De Fabel van de illegaal 44/45, spring 2001
Author: Gerrit de Wit
Prefering a righteous to a pure language
Feminsts and the Left often try to replace our sexist and racist language by a language based on liberation and equality. Rightwing organizations like Taalverdediging (Language Defence) in the Netherlands also try to intervene in language. They worry about "the anglization" of the Dutch language, and they are afraid the supposedly superior Dutch culture will perish. They fight against education in English, and organize against commercials in foreign languages.
Languages mirror the power relations in a society. There are many more words and sayings with a derogative meaning about women than about men. In Dutch the names of highly valued professions are always male, which causes women to be more or less pushed out of societal consciousness. And we can literally hear that the position of todays immigrants in the Netherlands is not very good because almost none of the words from their languages are being included in the Dutch language.
Language is also used to belittle people or to exclude them. Policy makers and scientists often use difficult words to impress people and to have their way. Sometimes the Right makes up new words like the Dutch "werkgever" (work giver = employer) and "werknemer" (work taker = employee). At first these new concepts didn't feel right for most of the workers. It's of course them who give or sell their labor to the bosses. And the so called "work givers", the bosses, take the work of the laborers. But after being used for years these new words became normal and accepted, and started to influence the way in which people think about their position in society and about power relations.
Dynamic languages
Languages are dynamic, just like societies. And they continually change, influenced heavily by social power relations. The Left and feminists often try to change language and the use of language in a progressive direction. Some 10 years ago many magazines of the then still existing radical Left used for instance the concept "lezersters" ("readers", but using the male and female form of the word simultaneously) instead of the generally accepted "lezers" ("readers", male form) when writing of a mixed group of men and women. And the Rightwing concepts of our political opponents were written between quotation marks to show that they were not ours. That's why De Fabel van de illegaal still always writes "globalization" between quotation marks.
The Left sometimes introduces counter concepts. We rather use the concept "illegalized people" than "illegals". The Left concept makes it immediately clear that these people are not by nature "illegal", but that they are made illegal by the government. And so the Left in principle always talks of refugees instead of "asylum seekers". This last cold and technical term is used by the government to show that it has not yet decided whether the refugee had good reasons to leave his or her country. The Left, however, takes the view that "asylum seekers" always have good reasons, otherwise they wouldn't have come to the West. The Left therefore always uses the concept "refugee" en not only after the state has accepted them.
Nationalist language struggle
Right and nationalist currents tend to see language as something static which needs to be protected from outside influences. To them a struggle between languages and language territories is central. They only fight for the "pureness" of their own language, and they have no problem with the inequalities within that language. In the Netherlands a number of ultra Right organizations are active in this way. The extreme Right Landelijk Actieplatform Nationalistische Studenten (LANS, The National Action Platform of the Nationalist Students) is one of them. In Februari 2001 LANS claimed that they were campaigning against the "anglization" of education on high schools and universities. In Leiden (Dutch town where De Fabel van de illegaal is located) this action went by unnoticed. According to LANS there is "a real invasion of mainly English words which are taken over thoughtlessly". They therefore pleaded for a "real pure Dutch language". And their slogan was: "Better speak civilized Dutch than slang English!". LANS was right for once when it claimed that the Dutch language is "deeply connected with our culture and our history and even with our mores and habits". The problem is that the nationalist students, in contrast with the Left, by definition refrain from criticizing Dutch culture and habits.
LANS is connected to Voorpost. This extreme Right organization demonstrated in April 2000 at an outlet of the clothing company America Today in Leiden. In March 2001 members of Voorpost handed out pamphlets at the National Song Festival. They wanted to protest against the singing of English songs. LANS and Voorpost are extreme language purists. They want Dutch words like T-shirt and Compact Disc replaced by T-hemd and straalschijf (beam disc).
Language defence
The organization Taalverdediging (Language Defence) also protests against the influence of other languages on Dutch. Taalverdediging organizes actions, writes letters to the media and produces stickers with texts like "Language and culture go together". The group calls for a boycott of companies that use English slogans. They write that Holland doesn't want to be "the back door mat of America" and plead for "respect and love" for the Dutch language. In one of their news letters they noticed that many former British, Spanish and French colonies kept the language of their colonizators. "We didn't manage to achieve that in South East Asia", regrets Taalverdediging. "Imagine the 200 million people living there speaking Dutch today. Then Dutch would have been one of the most important languages in the world. Then our culture would have had the glamor it deserves."
One of the members of Taalverdediging is Hans Lindenburg. He used to be a member of the extreme Right party Centrum Democraten. Together with two others he founded the Nederlands Blok (Dutch Block, a copy of the Flemish Vlaams Blok) in 1992. He became treasurer. Another Taalverdediging member is C.H.J. Heitmeier. He was active in the extreme Right party CP'86 until 1998. A a party member he proposed a radical paragraph on Dutch language for the party program. He wanted all Dutch TV channels to end subtitling foreign language programs and start dubbing them. He also wanted an active policy to return people from the former colony Surinam back to South America in order to make the position of the Dutch language on that continent stronger. He furthermore said that development aid should only be given to countries which offer the possibility to learn the Dutch language in high school. At the end of August 2000 Taalverdediging manned an information stand at the Yzerbedevaart in the Belgian village of Diksmuide. Many extreme Right activists frequent this yearly Flemish nationalist celebration. Of course the Vlaams Blok is always present and dozens of Dutch fascists use it to meet their comrades.
Language discrimination
When ChristenUnie member of parliament Eimert van Middelkoop got a letter from Taalverdediging he immediately promised the organiziation his full support. Van Middelkoop is also a very active language purist. In November 2000 he pleaded for the foundation of a new organization he wanted to name Meldpunt Taaldiscriminatie. People should be able to call that organization to file a complaint against people using un-Dutch words. Van Middelkoop calls that "language discrimination".
Members of the ultra conservative Oud Strijders Legioen (OSL, Legion of Former Combattants) also plead for a Meldpunt Taaldiscriminatie. OSL member W. Schuller says this new organization should be able "to lecture people with a public function when they belie their mother language". According to him "the massive influence of the Americanization leads to a feeling of crisis with many people. Because of the close ties between language and consciousness the question of language is felt as a threat to ones own identity". To stop "language pollution" radical measures should be taken, he says. The most important one, as is to be expected, is the "drastic reduction of immigration".1
Leiden also has its share of language purists. The foundation Internationaal Forum voor Afrikaanse, Vlaamse en Nederlandse Taal-, Vertaal- Letter en Geschiedkunde (IF, International Forum for African, Flemish and Dutch Language Translation Literature and History) resists a "world citizenship" and considers it ridiculous that educational programs in English "simply negate a world of culture, identity and language, which took centuries to take shape itself." The IF publishes books and news letters. In 2001 they published the book "Honderd dichters" (100 poets) which includes work of the Belgian right extremist Marc Joris. He is a long time activist with the Vlaams Blok and has a seat for this party in a provincial parliament.
The language purists of the IF also hand out stickers saying "Dutch please!" They claim to have spread some 20.000 of these stickers already. In Leiden they can often be found on foreign language commercial texts. They are even seen on foreign language information signs made especially for refugees. Most of them of course at first do not understand Dutch. "Act for the Dutch language!', the IF says.
National elites
Not speaking each others language is one of the biggest barriers between groups of people. To national elites who want to "safe guard" their territory and population from the influences of other elites, this struggle to preserve the "own language" is like a gift of god.
In Belgium there is this longterm language struggle between the inhabitants of Wallonia and Flandria. The governments of other European countries, among which France and Poland, recently made laws to protect the national language. In Germany also a lot of attention is paid to "anglization" and some politicians promote rigid language laws like those in France. But more critical Germans accuse these language purists of "Germanomania". They point out that the nazis also wanted to zealously clear German of foreign words.2
To elites who aspire a state, but have none yet, the development of some own language can be a decisive factor of success. A common language can give the complete population of a certain region the idea that they belong together. And more so than with people of, for instance, the same sex and class somewhere else in the country or the world. The Kurdish elite for instance has created a uniform language out of the very diverse languages of Kurdistan and has forced people to speak it. The Turkish state, the other way around, wants to have all inhabitants of its territories to speak Turkish, and uses terror to ensure cooperation of the people. The inhabitants of Kurdistan have in this way become victims of a fight between two national elites. A fight that is for a large part fought out in the field of language.3 A similar thing happened in the Basque country.4
Choosing sides in a struggle between languages makes no sense for the Left. It is of course not good if people are forced to speak a certain language, whether it is coming from the central government or the liberators. It would be better to plead for all people to speak a second more cosmopolitan language next to their mother tongue. In that way people can understand each other, and cannot that easy be played out against each other. Esperanto is such a language, but in fact English has taken its place now. As a language English is probably no more sexist or Right that Dutch. So there is no reason to be pro-Dutch or against English. Fortunately, now some 82 percent of all Dutch people think that everybody in the Netherlands should be able to speak Dutch and English.5
Notes
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