Do I speak English?
Maybe not so well....but last time I checked I
believe I was speaking English! Yes, I speak this language and because I do I
have become prone to believing that makes me think that I fit into a
nation or national identity. Anderson would argue otherwise; his gives a
different way of approaching the contentious question of nationalism and
nationality. He sees these different entities as "imagined political
communities".
Anderson maintains the view that nations are a
configuration, a construct man has made. For it puts "meat on the
flesh" when it comes to the issue of trying to define or analyze man, in
that labels make it easier for one to "try" and understand another
and that other's perspective.
Common history, shared values and a common
heritage are important components that do not suffice when we think of what
constitutes a nation. Language and literacy/print comes into the equation here;
for it is language that unites people and makes them prone to believing that
because they share a language they share a common identity and so now they can
call themselves a nation.
Anderson believes varied idiolects that
"were capable of being assembled, within definite limits, into
print-languages far fewer in number"; this helped create unified fields of
exchange and communications below Latin and above the spoken vernaculars.
“As a result speakers of a huge variety of Frenches,
Englishes or Spanishes, who might find it difficult or even impossible to
understand one another in conversation, became capable of comprehending one
another via print and paper.”
“Print linked peoples together. Through it
people became aware of the hundreds of millions, of people in their particular
language-field, and at the same time that only those hundreds of thousands, or
millions, so belonged.”
Fellow readers connected by print, formed, in
their secular, particular, visible invisibility the embryo of the nationally
imagined community.
Print also, according Anderson, gave a new fixity
to language, which in the long run helped to build that of antiquity so central
to the subjective idea of the nation. This thus underlines the importance
print, literacy and language.
"In short, Anderson believes the creation
of imagined communities became possible because of "print
capitalism". The vernacular capitalist entrepreneurs chose to use in their
printed books helped maximize circulation. As a result of mass circulation,
readers speaking various local dialects became able to understand each other,
and a common discourse emerged.
Anderson argued that the first European
nation-states were thus formed around their "national
print-languages."
I am going to focus on Russia because I think
the policies that the Russian leaders implemented best show us the importance
of language, literacy and print.
Under Russian Tsar Alexander III a policy of
Russification was adopted, this same policy was adopted by Red "Tsar"
Stalin as well. Alexander's aim was to unite all the peoples in his
empire. Russification, under Tsar Alexander was designed to
"Russia-ness" at the center of the lives of ordinary people. Thus all
other cultures and nationalities were belittled in not obliterated.
Language, print and literacy played a central
role in uniting all the peoples in the Russian Empire (those in the buffer
zones such Poland), they were tools used to oppress non-Russian; Russian was
mastered if not by choice, by force.
For example, Russian became the primary language;
if one wanted to be successful you had to speak Russian. Russian was taught in
schools, Russian literature was emphasized and Russian culture was forced on
non-Russians.
Under Stalin, Russification included making
Russian the official language in the Russian Empire. Students had to learn
Russian. Anderson even mentioned that "Soviet authorities [imposed]
anti-Islamic, anti-Persian compulsory romanization, then, in Stalin's 1930s,
with a Russifying compulsory Cyrillicization." In order to enter Stalin's
hierarchical Communist Party or attain a higher education one had to speak
Russian and maintain a Russian identity, enjoying Russian literature,
culture, art, plays and music.
Therefore as Anderson argues, language, print
and literacy are crucial not only because they help foster the notion of
nationalism, but because they cement in the minds of people the idea that they
are part of an "imagined community"/ "nation".
In class we learnt about another language, not
spoken but acted out. This was the language of suppression, oppression,
violence, fear and propaganda. In Roots we saw Kunta Kinte beaten mercilessly
into submission, this was juxtaposed with Master Reynolds (who agreed with the
beating) reading the Bible, God's Holy Word and prefaced by Fiddler saying to
Master Reynolds’s wife that he knows the Master is "a Christian
Saint", what irony.
We witnessed the sheer brutality inflicted on a
man because he ran away to find Fanta (his first love). Now in chains he has
returned to his "rightful place". Fiddler asks the Master to have
mercy on him, he couldn’t appeal to his heart so he was pragmatic and tried appeal
to Reynolds’s economic mind by saying that the Guinea man was worth a lot,
beating him will mean damaging expensive property.
What struck me was that Reynolds had the audacity
to keep reading his Bible while right outside his door somebody, a fellow
human, was being beaten, like a dog because he chose to cling to his identity
and wanted to exercise the freedom he was born with, for Kunta was a free-born
slave beaten into submission.
Toby becomes his name after Kunta was beaten
like a whelp. Accepting his name meant accepting his fate. He was some sort of
maverick figure, the odd one out who had a story of freedom, refusing his name
gave the slaves, I believe, some sort hope and happiness that there is one not like us, one who has his own identity
and is not ashamed of it and so refuses to relinquish it. When he said Toby, he
proved there really is no hope for slaves. Freedom cannot and will come without
the help of Whites as Alex Haley aptly put it.
Although we only got to see the beginnings of “Triumph
of the Will” we see how important nationalism is in uniting peoples behind
a common aim and purpose. For the Germans were ready to unite behind Hitler
"come what may" (as we saw with the little children, their mothers,
couples and the army men at the barracks) and expand the Third Reich in order
to achieve Lebensraum- one of the Hitler’s aims in Mein Kampf.
My question is how can one or many carry out
such great acts of injustice on their fellow humans, just because they are
different? Who knows? We can only assume we know what was behind the minds of
the Massas and Hitler.
But we do know that language, fear, propaganda
and power were central components that helped ease the way for these great injustices
to be carried out.
Enough said.
A MUST WATCH. FUNNY BUT NOT THAT FUNNY IF YOU
REMEMBER WHAT TOBI WENT THROUGH. JOHN-O, I MAY NOT HAVE GONE THROUGH WHAT TOBI
WENT THROUGH BUT AS AN AFRICAN I IDENTIFY. AND EVERY TIME I WATCH ROOTS I
CANNOT BUT JUST SIGH!
