La Francophonie – Let’s Celebrate Colonialism!

“La Francophonie” is supposedly the day where we celebrate the diversity and expanse of the French language. Now while I have nothing against the French language, I find this day a completely insensitive & rude slap in the face for the people who suffered from three hundred years of French oppression and colonialism.

Some of the most horrific and shameful atrocities and violations of human rights took place under the imperialism of Western powers such as France, England, Portugal and Belgium. To celebrate the internationalism of the French language is to celebrate the fact that France was so successful in colonising those “barbarians” all those years ago. After all, take a look at the maps below – there quite clearly is a strong correlation between areas that were colonised and areas that speak French now [source: Wikipedia].

Map of French colonised areas:

Map of French-speaking areas:

To pretend anything else – that French spread because it’s such a great language or so easy to speak is ridiculous! French spread because the French had guns, soldiers and ships. It’s a similar story with Spanish in South America and English around the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, what is happening now is that rather than embracing their true heritages, ex-colonialist countries are adopting French as their official languages; teaching classes only in French in public “out-reach” schools and changing their cultures to adapt to the ex-oppressor’s culture.

In countries such as Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, Mali, Togo, Niger, Benin, Cameroon, Gabon and Guinea, French is the only official language. On this note I applaud Vietnam as an example of a country which has taken the next step towards true independence – by changing its official language to Vietnamese. To get anywhere in life in terms of society & careers in the afore-mentioned countries, you have to be able to speak and write in French. As a result, tribal and minority cultures are finding that they must either change their ways (“progress”) or live in isolation.

I say this mainly from a Colombian perspective – I’ve been to Latin America recently, and I’ve seen what’s happening to local villages. In Peru and Ecuador, for example, descendents from the Inca are finding that the government-funded public schooling systems teach only in Spanish. As a result, old languages, and with them old ways and ideas are dying.

The same is the case in Africa, where the French language is being adopted as the way to modernise; the way forward (and in the process leaving the rest behind). This is why I’m saddened when we celebrate “la Francophonie” instead of the true languages, cultures heritages of the very people who need to be recognised the most in this world.

Juan de Francisco