Unleashing African Potential- Taleni Shimhopileni

When Taleni Shimhopileni was in Grade 4, her teacher announced that they would begin to learn Afrikaans. As Oshiwambo is Taleni’s mother tongue, she remembers asking her teacher why she could not learn her own language and she was told, rather vaguely, that it was simply not possible.

Today, Taleni speaks two dialects of Oshiwambo fairly well after making a conscious decision to begin reading and writing in her own language, but believes there may be an enduring passivity to superimposed colonial policies that are perpetuated and continue to be imposed today.

Though the arguments for the continuation of these language policies are often made in the name of civilisation, Taleni is yet to see a civilised society that did not embrace its cultural heritage and indigenous languages.

In fact, Taleni sees language and cultural preservation as integral to creating a sense of African self-determination and self-actualisation which will stand African people in firm stead to progress and fulfill calls to rise, innovate and build.

“There is a need for genuine discourse amongst ourselves as the African youth as well as the youth to our elders as to what we deem to be the progression of African self-determination,” says Taleni, who believes the notion of increasing one’s lingual capacity by learning non-native languages is a beautiful one but still feels there is an onus on our elders.

This responsibility is laid bare when our elders ask why we misspell native words when they should also be asking our schools why they don’t prioritise teaching the nation’s children to read and write in indigenous languages.

Similarly, when elders lament the wearing of weaves of western and eastern origin, perhaps they should also ask schools why some of them still uphold policies that allow for them to forbid, threaten and expel black girls who come to school in natural hair, locks and braids.

In addition to the need for language and cultural preservation, there is a need for Africans to write our own stories and our own truths to teach our children the stories of our heroes, change makers and the pioneers of our African lands.

These should not be one or two page summaries, rather texts that can be used for intensive teaching about our forefathers.

Today, the reality is that, even if an African has gone to school in Africa where we write local and international history exams, many of us will go to university unable to say fully and with confidence what the likes of Sam Nujoma, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Bram Fischer and Malcolm X did for African lands.

In fact we are, generally, more likely to be knowledgeable on western and eastern history as prescribed by general curriculums.

Though Taleni believes it would not be wise for us to omit teaching west and eastern history, in order for Africans to paint our walls with self-determination and self-actualisation as Africans, we must teach African children where they came from in order to equip and catapult them to where we wish them to go.

To this end, we require that more Namibian writers such as Ellen Namhila, author of ‘The Price of Freedom’, and Kaleni Hiyalwa who wrote ‘Meekulu’s Children’, as well as writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the late Chinua Achebe and Maya Angelou become prescribed literature within African schools here and in the diaspora.

“We need to realise we make the fight for progression as a people, as an African people, twice as hard if we do not teach ourselves who we are and where we’re coming from,” says Taleni.

In terms of the making, broadcasting and distribution of the African story, Taleni believes this needs to be taken seriously by Africans as this will help us educate, inspire and understand each other more.

With regard to teaching the youth, the reality is that times have changed from an industrial age to a digital and information age which requires shifts in how children are taught to think, work, use tools and their skills.

“I believe what we teach our children, how we teach them and whom we allow to dictate our realities to us as a people are the ingredients to releasing African’s potency further,” says Taleni.