Ramblings on language, culture and the Other

With reference to what Kelly wrote,

If we take this to be true, the forced imposition of the English language over Irish is indeed a violence done to Ireland. This means the eventual 'carr[ying over of English] culture', and therefore English 'values', into Ireland- a quiet and insidious technique that enables the empire to expand and survive.

I think forcing the Irish to adopt the English language is definitely a form of violence done to the Irish. Languages certainly reflect our own cultures and values, and have the power to reveal where we come from. By adopting the English language, colonies risk losing touch not only with their mother tongues, but also their very own cultures and what has traditionally set them apart. The power the British held was English – in forcing us to learn the language, we will certainly start identifying with the English culture and their value systems and before we know it, exchanged our culture for theirs. How many countries today aspire to be as modernized as the English or the Americans? Singapore is a good example: how many of us speak Malay, our national language, or are proficient in our mother tongue? In an argument with my aunt, she commented that Singaporeans have lost their roots because most of us speak English, identify English as our national language and are more Western than Eastern. More recently, I was ‘scolded’ by a PRC because I wasn’t proficient enough in Mandarin. To him, since I am a Chinese, I should be speaking Mandarin more fluently than English. At a deeper level, to him, I have become more westernized and identify less with my ‘roots’.

Looking at what Levine wrote in “Ruling an Empire” then, ‘It was colonized peoples who were expected to conform to British behaviors and values: movement in the other direction was considered contamination, not assimilation’ (107); given how Singapore has turned out today, the fears of the British were certainly not unfounded. If the colonial masters were to adopt our cultures and our languages instead, they would eventually lose what made them British and essentially, their right to have power over us. While Picasso was interested in African subjects for his work, he had to be careful that he would not be assimilated into African culture in the process. While Europe was, and still is, fascinated with the mysterious Orient, they are only just fascinated. After all, Gikandi stated

Savagery and the artistic sensibility would intimately be connected in the aesthetic of modernism; however, it did not follow that the moderns were willing to give up civilization to become one with the savage’ (458).

In dealing with the Other, the White man’s own vested interests still had to be protected. But it kind of makes me wonder what if the colonial masters had allowed themselves to become part of the culture of the colonized? How different will the world be now? Would modernism be different from what we are studying now? In a way, I’m excited to see how the world is changing with China coming up, and the amount of people in the West actually picking up Mandarin just to keep up with the times. How much more dilution of cultures in the world will take place?

On another note, I don’t know if what I’ve just typed has any relation to what we’re doing on this course at all. My apologies if I’ve gone off-tangent, or am not making any sense at all. Ha ha.

-Lee Yuen Mei