Chanting Warrior…Un/learning Language and Culture

Surviving the process of identity re-construction in the post-Apartheid space is a tricky business. We continue assimilating and adapting to what is sold to us in a given place and time. Namibia is a place loaded with memories of colonial history which show how the oppressive patterns of learning and making culture have influenced our thinking over the decades. We do not live so far from this time.

Depending on the social rules and regulations that govern and frame a particular context, we are directly and indirectly forced to suck up to things that we should not be entertaining. For example, having to learn Afrikaans because it still somewhat of an official language which is continuously encouraged in Namibia. Many job vacancies in Namibia still suggest that candidates with Afrikaans literacy have an advantage. What are we doing about this? When will the indigenous language speaker be advantaged?

We have to think about language and power very thoroughly here. We are confronted with the questions of what we are doing to change our English and Afrikaans monopoly language frameworks. It is quite evident that the different attempts by our education departments have been struggling to pick up over and again. We have homework to do regarding how we are going to approach and address the issues and all the things that we still have to assimilate to, starting with language and culture.

Re-thinking certain cultural and learning patterns becomes the driving force of transforming towards the vision of reclaiming the power of indigenous knowledge. In decolonising both body and mind, we ought to move towards a common understanding that enables us to tap into our individual and community heritages, which continue to be suppressed in the new dispensation.

Unlearning and rewriting history is not only a project for blacks. Those dwelling and finding themselves in the box of whiteness also have a lot to discover and re-discover. It is however up to them to find out what and how they wish to embark on this discovery process of culturing the self and the other.

Procreating with blacks or having a black best friend is definitely not enough any more. It should be more than just a simple process of cultural exchange. There is a lot that they will learn from our frames of origin.

Just the other day, I was complaining about how I am sick and tired of doing white things all the time and how hard it is to do something about the needed shift. I guess the biggest complex for me is how I do not always have the vocabulary to articulate some things that I feel strongly about in all the languages that I claim to speak.

This complex began with having and trying to perfect languages that should not be framing my thinking as a black body in the post-colonial space.