Aug-Sept 2014 K.indd

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www.cosatu.org.za • AUG/SEPT 2014

policy recognises that a wide spectrum of opinions exists as to the locally viable approaches towards multilingual education, ranging from arguments in favour of the cognitive benefits and cost effectiveness of teaching through one medium (home language) and learning additional language(s) as subjects, to those drawing on comparative international experience demonstrating that, under appropriate conditions, most learners benefit cognitively and emotionally from the type of structured bilingual education found in dual-medium (also known as two way immersion) programmes. Whichever route is followed argues the South African Language policy text - the underlying principle is to maintain home language(s) while providing access to and the effective acquisition of additional language(s). Hence, the Department’s position that an additive approach to bilingualism is to be seen as the normal orientation of our language-in-educationpolicy.Withregardto the delivery system, policy will progressively be guided by the results of comparative research, both locally and internationally. The policy continues and says that the right to choose the language of learning and teaching is vested in the individual. This right has, however, to be exercised within the overall framework of the obligation on the education system to promote multilingualism. This paradigm also presupposes a more fluid relationship between languages and culture than is generally understood in the Eurocentric model which we have inherited in South Africa. It accepts a priori that there is no contradiction in a multicultural society between a core of common cultural traits, beliefs, practices, etc., and particular sectional or communal cultures. Indeed, the relationship between the two can and should be mutually reinforcing and, if properly managed, should give rise to and sustain genuine respect for the variability of the communities that constitute our emerging nation. This is exactly where the problems lie in the South African Language policy. It starts by correctly recognising the historical bases of the language policy but proceeds by creating a fertile ground for the failure of the very same policy. The South African Language policy cannot and

must not and should never proceed as if it was a policy divorced from the struggle to achieve self determination. The policy cannot seek to achive a multilingual society without putting processes in place to ensure that such multilingualism proceeds from the equality of use and economic value attached to languages. As things stands in South Africa English is the language of employment and economic advancement and African languages are associated with their economic uselessness. The pedestal in which African languages have been put in South Africa goes against what Lenin says “unity and unimpeded development of language are the most important conditions for genuinely free and extensive commerce on a scale commensurate with modern capitalism, for a free and broad grouping of the population in all its various classes and, lastly, for the establishment of a close connection between the market and each and every proprietor, big or little, and between seller and buyer”. In other words the current status of the African Languages in South Africa is that they cannot even serve the interests of developing capitalism let alone to serve the revolutionary course of a new socialist mode of production. It must be insisted that the Language policy in our country cannot proceed as if there is no responsibility to undo the imperial, colonial and Apartheid negative impact which is at the core of our National Democratic revolution. The history of the ascendency of English and Afrikaans language in South African is the history of colonialism of Special type which is the core of our National Democratic Revolution which in the main is about addressing the imbalances of the past reflected in the racially skewed property relations and ownership patterns in the economic wealth of our country which continues to favour our former oppressors and colonisers. Let’s briefly reflect on this history. How the English Language got entrenched in South Africa or How African Languages got to be undermined in our country. History records shows that the end of the Wars of Dispossession coincided with the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand and

a massive inflow of foreign capital, largely British, for investment in gold mining. Large numbers of foreign speculators and businessmen flocked to the Reef in search of easy fortunes. To the Boers the arrival of these Uitlanders disturbed their placid farming life and threatened the continued existence of their Republic. The Uitlanders, for their part, were not satisfied with only the opening of investment opportunities; they sought to ensure the future by gaining complete control of power. That meant turning the Boer Republics into British colonies. It could not be expected that the Boers who had fled from British colonial rule in the Cape would allow the land they had acquired by conquest to fall into the hands of the British. The outcome was the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. When towards the end of the war the Boer generals realised that they could no longer pursue hostilities, they sued for peace on terms which left them much room for future positioning and took steps to ensure that what they had lost on the battlefield they regained by political manoeuvre. In approaching Kitchener to arrange for a peace settlement the generals sought to maintain the independence of the Boer Republics. In the end, however, the Treaty of Vereeniging saw British rule established, but the Boers made sure the British government gave an undertaking that the franchise would not be extended to the blacks in the former Boer Republics before representative government was granted. With British rule established over the whole region and the development of the mining industry assured with massive British capital investment, the need to form a central government became urgent. Competition between the four colonies to impose customs duties could only harm the economy of the whole area. After the war, Alfred Milner, as High Commissioner and Governor of the Transvaal and Orange River colonies, was assigned the task of bringing about the reconstruction of British South Africa. Milner was determined to keep South Africa British. Towards this goal he fostered the use of English as the only official language and medium of instruction in schools. He went further and promoted

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