FYI, a couple of interesting excerpts from a 1995 article by Prof.
Eyamba Bokamba found in a Google book search (reference below):
"... our educational enterprise has continued to throw good money
after bad by blithely expanding and maintaining not only an
exclusionary language policy but also an educational system devised
by others for colonial and control purposes. The main reason for the
retention of the status quo is that African states, Anglophone,
Francophone, Lusophone or any other non-African phone, view Western
Europe as the model for development of all sorts. We continue to
define ourselves as others without computing into this definition
the local conditions that make us Africans. Yes, indeed physical
occupation and colonization have ended, but the mental colonization
lives on and flourishes." p. 22
"The best language policies for African states are multilingual ones
that will enable each state to empower its citizens and yet permit
it (the state) to remain a partner or player in the global market of
goods, knowledge, and politics. In other words, there should be in
our language planning appropriate places for selected African
languages and ELWC. To do otherwise is tantamount to committing
suicide. The multilingual policy I am suggesting hree explains the
successful development of Japan, Korea, Israel, South Africa and
Belgium, amongst others. The language policies that African states
articulate should further encourage the modernization of African
languages and cultures, rather than destroying them and creating
linguistic and cultural alienation. The experience of the
destructive language policy of the U.S. which has led to the death
of hundreds of American Indian languages and massive cultural
alienation should be instructive to all African states; language
shift and loss do occur and are imperceptibly occurring in Africa.
We are no exception to this natural phenomenon, Intergenerational
language loss should be evident in some of our families ans will
increase exponentially with urbanization. To be certain and
objective, certain African languages among the estimated 1600 must
die a natural death, but a whole-sale death on account of
exclusionary language policies involving English, French, and
Portuguese is extremely unwise and unjustified." p. 23
Eyamba G. Bokamba. 1995. "The Politics of Language Planning in
Africa: Critical Choices for the 21st Century." In Martin Pütz, ed.
_Discrimination Through Language in Africa?: Perspectives on the
Namibian Experience_. Mouton de Gruyter
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