it becoming ‘part of a movement of Christians who including those fronted by organisations which have no are zealous for God’s glory and for seeing His Kingdom desire to understand the ‘other’, and want only to impose advanced and His name proclaimed among all nations!’ their own worldview.16 The promise of limitless space Their priority ‘Gateway Cities’ include Jaipur in Rajasthan, accompanied by a widely subscribed-to freedom of access Patna in Bihar and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. Believers are ethic has led to the world wide web hosting sites that asked to pray for the sublime . . . ‘That the millions of play an active role in national and transnational, virtual pilgrims visiting the Ganges River . . . find the living water inter-religious information wars, that complement real inter- given by Jesus’, and the ludicrous . . . ‘Worship of rats religious strife in real time that can and do occasionally produces conditions that foster pneumonic plague. Pray result in serious human consequences. that the idolatry underlying this health hazard would be Information wars fought between rival newsgroups on bound.’ And then the most zealous prayer of all . . . ‘Pray the Internet were the precursors of present day web wars.17 that the strife between Muslims and Hindus would cause Web wars merely extend this phenomenon, by reinforcing disillusionment, leading them to the true Prince of Peace.’ 25 positions, although from within a protective space, less What is perhaps most regrettable in many of these web vulnerable to ‘flaming’ and ‘cross-postings’. Granted sites is the disrespect with which they describe Hindus, that net access is denied to the majority of people in their Gods, Goddesses and practices along with a near India, such wars can, even if only tangentially, heighten total ignorance of the diverse spiritualities and ways to the insecurities among diasporic Indian communities, provide Brahman (ultimate reality) that Hinduism signifies. In the ammunition to ultra-nationalist politicians, lead to tensions AD2000 series sign #4 ‘Why North India’, they describe between faiths and contribute to the breakdown of an Varanasi, the seat of Hindu faith, in the following manner. already fragile consensus. ‘Varanasi in the state of Uttar Pradesh is Hinduism’s holiest city, with thousands of temples centring on the worship of < < w. w. w.Mission.India>> Shiva, an idol whose symbol is a phallus. Many consider Even a cursory monitoring of religion-based web-sites, in this city the very seat of Satan. Hindus believe that bathing this case with the Yahoo search engine, yielded 153 sites in the Ganges River at Varanasi washes away all sins’. In on the subject of Mission.18 This listserve included all the same vein it adds that ‘A number of Christian workers manner of mainly Christian missions from the mainstream took up the burden of prayer for this city and in prayer- Protestant, Catholic and Evangelical churches. However walks boldly declared before the idols, “you are not a liv- sites belonging to evangelical organisations predominate. ing god”.’ 26 The same fervour is exhibited in the Gospel Most of these organisations originate from the USA, sub- for Asia web page that informs the world that 6 million scribe to the Lausanne Covenant on World Evangelisation, tracts were distributed to Hindu pilgrims at the Kumbh and are involved in mission work in different parts of the Mela, an important Hindu festival.27 These are examples of world, including India. India is located in what they refer what may be described as zealotry run riot. to as the ‘10/40 Window’, meaning ‘the unevangelised The contents of these web-sites reflect the typical and unreached belt between 10 and 40 degrees north of narrative structure of fundamentalist churches in the USA – the equator, from West Africa to East Asia’.19 The year their belief in global ‘evangelism, biblical inerrancy, pre- 2000 is obviously significant for many of these groups and millennialism and separatism’ (Ammerman:1998).28 A organisations such as AD2000 and their Joshua Project striking feature is the call to activist foot-soldiers who have 2000 have targeted 1700 communities globally for a responsibility not merely to wait for the Kingdom but to church-planting efforts, including 200 in North India. The usher it in – exemplified by the subtle and not so subtle North Indian Hindi-belt is also the primary location for work carried out by evangelical teams in India. These web contemporary forms of Hindu nationalist resurgence. sites are also totally in character with the well-funded com- One of the striking features of these web-sites is the munication strategies employed by the religious right in the language and imagery used. Like Joshua, who sent spies USA that employ a variety of rhetorical devices to commu-
42 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 nicate a fusion of interests between the this-worldly and the by the daily clatter within the give and take of life eschatological. What is evident is a strategic plan for experienced by various communities in India in different global evangelism that may not in the end amount to locales and contexts. Presumably such unconscious, daily much, but the separatist intent of which can be interpreted celebrations of difference and solidarity are also grist to as a call to arms. the fundamentalist mill. These US-based missions fund a network of national and Such processes of attenuation reviewed above are also local organisations in India which are involved in mission evident in the Hindutva ideology, which attempts to reduce work.29 These include the India Missions Association, the the complex diversity of Hindu traditions to a few select, Evangelical Fellowship of India, the North India Harvest manageable, centralised options. Network, the Evangelical Church of India, New Life The presence of such web-sites has not gone unnoticed. Assemblies of God and literally hundreds of other institu- In fact the comprehensive and informative link site, Hindu tions. Communication is critical to the work of these Web Universe, refers to the work and worldview of some missions and a variety of means are employed – from of these organisations.35 Given the money, resource power innumerable print ministries such as that undertaken by the and media savvy of North American evangelical groups, Gospel Missions of India, radio ministries through Trans- their presence on the web is only to be expected. They World Radio, Good News Broadcasting Society, the Far have historically been adept at exploiting the technologies East Broadcasting Association and Gospel for Asia Radio of mass communications for their own ends. The conviction Ministries, Bible translation ministries such as the Indian that every new advance in communications technology is Institute of Cross Cultural Communication, India Bible a gift from God and should be exploited for the cause of Translators, New Life Computers and the Friends Mission- the Kingdom, is also a view that resonates in mainstream ary Prayer Band, a variety of seminaries and Bible training Christian circles in India, even though, perhaps fortunately, schools which in turn churn out hundreds of evangelists their involvement has been minimal. and pastors. South Indian Christians, primarily from the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, form the bulk of recruits < < w. w. w.Hindu.India>> for these missionary organisations, the foot-soldiers for the In contrast to these web sites, there are very few belonging Cross in North India. to groups associated with the Hindutva cause. Sites Evangelism and conversion are of course integral to the include those that are maintained by the R.S.S.,36 the Christian faith but their meanings vary widely, ranging Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh,37 the BJP,38 the Hindu Vivek from the absolutist positions taken by fundamentalists Kendra,39 and the super link, Hindu Web Universe.40 What through the centring of the liberating message of the is perhaps the most striking aspect of these web sites is Gospel in the life of the world and to the risky openness of their organisational streamlining, their imputed representa- conversion subscribed to by some in the ecumenical move- tiveness of a pan-Hindu identity and the hierarchising of ment – the possibility of mutual conversion in a context of the organisation of an all-India Hinduism – in other words dialogue. The WCC Commission on World Mission and an attempt to provide a certain unity to the diverse prac- Evangelism, in its statement on Mission and Evangelism – tices and ways to God that Hinduism signifies. The BJP site Ecumenical Convictions (1997:383), states clearly that gives information on its history, rationale, organisation, ‘Life with people of other faiths and ideologies is an leadership, its politics, its stance on issues and its overall encounter of commitments. Witness cannot be a one-way philosophy including statements by some of its key ideo- process, but of necessity is two-way: in it Christians logues, including S. Gurumurthy and Arun Shourie. As the become aware of some of the deepest convictions of their site of the ruling political party in India, it does put forward neighbours’.30 its credentials as a Hindu and pro-minority party. That The ex-general secretary of the World Council of however stands out as a difficult and problematic juxtapo- Churches, Emilio Castro, writing on evangelism in the sition. The RSS site gives information on its founders and Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement (1991:399) the Sangh Parivar’s work in education, rural development, remarks that ‘The guidelines for our (Christian) relations unionising, the fine arts, appropriate technology, heritage with other faiths remind us that it is not just a question of and communications. co-existence or pro-existence of the different religious The dominant narrative that links many of these web groups. It is also an attitude of dialogue . . . an attitude of sites is the legitimation of Hindu resurgence, and the need respect for the neighbour. Consequently, our testimony to for the updating of the image and status of Hinduism in our faith should take place in a context not only of respect India from that of ‘wimp’ to strident and aggressive mas- but of acceptance of the other’.31 These are examples of culinity, communicated by the war-like image of Lord the multiplicity of positions in organised Christianity on Rama. The project is one that effaces the received colonial- issues such as evangelism and conversion – a diversity that ist understanding of Hinduism and establishes in its place is scarcely acknowledged by the media. a post-colonialist understanding signified by Hindutva, the The lived exploration of the Hindu-Christian meeting Hindu nation. It is about righting the wrongs inflicted by point by Swami Abhishiktananda,32 Murray Rogers, Bede traitors, in the past and the present, a cleansing followed Griffiths 33 and Jules Monchanin 34 are further illustrations of by the creation of a golden age of Hindu glory. convictions in mission that are undoubtedly blasphemous The words of the BJP ideologue, Mihir Meghani, exem- as far as most evangelicals are concerned. However the plify this rhetoric of manifest destiny: ‘Hindus are at last most powerful expressions of dialogue are communicated free. They control their destiny now and there is no power
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 43 that can control them except their own tolerant ethos. India to the overt support given to religious nationalism on state in turn is finally free. Having ignored its history, it has now television and in privately owned media, in particular come face to face with a repressed conscience. The through cable television, video and audio productions, destruction of the structure at Ayodhya was the release of the press, and the symbolism mediated through national the history that Indians had not fully come to terms with. spectacles such as the religious nationalist pilgrimages or Thousands of years of anger and shame, so diligently Rath Yatras. bottled up by these same interests, was released when the Aijaz Ahmad (1993:33) has drawn attention to the rise first piece of the so-called Babri Masjid was torn down’.41 of the Hindu right and the effective manipulation of sym- There is no understating the objective of these web sites. bols in their quest for political legitimacy.‘ 42 . . . The real It is a fronting of imagined and real futures, towards a ingenuity of the RSS was that it adopted at the moment of space and time in which the Hindus of India and the world its own inception and consistently since then, the figure of will unite in and for the protection of the Hindu heritage. Ram as the one upon whom all narrative structures con- Needless to say, that space and time will, of course, not be verge, so that the later televising of the Ramayana and the to the advantage of people who belong to other religious Mahabaratha in quick succession created a sense of this traditions. mutual continuity, the story of Ram overlapping with heroic narratives of the sacred nation. . . . When Mr. Advani’s Manufacturing communalism rathyatra got going it was seen as an extension of the The reading thus far has been rather cursory. More epics and no one was bothered by the simultaneity of research needs to be conducted to unravel the links symbols taken from both.’ between the new media, exclusivist agendas and commu- nalism in India. An obvious question that can be posed is – < < w w w. Interfaith.India>> So what if there are religious web wars? After all, in a It is always difficult to project a strategic vision of inter-faith country like India, those who have access to such technolo- communications in a context characterised by mutual dis- gies are in a minority. Such wars do not affect the majority trust and simmering violence. The Sangh Parivar has the who are moved by other considerations. Furthermore, avowed aim to Hinduise India, to de-secularise the consti- there is little evidence in favour of a relationship between tution and to reinvent institutions and systems, for instance web content and changes in attitudes or behaviour. One the educational system,43 in line with its own interpretative may also argue that web wars merely amplify and feed spin on the history if India and its futures. Its external aims into a pre-existing situation and that, as such, one cannot are no less belligerent, given the recent nuclear misadven- even be sure of their impact. It can further be argued that, tures of its political ally, the BJP.44 While educational reform in a given context, there are contributory non-media is necessary (there is a good case to revamp the potted, factors which are primarily responsible for igniting inter- colonialist version of history presented in primary and religious strife. And that such factors feed into and are secondary school text books) and there is much to be amplified by the communication of that strife through inter- gained by a global ban on nuclear weapons as against personal means, mass media and new technologies. the special set of rules for the recognised five nuclear While there are non-media factors that are responsible weapon states, the long-term impact of policies adopted for inter-religious conflict, it would nevertheless be absurd for the pursuit of narrow, exclusivist goals and short-term to claim that these factors on their own are responsible for electoral politics is bound to keep internal and external heightening the level of inter-faith tensions in India. The tensions alive. The convictions that accompany ethnic and presence and role of the media in the creation of national religious identities run deep. And any call for forgiveness public opinion in India have been demonstrated on many and reconciliation may well appear misplaced and prema- an occasion. In fact, the media have played a substantial ture in a situation where the ‘healing’ has hardly begun. role in interpreting inter-religious conflict in India. A prime In spite of these larger constraints however, there must example was the way in which the media in general be ways to ease this tension through the positive communi- reported the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in cation of the wealth of India’s religious traditions. India 1990. Instead of deflecting the political agenda of the carries the imprint of numerous religions and Indians are, Hindu Right the media gave rise to a great many dubious in general, a religious people. Recognition of this fact is interpretive inflections on the reasons that led to the fall of critical to any strategy aimed at restoring inter-faith amity. the Babri Masjid. Among those that were given prominent Ignorance of this reality needs to be recognised as a key media space were the ‘spontaneous’ nature of the demoli- contributory factor to the tensions – ignorance that is tion, the release of long bottled-up Hindu righteous anger, manipulated by fundamentalists on all sides of the divide. making amends for past wrongs, the assertion of Hindu The average evangelist in India is woefully ignorant of identity and so on – some of which contained partial Hinduism – his/her knowledge is often inadequate, truths, but were nevertheless communicated without the couched in prejudice and determined by imported benefit of any background information. understandings that are insensitive to say the least. Many reports failed to comment on the jigsaw of events Unfortunately, the average Indian Christian too is often that preceded the storming of the Masjid – events that seen to share such views. point to a premeditated strategy. These ranged from the First, it would seem that at the very least, all religious unwitting influence of the tele-serials the Ramayana and communities in India need to communicate their faith the Mahabaratha shown on state television in the mid-80s, responsibly, without, in that process, attacking or under-
44 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 mining other faiths. Secondly, in the light of the deteriorat- by the BJP, which was then in Opposition and choreo- ing quality of faith reporting, religious councils in India graphed by the VHP and other members of the Sangh could be jointly involved in drawing up an inter-faith Parivar. The ex-Home Minister of the BJP L. K. Advani media charter. These councils need to make an attempt to was at the helm of this motorised chariot pilgrimage. It work jointly towards the creation of an ombudsman who started on Sept. 25, 1990 from Somnath, Gujarat would have the power to take action against those who –the site of a famous razing of Hindu temples by violate this charter. Further, inter-faith efforts may be Muhammned of Ghazni in the year 1026 AD and encouraged made to set up a multi-faith cable television ended on October 30, 1990 in Ayodhya coinciding channel, along the lines of the Toronto-based inter-faith with the Hindu festival ‘Debothan Ekadashi’. For more cable channel Vision TV. The objective of such a network details see Davis, R. H., ‘The Iconography of Rama’s will be to broadcast objective interpretations of faiths, Chariot’ (pp.27-54), in Ludden, D., (ed.), Making religious traditions and spiritualities from and to the sub- India Hindu: Religion, Community and the Politics of continent. Such a service is needed to counter the present Democracy in India, Oxford University Press, New norm – the token space given to religion by state broad- Delhi, 1996. The Hindu Right were also involved in casting and programmes which merely strengthen stereo- organising other events –the Ram Jyoti, another highly typical perceptions of the religious other. At the very least symbolic event – a torch was lit in Ayodhya and sent such an initiative will create a shared space for imagining to thousands of villages in India and used to light a different India. Deepavalli (Festival of Lights) lamps. Yet another was Lastly, it is necessary that religious institutions take the Ram Shila Puja – the consecration of bricks from seriously the challenge posed by inter-faith dialogue. In various villages in India that was to be used in the pluralist societies like India, where the issue of religion has building of the Ram temples in Ayodhya. See become emotive and divisive, these institutions need to be Panikkar, M. ‘Religious Symbols and Political called to create the basis for reconciliation and under- Mobilisation’ (pp.63-77), Social Scientist, Vol.21, 7-8, standing. Bishop Tutu first expressed the following opinion July-August 1993. in Kigali, Rwanda, which was reproduced in the Truth 15 Nandy, A. et.al., The Ramjanmabhumi Movement and Commission’s report from South Africa.45 ‘Confession, Fear of the Self, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, forgiveness and reconciliation in the lives of nations are 1997. not just airy-fairy religious and spiritual things, nebulous 16 Manuel, P., ‘Music, the Media and Communal Rela- and unrealistic. They are the stuff of practical politics.’ tions in North India, Past and Present’ (pp.119-139), His affirmation communicates the fact that faith is both from Ludden, D., Making India Hindu..op.cit. relational and grounded in the practical business of daily 17 The ‘nadeswaram’ is a South Indian wind instrument. living. One cannot but love one’s neighbour. Disregarding Venkatasubramaniam, K., ‘Secularism or Anti- that simple, human option can, as we know too well, result Hinduism’, The Hindu, December 1, 1998 (Bangalore in bitter consequences. I Edition). 18 See Nandy, et.al The Ramjanmabhumi Movement… R e f e rences Op.cit., p.33. Also see Charu and Mukul, Print Media 11 Shah, G., ‘Politics of Policing’, The Hindu, March 12, and Communalism, 10/78 Old Rajinder Nagar, New 1999. Engineer, I., ‘Conversions in Dangs’, The Delhi, 1990. Hindu, January 22, 1999. ‘Australian Missionary, 19 See Vyas, N., ‘The Ugly face Behind the Mask’ op.cit. sons burnt alive’, The Hindu, January 24, 1999. 10 See Chatterjee, P., ‘Religious Minorities and the Dasgupta, M., ‘Christians at the Receiving End’ Secular State: Reflections on an Indian Impasse’ (p.11), and Vyas, N., ‘The Ugly Face behind the (pp.11-39), Public Culture, 1995, 8. Mask’(p.11), The Hindu, January 3, 1999. ‘Two 11 The Pancasila, meaning the ‘five moral principles’ Churches Torched in Surat District’ (p.1), The Hindu, governing the life of the state in Indonesia, was December 29, 1998 (All Bangalore Editions). See enunciated by Sukarno on June 1, 1945 and became also the thoughtfully written piece by Siddhartha in the state philosophy. The five principles are – belief in Sunday Herald, April 4, 1999, p.1 ‘Forgive them, for one supreme God, humanism, nationalism, popular they know not what they do’, which attempts to place sovereignty, and social justice. the tragedy related to the murder of the Australian 12 Gautier, F., ‘Western Indian Press’ (p.58), Himal, missionary in perspective and in relation to the 12/3 March, 1999. continuing work done by Gladys Staines. 13 Dalrymple, W., ‘Baptism by Fire’ (pp.20-25), The 12 See Basu, T. et.al., Khaki Shirts, Saffron Flags, Tracts Guardian Weekly, March 20, 1999. for the Times, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 1993. 14 See ‘Apex Indian Theological Body holds BJP Vanaik, A., ‘Situating Threat of Hindu Nationalism: responsible for Violence against vulnerable minorities’ Problems with Fascist Paradigm’ (pp.1729-1748), (p.4), People’s Reporter, March 1-15, 1999. Akkara, Economic and Political Weekly, July 9, 1994. A., ‘India’s Coalition Government Divided over 13 Hindu Religious Officiants. attacks on Christians’ (pp.7-9), Ecumenical News 14 The Rath Yatra, literally ‘chariot journey’ was a highly International (ENI), No.02, February 17, 1999. politicised, symbolised modern day pilgrimage, in the Doogue, E., ‘Campaigner warns against danger of tradition followed in the Hindu epics. It was organised myths about India’s Christians’ (p.18), ENI, No.05,
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 45 March 17, 1999. Akkara, A., ‘After new attacks on ever, conversion statistics given out by evangelical Christians India’s churches call for tougher groups in India must be treated with some caution action’(pp.18-19), ENI, No.06, March 31, 1999. since they are linked to funding. While Chennai has 15 Mitra, A., & Cohen, E., ’Analyzing the Web: Direc- generally been free from inter-religious strife, it would tions and Challenges’ (pp.179-202), in Jones, S. be the case that church planting in places like Benares (ed.), Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and is bound to lead to a rise in inter-faith tensions. Methods for Examining the Net, Sage Publications, 30 ‘Mission and Evangelism – An Ecumenical Affirmation’ Thousand Oaks/London/New Delhi, 1999. (pp.372-383), WCC Commission on World Mission 16 Whine, M., ‘The Far Right on the Internet’ (pp.209- and Evangelism, in Kinnamon, M., and Cope, B. E. 227), in Loader, B.D., (ed.), The Governance of (eds.), The Ecumenical Movement: An Anthology of Cyberspace: Politics, Technology and Global Restruc- Key Texts and Voices, WCC Publications, Geneva, turing, Routledge, London and New York, 1997. See and William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand also the article by Duncan Campbell ‘Web fuels Rapids, Michigan, 1997. growth of racist groups’ in The Guardian, July 6, 31 Castro, E., ‘Evangelism’(pp.396-400), in Lossky, N. 1999, p.3 – written in the aftermath of the race et. al (eds.), Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, killings in the USA by a member belonging to the WCC Publications, Geneva and Council of Churches white supremacist group, the World Church of the for Britain and Ireland, London,1991. Creator. The article refers to web use by this church 32 Abhishiktananda, Hindu-Christian Meeting Point: particularly ‘...its notion of “leaderless resistance”, Within the Cave of the Heart, ISPCK, Delhi, 1969. which allows leaders of groups not to be prosecuted 33 Griffiths, B., The Marriage of East and West, Collins, by actions advocated on the web’. Fount Paperbacks, London, 1983. 17 Tepper, M., ‘Usenet Communities and the Cultural 34 Rodhe, S., Jules Monchanin: Pioneer in Christian- Politics of Information’ (pp.39-54), in Porter, D.,(ed.), Hindu Dialogue, ISPCK, Delhi, 1993. Internet Culture, Routledge, New York and London, 35 http://hindulinks.org/Interfaith_relations/Seeking 1997. conversion/ 18 http://div.yahoo.com/society_and_culture/Reli- 36 http://www.rss.org/rss/www/mission.htm gion_and_Spirituality/Faiths_an…Missions. 37 http://www.hssworld.org/ac/frbanner.htm 19 http://www.ad2000.org/utercall.htm ‘The Call to 38 http://www.bjp.org/home.html North India’. 39 http://www.hvk.org/hvk/ 20 http://www.ad2000 op.cit 40 http://wwwhindulinks op.cit. 21 http://www.samindia.org/html/greetings.htm 41 Meghnani,M., ‘Hindutva: The Great Nationalist 22 http://www.wo.org/crusade.asp?sub=VY Ideology’(pp.1-4), http://www.bjp.org/history/ 23 http://www.aims.org/index.html htrintro.mm.html 24 http://www.calebproject.org/cdecl/htm 42 Ahmad, A., ‘Culture, Community and nation: On the 25 http://www.aims.org/jaipur/html ruins of Ayodhya’ (pp.17-48), Social Scientist, Vol.21, 26 http://www.ad2000.org/uters 4.htm 7-8, July-August, 1993. 27 http://www.gfa.org/SEND/index.htm 43 Engineer, A.A., ‘Education, the BJP and Hindutva’, 28 Ammerman, N.C., ‘North American Protestant Funda- The Hindu (Bangalore Edition), November 2, 1998., mentalism’ (pp.55-113), in Kintz, L., and Lesage, J., Omvedt, G., ‘Beyond Saffron and Secular Education’, (eds.), Media, Culture and the Religious Right, Univer- The Hindu (Bangalore Edition), November 16, 1998. sity of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis and London, 44 Ram N., ‘What wrong did this man do’ (pp.1-15), 1998. Frontline, Vol.16, Issue 10, may 8-21, 1999, 29 The scale of church planting in India by indigenous http://www.the.hindu.com/fline/f11610/16100220 churches is quite extraordinary. Daniel Samuel, an .htm independent researcher from Madras (Chennai), 45 Tutu, D., quoted in the section ‘Reconciliation’, Vol. 5, surveyed indigenous churches in and around Madras. Chapter 9, pp.1-56, http://www.truth.org.za/final/ He came across 167 indigenous churches. Here are 5chap9.htm some interesting facts from his survey. 86.4% of the churches surveyed were established after 1981. 75% of these churches were Tamil-based. Many were Pradip N. Thomas is Director of Studies and Publications involved in saturation church planting activities. 98 of at the international headquarters of the World Association the churches were classified as free evangelical for Christian Communication. He has contributed articles churches, 59 as pentecostal/charismatic, 1 as to journals such as Gazette, the Asian Journal of Communi- historical, 8 as prophetic. 46 of the churches were cation, Media Asia and Media Development, the most registered. All statistics taken from Samuel D., ‘A recent one being ‘Trading the Nation: Multilateral report on the study of churches of indigenous origins Negotiations and the Fate of Communications in India’ in in and around the city of Chennai’, unpub. 1998. Rev. Gazette, Vol 61(3-4), 1999. He is co-editor along with Ezra Sargunam’s (Evangelical Church of India) Michael Richards and Zaharom Nain of the forthcoming recently celebrated their establishment of their 1000th book Communication and Development: The Freirean church. Church planting is big business in India. How- Connection, Hampton Press, NJ.
46 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 continuous footage taken through the tions. In addition to looking at the written word, it is very window of a moving car. The houses on important to look at the films and the visual materials A related to the Balkans in the 1990s. The visual has a both sides of the road are either fully burnt or crucial role in discourse formation at any level and the semi-destroyed. It goes on like this mile after transmitted images function in a variety of ways that are at mile. least as influential as the exchange of ideas and concepts. Footage taken with a hand-held camera. Men In today’s world it is much more likely that images have and women sitting in puddles of their own been seen by many rather than written comments. It is not difficult to sustain the claim that nowadays the moving blood on the sidewalk where they were lining image has attained a bigger persuasive power compared up for bread moments ago, stretching out hands to the printed word in spite the fact that this important role to the man behind the camcorder, and thus to of the visual is rarely being pointed at in a persistent the spectator. manner. The role of mediated images, however, is so subtle that it often remains unaccounted for. A medium-close of a scruffy peasant father, bending over a Contrary to the commonly shared opinion, I do not think packet wrapped in a glittery green material – the body of that these images left everybody indifferent. There is plenty of evidence suggesting that print and broadcast media, as well as journalists and filmmakers did a lot to show the ugly face of ethnic war. The lessened receptiveness and responsiveness of the audience living in an over saturated media environment is a whole different matter. Still, the War in Bosnia – efforts of those who did not stay indifferent but did their best to take the moving image of war and pass it around through the modern medium of film were really compre- moving images hensive and deserve to be recognized.
Dina Iordanova Body of works The body of film productions about the Balkan conflict is, in its nature, a truly international project. From the point of view of its international perception, the Bosnian war has often been compared to the Civil War in Spain. Writers his infant son. There is not even a casket for the baby, just like Susan Sontag or Roger Cohen wondered why intellec- this piece of bright synthetic fabric, leaving an tuals from around the world did not go to Sarajevo to intensely-coloured imprint of grief in one’s visual memory. express their solidarity, as they went to Madrid. In fact, Bosnia. Sarajevo. The image inventory continues with however, hundreds of intellectuals engaged in public elderly villagers now lying in the mud of their own back- support to the cause of ending the war in ex-Yugoslavia yards with bullet holes in the backs of their hand-knit and went to Sarajevo and Bosnia. jackets, checkpoints controlled by paramilitary thugs with The best visible expression of solidarity, however, came self-styled pony-tails and cockades on fur caps, pedestrians from the international community of filmmakers. They gath- on city streets half-running to escape the sniper fire, and ered in the Balkans from many different countries around large peasant women in black kerchiefs and aprons, shout- the world -from the UK, USA, Canada, France, Belgium, ing at the camera in discontent, fed up of being filmed Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Spain, Italy, again and again asking about their missing husbands. The the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Greece, Australia, New iconic repertoire only slightly changes with the change of Zealand, and Russia. References to the Balkan war can be circumstance, particularly visible with the eruption of the found in a big number of films from the 1990s – from late new crisis in Kosovo, as virtually the same visual tropes British Derek Jarman’s Blue (1993) who, while chronicling are being repeatedly used. The face of the Balkans his own death from AIDS, talks about the plight of remains the same – destroyed churches and mosques, Bosnian refugees to Hungarian lbolya Fekete’s Bolshe Vita refugee women in camps, stray sheep on the dusty streets (1996) featuring documentary footage from the Bosnian of Muslim enclaves, and alien UN forces. war in its epilogue. So much death and destruction has been filmed, and the The number of films – feature and documentary – made footage of crippled children and desolate people is so in response to the Bosnian war, is at least two hundred. abundant that it is difficult to forget that behind each one There are reasons, however, to set the actual number at of these images there is the enormity of real suffering. around three hundred. This text surveys the wide range and variety of films that were made in response to the 1990s crisis in the Balkans, Feature s and mostly the Bosnian war. Why film? Because looking at At least thirty five feature films have been made inter- cinematic texts helps bringing to light the underlying nationally in direct or indirect response to the Bosnian war. dynamics of cross-cultural dialogue as it unravels within The global trend that turns all feature filmmaking into a the wider context of mediated perceptions and mispercep- multi-national enterprise is clearly visible in the case of the
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 47 features that look at aspects of the Yugoslav breakup. Draskovic) a production of USA, Cyprus, Italy, and Comanche Territory (1997), for example, tells Yugoslavia, and for 1995 – Underground (dir. Emir a story about Sarajevo but is a co-production of Spain, Kusturica), a production of France, Germany, and Germany, France, and Argentina. Someone Else’s Hungary with participation of Radio-TV Serbia. Many of America (1995) was written and directed by Serbs, and the feature films were surrounded by controversies and by was telling the story of exiles from Montenegro and Spain allegations of subtle propaganda. While in some cases the who lived in New York but who also travelled to the allegations were blown out of proportion, like Vukovar, in Mexican border at Rio Grande. The film was produced by some others, like Kusturica’s there is serious evidence France, UK, Germany, and Greece – neither one of these that the director betrayed his own Sarajevan roots and put countries being referred to in the film in any way. Before himself in the service of Belgrade.1 the Rain (1994) was financed by France, the UK, and Macedonia. Welcome to Sarajevo (1997) was a UK-USA Documentaries co-production. In documentaries, the number of which surpasses one Some of the films, indeed, were produced with hundred and fifty, the Balkan crisis attracted the attention financing from only one country, but nevertheless featured of internationally renowned documentarists, such as an ethnically diverse production crew and international French veterans Chris Marker and Marcel Ophuls. cast. The New Zealand production, Broken English Documentaries were made by well-known public (1996), the story of an inter-ethnic couple oppressed by a intellectuals whose usual domain is the written word, violent Croatian father, brought Maoris, Croatians, and like French Bernard-Henry Levy and Canadian Michael Chinese together on the set. The Italian Gamebag (1997) Ignatieff. Some displaced Yugoslav directors returned used a Bulgarian actress in the leading role and told the from exile to make their films, while some other Yugoslav story of two Italian hunters caught in the middle of the directors had to go into exile to make their films. Sarajevan siege. Greek Ulysses Gaze (1995) featured There were documentaries that scrutinized and critically an international cast which included American Harvey investigated Western mercenaries, the UNPROFOR and Keitel, Swede Erland Josephson, and Romanian Maya the UN involvement, the perpetrators, the workings of Morgenstern, and told the story of a weary Greek media, the Islamic point of view, and the refugee camps. expatriate travelling through the Balkan lands in search of There was a range of documentaries on issues as far apart lost memories of harmonious co-existence. as the Serbian point of view, the cultural criticism of Neue Major European directors turned their attentiveness to the Slowenische Kunst (NSK) and Laibach, and the life in Balkans: some to enjoy acclaim, like Theo Angelopoulos Bosnia after the war. The best known documentary of all with his complex Ulysses Gaze, some to face criticism, these probably remains the international TV co-production like Jean-Luc Godard with his For Ever Mozart (1996), Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, produced by British-based another projection of the crisis in the work of this formerly Brian Lapping Associates, which used a large variety of influential filmmaker. documentary sources and featured interviews with most of Still, most features came from the countries of former the main political figures in the conflict.2 Yugoslavia – Bosnia and Herzegovina (Perfect Circle), Critical voices from within Yugoslavia came up with Serbia (Pretty Village, Pretty Flame), Croatia (How the a specific genre of short films, which can be placed War Started on My Little Island), and Macedonia (Before somewhere between documentary and fiction and used the Rain, Across the Lake). re-enactment and autobiographical elements. The hilarious The films were telling different stories. The most Studio B92 Zelimir Zilnik’s Tito Among the Serbs for a ambitious ones were tackling the complex history of the Second Time (1993) who sends a Tito impersonator to Balkans, like Underground or Ulysses Gaze. Some chose take a stroll around downtown Belgrade reveals a great to focus on the fate of displaced children in Sarajevo deal about the state of mind of ordinary Serbs and (Perfect Circle), others – on the stagnation in Belgrade provides more social insights than any piece of investiga- Premeditated Murder, Marble Ass), on committed tive journalism. Films like Ghetto (1995), again a produc- journalists (Welcome to Sarajevo, Comanche Territory), on tion of the dissident Studio B92, showing a rock musician the difficult choices in taking sides (Before the Rain, Pretty cruising around his native Belgrade and seeing his Village, Pretty Flame, Savior), or on the experiences of avant-garde artist friends gathering in basements while the displacement (Broken English, Someone Else’s America, public space is made readily available to ecstatic Tired Companions). turbo-folk crowds, or Hole in the Soul, a Scottish BBC The mushrooming of new countries after the break-up of documentary by exiled Dusan Makavejev who witnesses Yugoslavia was felt as far as the entertainment field – start- the isolation of his Yugoslavia in a cosmopolitan context, ing as early as 1994 critics in trade journals could not are deeply personal works of people who painfully help noticing the proliferation of East European entries for experience the gradual profanation of their homeland. the Oscar competition. Whereas before Yugoslavia would submit only a single entry, now there were five countries Films about Sarajevo eager to compete. None of the submitted films has won an The topic of several dozens of films is Sarajevo, and this Academy award until now, but it is nevertheless interesting way parallel with its destruction, the city was perpetually to look at the entries. Rump Yugoslavia’s entry for 1994, revived in the films chronicling its proud survival. There for example, was Vukovar: Poste Restante (dir. Boro were films telling about the inhumanity of everyday life in
48 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 Sarajevo, about the children of Sarajevo, about the subject, but nevertheless some interesting multimedia pro- women, about the villains, about the artists, about the jects should be mentioned such as the French-supported horrors of war, and the insanity. There were the features Sarajevo on-line journalism project, the on-line exhibits of set in Sarajevo, seen by larger audiences. Of these, only the Sarajevo pop-group Trio and of fine artists trapped by the story of Ademir Kenovic’s Perfect Circle (1997) about the siege in Sarajevo, or the web-site of the Zagreb-based the bonding of a lonely writer and two orphaned boys, feminist group Nona featuring the creative work of refugee was told from a point of view of local people, while all women. others followed the formula of the transplanted Western narrator. There were well researched and well presented Festivals human interest stories, like the heartbreaking real story of Reputed international film festivals which have built an a Sarajevo inter-ethnic couple who tried to escape the city attentive and committed audience proved to be the ideal but were shot down by snipers. There were films that told venue for the films about Bosnia. And, indeed, program- the story from a very personal point of view, like Exile in mers across the world did a lot to bring the films about the Sarajevo (1997) made by an Australian, Tahir Cambis, conflict in former Yugoslavia to their festivals. who, while making the movie, fell in love with his Bosnian The first major festival to schedule a special series translator. There have been films that proved that even related to Bosnia was the one in Berlin. It held a pro- black, the humour of Sarajevans is still intact, like Mizaldo gramme called No More War in February 1993. Ironi- (1994) which was made as an extended infomercial about cally, this scheduling was a bit rushed – only a few films the city. And last, the most important genre – the chronicles had appeared by the time and the end of the war was that Sarajevans themselves shot about themselves – the nowhere near in sight. The programme included a few works of the Sarajevo Group of Authors (SaGA), of documentaries by German and French filmmakers. As no Ademir Kenovic, Pjer Zalica, Mirza Idrizovic, Benjamin feature had yet been made at the time, the programme Filipovic, and many others who chronicled the agony and included a film by Bosnian-born Emir Kusturica – Arizona the strength of heir city on a day to day basis. Dream (1992) – which, however, dealt with Kusturica’s vision of America and barely touched the Bosnian crisis. Other form a t s Since 1993 films related to the war in former Besides the feature and documentary format, there have Yugoslavia started regularly appearing at all major feature been many more productions that remain lesser known and documentary film festivals. In 1994 Milcho and difficult to chronicle. There have been local produc- Manchevski’s Before the Rain won the Golden Lion at the tions by filmmakers that never got into distribution. Besides Venice Film Festival. The 1995 Cannes season brought the TV documentaries produced and aired by BBC 1 and awards to Kusturica’s Underground and Angelopoulos’s 2, CNN, PBS, Channel Four, and others, there have been Ulysses Gaze. Mizaldo won the Grand Prize at the many more TV programmes that are difficult to trace. One Mediterranean Film Festival in Rome in 1995. Michael should note that while most of the British documentaries Winterbottom’s Welcome to Sarajevo, the story of a West- were made for TV and thus received better exposure, ern journalist in Sarajevo who cannot remain neutral and the bulk of American documentaries were made helps a Bosnian girl to escape the horrors of war, was one independently and ended up underexposed, mostly seen of the main contestants at Cannes in 1997. SrdJan Drago- at festivals or at occasional screenings. jevic’s Pretty Village, Pretty Flame, telling the story of two Further, there was the genre of the so-called childhood friends who end up fighting against each other home-videos, shot on the spot in former Yugoslavia and in Bosnia, received recognition at festivals all over the then distributed via clandestine channels to the relevant world. Kenovic’s Perfect Circle won the main award at the diasporas across the world.3 1997 Tokyo Film Festival. I have also come across references to two more types of Films from and about the Balkans played at special videotaped material but the information about them is not panoramas at the International Documentary Filmfest in systematic. The first type are the many hours worth of Amsterdam in 1993, at the International Feminist Filmfest videotaped victim’s testimonies that the commission, in Creteil, France in 1997, and at the Toronto International appointed by the UN to investigate the war crimes in Film Festival in 1997. Regularly films about Bosnia were former Yugoslavia and chaired by DePaul University’s law featured at the Sundance Film Festival, at the Human professor Cherif Bassiouni, has collected. Some of these Rights Watch Film Festival, at the festivals in Montreal, videos are being currently used in the work of the Hague Vancouver, San Francisco, Chicago, Mannheim, Karlovy tribunal. The other type are the videotaped rapes that Vary, and London. are being discussed by feminist writers such as Catherine Two festivals that regularly showcase the production of McKinnon and Beverly Allen who report on allegations and about the region should be mentioned in particular – that such tapes are being sold at clandestine pornographic the Thessaloniki Film Festival and the Alpe-Adria cinema markets in Romania and other Central East European meetings in Trieste. Local festivals that take place in the countries. I, however, have not found sufficient evidence of countries of former Yugoslavia are also important as here the existence of such tapes. most of the domestic productions are shown – Pula, In addition to film, there has been intensive activity in Belgrade, Subotica, and BitoIja. In 1995 a special series the field of multimedia, and new technologies have been called Sarajevo Film Days was organized in Zagreb, used to pass the message across. Exploring those is not my Croatia. Sarajevans themselves have been quite active in
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 49 scheduling film events and there have been several during For Ever Mozart, Underground, Vukovar: Poste Restante) the siege, organized by various courageous groups and or October Films (they distribute Someone Else’s America). individuals. The Sarajevo International Film Festival held in There are also some paradoxes: With a few exceptions, the fall of 1997 is now becoming a regular event. It is at films made by filmmakers associated with Serbia (SrdJan this venue where Sarajevans can see many of the films Dragojevic, Boro Draskovic, Petar Antortijevic, Goran made about Bosnia and about themselves. Paskaljevic) have had more exposure in the West than the Besides festivals, there have been many efforts by ones made by Croats or Bosnians. Sarajevo-set Ademir various groups to provide more exposure to the films. Kenovic’s Perfect Circle, Bato Cengic’s Mona Lisa in Many human rights activists, academics, or ad hoc groups Sarajevo (1998), and Francois Lunel’s Unexpected Walk have undertaken it to produce and distribute video (1997) and Heroes (1999) have barely been seen in the materials to raise the consciousness about the war. TV West. stations have also had an input. Channel Four in the UX, As if reiterating the old prejudices to people (respectively for example, held the well publicized Bloody Bosnia filmmakers) from the Balkans, films made about the Balkan season for a week in August 1993 – an example followed conflict by Westerners have enjoyed much better exposure by other TV stations in the West. than films made by local filmmakers. A good example is the widely publicized Predictions of Fire (1996) by Distribution Michael Benson and the largely unknown Laibach: A Film Depending on the background of the filmmaker, the from Slovenia (1993) by Goran GaJic, both dealing in an specific approach, or the target audiences of the almost identical manner with the phenomenon of the Neue distributor, various productions received visibility through Slovenische Kunst and the rock-group Lafflach. various channels. Miss Sarajevo (1995), for example, Another example would be French Bernard-Henry Levy’s made by U2 fan Bill Carter, became well known to the Bosna!(1994) which extensively uses footage shot under ones who follow Billboard and MTV, whereas all turbo-folk fire by the members of SaGA, the Sarajevo Group of fans in Serbia watched the populist show called Arkan Authors. Whereas Levy’s film was distributed in both and Ceca’s Wedding (1995). Mandy Jaconson’s Calling 35mm and on video, and seen on TV in most Western the Ghosts (1996) is the work best known to feminist countries, the films produced by SaGA have rarely been audiences – it tells of the difficult path taken by Jadranka screened even at festivals. There have been reports on Sigelj and Nusreta Sivac, rape survivors from the Bosnian many Western TV companies or documentary filmmakers camps, who decide to talk publicly and to testify to the who have expressed interest and have obtained permis- Hague tribunal of their ordeal. Other films reached out to sion to use SaGA’s footage, while at the same time SaGA’s religious audiences: the Croat story of Godmother’s attempts to distribute their own documentaries containing appearance, Jacov Sedlar’s Gospa (1993), was exhibited this same footage have failed. by a California-based Catholic film distribution network, One more example – I managed to see the very impres- while the BBC documentary of Arab correspondent Robert sive Death in Sarajevo (1995) only after I had the chance Fisk, From Beyrut to Bosnia (1993) explained today’s to personally meet with its author. the exiled Sarajevan Muslim ideas of world’s dynamics. The gay community comparative literature professor Tvrtko Kulenovic, and he expressed interest in Zelimir Zilnik’s Marble Ass, featuring lent me his only video copy which was gathering dust on a a transvestite prostitute from Belgrade who fights violence bookshelf at his Chicago home. At the same time Urbicide: in his own special way, while anthropologists showed their A Sarajevo Diary (1993) a film of the same length, subject students films made by other anthropologists, featuring matter., and sensibility, made by British Bill Tribe, also a communal rituals at the intersection of tradition and professor at Sarajevo, played on Channel Four and is modernity. As a result of this segmentation of audience, available in video distribution. some films became really popular within a limited Whereas the feature films have at least the chance to reception framework while remaining virtually unknown end up in the system of non-theatrical distribution or within beyond it. Only a few enjoyed a wider exposure. the festival circuit., the picture in documentaries is Many of the acclaimed films about the Balkans have deplorable. Only a few have found distributors, and even been seen at festivals, but rarely make it to theatrical those are quite often poorly advertised or are listed at distribution. In the fall of 1996 New York Times’ Linda Lee prices that even institutions can rarely afford. Electronic wrote a piece entitled “Films that Win Acclaim but not Arts Intermix, for example, which carries the remarkable Distributors,” exposing the trend that was making Chris Marker’s Prime Time in the Camps (1993) only distributors, clearly concerned about box office returns, to advertises to programmers, and the Cinema Guild avoid committing to films that would be classified as not routinely charges $300 in the average for a video – Truth entertaining. Under Siege (1995), an excellent documentary tackling When it comes to distribution, quality is not always the the workings of independent media across former decisive consideration, as many other factors play a role. Yugoslavia, has ended up with them which by definition Whereas Be are the Rain, for example, received a wide limits its distribution chances. There is a huge unrealized distribution, for the equally acclaimed Pretty Village, Pretty potential in documentary distribution, and many of the Flame played only in non-theatrical chains. The situation is best films still remain unseen. partially corrected by some distributors of arthouse type There have been some archival efforts, like the feature films, such as The New Yorker (they currently carry International Monitor Institute in Los Angeles and the
50 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 Documentation Centre of Social Movements in Amster- whose lives were deeply affected and shattered by what dam. The AudioVisual Department at the Central European happened in ex-Yugoslavia in the early 1990s will be University, Budapest have a collection of videotapes coming to the topic of the Bosnian war again and again. related to the conflict in former Yugoslavia. The Soros The future works on the subject will not come from people Foundation branches in Bosnia, Croatia and other like starship-bound Michael Winterbottom or from Emir countries of former Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe have Kusturica, who does not seem to grasp what the critics been involved with a number of various projects to pro- against him are all about and who has turned to romantic mote the work of local filmmakers about the conflict. The comedy lately. One should expect more important works researchers at the video department of the U.S. Holocaust about the troubled Balkans, however, to come from Theo Museum in Washington, D.C. organized the exhibit Faces Angelopoulos, Ademir Kenovic, and Goran Paskaljevic, of Sorrow in 1994, and are collecting videotapes related whose Powder Keg screened out of competition at the to the conflict in former Yugoslavia. But even if they man- Venice film festival in 1998 to raving reviews. Every month age to compile a comprehensive collection of tapes, these there are reports of some new project in the works, mostly will be available only to researchers. The documentary documentaries, but also features while the planned body of work about Bosnia remains and will remain Hollywood production Age of Aquarius with Harrison Ford largely unseen and unexposed. experienced financial difficulties and was cancelled, I first became interested in the films made in response to Canada is soon to release West of Sarajevo, shot near the Balkan crisis in 1994. Only in the fall of 1996, how- Vancouver, Britain – Beautiful People which is shot on loca- ever, did I have the chance to start systematically research- tion near Liverpool, and in Italy veteran Lina Wertmtiller is ing and exploring this body of cinematic works. It was at completing work on An Interesting State, starring Daniel that time when a well-wishing academic friend told me that Auteull, Harvey Keitel and Vanessa Redgrave.in the years I was probably wasting my time. The formal end of the to come, Balkan filmmakers themselves will be coming hostilities, he claimed, meant also fading interest in the back to the topics of taking sides, villains and victims, topic – and not only amidst the general public, but within displacement and migrations. Many more important works academia as well. Only if the bloodshed continued could will appear that will treat the topic of the war in the I expect to enjoy the interest of publishers and journal Balkans. and of the healing process which has presumably editors alike. begun. I Well, I wish he was wrong. As I write this in the summer of 1999, however, we live in the aftermath of the Endnotes disturbing Kosovo war, and new images of endless human 1 I discuss this issue at length in my ‘Kusturica’s Under- suffering, of burned bodies and burning oil refineries have ground: Historical Allegory or Propaganda.’ Historical occupied our minds. To make the Kosovo-related documen- Journal of Film, Radio and TV, March 1999. taries and satisfy the immediate need of the day, in 1999 2 Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation. (1995) Documentary in production companies hastily scan the archives for four parts. Production: Brian Lapping Associates Co-pro- documentary footage of the notorious visit of Slobodan duction: BBC (UK), Canal+ (France), Discovery Channel Milosevic to Kosovo in 1987 – this same footage that was (USA), ORF (Austria), VRPO (The Netherlands), RTBF discovered by accident in the archive of Belgrade TV by (Belgium), SVT2 (Sweden), NRK (Norway), Danmarks researchers for Yugoslavia: The Death of a Nation but Radio (Danemark) et ABC (Australia). Exec. producer: was not used very much as it did not seem that important. Brian Lapping. Narrated by Robin Ellis. Directors Angus Documentaries about Albania – some were made in the McQueen and Paul Mitchell. early 1990s by Gill Rosselini and Paul Jay, for example – 3 For an interesting discussion of the reception of such are now retrieved and shown, and a number of films deal- home videos by the Croatian and Macedonian commu- ing with border-crossings between Albania, Greece, and nities in Perth, Australia see Dona Kolar-Panov’s book Macedonia are in the process of making. Authors who Video, War and the Diasporic Imagination. London wrote about Bosnia returned to their files looking for and New York: Routledge. 1997. research notes dealing with the ethnic Albanians – mater- ial never used before as until recently it seemed irrelevant. The names of Bosnian places which appeared and then Dina Iordanova is co-author disappeared from the public mind – Gorazde, Prijedor, of BFI’s Companion to East JaJce, Zvornik, are now replaced by another set of names uropean and Russian Cinema – Pristina, Jakobica, Prizren, Blace. (London: 1999). Her book Film, Critics often underline that the best Vietnam-war films Mass Mediation and the Bosnian were made in America only years after the end of the war Crisis is forthcoming. (Deer Hunter, 1978; Apocalypse Now, 1979; Platoon, 1986; Full Metal Jacket, 1987; Good Morning, Vietnam, 1987; Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam, 1988; Born on the Fourth of July, 1989), and the Vietnam-war topic featured powerfully in Hollywood as recently as 1995 with Forest Gump. In analogy, as time passes, further serious films about the Balkans will be made. Those
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 51 Where Is the Wo m e n ’s News tion by the media? Does the media tion. They help to naturalise social and Beat? A review of Wo m e n , promote and influence particular cultural arrangements so that women Democracy and the Media, by notions of femininity? Sonia Bathla and men both accept the secondary Sonia Bathla, Sage, 1998, p. 209. takes up for close reading and analysis status of women. In this context that a Delhi-based English daily, The Bathla invokes the rather weighty idea Sonia Bathla’s Women, Democracy Hindustan Times, and critically interro- of ‘brahminical hegemony’ to explain and Media has a textbook crispness to gates its reporting, stories, editorials how cultural consensus is achieved in it. It comprises seven chapters. The first and articles (chosen from four different Indian society. three are theoretical and methodologi- years, 1981, 1985, 1989 and 1993), This consensus, she suggests, is so cal in their scope. They establish the to find her answers. She also inter- deep rooted that neither civil law nor coordinates for this study. The next views journalists, both men and state authority can effectively interfere three chapters examine the many women, and women’s groups activists with it. On the contrary both are ways in which women are represented to test her own findings. influenced and shaped by it. Bathla or excluded by the media. The last Bathla’s conceptual framework next looks at how women, women’s chapter paraphrases the arguments of appraises two important things: the lives and issues actually figure in the the book and contains suggestions that place and visibility of women in the pages of The Hindustan Times. The are addressed to policy makers. public sphere and the cultural and information in this section is interesting The theoretical chapters gather social factors which determine this and revealing though much of the together ideas about democracy, the presence (or absence). In the first ground has already been covered in public sphere, hegemony and consent instance, she looks at the different earlier works such as Whose News?, from various sources. (Many of these ways in which women have acted or by A. Joseph and K. Sharma (New are actually tame sociological reformu- been prevented from acting effectively Delhi, Sage, 1994), and in occasional lations of radical concepts from political in the public sphere: here, her reports and studies by women’s theory. As such, they are somewhat examples are drawn from a number of organisations. tendentious.) Having thus assembled a histories, ranging from the French rev- Yet there are valuable things here: set of ideas, Sonia Bathla presents us olution to the Indian Independence for instance it was a surprise to this with her conceptual and analytical struggle. Then she shifts her attention reader at least to know how news framework. She suggests that democ- to the Indian social context and asks beats are organised, what sources of ratic systems work with notions of com- why women in India have found it so information do reporters have recourse munication and consensus. These are hard to be heard and heeded. What to and how news is actually processed usually achieved in and through medi- is the basis for the division of social and produced. Bathla suggests that in ations in a public sphere. In our own and cultural life into public and private India at least the production of news is times, such mediations take place spheres? What are the factors which vitally dependent on the various state largely in spaces made available by sustain and enforce this division? structures which provide information the media: ‘Replacing the model of What ideas justify it, legitimise it? on crime, political happenings, policy face-to-face communication or public Though she does not offer clear-cut measures and so on. In such a context gatherings of the past to discuss public answers to these questions, Sonia would the news media wish to be criti- issues, media today acts as the media- Bathla addresses them by detailing cal of its sources, since it is these which tor and facilitator between policy- various sorts of discrimination and sustain the daily fare of newspapers? makers and the citizenry’ (p.15). violence against women. These acts, This is an important question and But is the media truly representative she argues, are permitted and deserves to be addressed critically and of the range of concerns which are naturalised by culture; this culture may seriously. Since Bathla’s purpose is present in a modern democratic have a certain material basis but it different, she merely poses the question society? Do women, for example, cannot therefore be reduced to it. but moves on to look at how women figure in the media as much as men? Cultural practices are threaded in with related stories are produced. Her find- Are women’s opinions and anxieties social life and determine human ings reveal that women figure in the heeded and brought to public atten- behaviour, interaction and communica- news chiefly in the context of violence,
52 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 either as victims or as supplicants. mony – which are too vast and complex parte de esa historia. Los viejos y These stories are covered for the flutter- without actually locating them in history nuevos temas del tecnologismo y su ing interest they are likely to provoke, or anthropology. Bathla assembles refuerzo del poder transnacional, la but rarely does a reporter get a chance quotations from a range of authors cultura y el desarrollo, los efectos de or gives himself the option to follow up which help her formulate the notion, la comunicación, el papel de la inves- on a particular story, inquire into its but the notion itself serves a purely tigación y el NOMIC, son algunos de fundamental causes. (Women’s issues rhetorical function in her narrative. los temas sobre los que se teje una figure extremely rarely in editorials Secondly, her empirical research reflexión que se enriquece con el and as sustained news stories.) appears far too narrow and limited, aporte de una profunda reflexión Besides, even where violent tales given the vastness of her purpose, humana. Este sea quizás uno de los are concerned there are limits to what which is to show how the media, a rasgos característicos del aporte de may be covered: rape and sexual crucial component of the public Schmucler quien, con una rica prosa, assault are more likely to be deemed sphere, actively excludes women. In conjuga junto a una sólida reflexión newsworthy than, say, domestic this sense her findings mirror her data teórica el interrogante y la búsqueda violence. Bathla argues that the media and do not help us understand those de la dimensión trascendente. is bound by a code that prevents it larger and extremely complex forces Dos estudios puntuales se destacan. from identifying and interrogating which go to constitute the public El primero, escrito en 1972 es un structures and practices which subordi- sphere. The prejudices of male editors, análisis de “La Opinión”, un per- nate women. Therefore, in spite of its the internalised oppression of women iódico que ha hecho historia en el much vaunted role in a democracy and readers and reporters, the existence of periodismo latinoamericano que le its insistence on its rights to freedom of a (vaguely-defined) cultural consensus permite describir un momento particu- expression, the media often practises do not really help one understand how lar de la historia y pintar a una a tacit self-censorship. women are rendered absent. peculiar clase emergente. Por eso This, notwithstanding the women’s To address this crucial exclusion, we considera que se trata de un diario movement which has struggled hard need to understand the specific and dirigido a una clase que “desespera and pushed the media to heed precise nature of the links between por su marginalidad histórica (y) women’s concerns. But then, wonders knowledge, social status, gender and suprime lo cotidiano como carente de Bathla, has the women’s movement representation. The idea of brahmini- importancia.” Para ella el periódico been able to create its own news and cal hegemony may be well deployed “asume el desorden del mundo … public agenda? Why has it been shy to this end, but the book does not libera (al lector) de buscar las causas of the press? She offers a few tentative do this. For the most part, it offers de un mecanismo social verdadera- answers, but her observations are functional explanations rather than mente irracional para quien no vea la empirical and contextual and do not theoretical ones. profunda racionalidad que lo sistem- really help us understand the complex Lastly, must one surrender the energy atiza.” El segundo, mucho más strategies of inclusion and exclusion of one’s thought to the deadening reciente, es una aguda reflexión crítica which constitute a public sphere. It is language of sociology? Bathla’s book sobre filme de Spielberg “La lista de not merely the fact of women reporters would have been less pedantic, if she Schindler”, al que considera inserto en or journalists not wanting to be identi- had spoken in her own voice. el “escándalo de estetizar el horror”. fied with soft feminine stories, that has V. Geetha Schmucler alerta sobre el peligro de created a public sphere where women una estética que, transgrediendo los do not matter. The problem is, the límites de la dignidad humana en su public sphere in India keeps out a Héctor Schmucler, Memoria de la sufrimiento y dolor, borre todo indicio range of people: the poor, the minori- Comunicación, Editorial Biblos, de tragedia y horror. ties, people from the backward and Buenos Aires, 1997, 302 págs. Hay tres sustanciosos capítulos ded- oppressed castes . . . Their absence is icados al tema de la investigación. crucial for the practice of that democ- Recordando a Walter Benjamin, quien Escritos en diversas épocas mantienen racy promoted and upheld by the afirmara que “la memoria es el medio un coherente desarrollo no obstante media: genteel, temperate and conser- de lo vivido” y que quien recuerda “no las distintas etapas históricas en que vative. The exclusion of women has to debe temer volver siempre a la misma fueron escritos. Schmucler considera a be seen in this context. The problem situación, esparcirla como se esparce la investigación como un elemento de cannot be redressed by a more la tierra, revolverla como se revuelve importancia en la vida de la sociedad. gender-sensitive education system la tierra” (págs.9-10), Schmucler des- En los tres presta esencial atención a alone, as Bathla suggests. We need to grana en este libro la experiencia de los cambios que se van experimen- ask ourselves, what sort of a public la investigación en comunicación que tando. En el primero (1975) se inclina sphere and democracy do we want le ha tocado vivir y participar en las por definir al objeto de estudio de la for our layered and complex society, últimas décadas. En su aporte se des- investigación “más bien como una where social and economic divisions cubren los asombros y los cambios, las función: la circulación de ideología are both graded and unequal? incertidumbres y las deserciones. Sus en condiciones particulares de circu- Before I conclude, a few observa- análisis se insertan en situaciones lación” y su lugar ”desde el interior de tions: the book employs theoretical sociopolíticas concretas y ofrecen la un proyecto global de comunicación.” concepts – such as brahminical hege- reflexión de quien se comprende como (pág.143) Posteriormente (1982) el
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 53 acento se pone en la relación comuni- their violent past in preparation for they were remorseful or not. cación/cultura y en la necesidad de nation-building. My trouble with Winks’ theological desbordar los contornos de las disci- Most of this booklet (66 pages in all) thesis is that Jesus in his reconciliatory plinas, porque “la comunicación no es is taken up by the experiences made in advocacy did not stress this point very todo, pero debe ser hablada desde different countries with attempts to much. And the emphasis which the todas partes.” (pág.151) Su tercer reconcile societal groups, which were Gospels put on forgiveness is often capítulo (l996) registra el repliegue, la totally estranged during long periods absent in the modern reconciliation fatiga y el conformismo que se of oppressive totalitarian and mostly stories, at least in the way forgiveness observa en el campo de la investi- military rule. As his book shows, is often understood in modern cultures. gación en comunicaciones. Allí se reconciliation takes different forms in Personally I believe that most of that explaya sobre cómo, a partir de su different situations. I was struck by the discrepancy comes from the modern asumido papel de seductor, el mer- fact that so many of the attempts at psychological emphasis on forgive- cado “invita al goce y a la libertad sin coming to terms with the past, as ness. In the New Testament the term transgredir reglas. Los académicos e described here, were so compromised ‘forgiveness’ is much less emotional investigadores, descubierta la verdad by political bigotry as to become and much more juridical: it is not del mercado, podían abandonar el hardly effective. our feelings that change but our fastidioso ejercicio de la denuncia. ” That makes it difficult for me to feel relationship. (pág.155) Cree, sin embargo, que hay at home in the first chapter of When Whatever, Winks’ booklet makes todavía muchas excepciones, por lo the powers fall where the author good reading both for politicians and que hay que darle valor a los obstácu- tries to link the concept of the Rule churches, the latter especially because los que se interponen al verdadero (kingdom) of God in the New Testa- they can learn much humility from the debate y a la franca discusión, para ment with the reconciliation efforts way in which church-leaders and lo cual considera a “la ideología dom- described. Wink transcribes Jesus’ denominations have in many cases inante” como una pobre respuesta. message of the Kingom at hand as a been totally useless in the great work Schmucler, quien está ejerciendo proclamation of a ‘domination-free of reconciliation. It is never too late to actualmente, entre otras actividades, society’, that is a society in which repent, however, and the many hopeful la docencia y la investigación en la economic exploitation and violence experiences of ‘reconciliation at work’ Universidad de Córdoba, Argentina, have been overcome. Yet he makes will help us not to give up. donde dirige el Área de Comunicación the Message of Jesus so actual that his Albert van den Heuvel del Centro de Estudios Avanzados, apocalyptic vision, so common for the concluye su estimulante libro con una Judaism of his time, is actualised away. reflexión sobre la nostalgia que This preaching-style of argument is The Web of Text and the Web of enmarca su acentuado humanismo. sympathetic but it gets the reader into God: An Essay on the Third “Mi hablar desde la nostalgia quisiera all kinds of new problems with New I nf ormation Transform a t i o n, by ser –contra cualquier apariencia– un Testament texts. Translating the content Alan C. Purves. New York: 1998: rasgo de optimismo. Es afirmar la of the Gospels to our time is a little Guilford Press. ISBN 1-57230-249-6. creencia en que existe posibilidad de more complicated than is suggested Hb. 240pp. £21.95. una salida, aunque el camino que here! Communicators especially will transitemos nos lleva al derrumbe.” need a bit more help to find the What Alan Purves attempts in this book (pág.268) Es a partir de esta nostalgia necessary detours between text and is interesting, but perhaps premature. esperanzada que su obra responde the reality of today. Written and printed texts, he says, con coherencia al anhelo del sentido What I do like very much is Winks’ were for a long while effectively de justicia, dignidad y vida. emphasis on the need for truth-telling. invisible, we were only interested in Carlos A. Valle Indeed, if anything has illuminated us what they said, in content rather than in the experiences of the many form, until the form itself began to be countries trying their hand at revealing challenged. Once TV and computers When the powers fall. (Recon- truths about repression and crimes began to dominate our cultural (if not ciliation in the healing of the against humanity, it is the extraordi- cognitive) horizons, literacy and its nations), by Walter Wink, Fortress nary power of (finally) revealing the various wide-ranging implications Press, Mineapolis. facts. In the South African example, became of enormous concern to which for a number of precise reasons psychologists, anthropologists, philoso- Walter Wink has written the intro- is the most impressive of all the truth- phers and others. As Purves puts it, ductory volume to a series which the finding exercises, one can see that the ‘fish don’t study water until the drought Swedish Life and Peace Institute is pivotal place given to the public exhibi- begins’ (p.24). currently publishing under the overall tion of the crimes during the apartheid The same point might be applied to title: Reconciliation and the Church in regime (and not only the overwhelming what he calls the ‘third information Transition to Democracy. It will be evidence against the white perpetra- transformation’, namely the develop- followed by specific booklets on the tors) honoured the victims, often ment of electronic forms of communica- situation in various regions of the restored the dignity of their families tion. Until they are challenged by what- world. Wink deals with the way in and also resulted in a kind of self- ever media come to constitute the which nations can come to terms with judgement of the perpetrators, whether fourth information transformation, we
54 MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 may not be well placed to offer a his argument considerably (but it is all’ (p.21) His concern ‘is with theo- critical evaluation of them. Their intro- perhaps just not possible at this stage phany in the electronic world’ (p.21), duction and rapid domination of the in the history of communications to with the question of how we can think communications environment is simply compile such a list in any detail). of God when ‘the modern consensus so recent an event that it raises doubts Despite the comparative lack of has eroded’ (p.200). He makes the about whether enough historical concrete substantiation for some of his intriguing suggestion that ‘today’s distance has been laid down to make claims, this is a fascinating book. And cyber-based network may ultimately for a sharply focused critical analysis. whatever we may make of Purves’s prove to be the metaphor or the myth The Web of Text and the Web of mapping of the current communica- through which we come ever closer to God has a somewhat tentative, provi- tions environment and its impact on God and a personal comprehension sional and initial air to it. Arguably, its us, he takes readers through some of God in our time’ (p.20), an obser- lack of conclusiveness is as much a fascinating and thought-provoking vation that might usefully be set beside consequence of when it was written territory. His emphasis on the way in Neil Postman’s McLuhanesque dictum (i.e. as this third information transfor- which the development and spread of that ‘the medium is the metaphor’. mation is still unfolding) as it is a com- the great world religions was depen- Whilst this suggestion of a rich vein ment on the author’s intellectual rigour. dent on writing and print, his likening of theological metaphor implicit in the Purves takes the development of of the Talmud and the four Gospels to structure of cyberspace looks well written language and the invention of hypertext, his acute comments on icon, worth exploring further, Purves’s claim the printing press (the first and second image and text, his identification of that ‘each of us can find a spiritual of the three major information or tech- five links which serve as the connecting home in cyberspace’ (p.216) seems nological transformations which he threads of the book (anarchy, authority, much more questionable. (And it is posits) as constituting the ‘necessary community, idolatry, network), all this somewhat odd, given the book’s orien- background’ (p.7) to his study. His makes The Web of Text and the Web tation, that the references are all to main focus is on the way in which ‘the of God a worthwhile read for anyone print sources. It would, surely, have new writing and information technolo- interested in understanding the com- been appropriate and useful to have gies’ (p.v) – radio, film, TV, computers, plex relationships that obtain between provided readers with a ‘webliogra- the Internet and the World Wide Web religion and media. phy’ as well.) – ‘affect our cultural, intellectual, and Purves originally wrote the book as Finally, though it is good to see that religious beliefs and structures’ (p.v). a hypertext (sometimes defined as many of his comments on religion refer The problem is, have we been exposed ‘nonsequential writing’) using the pro- to a range of faiths – something that to these new technologies for long gramme ‘Storyspace’. The demands of seems entirely apt given that a con- enough for their impact to be mapped book publication meant that he had to sciousness of religious pluralism is one beyond the rather hazy outlines of rethink his original design. Even so, he very important upshot of the third infor- speculation? has tried to retain the key features of mation transformation – it is a shame Certainly Purves’s mapping seems to hypertext in the published hard-copy. to find some rather careless generalisa- have difficulty drawing in the main ‘This volume is not hierarchical or tions being made about non-Christian topographical features with much sequential’, we are told, ‘it is anarchic’ faiths. To talk about ‘the writings of the clarity. He makes the plausible asser- (p.203). As such, he tells readers that Buddha’ (p.68), for example, is to tion that: ‘As our ways of storing, ‘there is no order, but there is the possi- create an erroneous view of Buddhist manipulating, and retrieving informa- bility for you to order what you have scripture. We have nothing that the tion change, so too do our perceptions to select and make it yours. You are no Buddha himself wrote, and oral trans- of the world. Our consciousness has longer passive but must see yourself as mission of his sayings was the norm shifted and continues to shift and be active’ (p.212). for several centuries after his death. A reformed’ (p.214). As such, it is no Yet, for all the apparent fluidity and closer reading of Buddhist thinking surprise to learn that he subscribes ‘to freedom thus implied, in both his delin- might also have introduced Purves to a doctrine that the various media affect eation of three clear-cut information the concept of ‘Indra’s Net’, a power- how we live and work and even think’ transformations and in assertions like ful metaphor of inter-relationships that (pp.195/6), and that Marshall that on page 108, where we are told would provide a fascinating point McLuhan’s Understanding Media and ‘we have become members of a uni- of comparison for the webs which Walter Ong’s Orality and Literacy verse of images, and at this juncture concern him. have shaped his thinking ‘in ways that our knowledge is expressed predomi- Chris Art h u r have become so deep that I barely nantly through them’, it seems that know when the ideas are mine or there is a print-based hierarchical theirs’ (p.220). categorisation at work. Godless Morality, by Richard But there are very few specifics in Purves writes as a Christian (and, Holloway. Edinburgh: Canongate, terms of precisely how our perceptions incidentally, as a member of the First 1999. 190pp. of the world have been changed, or of Church of Cyberspace). As such, he the ways in which our consciousness says that he finds ‘the spiritual and ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent has shifted. A clear enumeration of the theological implications of the age of priest?’, cried Henry II of Thomas ways we have been affected by the hypertext to be the most perplexing Becket. More than nine hundred years new media would have strengthened and yet the most pressing concerns of later, certain figures in the church and
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT 4/1999 55 government of the United Kingdom Godless Morality consist of six profesionalismo, un manual que está may well be silently echoing that plea. chapters that deal with key social siendo y será de enorme provecho Fortunately, Richard Holloway, (therefore moral) issues of contempo- para los que se dispongan a compren- Episcopal Bishop of Edinburgh, shows rary British society. They are also der y adentrarse en la magia de la every sign of life and, to prove it, has issues that face other societies, but the radio. just published his nineteenth book. unstated context is Britain today. López Vigil es bien conocido en In a sympathetic profile in The Chapter 1 discusses the general moral América Latina por sus valiosos y, en Guardian (18 August 1999), James confusion of our time, concluding that algunos casos, no menos controver- Meek wrote: ‘For conservative clergy ‘The genius of improvisation seems to tidos aportes en series radiales como and the right-wing press, Holloway is be a better metaphor for actual human “Un Tal Jesús”. Actualmente es el Co- the latest avatar of the spirit of barmy moral experience than struggling to ordinador de la Asociación Mundial bishopdom – a serpent in the bosom apply a single text to every situation’ de Radios Comunitarias AMARC, para of the church, preaching heresy and (p.34). América Latina y el Caribe. social upheaval, a dope-smoking, adul- ‘Unhappy bedfellows’ uses biblical La obra cubre todos los aspectos tery-condoning, homosexuality-encour- narratives to debunk the hypocritical esenciales del lenguaje de la radio y aging, fornication-friendly, gospel- stance that church and society take on sus géneros. Una buena introducción doubting, pinko male feminist, leading matters sexual. ‘Was the Trojan Horse sobre “los medios en el medio”, the British church to ruin and defeat.’ Gay?’ discusses the ‘problem’ of seguida por una reflexión sobre la Godless Morality sets out to dis- bringing God into the moral debate “personalidad de la radio”, abren el cover if we have to be religious to be and the claim to divine sanction for espacio a un amplio y sustancial moral, or to believe in God to be moral tradition based on biblical texts. capítulo sobre el lenguaje radial. good. ‘This book is not about God ‘What is Your Poison?’ explores the Sobre esa base se adentra en el and whether God exists, but it does different value systems that allow análisis de tres géneros básicos: el rest on a belief that we must discon- choices to be made between drugs dramático, el periodístico y el musical. nect religion and God from the strug- such as marijuana, tobacco and López Vigil escribe con lenguaje gle to recover some elements of a com- alcohol. radial, salpicando anécdotas y buen mon ethic. To that extent, therefore, ‘Life Wars’ expertly tackles the humor. No estamos aquí frente a árido this is a godless book . . .’ (pp.4-5). controversy of abortion The wise manual técnico, más bien estamos This is probably why the present conclusion is that ‘It is because we are ante el “testimonio” de un profesional Archbishop of Canterbury publicly creatures blessed and afflicted with comprometido. Su esperanza es que, took Richard Holloway to task for consciousness that we find ourselves in por un lado, nuestro acercamiento al questioning the traditional foundation these predicaments. The fact that, medio esté motivado por el interés of moral belief. But the Archbishop for most of us, there are no simple hacia aquellos con quienes vamos a should have known better and should solutions to these problems should not compartir la comunicación y, por otro have taken more seriously the rest of dismay us’ (p.130). ‘The Reproductive lado, por el amor hacia una vía de the same paragraph: ‘. . . but discern- Supermarket’ focuses on artificial comunicación, que pueda convertirse ing readers will detect a paradox at insemination techniques and research en la expresión de la vida en comu- work. If there is that which we call on human embryos. nidad. Por eso dice: “Como el amor a God, and God is more than the The final chapter is about ‘Deciding las personas, los objetivos transforman projection of our own best values and for Ourselves’ and it proposes a ‘new a las instituciones. Una emisora que se longings for transcendence, then God morality of consent’ that responds to entrega a la comunidad, se populariza must be involved in all our moral situations ‘with grace appropriate to más tarde o más temprano.” struggles, so the attempt by humans to the event’ (p.159). Richard Holloway (pág.540) discover a morality apart from God does not claim to know all the No solo en América Latina sino might, paradoxically, be God’s answers. But he asks relevant en otras partes del mundo hay un greatest triumph; and our attempt to questions that are often brushed under marcado interés y lugar para la radio live morally as though there were no the carpet. This is a fascinating and comunitaria. No es novedad recordar God might be the final test of faith.’ usefully provocative book. que el mundo está experimentando un The author of this book is intensely Philip Lee creciente desarrollo tecnológico a la pragmatic. He knows that ordinary vez que registra una enorme concen- people have very little time for the tración de poder de los medios, debates and machinations of the José Ignacio López Vigil, Manual medios que ahora arguyen que solo General Synod. So he makes clear at U rgente para Radialistas pueden regirse por las inamovibles the outset that ‘There will be frequent Apasionados, Quito, Ecuador, reglas del mercado. Este libro, que references to God and religion in this 1997, 550 págs. comparte la experiencia y la alegría book, but the aim is to unite those who de participar en el medio radiofónico, believe with those who do not in the Después de varias décadas de traba- es una contribución sustancial para la discovery of a workable ethic for our jar en radioemisoras, de enseñar los capacitación de “quienes luchan por time.’ The unstressed but essential valores de una comunicación que está un mundo donde todos puedan comer word here is workable. Pie in the sky al servicio de la comunidad, López su pan y decir su palabra.” (pág.8) is not Richard Holloway’s way. Vigil vuelca con dinamismo, claridad y Carlos A. Valle
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