English:
as enemy and friend
There are two stories that I tell young people about learning
English. The first is about Ananda Thilak Bandara, a batchmate of mine
at Peradeniya University.
Thilak was from Madadombe, Galgamuwa. When he entered the university
all he knew of English was its alphabet. Half way through our first
year, I moved into a ‘chummery’ in Gunnepana, about one and a half miles
from Dumbara Campus, Polgolla. There were 12 boys sharing three rooms
and six beds. Thilak was one of them. Thilak and I had a pact. We would
speak in English on the way to campus and on the way back, he would
sing. He picked up his English and I learnt a lot of songs.
I still remember an incident in 1993 just after we graduated. Thilak
and I were ‘causal investigators’ (CA) working for the Agrarian Research
and Training Institute (ARTI). We were both idling, unemployed and opted
for the under-employment opportunity that came our way. We were
stationed in Kelegama, a village located a couple of kilometers off
Buduruwakanda, three kilometers on the Galgamuwa-Anuradhapura road. It
was a village tank rehabilitation project.
The ‘Chief Engineer’ was M.S.M. Silva, a brilliant man who was also
given to heavy drinking and when drunk was wont to make the most
atrocious decisions regarding his staff, in particular the villagers who
had been hired to do the earth-work. One night, ‘MSM’ fired Somasiri,
one of the villagers who were totally committed to getting the work
done. Somasiri had made the cardinal error of reporting to us the man
who was supplying kasippu to MSM.
MSM fired Somasiri and Thilak objected vehemently. MSM switched to
English and began arguing with Thilak. Thilak gave back as good as he
got in English. MSM went quiet. The following morning he told me, ‘that
boy gave me tight last night’. He was sober and smiling.
Thilak joined the teaching service soon after and now teaches in a
school close to his home in Galgamuwa. He is a singer with some repute,
performing now and then on television. He speaks excellent English and
writes good poetry. Not because of me, but since he was determined to
learn the language, did not have any inhibitions and worked hard at it.
He learnt it all by himself, struggling with it with the help of a
Malalasekera Dictionary. He frequently consulted my mother, who taught
English literature. He borrowed books, read them and asked her to
explain things he did not understand.
The second story is about a three-wheel driver, Susantha. Susantha
parked his vehicle near the Eros Theatre, close to our place in
Pamankada. I still remember the first time I got into his veel-eka. He
said, ‘Sir, please speak to me in English and if I make a mistake please
correct me’.
Susantha told me that he was one of only two students who spoke
English in school, Aratheusa College, Wellawatte. Someone had told him
that he should speak English and advised him to ignore if anyone teased
him over it. He had also been told to learn at least one word everyday.
He was asked to read newspapers or even an advertisement. Susantha
speaks excellent English. He doesn’t need to write but he can certainly
read.
Children and parents are acutely aware of the importance of learning
English, but they tend to believe that all it takes is to attend a
tuition class. The standard of teaching and the abilities of the tuition
‘sirs’ and ‘madam’s are clearly suspect, but even if they were the best
at the job, students and parents both fail to recognize the most
important fact about learning: the teacher’s contribution is one
percent, the child has to give the rest. Students and parents believe it
is the other way about.
The point is, it is eminently learnable.
Another related obstacle is the attitude to the language and this is
more prevalent in the universities. ‘English’ is referred to as a para
bhashawa or a foreign language. It is, but only because it was not ‘born
and bred’ in this island. There is nothing to say that we can’t make it
our own, not least of all because it is an instrument of coercion, a
tool of learning and exploration and constitutes a necessary weapon
required in our armoury as we fight all manner of oppression.
I have heard senior lecturers in English Departments complaining
about the syllabuses they have to teach. Having just returned after
their doctoral studies with heavy doses of the post-colonial literature,
feminism and post-modernism, they complained about having to teach the
works of ‘dead white men’.
Gamini Haththotuwegama, who passed away last week, never complained
about ‘dead white men’, it occurred to me on Sunday as his street
theatre group carried him to the Borella Kanatte. Haththa was not scared
of the ghosts of dead white men. He made friends with them and employed
them against the real, live, ‘white’ (as in colonialist) men and women,
of whatever colour. Effectively. Not with anger, but the potent mildness
of being confident about language and literature and the nuances
therein. To him ‘English’ was an ‘our thing’.
It is important to read what dead white men wrote because a lot of
the conversations in the field of English literature surrounds their
work and a lot of theory has grown out of such discussion. ‘Learning’
the dead white men does not forbid embracing the larger
non-dead-white-men archive after all.
The point here is, to think of English as an ‘enemy’ is to reject an
important and even crucial weapon in our liberation struggle(s). If it
is a weapon of mass destruction (and that it certainly is), then the
masses must acquire it as a critical element of its overall defence
system.
One thing is certain. The powerful will necessarily be reluctant to
give the technology that puts the ‘weak’ on an equal footing. To the
English alphabet, they will say ‘yes’. To the idiomatic usage of the
language? They will pass that question.
Susantha is a three wheel driver. Thilak’s father was a farmer. They
looked the ‘enemy’ in the eye. They turned enemy into friend. Haththa
showed what one can do with such ‘friends’. There’s a lesson here, I
believe.
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