{"id":1889,"date":"2021-11-17T10:21:04","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T09:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.convivialthinking.org\/?p=1889"},"modified":"2021-11-03T10:22:40","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T09:22:40","slug":"like-any-other-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/convivialthinking.org\/index.php\/2021\/11\/17\/like-any-other-language\/","title":{"rendered":"LIKE ANY OTHER language"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Maleeha\u00a0Sattar<\/em><\/p>\n

LIKE ANY OTHER language.<\/p>\n

It is not a mere language.<\/p>\n

It is the language of my former masters<\/p>\n

Still used and cherished by my new rulers.<\/p>\n

And I am an insufficiently Englishised subject of my English Sarkar1<\/sup><\/p>\n

Here, I am rendered powerless everyday as a \u2018postcolonial being\u2019 unfit \u2018to carry colonial baggage\u20192<\/sup><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I have little encounters with English everyday<\/p>\n

In form of words, it is everywhere around me; on billboards, on signposts<\/p>\n

Unthreateningly, interspersed naturally in daily conversations to spice them up.<\/p>\n

Yet it escapes me.<\/p>\n

I get enamoured when I hear anyone speak it effortlessly.<\/p>\n

It exudes class.<\/p>\n

It makes people look educated, refined and cultured.<\/p>\n

It threatens me only when my teacher scolds me for praising<\/p>\n

English language in my mother tongue<\/p>\n

And calls me \u2018jahil\u20193<\/sup> for doing so.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It threatens me when I talk in Punjabi and my cousins from English medium schools call me \u2018paindu\u20194<\/sup><\/p>\n

It threatens me when those who can understand my language insist on talking to me in English only.<\/p>\n

It threatens me when it enforces silence because I am required to speak in English only.<\/p>\n

Why English only?<\/p>\n

They say all things\u2014opinions, learning, knowledge and emotions\u2014become more effective and valuable when expressed in English.<\/p>\n

Haven\u2019t you seen how my native Bulleh, Waris Shah, Daman sound exotic in English?<\/p>\n

Pains, sorrows and anguishes, expressed by Shiv Kumar Batalvi in my mother tongue, get more resonance with English subtitles.<\/p>\n

Haven\u2019t you seen how expletives sound cool when uttered in English?<\/p>\n

In Punjabi, they sound so vulgar!<\/p>\n

It has power.<\/p>\n

For being so nonviolent, while it distributes power, it gets crowned by those who use it as a \u2018neutral language\u2019!<\/p>\n

A neutral language that is subtly used by my English Sarkar to infringe on my fundamental and constitutional rights.<\/p>\n

A neutral language used everywhere to hack away my dignity like Kafka\u2019s vulture.<\/p>\n

A neutral language that is used to crush a variety of flowers before they bloom.<\/p>\n

For its unquestioned powers, everyone likes English!<\/p>\n

Even those of us who get slighted every day for not knowing it enough.<\/p>\n

Having internalised its status of bestowing statuses<\/p>\n

I am also slowly imbibing English.<\/p>\n

Immersing myself in it and yet when I miss its nuances those well<\/p>\n

acquainted with it, judge me for being insufficiently Englishised,<\/p>\n

Just like my village folks who deride me for being over-Englishised.<\/p>\n

Amidst all this, I oscillate to and fro, from margins to near centre<\/p>\n

Never making it to the centre!<\/p>\n

M<\/strong>al<\/strong>e<\/strong>e<\/strong>ha\u00a0Sattar\u00a0<\/strong>is Teaching Fellow at the Department of Governance and Global Studies, Information Technology University, Lahore. She has done a MPhil in Development Studies from PIDE, Islamabad.\u00a0\u00a0Her recent research work focuses on language-based marginalisation and critical discursive analysis of selected education policies and parliamentary debates.<\/p>\n

Notes<\/strong><\/p>\n

1<\/sup> Naveed Iftikhar, a public policy adviser, recently used this term in an article he wrote for Express Tribune, 17 March 2017 https:\/\/tribune.com.pk\/story\/1358289\/the-english-sarkar\/ Accessed on 31 May 2021<\/p>\n

2<\/sup> A professor at BNU, argued in this article that a \u2018postcolonial being is bound to carry colonial baggage\u2019 The News, 22 September 2019,<\/a><\/p>\n

3<\/sup> Illiterate. In one of my field visits, I overheard a teacher using this word to scold a student who was talking in Pihari (her mother tongue) to one of her friends<\/p>\n

4<\/sup> Literally a villager. This word is also used to taunt people for being uncultured and uncouth.<\/p>\n

This poem was first published in:\u00a0 Sattar, Maleeha. 2021. \u201cEnglish as the Gatekeeper.\u201d In Reforming School Education in Pakistan & The Language Dilemma<\/em>, edited by Zubeida Mustafa, 162-177. Karachi: Paramount, and is reproduced here with kind permission.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Maleeha\u00a0Sattar LIKE ANY OTHER language. It is not a mere language. It is the language of my former masters Still used and cherished by my new rulers. And I am an insufficiently Englishised subject of my English Sarkar1 Here, I am rendered powerless everyday as a \u2018postcolonial being\u2019 unfit \u2018to carry colonial baggage\u20192<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-speaking"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/convivialthinking.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/convivialthinking.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/convivialthinking.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/convivialthinking.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/convivialthinking.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1889"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/convivialthinking.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1892,"href":"https:\/\/convivialthinking.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889\/revisions\/1892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/convivialthinking.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/convivialthinking.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/convivialthinking.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}