The challenges of African integration are becoming increasingly complex. The economic and political integration of Africa is facing multifaceted problems. The problems are internal as well as externally generated by forces beyond the control of African governments. The African Union is a continental organization set up for the sole purpose of facilitating the process of all round integration of Africa both at the continental and regional levels.
Culture obviously plays a big role in bringing African countries together into a political and economic union. Culture is a positive factor that enhances and not impedes the process as the experiences of many countries in the world is showing. The European Union (EU) is a big economic union and culture is playing a pivotal role in promoting and consolidating the process. It has been a catalyst of political and economic integration. Since the African Union charter is partly inspired by the economic union of European countries, it would be relevant here to also learn about the cultural and/or linguistic realities that expedited the process of economic unification.
Culture in general and language in particular can play a unifying as well as a divisive role depending on how they are used. In the case of Ethiopia culture and language are being used both uniting and divisive tools in the political process. The defunct TPLF regime used culture and language as divisive tools to promote its policy of ethnic federalism, which is in practice ethnic apartheid, based on the primacy of language as a tool of promoting ethnic identity demarcating the ethnic geography of the country.
It is true that language and/or culture is the most important aspect of ethnic identity. However, any attempt to use existing linguistic or cultural differences to promote the supremacy one ethnic group over the others or to facilitate minority rule over the bigger ethnic entities is naturally unacceptable. In this way, federalism based on linguistic differences has created more problems than it solved. When we talk of economic or political integration, language-based identity has proved chaotic and more divisive than unifying.
The European Union for instance took the road of integration not based on languages or ethnicity but economy. Starting from economic integration and going all the way to cultural integration and then to economic and political integration is more successful in building a function union than starting from culture and language and going up to political and economic integration.
Regional or any other form of integration based on ethnicity raises the problem of how to regulate relations between the various ethnic groups vying for power. In the case of Rwanda for instance the failure to harmonize the interests of the two main ethnic groups i.e. Tutsis and Hutus, has led to ethnic conflicts and ultimately to genocide back in 1994. The political arrangement left behind by the Belgians after independence favored one ethnic group over the other and this led to disgruntlement and a feeling of marginalization by the other ethnic group resulting to ethnic conflicts and genocide in which nearly a million people lost their lives.
In Ethiopia, the last 30 years of ethnic federalism have equally proved untenable because the system favored one ethnic group over the others and entrenched authoritarianism by the then ruling ethnic party, leading to the marginalization and dissatisfaction by the other ethnic groups. This is in fact the basis of the current conflict in Ethiopia which shows no sign of abetting because of the constitutionally entrenched nature of the system that tends to reproduce the same ethnic or national divisions, although the old ruling party has lost its hegemonic status.
No doubt that national integration within individual African countries and among countries of the continent can be promoted by culture. One reason for the importance of culture is that, “In addition to its intrinsic value, culture provides important social and economic benefits. With improved learning and health, increased tolerance, and opportunities to come together with others, culture enhances our quality of life and increases overall well-being for both individuals and communities.”
The main objective of the AU is crystal clear. “Africa is a vast continent of over 1.2 billion people, integration has considerable potential not only for promoting robust and equitable economic growth through markets, but also for reducing conflict and enhancing trade liberalization…Reference to deeper integration in the context of African regional integration usually means progress from a free. trade area to a customs union and beyond to eventual political union.”
There are hundreds of different languages spoken in the African continent that could be used to expedite Africa’s economic and ultimately political integration. According to recent information, “Arabic, Somali, Berber, Amharic, Oromo, Igbo, Swahili, Hausa, Manding, Fulani and Yoruba are spoken by tens of millions of people. Twelve dialect clusters (which may group up to a hundred linguistic varieties) are spoken by 75 percent, and fifteen by 85 percent, of Africans as a first or additional language.”
With anywhere between 1000 and 2000 languages, Africa is home to approximately one-third of the world’s languages. Another information maintains that Arabic is the most spoken language in Africa, there’s plenty more – other popular languages include Amharic, Berber, Portuguese, Oromo, Igbo, Yoruba, Zulu and Shona in south Africa.
As a legacy of colonialism. many countries in Africa are still using foreign languages such as English, French or Portuguese as their national languages. English, French and Portuguese have helped former colonial countries maintain their old economic, political and cultural links with their former colonies although African languages are more important because, “ the social, political and economic development of the vast majority of the people of Africa depend on the proper and systematic use of their indigenous languages.”
National languages ultimately play defining roles in the process of national integration because they are the driving forces “behind unity of the nations’ peoples, and make them distinct from other nations – provided you give your language respect. Giving respect to your national language means that it should be one’s primary language, as well as the preferred source of communication at every level.”
As indicated above, “Language which can be used as an effective instrument for national development and the promotion of national consciousness and unity can also be used as a weapon for marginalization in multilingual and multi-ethnicity societies like Nigeria.” In most African countries conflicts arise among and between communities when a feeling of marginalization or unfair treatment of their customs and languages become evident.
If we take the case of East Africa, many researchers opine that Kiswahili is playing a positive and integrative role in bringing the economies of East African countries closer together although this kind of integration is apt to often fall apart as soon as strong political winds start to blow over the region. The former East African economic union was torn apart both by strong political winds as well as the shifting fortunes of member countries that were trying to dominate the union at one time or another. However, Kiswahili played a no mean role in facilitating economic rapprochement among Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and the other Swahili-speaking countries of the region.
other researchers say that, “Kiswahili is a symbol of identity and heritage to most East Africans. To a large extent, it symbolizes cultural liberation from the Western World and a means through which they can engage themselves in the processes of globalization with the outside world.
“Swahili unites speakers throughout a wide region of East Africa, from Zanzibar on the Indian Ocean to Congo in Central Africa. This wide adoption makes Swahili one of the major languages of the African continent; it is an official language of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, as well as of the African Union.
“Language is also an identity of a nation. For example Swahili in Tanzania identifies the nation of Tanzania among other nations in the world who use different languages such as English, French and German. Language can be used to unite, educate and inculcate the sense of awareness to youth.”
In the case Ethiopia, language can be used both as an integrative tool or on the contrary as a weapon of division of cultures and political domination of the elites of one ethnic group over the other as it was the case in the last 30 years. Criticism of one party rule that imposed an ethnic-federalist system by holding and controlling total power and determining the who get what share of the national pie was indeed the source of the conflicts that are still shaking the country.
Ethiopia is an important bastion of linguistic proliferation in its own rights simply because tens of millions of people are known to be speaking one or more national languages such as Amharic or Afaan Oromo. Amharic became the national language of Ethiopians not by law or by choice but simply because of the historic factors that led to the language’s proliferation, adoption and integrative role. Contrary to the arguments of the ethnic extremists, Amharic has become a national language not because it was the language of colonizers or that of the ruling monarchies. Language cannot be decreed to become a national language unless it grips the consciousness of tens of millions of speakers who voluntarily use it for trade and other purposes. If Amharic were the language of the rulers it could have suppressed all other languages lost its status or vanished altogether when the ruling classes lost power.
As Wikipedia says, “Amharic serves as the official working language of the Ethiopian federal government, and is also the official or working language of several of Ethiopia’s federal regions. With 31,800,000 mother-tongue speakers as of 2018, plus another 25,100,000 second language speakers, Amharic is the second most commonly-spoken mother-tongue of Ethiopia (after Afaan Oromo), but the most widely spoken in terms of total speakers. It is also the second-most commonly spoken Semitic language in the world (after Arabic).”
The same can be said about Afaan Oromo which is spoken by tens of millions of Ethiopian people. Oromiffa, as some people call it,did not however grow because it was adopted by law or because it was the language of the ruling classes at a certain point in history. It only grew because the people used it as suitable medium of communication in their day to day lives as well as a medium of interaction with neighboring communities.
There is actually a movement towards making more languages national languages of Ethiopia, including Afaan Oromo, which is spoken by tens of millions of people not only in Ethiopia but also in many east African countries such as Kenya. Amharic is bound to maintain its status as working language at the federal level not because it is the language of the ruling classes or as a result of a decree or favoritism but because it naturally and historically evolved to assume it present status.
There is no reason why Afaan Oromo would one day emerge to become the lingua franca of East African countries or Swahili would make a big stride for some reason and become an important medium of communication for Ethiopians living in the southern border regions and promote regional economic integration.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD 25 FEBRUARY 2022
