FYI. The URL for the language portal is http://www.sediba.org.za/ (it
is further described at http://www.doc.gov.za/bathoportal.htm ). Note
the Minister's quotes of Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. Thanks to Rui Correia for
forwarding the text of the address. DZO
ADDRESS BY THE MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS, DR IVY MATSEPE-CASABURRI,
AT THE LAUNCH OF THE LANGUAGE PORTAL, Johannesburg, 24 November 2003
Master of Ceremonies
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is the time of the year when we as South Africans together with
the international community participate in the United Nations
recognised campaign of 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against
Women and Children. Before I begin my address, I would like to ask
everyone present at today's launch to participate in this campaign by
creating an awareness of women and children's rights, by helping to
inculcate a human rights culture and contributing in the building of
a people-centred society and caring communities.
I am pleased to be here to launch the language portal of the
Department of Communications.
This portal, consisting of twelve websites, will contain information
about the language, heritage, forms of cultural expression,
literature, folklore and histories of our people in the medium of all
their languages and in the Khoi-San language as well.
The great champion of African languages, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, in
September this year, when he gave the Fourth Annual Steve Biko
Memorial Lecture at the University of Cape Town, made the following
insightful observations:
'Writers, artists, musicians, intellectuals, workers in ideas are the
keepers of memory of a community. What fate awaits a community when
its keepers of memory have been subjected to the West's linguistic
means of production and storage of memory - English, French and
Portuguese - so that those who should have been keepers of the sacred
word can now only see themselves and the different possibilities for
the community within the linguistic boundaries of memory
incorporated? We have languages but our keepers of memory feel that
they cannot store knowledge, emotions, and intellect in African
languages. It is like having a granary but at harvest you store your
produce in somebody else's granary. The result is that 90 percent of
intellectual production in Africa is stored in European languages, a
continuation of the colonial project where not even a single treaty
between Europe and Africa exists in any African language. We do not
exist in these languages!"
Today we remember these words. We wish to say to Ngugi that this
language portal takes us some way in meeting his concerns, the
concerns of our African intelligentsia as well as the ordinary
citizens of our land whose democratic demand it is to be able to
communicate among our selves, with their neighbours and their
brothers and sisters dispersed throughout the world in the languages
of Africa.
This is a historic event, since for the first time in our history as
a South Africa people this portal will enable our people to read and
to access the information contained in them in their own languages.
The language portal will enable our separate and shared memories to
be stored electronically, to be accessed at will by individuals and
communities.
This is part of our efforts to use information and communications
technologies (ICTs) to bridge the digital and knowledge divide and to
ensure that our people can access information that can shape their
lives in the languages of their choice. In this way, we are trying to
encourage greater use of ICTs by the majority of South Africans. We
are bringing our people closer to the language of ICTs by presenting
information in the languages of our people. We are also creating
virtual histories of the South African people to complement the
printed and oral histories that we have in our possession. We are
firm that that the knowledge, experiences and memories contained in
one language should be preserved for present and future generations
of South Africans to come.
Indeed, in our country, "those who should have been keepers of the
sacred word" will now be able to see themselves and the different
possibilities for their community within their own languages. Through
this portal, our keepers of South African memory will begin to feel
at home on the web through the touch of a button, since we have
already embarked on this journey to "store knowledge, emotions,
intellect, in African languages". We are busy building our granaries,
our own storehouses, our own libraries and access points where
knowledge will be deposited, stored, renewed, and remain alive, to
convey the living and the dynamic realities about all our languages
and all our cultures.
This is democracy in action. The consciousness of our people, their
thoughts and resultant actions, should find expression in their own
languages. This is an extension of the freedom of our people, because
linguistic freedom is part and parcel of our people's rights as
citizens of this new country.
There have been changes in this country. This is the African
renaissance in the process of re-shaping our people's lives. These
are the processes of African renewal. This is the implementation of
the transformation agenda.
This is also about making economic progress through the use of
African languages, since these languages are the least represented in
ICTs and thus many African people have remained up until now
alienated from these technological advances and the benefits they can
bring to improving the quality of their lives.
Thus the language portal that we are launching here tonight should
otherwise be called the people's portal, since its primary target is
ordinary people. But this opens the possibility for ordinary people
to do extra ordinary things and we South Africans are capable of
doing extra ordinary things.
This project aims to:
* Promote and preserve the heritage and culture of South Africans in
an electronic format
* Promote the use of South African languages
* Promote the sharing of indigenous knowledge and cultural exchange
* Establish an online archive in all official South African languages
* Encourage further research on the history, tradition and culture of
different South African languages.
It is important to note that the contents of this portal are not
portrayed as the ultimate truth, particularly on our history, but
that it presents information and events as objectively as possible.
In putting together the information for the portal, we went out to
communities and interviewed people, attended traditional ceremonies
and also referred to written texts. The language portal is also an
exercise in democracy, since it is an open platform whereby people
can comment and contribute to this venture.
One of the biggest challenges of a task like this is the accuracy of
the information provided. We went out to look for individuals who
have distinguished themselves as scholars and activists in preserving
and promoting South African indigenous languages.
But everyone sitting here has contributions to make. I, therefore,
would like to take this opportunity to thank the editors who gave
time to work on this project. I would want to acknowledge the
following hard-working individuals:
* Prof Vic Webb from the University of Pretoria - he was responsible
for the Afrikaans site
* Chief Joseph Little from Cape Town - he was responsible for the
Khoi and the San sites
* Mr Wonderboy Peters from Nemisa who was responsible for the isiZulu
site
* Prof Buyiswa Mini from the University of Fort Hare - she was
responsible for the isiXhosa site
* Dr Mafika Lubisi from the University of Zululand - he was
responsible for the isiSwati site
* Dr V Ralushai, a retired Professor of Anthropology from the
University of Venda - he was responsible for the TshiVenda site
* Mr O Chauke from the University of the North has been responsible
for the XiTsonga site
* Mr S Mnguni from the University of Pretoria has been responsible
for the isiNdebele site
* Rev W Tsiu from University of South Africa was responsible for the
SeSotho site
* Mr S Lemekwana from SABC news has been responsible for the SePedi
site
* Mr S Kemisho who is self employed at Translation World has been
responsible for the SeTswana site
* Ms Kathy Kavanagh from the dictionary unit at Rhodes University who
has been responsible for the English site.
This is a variety of people from a variety of languages. I would like
to thank all of you for all the hard work and the energy you put into
this project, not simply because it was a job that had to be done,
but because you also believe in the importance of languages in our
daily lives.
The Department of Communications (DoC) also took a decision of
establishing an incubator programme that sought to assist the
graduates from the DoC's training initiative to gain work experience
and work towards self-employment. The product we are launching today
is the output of this initiative. Former National Electronic Media
Institute of South Africa (Nemisa) graduates, who had studied and
completed web development, built this portal. We congratulate this
techno boys and girls for contributing their talents to this project.
I would also like to highlight the role of the National Language
Services, a directorate of the Department of Arts and Culture, for
its role in checking the authenticity of the language used. The
collaboration between the two departments on this project and other
projects is an important step towards interdepartmental cooperation
and an integrated approach to governance that the President say we
must strive toward.
Given also that topics on history and heritage are usually
politically charged, I have also invited my colleagues in Cabinet to
act as a reference committee for this project. In this regard, they
will give strategic direction to the project and make sure that it is
within the political framework of the country.
This language portal is but only a beginning. Our granaries and
storerooms will keep on growing. We are in the process of developing
an information and knowledge resource, hence the name of this portal
sediba/fountain. This portal will be like a fountain from which the
ordinary people will tap knowledge and information on a variety of
topics. This portal will be tailor-made for ordinary people and focus
on topics relevant to them. These will include health literacy,
small, micro and medium enterprise (SMME) development, youth issues,
adult basic education, and other important topics that can make a
difference in lives of ordinary people. These topics will be
developed jointly with the government departments concerned. This
portal will be an enabler for government and the people in general.
Our aim is to get all communities to have their own websites. These
would be tools that would afford these communities a tool to
communicate with themselves. It would focus on contemporary issues
and act as a tool through which the communities can preserve their
changing identities.
In attempting to redress the colonial and apartheid neglect of
African languages, the DoC in addition has embarked on a number of
projects. We are meeting here on the eve of one of these projects and
that is the National Language and Broadcast Content Summit, which
looks into the representation of indigenous languages in the
broadcasting media, to what extent does the existing South African
broadcasting system respond to the unique national needs and what
should be done to improve the current situation. This also conforms
to the National Language Policy Framework of government.
This national summit is a culmination of mini-summits that have been
held in all our provinces in the last few months. The contributions
of our people at these events have fed into the agenda of this
national summit, so that together we develop a shared vision for the
development of South African broadcast content and formulate broad
policy guidelines for government to support and nurture the
broadcasting industry. This summit is happening against the backdrop
of the introduction of regional services and thus can shape the
design of things to come. The envisaged outcomes of the summit
include the adoption of an action plan and a list of policy
recommendation to guide operations within the broadcasting sector.
I would like to ask all who will be present at this summit to use
this opportunity to put your heads together on what can to be done to
improve the state of broadcasting in this country because that
responsibility in not really mine, it is yours. Government is here to
listen and to learn, to take cognisance of our people's concerns,
ideas and inputs, so that together we can re-fashion the face of
broadcasting in South Africa through your contribution.
We are also engaged in another project, namely the translation of ICT
terms that we are doing jointly with the Department of Arts and
Culture and also through contribution of Sentech. This project seeks
to translate the ICT terms commonly used into all indigenous
languages. Another project is the translation of desktop interface
that we are doing jointly with Microsoft South Africa. This will
enable the computer to communicate in all South African indigenous
languages.
These are some of the interventions already taking place that
complement tonight's launch of this language portal. Together, all
these interventions constitute the coalface of change and in bringing
a better quality of life to all our people and strengthening our
capacity to compete with the rest of the world.
And as Ngugi again says in his book Moving the Centre: The Struggle
for Cultural Freedoms:
"The wealth of a common global culture will then be expressed in the
particularities of our different languages and cultures very much
like a universal garden of many-coloured flowers. The 'flowerness' of
the different flowers is expressed in their very diversity. But there
is cross-fertilisation between them. And what is more they all
contain in themselves the seeds of a new tomorrow."
This language portal contains within it the seeds of a new tomorrow
already present today.
As I place this portal in the public domain, I invite all our people
to participate and ultimately to take ownership of this work, as it
is about who you are - the nature, form and content of your lives. I
invite you to contribute to the growth and flowering of this portal,
this resource, so that it enhances all our lives.
I thank you.
For further details contact Jerry Majatladi @ 012 427 8017 / 082 889
3381 or
Lisa Combrinck @ 012 427 8292 / 082 821 4886.
Issued by: Ministry of Communications
24 November 2003
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