Asmara Declaration On African Languages And Literature: Ten Years After

By

Attahiru Muazu

attamuazu@yahoo.com

It’s a whole decade since the “Against All Odds: African Languages and Literature In The 21st Century” conference took place in Asmara, Eritrea which gave birth to the famous Asmara Declaration on 17th January 2000. Since then, many questions were left unanswered but certainly not unanticipated. The title of the conference itself –Against All Odds- not only celebrated the will and determination that led to the gathering in the first place but also signalled a premonition of challenges ahead for African languages.

 “At this historic conference, we writers and scholars from all regions of Africa gathered in Asmara, Eritrea declare that: African languages must take on the duty, the responsibility and the challenge of speaking for the continent,” the communiqué reads.

The above lines summarises the whole content of the declaration. By urging African languages to speak for the continent it shows that they are not. Ten years after, the question remains; are African languages speaking for the continent today? Have the languages been braced with the capacity to face the challenges of modernity and the responsibility of speaking for the continent? Or, like all policies and programs in the developing world this one has also fallen by the mighty sword of negligence and moribund will, which has always been the bane of good policies.

Similarly, it is necessary to ask, have the concerns that prompted the African intellectuals to come up with the declaration been alleviated so that the need for the vision of the declaration no longer exists? In other words, have the problems of poverty and underdevelopment been solved? Have the contradiction that exists in educating a people through the medium of a foreign exoglossic language been resolved such that it can be claimed that ten years after Africa has now realised the irrelevance her languages in modern life and in the process of knowledge acquisition and national development? Have Africa fared any better by neglecting her values? Have the trickled-down knowledge acquired in the universities placed Africa in the list of knowledge based and driven societies?

The truth of the matter unfortunately is that, African countries are the least developed in the world today with the least literate population across the board and the most impoverished and disease stricken people. All the adjectives of underdevelopment are found and perfected in Africa. If this is true then it calls for a serious self introspection and perhaps a reread of the Asmara Declaration as an indispensable tool for the progress of the African people. Realising the utility of the vision, the African intellectuals that gave birth to the declaration may also have to come together to map out workable modalities that would facilitate the effective implementation of the visions and cross over the hurdles of diversity and apprehensions of concerned ethnicities .

A realistic approach to the question of indigenous values and languages is necessary in a Eurocentric culturally dominated space like Africa. To address the delicate balance of multiple cultures, ethnicities and languages the visions of the declaration must be viewed from a strictly utilitarian perspective. It must aim at addressing fundamental socio-economic problems pervasive in the society. The visions must be implemented as antidote to identified social problems. In this respect cases like the menace of child begging associated with the parallel Tsangaya school system in northern Nigeria is a good example. The girl child education crisis is another huge problem crying for attention; retraining and reorientation of school dropouts, skills acquisition and youth development and empowerment and also problems of adult education are few of the areas to focus on.

 Our collective failure to figure out a cogent and workable procedure for incorporating indigenous languages in national sphere through addressing specific challenges  has left the people unfulfilled and eternally imprisoned within the confines of European memory that alienates the African and never registers the tune of his travails. The fact however is that, the challenges of development persisted despite our complete rejection of indigenous languages in our national and educational affairs. This conspicuously manifests itself in the huge deficit in education and the lingering mistrust of the state as agent of euro- cultural domination, particularly in the northern part of the country that floats an alternative system of education alongside the conventional western based system.  It is necessary therefore to look back into the vision of the Asmara declaration with a view to bridge the gap that has alienated a large portion of the population and to encourage greater inclusiveness in national life. This problem solving approach should be experimented by utilising African languages as languages of modern education in the parallel Almajiri system of education known as the Tsangaya system that is extant in the north.

Only through exploiting the potentials inherent in the Tsangaya system to introduce teaching and learning of modern knowledge in an indigenous language, in this respect Hausa, can we be able to bring to light the vision of the Asmara Declaration. Similarly, only through an unwavering commitment to the implementation of the fundamentals of the declaration can we rescue the Tsangaya system from complete annihilation by the dominant western based school system which, because of the veil of exoglossic language of instruction, has woefully failed to connect with the people and the African memory.

To become knowledge based and driven country we necessarily need to domesticate knowledge. To domesticate knowledge implies utilization of local languages in the enterprise of modern education. We in the north are faced with the necessity of reforming the Tsangaya system to eliminate the menace of child begging but are also lucky to have a tabula rasa in the system, a platform upon which we can launch indigenous languages in the business of modern education. A single mistake of trying to integrate the Almajiri system with the western based system where exoglossic English language would be forced down the throat of the Almajiri would spell doom to our chance of implementing the Asmara Declaration. Similarly, the high rate of girls and young women dropping out of schools to get married could be addressed through providing opportunity for continuing education after marriage. This opportunity must include the choice of language of Instruction and local indigenous languages must be allowed to compete with the imposed colonialist languages. Chances must also be given to those students who have been denied access to education simply because of the foolish and ‘masochistic’ requirement of a credit in a colonialist language a fact which negative impact is yet to be fully assessed.

Yes, it must be admitted that these suggestion raised more questions than answers. The problem of indigenous languages as apt vehicles and infrastructure for the conveyance of modern knowledge remained unsolved. As posited, the problem cannot simply be wished away, there must be a conscious, deliberate and concerted effort to brace up local languages through translation of scientific and modern vocabulary and adoption and contextualization to the local languages and cultures. This has always been the tradition of scholarship and scholars world over have been faced with this kind of problem and necessity. We must listen to the advice of Ngugi Wa Thing O that; African intellectuals must do for their languages what all other intellectuals across the world have done for theirs.

In the Hausa speaking areas an infrastructure already exists which could lay the basis for rapid contextualization of modern knowledge into the Hausa language. This, as shown above, is the parallel Tsangaya school system that is crying for reform and attention. In the Tsangaya system up to the advanced Makarantun Ilimi the Hausa language is maintained as the language of instruction. This potential must be exploited in the effort to reduce knowledge to local dialects. There must be an interaction between established institutions of learning like the universities and the mainstream society represented by the Tsangaya system where knowledge is translated and transferred directly from the universities to the Tsangaya schools. A reformed Tsangaya system would thus serve as the ladder that bridges the divide which alienates the main society from modern knowledge.

The foreseen hurdle, however, is not that of translation of scientific vocabulary or adoption but that of orthography. Is the reformed Tsangaya School to abandon the Ajami orthography in the pursuit of modern scientific knowledge in favour of the Hausa Roman orthography or vice-versa?

In the course of my campaign for the implementation of the Asmara Declaration on the platform of the Almajiri system some apprehensions were raised by some well meaning and concerned individuals, which I classified into two as follows:

1-       To introduce teaching and learning modern knowledge in Hausa language in a transformed Tsangaya system is just a pretext for foisting the Hausa language over the other indigenous languages. The motive is racist and threatens the stability of the state, it must therefore be rejected. The solution to the Almajiri menace is integration of the system with the western based school system, where while maintaining their study of the Quran the Almajirai would be taught secular courses in English and be fed.

2-       The Tsangaya system is a unique system of Islamic intellectual scholarship, which is a legacy of our history and culture as a people. It must remain so. Any attempt to introduce secular courses in the system in whatever language is tantamount to undermining the system and must be rejected. Integration of the system with Makaratun Boko is only a pretext to completely wipe out all vestiges of our cultural, religious and intellectual identity- a neo colonial erosion of indigenous values. It must be resisted. To eliminate child begging the government needs only to act responsibly by according the system the attention it deserves in terms of funding.

These responses are relevant because they represent the sentiments of some people on this issue. My own position was already made clear in this paper. What is yours? You are invited to join the debate to mark the Ten years of the birth of the Asmara declaration.

By Attahiru Muazu Gusau

attamuazu@yahoo.com

Ministry of Housing and Town Planning

Zamfara State.

Secretary Gusau Educational Development Association [GEDA]