Chapter 19 | Tomke Lask

(continued)

These are the facts of life. Europe is trying to build up a socio-political-economic space to safeguard cultural diversity by respecting the different languages inside the administrative and political structures of the European Union.⁸ In Canada, where such a structure is already present, French Canadians, a minority, remain fearful of losing their identity. It may be a throwback to ideas of evolution that minority cultures are always seen as weaker and that their disappearance is considered inevitable. Colonial policies regarding native populations were based on that idea and are still alive today here and there (for Brazil, see Lima, 1995; for North America, see Pagden, 1993). On the contrary, minority cultures which survived extinction policies, are still there and are experiencing a renaissance. On the other hand, their representatives claim full citizenship in the majority society where they live, but without being assimilated. It is obvious that minority cultures, interacting with other cultures, evolve and change some of their cultural patterns. But these changes do not necessarily affect the core of their cultures, if the changes are the result of a free choice by both partners (Barth, 1969). One does not change one’s identity without willing it. This is an experience any immigrant can corroborate.

The key to maintaining an identity is a good education, which allows for one’s education to continue over time. This should not be limited to an education which shows to advantage only one’s own society and its cultural gains, but one which provides the necessary tools that can be used to compare with a critical mind what is taking place in other cultures. Mastering more than one language is an essential element. On the occasion of my research on the Franco-German frontier, between the Saar and Lorraine, I could see the damage caused by the linguistic policies of the French government over a period of fifty years. The eradication of a transnational German dialect, the Mosellan Francique, which was still in use after the Second World War in Lorraine, in Saar and in the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, was successful on French territory. In order to homogenize French citizens languages other than French had to be dismissed. The Mosellan Francique, which had no recognition as a language, was forbidden at school, as was German. The Germanophone children learned French at school with a colonial mindset: the first child who spoke the dialect or German was given a symbol of shame by the teacher and that child had to denounce another pupil in order to get rid of that symbol. The child who was caught with the symbol at the end of the day was severely punished (Lask, 1994 and 2002). It should be mentioned that the people of Lorraine living near the German border had never spoken French, even during the years when they belonged to France. But this did not weaken their feeling of being French. The relationship between a language and a nationality is not obvious. It should also be said that Mosellan Francique remains the national language of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. This is a case where a given language can be supported by different values in neighbouring regions (see also Wilson and Donnan, Eds., 1998).

It must be recognized that the will to homogenize is an inherent characteristic of the Nation-State. France is not different from the USA or from Germany in this respect. Every State has a problem with diversity; it makes it more difficult to govern. However, the idea that a nationality based on one language only is easier to govern should be demystified. To survive culturally in our world, learning others’ languages is essential. Whoever is incapable of being informed about others is dependent on translation. Whoever has to rely upon intermediaries can be more easily manipulated. History is full of examples of the types of situations that can manipulate citizens.

4. proposals

A few reflections as a conclusion.

Perhaps it could be more productive in the future to adopt a more positive outlook toward globalization and to relativize its impact on smaller societies and the handing down of their cultures. The spread of ideas and techniques has always been a good thing for progress in art and technology. The fact of change is an integral part of the evolution of tradition; it is a lure to think that to remain authentic, one should cling to one’s lifestyle. Even the hard core of Québec identity has changed throughout its existence: first agriculture and religion dominated, and now it is language that is at the forefront. In Europe, the change we expect is the replacement of “pure” national identities with a supranational European identity (Wilson, 1993).

Countries that limit their imperialism to material things only lose control over how these products are re-appropriated. If the refusal to be exposed to intercultural exchange is accompanied by a lessening of information about what is going on in the world, the result is isolation. According to Michael S. Cross, the percentage of international information in American newspapers has gone down from 20% to 2% in the last ten years, and even more in other media. This leaves a potentially dangerous situation, as cultural isolation and cultural self-sufficiency are good grounds for manipulating public opinion; this also applies to international policy. The consequences can be dramatic.

Chapter 19, continued >

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8. It cannot be said that this way of doing things contributes to the efficiency of its functioning. The fact of constantly having translators and interpreters for all the combinations of languages leads to a sort of permanent disarray. Respecting the other’s language is costly, renders procedures complicated and leads to an enormous production of paper. But, apparently, the EU is not yet ready to choose some languages as lingua franca for rapid and less costly communication, as proposals in that sense have all aborted. But, just for having a laugh at the development of a European English, one talks of Euro-English, that corresponds to a sort of pidgin allowing transversal communications in the administration of EU. The appearance of a lingua franca, in spite of the official resistance seems to me to be a first result of the will of the European populations to become closer to one another. Any identity is a construction and, since Benedict Anderson’s book, Imagined Communities, everyone knows that any type of community is imaginary (Anderson, 1994). What is important is the fact that all the members believe in it so that it can exist.

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