nettime: The Cutting Edge of Imperialism

[John Horvath <h8801joh@ella.hu> (by way of Pit Schultz <pit@contrib.de>)]

Just a few words on the topic of language that was brought up a while
back. First of all, contrary to what Geert Lovink asserts, McKenzie Wark
did not "introduce" the term Euro-English. Euro-English had its origins
in the political arena of the European Community, where it was realized
early on that English would be one of the dominant languages of the EU.
[1] Indeed, the European Commission has been dealing for the past
decades all the observations that Lovik and Wark had brought up. Thus,
the role of language (especially English) already has its precedent in
the workings of the European Commission itself. Unfortunately, the
Commission is just as an exclusive club as the Internet, so the issues
and problems that it has had to deal with in this respect never filtered
down. Likewise, people are too fascinated by the graphics and sounds of
the Web to truly appreciate what has been raised by both Lovink and Wark.

The issue of language -- and that of multiple languages within an
"Information Society" has now become an important concern of the
European Commission. At the end of last year it launched the MLIS
(Multi-lingual Information Society programme. Information about this
programme can be obtained from the following sources:

Telephone: +352-4301-34117
Fax: +352-4301-34655
Email: mlis@lux.dg13.cec.be

No doubt a Web site will soon appear.

One thing that must be kept in mind when we are talking about all these
changes happening (not only language, but commerce, sex, etc) vis-a-vis
networks -- such as the Internet -- is that they are all linked within a
larger process of social change. Thus, language use and change is in
symbiosis with social change. Having said thus, the effect of networking
has socio-economic relevance. What Lovik and Wark fail to consider is a
larger dimension that effects a substantial part of the population, in
where language is not only being used as a tool to wield power and
influence, but as a means to discriminate against those who are not
fortunate enough to be able to afford and/or have access to foreign
language teaching and resources.

In conjunction with this, net culture has become more exclusive to the
point of it being a feeble exercise in intellectual masturbation. For
instance, Ferenc Gerloczy, in his essay "Beyond Netiquette:
interreligious dialogue and the making of a global ethic through the
Net" [2], states that "the community of cyberspace is one and
indivisible", there are actually a host of independent networks that
exist outside the realms of the Internet. While the unitarian
egocentricity of the Judeo-Christian worldview would like us to believe
that "we could hardly find such a thing as a Hindu, Muslim, Bosnian or
Pakistani cyberspace", reality is otherwise. Just because you are not
Hindu, Muslim, Bosnian or Pakistani -- nor speak their languages -- does
not mean such cyberspaces do not exist. Hence, the Internet suffers from
the same egocentricity that plagues American society: the US is the
world; everything on the outside just happens to be a geographical
accident.

I've attached to this message an article for your review about one
aspect in the way language is utilized as a means for neo-imperialistic
purposes (i.e. as a corporatist stratagem). It has no references to
networking per se since it was originally written about language as a
socio-economic/cultural issue rather than a technological one. Still,
you might find that it has some relevance.

That's all for now. By the way, happy new year to you and all the
nettimers.

Bye,
John


Notes
~~~~~

1. In fact, there is a computer-assisted language learning program
   called CALIS that is more specific, enabling users within the
   "Languages" menu to choose from W. European English.

2. <http://mediafilter.org/nettime>

Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset="US-ASCII"; name="langimp.txt"

Content-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.95.970109193615.25607B@helka>
Content-Description: language imperialism article

The Cutting Edge of Imperialism
by John Horvath


Traveling throughout eastern Europe and the former "Red Empire" was a
paradise of sorts. If you were able to overcome the fear instilled by
western propaganda toward communist countries, then you found a world
quite different and, in its own unique way, attractive. Added to this,
if you were a native speaker of English, then you instantly found
yourself among a privileged caste of society.

It has to be acknowledged that the word around the world is English,
more or less. During the Cold War era, people were desperate to learn
English as a means to broaden their horizons -- politically, socially,
culturally, and economically. English language teachers were scarce; a
backpacker with no university or teaching experience could easily find a
job at a university anywhere in eastern Europe, Russia, or China.
Although this still may be the case in some areas, by and large most
universities have become more selective since access to professionals
has greatly improved.

Today, the main reason for learning English is social mobility. Commerce
is the driving force; hand in hand with it goes technology (especially
computer technology) -- most of which originates from the US. While
language is the way by which capitalism and technology has been spread
in the latter half of this century, language has also been used as a
means in which western governments have been able to undertake covert
political and economic activities aimed at ensuring that globaloney
(i.e. the global economy and "New World Order") takes firm root on
former enemy soil.

English (represented by Britain and the US) has been, by far, the main
perpetrator of this neo-imperialism, with German and French following on
a much lower scale. The British Council and the United States
Information Service (USIS) are the vehicles whereby the British and
American governments respectively exert pressure on foreign governments
in eastern Europe on issues such as copyright while at the same time
providing a convenient front for MI5/CIA activities.

This revelation should come as no surprise, for both the British Council
and USIS were originally set up for such purposes. The British Council,
for example, was established in the 1930s when the UK realized that they
were losing a propaganda war to the Germans. Thus, the British Council's
main objective was to counter fascist propaganda. Unfortunately, no one
has bothered to tell the British that the war has long been over.

The political and economic objectives of the UK and US are achieved in
either of two ways. The first is through English language libraries
in where locals, for a nominal fee, are able to borrow books, watch
videos, or read British/American newspapers. While it may seem harmless
enough, the propaganda needs of the west are nevertheless well served.
Very little alternative or feminist literature is available; subject
matter is clearly in support of the status quo.

The other -- and more direct -- method employed is through language
learning activities. Both the British Council and USIS have their ELT
(English Language Teaching) divisions, with the US relying upon the
services of the Peace Corps as well.

Language teaching does more than just teach language. Apart from making
it easier to bring in spies and maintain a reliable network, ELT courses
are valued for their socio-cultural influence on eastern Europeans. Both
indirectly in language schools and directly in universities and colleges
(through "civilization" courses), this "cultural" element consists of
reiterating what is "good" and advantageous about a democratic and
consumerist society in Britain and the US. Very little attempt is made,
if any, to look at other cultures or civilizations from a global
perspective. Nor are crimes that are committed by democracies, such as
the tragedy of North America's First Nations and Inuit peoples, ever
mentioned. Thus, western ideas based on an Anglo-American ethnocentrism
is taught as a universal axiom to be, if not followed directly, at least
adapted to the local area.

As the Berlin Wall came tumbling down at the turn of the decade, the
activities of the British Council and USIS increased drastically. While
pre-1989 involvement in the region was concerned mainly with
establishing a presence and making contacts with (as well as
influencing) the intellectuals of the region, the first few years within
post-Cold War eastern Europe was spent on consolidating political and
economic change -- that is, making sure the Berlin Wall stayed down.

With the period of "transition" to a market-based democracy nearly over,
at least from a western perspective, the financial and structural
support for the British Council and USIS are now being withdrawn.
Feeling that their "job is done", the British and US governments are
moving their operations from the central part of eastern Europe (Poland,
the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary) further eastward (Romania,
Bulgaria, Russia, Central Asia).

Thus, the British Council is now in the process of winding down its
various ELT projects in the area, with no prospects for reinforcement.
USIS has already closed down its library in Budapest, transferring
ownership to private "entrepreneurial" individuals. The Peace Corps,
meanwhile, is closing many of its operations in the region early due to
"budget cuts". As a skeptical former Peace Corps volunteer put it: "we
got in, made our promises, did what we wanted to do, and got out."

On the one hand, the departure of the British Council and USIS is a
cause for relief. On the other, they have raised expectations and
subsequently left many people in the lurch. After spending more than
five years expanding the learning of foreign languages, ministries of
education are now suddenly forced to cut back foreign languages from
their national curriculums.

Meanwhile, the national languages of the area are having to deal with
the threat pertaining to the second phase of the Anglo-American
linguistic invasion. Having successfully been taught by the British
Council and USIS the basics of how to order a hamburger in English and
understand the gimmicks of capitalist advertising (the basis of
globaloney), the people of eastern Europe and Russia are realizing that
their languages have been corrupted and "pidginized".

In Hungary, where the language bears no semblance to either the Slav or
Germanic language groups that surround the tiny country, the language
has been able to assert its distinctiveness for centuries. And yet, at
present, many look on with dismay at the English words and phrases that
have recently crept into everyday usage. Indeed, after resisting for
forty years Russian infiltration, in less than five years American
capitalism has been able to do more linguistic damage than almost a
generation of Soviet totalitarianism.

The use of language as a means for social and political control is
nothing new; English still carries with it the legacy of the Norman
conquest of almost a thousand years ago. However, it is only within the
last hundred years or so that the issue of "language control" has become
an important factor in policy decisions.

At the beginning of this century, Antoine Meillet, a professor of the
College de France, noted that "the linguistic situation of contemporary
Europe is absurd" and concluded that there should be only one language
for Europe -- naturally at the expense of all other minority languages.
In a like manner, Stalinism regarded language as a class phenomenon
related to a nation's cultural superstructure that was, in turn, derived
from an economic base. Consequently, it was believed that with the help
of socialism's leveling effects, communism would inevitably lead to the
emergence of a universal language.

To counter these and other such attempts at linguistic homogeneity, some
nations have gone to the other extreme and have resorted to linguistic
nationalism and chauvinism. Late last year the president of France,
Jacques Chirac, warned members at an African conference of how the
influence of French was being eroded and that African nations have to
help "safeguard" French as a world language.

France is well-known throughout Europe for being intolerant to the use
of foreign languages -- especially American English. AGULF, a Paris
based group formed to resist linguistic invasion, has been instrumental
in the drafting of a law which forbids the use of foreign words when a
proper French word already exists for the same purpose. Likewise, in
Quebec, a similar fear of linguistic penetration exists. Not only is
there legislation that prevents newcomers from sending their children to
English schools (Quebec's infamous Bill 101), but the issue of "French
only" signs has been the primary cause of friction between Anglophone
and Francophone communities within the province. For example, while
"stop" is recognized as an international word for a traffic sign the
world over, it is only in French Canada where such signs are
unilingually French.

"I dislike any form of nationalism", Italian novelist Alberto Moravia
once stated, "least of all a nationalistic attitude towards language."
Like Moravia, most linguistic experts strongly oppose artificial
attempts to control language by decree. They argue that languages must
keep changing as new problems arise and new information needs to be
communicated. Others, meanwhile, point out that the portion of English
words in any major language is not statistically large (generally less
than 5%, according to some estimates) and that the process of adopting
new words follows a sort of international balance of trade.

Language change is a natural phenomenon and, most of the time, a mutual
process. To refuse to acknowledge such change -- or prevent it
altogether -- is clearly a case of linguistic chauvinism. On the other
hand, to force language change because of immediate economic gain is
just as wrong. Since new words have not had the time to properly
integrate themselves into a given language, such forced change creates a
linguistic elite that translates itself into social segregation. In
fact, within eastern Europe it reinforces societies already split
between rural and urban elements, the latter becoming increasingly
elitist and condescending toward the former.

What many underdeveloped countries are now facing as western globaloney
continues its expansion eastward and southward is not merely the
natural, evolutionary process of language change. Rather, it is a form
of advertising that destroys any alternative to what is being thrust
upon them.

Yet it is not only foreign languages that are being harmed in this way.
While there are many foreign words in American English to support the
"balance of trade" theory, many of these have adopted an "American
accent". Anything "foreign" sounding has snob-appeal to many Americans.
In television ads for for the Pontiac "Le Mans" (which is derived from
the motor-racing circuit in France), the word's "cool" yet repugnant
pronunciation rhymes it with that equally "cool" character from Happy
Days, the Fonz.

Also, American English not only does a hatchet job to foreign words
phonetically, but semantically as well. The primary meaning of foreign
words are perverted and far removed from the original to the extent that
it makes Americans sound more ignorant than they really are. An example
is a popular restaurant, or "French bistro", in New York called the
Paris Commune. Little do diners realize that the Paris Commune was where
people suffered terribly from constipation due to their poor diet.

Though British and Americans may cry "linguistic chauvinism" at any
attempt to reverse present trends, the fact of the matter is that they
are merely following the Golden Rule: that is, he who has the gold makes
the rule. Among the worst in terms of second or foreign language
learning, British and American tourists have themselves become more and
more linguistically chauvinist as they expect and demand goods and
services in their own language -- no matter what country they happen to
be in. This, in the end, is the true meaning of the global economy.

--
*  distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission
*  <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism,
*  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
*  more info: majordomo@is.in-berlin.de and "info nettime" in the msg body
*  URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/  contact: nettime-owner@is.in-berlin.de