ISSUES IN THE NATIONAL AND EDUCATION LANGUAGE POLICIES
7.1 Ideologies of ethnicity and regionalism versus language practice
still, governed by socio-economic battles for power, and linguistic battles which are essentially between conservationism and pragmatism. To explain the latter let us consider how the former operates. Inother words language policy issues cannot be analysed by considering the languages themselves. We need to place them in a wider framework of political activities and development. The political implication is that this would enable us get a clearer picture of how political ideologies actively structure society and how hegemony is made visible as is the case of the present study.
To go back to the socio-economic analysis, in order to understand contemporary Malawi, we must take ethnic particularism seriously, and not assume that Banda, the former president, was an aberration on an otherwise healthy body politic.
According to Vail (1981:122-123), 'Ethnic tensions do exist in Malawi, they have been growing since independence and should be assessed.' The problem with Malawi seems to be that regional and ethnic politics 'are almost always played in the state field in the pursuit of social, political, or economic advantages.' (Mandaza, 1994:13). These ideological perspectives continue to be a major stumbling block for the effective implementation of language policies, particularly after the 1996 review because of the power conflict between the ruling class and state interests.
Those who wield power in Malawi are drawn from a group of the bourgeoisie and petit bourgeoisie, comprising an educated elite of lawyers, academics, clergymen, wealthy businessmen, land owners and top civil servants (Chirwa,199:94). Their interest is to enrich themselves and not develop the country.
For politicians, the ruling party and the state are the platform for self enrichment and the people are just a vehicle for holding on to that power. This is the analysis that we would offer, that an ideological struggle after Banda thrives, where ethnicity ' and regionalism are at the root to inherit the state as a class. The elite continue to accumulate political power and economic resources, after the collapse of a highly- centralised state dictatorship that ostensibly attempted to keep the country unified.
The present status quo then attempts a reconfiguration of this class based on
ethnicity and regionalism to hold on to power at whatever cost, for political gain but to serve national interests.Itattempts to refine the regional and ethnic ideological approaches in the name of multiparty democratic movement, where this class pays lip service to national policy matters. There is thus a deaf ear turned to efforts at creating meaningful language policies towards the upliftment of the entire population. The populace is thereby perpetually hoodwinked, and ethnicity and regionalism have become useful tools for mobilizing its support. Supporters of the bourgeoisie identify themselves along ethnolonguistic and regional lines, which has become a public secret norm of political behaviour that fails to deliver national interests.
Essentially this is a group of ardent tribalists who continue to play the language and ethnic policies of the Banda regime and pursue a policy of systematic exclusion of people, just as the previous regime did to exclude those from the north, as well as the Yao and the Lomwe from the south for political power (Africa Watch, 1990:550).
There is thus rhetoric on 'national unity' and 'nation-building'. The ideologies have become a strong power that mitigates against the development of genuine national identity (Chirwa,1999:95). Analysts see these twin concepts of nation-building and national unity as bases upon which many African states proclaim that tribal, regional, racial and linguistic values, should therefore be buried and replaced by the concept of national identity (SAPEM,1993:05).
Mandaza (1994:7) argues that the concept of ethnicity or tribal identity and consciousness are rather transient and ephemeral. What should be the case is to view each other nationally, as Zambia did in Kaunda's humanistic philosophy, where • he attempted to forge a genuine 'one-nation' concept. One way of how he attempted to achieve this was to transfer people, particularly in the civil service, from their home base to work in other regions. Kaunda's Zambia also promoted seven local languages, with no single language or ethnic group considered superior or dominant.
The Banda regime did the opposite after proclaiming a similar approach as we shall exemplify in the paragraphs to follow.
Following Mandaza's (1994) contention, the categorisation of ethnolinguistic, social and political behaviour becomes a little nebulous in describing a country's population and therefore raises serious analytical and theoretical problems. We discern that such categorizations are mere attempts to manipulate the masses for the personal comforts of the bourgeosie andpetit bourgeosie at the expense of the nation at large. This bourgeosie is thus at heart comprised of ardent culture brokers who continue to craft ethnic ideologies and define cultural characteristics of members of various ethnic groups but do nothing else in the interest of the common person (Vail, 1989:11). On this basis some languages, such as Chiyao, Chitumbuka, Chilomwe, Chitonga, and Chisena, have, since 1996, been elevated to the official status but actually perform token functions within their respective communities and at national level as well.
One could analyse the elevation of the cited languages to official status as merely representing the power brokers within the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) under president Bakili Muluzi. Chiyao was promoted to the official status because it is the current president's language. Chitumbuka was elevated because 'the new president was not particularly favoured by people from northern Malawi and this step was meant to appease them' (Matiki, 1998:22). The elevation of Chisena came about because it represents a community where one of the UDF's stalwarts, Peter Fachi, the Minister of Justice comes from. For similar reasons, Chitonga, the language of Aleke Banda (no relation of the former Head of State) had to be elevated to official status. Since voting was on ethnic lines, this was also a ploy to have one of the languages in the north, from where the party's. vice president comes. Chilomwe, a language that' most Malawians have never heard spoken by its speakers, came to be elevated to official status because of the power that Brown Mpinganjira, a Lomwe, and reportedly the most powerful minister within the ruling UDF government,wields.
It is quite clear that the elevation of these local languages to the official status, much as some of them may well be viable languages regionally or nationally, is not based on sociolinguistic determination. It is seen that promoting the languages of these political heavy-weights was done in order to gain support in the important constituencies. This was more for the politicians' own benefits than for the masses they represent.In doing so the emergent politicians continue to 'commit ethnic suicide' to inherit the state as a class of their own (Mandaza, 1994, Chirwa, 1994). This is empty rhetoric as a pretence for the achievement of national unity. This has been a carry-over from the Banda era to the post-1996 period the method used by the 'nationalist' bourgeosie and petitbourgeosie to hold on to the monopoly of power for social, economic and political gains.
The politics of marginalisation by which members of select ethnolinguistic groups were declared insiders and the excluded as outsiders became a counter- productive strategy for survival. The result wasthat this behaviour only increased tribal and ethnolinguistic consciousness, nepotism and corruption. The same strategy has been resurrected in the post-1996 period with rhetoric appeals to address the language problem in education and national contexts.
The other strategy that has been carried over to the present day is that of 'regional balancing.' In Banda's era, this meant the promotion of people, not on merit but on the basis of their regional or linguistic origins. This again only resulted in the promotion of mediocrity and increased regional consciousness. In the old regime, the state and the ruling Malawi Congress Party (MCP) was Chewa- dominated through the process of ethnic domination and purging. Victims were unceremoniously dismissed and detained (Chirwa 1994/5:60). Now it has become largely Yao-dominated (Chiyao being the current president's language) or
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dominated.
7.2 Evidence of regionalistic and ethnolinguistic practices