Globalization creating a
‘glocal’ English in Asia
By Rahul Goswami
Singapore, Thailand, July 30 (IPS)— Asia contains
a third of the world’s spoken codes, but its astonishing diversity
of speech and written systems are being eroded by relentless globalization.
That, in a nutshell, is the ethnolinguist’s lament.
“In South-east Asia, the response to globalization is to acquire
language skills, not in many languages, but in one, the English language,
which is seen as the key to success in the globalized age,” said
Dr. Rujaya Abhakorn, lecturer in South-east Asian history at Chiang
Mai University, Thailand.
One reaction to globalization, as pointed out by Anne Pakir, an associate
professor at the National University of Singapore, is that English is
“going ‘glocal’, that is, going global while maintaining
local roots.” She sees ‘glocal English’ as a language
that has international status but which also expresses local identities.
It is indeed English, which served the colonial British empire and now
drives the knowledge economy and the Internet, that is all too often
seen as a tyrannosaurus rex that voraciously gobbles up cultures and
traditions.
“Efficiency and development, growth and human capital, are not
tolerant of difference,” commented Prof. Joseph Lo Bianco, director
of The National Language and Literacy Institute of Australia. “Globalized
modernization requires that knowledge is imparted in ways that are comparable
across differences of setting, culture and language.”
Abhakorn and Lo Bianco were participants at a conference on language
trends in Asia, held this month by the National University of Singapore’s
Asia Research Institute. The discussion focused on the sorts of globalization
in Asia today, and whether or not the primary language of an economy
is endangering other languages.
Generally, some participants pointed out, the endangerment of language
is most serious where local globalization is the most advanced and includes
virtually all economic sectors.
Against such a background, the future of languages such as Hovongan,
in north-central Kalimantan, Indonesia, and Sou, in the southern Laos
province of Attapeu, is in peril — both are estimated to have around
1,000 speakers, and thus classified as being endangered under the definition
of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO).
“Our language has been ripped from the world,” Goenawan Mohamad,
founding editor of the Jakarta-based ‘Tempo’ newsmagazine,
wrote in a paper presented at the meeting, “stripped of shape,
smell, color and form, cleansed of the grit and graffiti, the rumpus
and commotion that make up real life.”
Even where languages are not endangered, there are confrontations between
them and English.
Dr. Udaya Narayan Singh, director of the Central Institute of Indian
Languages in Mysore, India, provided a background to the diversity and
linguistic politics of the country.
“Even when 80 percent of all Indians speak one or another major
Indian language, and Hindi is understood by close to 60 percent,”
said Singh, “there are still many other languages with a long literary
history, grammatical tradition and rich heritage, and they are still
in use in all modern means of communication.”
“Bilingualism in India,” he said, “is not just due to
economic causes but also due to conflict.”
The official language of communication of India is Hindi. But, Singh
explained, “There is always a hidden tussle as well as open confrontation
between supporters of Hindi who mostly oppose the use of English, and
supporters of the regional languages who look to English as an alternative
link between the Indian states.”
Globalization has also brought about what has been called the “McDonaldization”
of societies, most notably through the entry of cultural products like
Hollywood movies, US toys, fast food and pop music.
Anthony Reid, director of the Asia Research Institute, however noted
that although media is one of the potent forces of globalization today,
it has been beneficial in the past.
For instance, he explained, radio and cheap cassettes have helped non-national
language communities in Indonesia, East Malaysia, the Philippines, Burma
and India.
“Cassettes and radio invigorated and helped standardize the verbal
expression of the language even as its written expression was being
lost,” said Reid. “In diaspora, even isolated speakers could
remain in touch with their musical traditions with a portable stereo
and a few cassettes.”
Indeed, Lo Bianco commented that new communication processes have arisen
that link tribal, small, and localized languages to ecological sustainability,
or which seek to give these languages political recognition within human
rights paradigms. This has also occurred during the 1990s as a means
of stemming “the cataclysmic loss of the world’s linguistic
heritage, a vast proportion of this in the Asian region,” he said.
Like plant and animal species, endangered languages are confined to
small areas. More than 80 percent of countries with great biological
diversity are also the places with the greatest number of endangered
languages.
The need for protection has never been more urgent — many of the
world’s endangered plant and animal species today, for example,
are known only to certain peoples whose languages are also dying out.
Even so, there are parallel globalizations, as Prof. Chua Beng Huat
of the National University of Singapore, observed.
“In entertainment, one is looking at a very conscious effort of
an industry globalizing itself,” he said. “In East Asia, where
Singapore is culturally placed because of its Chinese-dominant population,
the idea that we are being westernized/Americanized is being disrupted.”
Chua said that fans of products such as pop music from Japan or television
soaps from Korea claim it is easier than watching Hollywood: “You
can’t be white but you can move yourself from Singapore to Taiwan;
the dominant language is not English but ‘different Chinese’,
depending on where it’s put together. Are these programs in fact
reactions to globalization, and nationalistic?”
Already, more Asians speak English than anyone else, and the kinds of
Asian English multiply every year. For the many who continue to see
it as an intrusion, a destructive force, there may be some solace to
be found in the old Malay saying — ‘Your mouth is your tiger’.
Helpmate: 25 years of standing
against domestic violence
By Tamiko Murray
Helpmate, a local, non-profit agency serving abused and
neglected people in Buncombe County, is celebrating its 25th year of
assisting the community.
“Helpmate has been Buncombe County’s primary provider of crisis
services to victims of domestic violence and their children,” said
Helpmate executive director Valerie Collins.
According to national statistics, one in three women experience domestic
violence at some point in their lives, and “in 95% of the intimate
partner violent crime cases reported, women are the victims,” said
the Helpmate web site. Breaking the cycle of a violent culture that
primarily victimizes women and children is “everybody’s responsibility,”
said Collins.
With a strong dependence on volunteer support, Helpmate has offered
“cutting edge,” proactive assistance to victims of physical,
sexual, emotional and economic abuse since 1978. The agency’s structure
surrounds a philosophy of “empowerment” by providing a safe
environment for individuals who have spent their lives being “silenced”
to express themselves, said Collins. Staff members and volunteers are
trained to listen and assist women in making their own decisions.
“We believe that to serve our clients, we must model a violence-free
community that is founded in respect and equality,” said the Helpmate
web site. “By providing safety, shelter, counseling and advocacy,
we empower each client to create a life that is free of violence. By
providing education, we empower our community to create a world that
is free of violence.”
Helpmate offers a variety of services, enabling victims of domestic
violence to remove themselves from abusive situations including a 24-hour
crisis line, emergency shelter, individual and group counseling, court
advocacy, educational outreach and children’s services.
During the 2001-2002 fiscal year, according to the group’s web
site, Helpmate has provided emergency shelter to 131 women and 92 children,
and the crisis line has received 1,625 contacts. Helpmate’s 16-bed
emergency shelter usually operates at about 80 percent maximum capacity.
Helpmate has recently received funding for the Latina Project, a program
opening on Aug. 25 that will offer bilingual and bicultural counseling,
case management and education to the Spanish-speaking community in Buncombe
County. The new program will enable Helpmate to “educate the Hispanic
community about domestic violence” and available resources, said
Collins.
The communication between Latinas seeking support for domestic violence
and a primarily non-Spanish speaking staff has often been problematic.
Latinas may be “dealing with issues of becoming legal,” said
Collins, one experience among many that may be difficult for non-Latina
women to grasp. The new program will provide culturally relevant resources
for Spanish-speaking victims of domestic abuse.
Domestic violence is a symptom of a violent culture, with “power
and control” at the core of a societal disease. “There is
violence all around us,” said Collins, who also sees man to man,
woman to man, and woman to woman abuse. People who suspect abuse in
the lives of friends, family, neighbors or co-workers are often afraid
to interfere or “alienate” victims. Offering the victim support
whenever they are ready to seek help is a step in breaking the dysfunctional
pattern.
When asked about the stigma society places on women who stay with or
return to their abusers, Collins has found that victims of domestic
violence often remain in abusive situations because they fear for their
lives. “These women are smart. It’s a survival instinct,”
said Collins. Eighty percent of women murdered in domestic violent cases
were killed after they left their abusers. “They’re operating
out of fear,” said Collins.
There are many volunteer opportunities available, and Helpmate welcomes
donations. For more information visit their Web site at www.helpmateonline.org
or contact the Crisis Line at (828) 254-0516.
War on words:
weapons of mass deception
Weapons of Mass Deception:
The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq
By Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
Hodder Headline Australia
A recently published book looking at a shadowy outfit
with close CIA links suggests truth is a continuing casualty of wars,
including Iraq, writes Tony Stephens.
John Rendon, an adviser to the United States National Security Council
and contracted to the Central Intelligence Agency, flew to Australia
in April to attend the funeral for the Australian TV cameraman Paul
Moran, who had been killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq.
Rendon heads the public relations Rendon Group, whose clients include
the Pentagon and the CIA. He calls himself an “information warrior
and a perception manager.”
It was Rendon who provided the US flags for hundreds of Kuwaitis to
wave when American troops rolled into Kuwait City at the end of the
first Gulf War, signaling to the world that the Americans were liberating
heroes.
And when President George Bush Sr. ordered the CIA in 1991 to run a
covert operation to unseat Saddam Hussein, the CIA hired Rendon to organize
anti-Saddam propaganda inside Iraq.
All these links are made clear in a book published in the US and Australia
this week. Weapons of Mass Deception, by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber,
is subtitled “The uses of propaganda in Bush’s war on Iraq.”
Stauber directs the Center for Media and Democracy and the pair won
the 2001 George Orwell Award for exposing the use of doublespeak in
American life.
The book describes how Rendon helped opposition groups 11 years ago
to form the Iraqi National Congress, headed by Ahmed Chalabi. Chalabi,
who has been convicted in Jordan of fraud and embezzlement, remains
the US choice to head a new Iraqi administration.
Chalabi’s fortunes improved after the formation in 1997 of the
Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Its founder was William
Kristol, who edited the political affairs magazine The Weekly Standard,
underwritten by Rupert Murdoch. Members included Donald Rumsfeld, Paul
Wolfowitz and Pentagon adviser Richard Perle. PNAC lobbied for “regime
change” in Iraq.
The post-Sept. 11 “war on terror” brought new work for Rendon,
in Afghanistan for a start. His presence at Moran’s funeral in
Adelaide hinted at his firm’s activities in Iraq.
Colin James wrote in The Advertiser, Adelaide, of “Moran’s
Secret Crusade Against the Tyranny of Saddam.” James quoted “a
close friend, Rob Buchan” saying that Rendon’s presence indicated
the regard in which Moran was held in US political circles, including
Congress.
Two days before Saddam’s regime crumbled in Baghdad, The New York
Times reported that the Iraqi National Congress, the organization the
Rendon Group had named and packaged, had returned to the country.
Wolfowitz and Perle backed the Chalabi view that any opposition to liberation/invasion
would vanish quickly with Saddam’s fall. Instead, Iraq now borders
on guerrilla war.
Rampton and Stauber have no way of knowing whether any propaganda outfit
was behind the memorable toppling of Saddam’s statue in Baghdad’s
Firdos Square.
They question, however, headlines such as “Jubilant Iraqis Swarm
the Streets of Capital.” A Reuters photograph taken with a long
lens showed the square to be nearly empty, while 20,000 Shiites in Nasiriyah
rallied against the coalition presence.
Rampton and Stauber went to archives on the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88
to produce evidence that, when Iran appeared to be winning, President
Ronald Reagan provided military intelligence and the technology that
Iraq used to build biological and chemical weapons.
The US then saw Iraq as a bulwark against Shiite extremism. Rumsfeld
went to Saddam in 1983, pledging that the US would regard “any
major reversal of Iraq’s fortunes as a strategic defeat for the
West.” The situation changed dramatically when Iraq invaded Kuwait.
The Kuwaiti government-in-exile hired Hill & Knowlton, then the
world’s biggest PR firm.
The Congressional Human Rights Caucus heard evidence that Iraqi soldiers
were taking babies from incubators and leaving them to die on a hospital
floor. Kuwaiti doctors denied the story and human rights organizations
finally declared it a hoax.
An opinion poll last October showed that 66 percent of Americans believed
Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks and 79 percent believed
Iraq had, or was close to possessing, nuclear weapons.
The authors acknowledge that Saddam Hussein wanted nuclear weapons and
used chemical and biological weapons. However, they say that the attack
on Iraq was based on “phony assertions” of Iraq’s involvement
in Sept. 11, links with the terrorist group al-Qaida and the possession
of weapons of mass destruction.
Rampton and Stauber argue that the Bush Administration encouraged the
public’s erroneous beliefs: “If the public had possessed a
more accurate understanding of the facts, more people would probably
have seen a ‘pre-emptive war’ with Iraq as unwise and unwarranted.”
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
