Language and Regional Integration: Foreign or African Languages for the African Union?
CODESRIA 10th General Assembly, Kampala, Uganda, 8-12 December 2002
Ernest S. Mohochi
Department of Languages and Linguistics
Egerton University
P.O. Box 536
Njoro
KENYA
Email: mohochis@yahoo.com
Abstract
Pulling together in the spirit of integration has become significant in current thinking in development all over the world. Africa cannot afford to lag behind when other regions are forming major trading blocks that give them better bargaining power in international trade negotiations. We must therefore move fast beyond the existing regional blocks such as the SADEC, ECOWAS and the EAC to a stronger union. Current discussions and arrangements for the establishment of a strengthened African Union in place of the Organisation of Africa Unity is a step towards the right direction.
One very critical ingredient of such an arrangement is language because effective communication is the only way of bringing together people of diverse origins to work together towards a common goal. Faces with a wide linguistic repertoire like the one in Africa, it becomes necessary to take care when making decisions on language issues. It is the central argument of this paper that the development of African languages, and not foreign languages, would be a necessary tool in fostering the African Union.
Introduction
True to the Kiswahili adage that "umoja ni nguvu" (unity is strength), it has become fashionable to seek strength in unity. This is evident in the cooperate world where different organisations are seeking mergers in order to face the ever-increasing challenges in business. The same has become true of nations in most parts of the world on realising that it is very difficult for most of them to face the international world single handedly. The developing nations, which have weak economies, need integration much more than the more developed nations but unfortunately, it is the more developed economies that have moved faster to reap the advantages of regional integration.
Africa is home to most of the very poor people in the world. As such, African leaders have a duty to take bold steps in an attempt to try and uplift the living standards of their people. This can be reached much faster not by relying on foreign aid that is more often than not pegged on impossible and inhuman conditions, but rather by striving together. There is an abundance of natural resources in the continent that require to be exploited for faster growth and economic development. This however cannot be reached unless the climate is conducive. One way in which such a climate can be attained is by stronger and functional regional integration.
Regional Integration
Due to globalisation and increased liberalization, there is an overwhelming increase in levels of interdependence among nations. The increasing volume of cross-border trade has resulted in consumers, even in the remotest of places, to gain access to a variety of goods and services that were hitherto unheard of to them. However, in order to be able to participate in such an arrangement, you need to articulate your needs and aspirations in international trade agreements with a strong voice.
On our ability to bargain, Ndegwa (1986:106) says:
Because of their economic and therefore political weaknesses, African countries have sometimes not been taken seriously internationally in global discussions or in bilateral dealings with large developed countries…
Unfortunately that is the truth and, indeed, we can not command the much needed respect and bargaining ability individually as Kenyans, Nigerians, Liberians e.t.c. But if united we shall have some amount of bargaining power. In order to benefit from the prevailing and future world trade arrangements Africa urgently needs to work together.
Ng’andu (1998:2) says that in recognition of the fact that many ACP countries were in the category of least developed countries, the WTO trade regime granted a waiver to the Lome Convention under which 47 African, 15 Caribbean and 8 Pacific countries were to have trade preferences with 15 members of the European Union. It was felt that these countries needed a transition during which they would continue to enjoy preferential trading arrangements. The question that remains unanswered is whether African countries have really benefited much from the said arrangements? Rather than wait for waivers, we must move faster to seek our own lasting solutions to the numerous problems that we are faced with. This urgent need to work together is further elaborated by Ndegwa (1986:106) who reminds us that:
…African countries should also be aware of the decreasing amount of real foreign assistance from those developed countries and the widening and deepening protectionism the developed countries are practicing against imports from the poor countries.
In view of the changing circumstances, the mentioned waivers are no longer guaranteed. These are harsh realities, which should serve to ignite the cooperation fire among all Africans, including the many sceptists.
There are certain necessary ingredients that help attract both domestic and foreign investment and since investment is a necessary component of trade, we need to attract as many investors as possible. However, apart from economic reforms that are meant to make trade easier, it is also essential to ensure that other infrastructure is in place. For instance, the size of the market is quite critical. Because of the poor physical infrastructure, dependence on primary commodities, and a relatively small market size, it is very difficult for African countries to attract the much-needed foreign investment. Most African countries are small in terms of population. This calls for the need for an enlargement of the development base through intra-African trade in order to benefit from economies of scale in operating major services (Ndegwa, 1986:111). Consequently, smaller regional blocks like the EAC, ECOWAS, SADEC, though better than individual countries, are hardly enough. These are good beginnings but it is now time we started thinking about larger blocks.
It is indeed true that globalisation and liberalization are the key words in international discourse on growth and development but at the same time there is a growing increase in the realisation of the need for closer regional ties.
…indeed, some commentators argue that sub-regional groupings might at first be more economically and politically attainable and serve as building-blocks towards a continental unification based on them ( Ndegwa, 1986:122-123).
Many have gone beyond the realisation stage and actualized those desires where no ties existed or strengthened the already existing ones. Ng’andu (1998:4) indicates that in the last twelve years, there has been an increase in the creation of regional economic and trading blocks. They have increased from about 20 to nearly 100. They are probably much more by now. The well known ones include: ASEAN in Asia, NAFTA in America, MERCUSOR in South America, The European Union, ECOWAS in West Africa, COMESA and SADEC in Eastern and Southern Africa, the Pacific FORUM, and the CARIFORUM in the Caribbean.
In Central America, there have been numerous attempts at reviving the Central American Federation that was dissolved in 1838. Towards this end, 1963 saw the setting up of the Central American Common Market (CACM) which was, unfortunately, dissolved later. The System for Integration in Central America (SICA) was established in 1991 to take care of political and economic cooperation.
In many instances, economic development is an important driving force behind efforts at integration in different regions. The following is noted about Central America in this regard:
First and foremost, Central America stands united in a bid to meet the challenges posed by the globlisation of economy and trade, including the formation of WTO. The formation of regional markets has become a widespread way of handling this development (Publications in English, 2001:2)
However, small regional groupings stand very little chance in world trade where larger groups pull the shots. On its part, Central America has set out to establish closer ties with the North Atlantic Free Trade Area (NAFTA) mainly as a bridge to joining the Inter-American Free Trade Area (IAFTA) in the year 2005. This is largely in realisation of the fact that the North American Market is 200 times larger. The Central American countries’ markets and production potential are very small and they must work together for better bargaining power. Indeed the same should apply to all smaller regional blocks. This is particularly true and significant to Africa.
Africa, with the poorest nations, has very few such blocks and those in existence do not have the muscle to push and shove at the international arena.
Nga’ndu (1998:5) rightly puts it this way:
For many African countries with serious capacity limitations, effective participation in the global economy is not possible. Sometimes, the rules of the game are so complex as to be understood only by the few trade officials and traders. As a way of capacity enhancement, cooperation with neighbours on regional basis is the most viable option for integration into the global economy.
Regional Integration in Africa
Efforts at attaining integration in Africa are not new. They date back to the Pan-Africanism movement times, which played a crucial role in laying the ground for African integration. Whereas Black Americans from USA and the Caribbean dominated the Pan-African movement in the late 19th and 20th century, leaders from Africa began playing a greater role from the mid 20th century. Between 1900 and 1945 six Pan-African Congresses were held in different European cities. The last one, held in Manchester in 1945 was convened by the Pan-African Federation that had been formed in 1944, made up of 13 organisations representing students’ welfare and political groupings under George Padmore, C.L.R. Wallace Johnson and Jomo Kenyatta. Following is one of the important issues that came out of this congress:
The congress also expressed the hope that before long the peoples of Asia and Africa would have broken their chains of colonialism. Then, as free nations, they would stand united to consolidate and safeguard their liberties and independence from neo-colonialism (K.I.E., 1986).
I believe that while expressing that optimism, Du Bois (West Indies); Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya); Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana); George Padmore (Trinidad); Peter Abrahams (South Africa); Otto Mackonnel (West Africa), and Magnus Williams, representing Nnandi Azikiwe (Nigeria), sincerely hoped for better living standards for the entire black race. Where as it is true that we are free nations as envisaged, in Africa, we have not managed to stand united nor have we been able to adequately speak with one voice against all new forms of exploitation. Subsequent African leaders stand accused of failure to follow the visionary leaders of the struggle for the liberation of Africa. Indeed as we shall point out shortly, our continued reliance on foreign languages is one way of perpetuating neo-colonialism that the said leaders talked against.
From as early as the late 1950s Dr. Kwame Nkrumah believed in, and preached the need for Africa to be united in order to be less vulnerable to outside influence. Nkrumah and other African leaders argued that:
Africa’s political independence and the dignity of its people could not be fully achieved and protected without a ‘United States of Africa’ (Ndegwa, 1986:111-112).
That was no easy task. Discussions had been initiated to form an African organization but there emerged two opposing camps. There was the Casablanca group, which wanted immediate unity plans, and the Monrovia group that favoured a gradual approach. Finally, in May 1963, leaders of the then 32 independent African states met in Addis Ababa and signed a charter establishing the Organization of African Unity. Among the many areas of major concern were; cooperation in areas of economy and social welfare, education and culture, and collective defense, as well as the possible establishment of regional economic groups. For quite some time, the OAU successfully served as an umbrella body that helped Africans find solutions to their problems. The political federation envisaged never materialised but those efforts led to the formation of the OAU. However along the line, probably due to a decline in the Pan-African spirit, the OAU became less and less effective and as a result there is urgent need to rethink the whole process of African unity.
There have been numerous cooperation arrangements both regionally as well as continentally. The earlier attempts, which Ravenhill (1985) refers to as the failed attempts at regionalism include: the East African Community (EAC); the West African Customs Union (UDAO); the Central African Federation; the Economic and Customs Union of Central Africa, and the Mali Federation (Ndegwa, 1986; Ravenhill, 1985). Later regional blocks include; the Preferential Trade Area (PTA); the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC). Those in existing need to be strengthened without undermining the newly launched African Union since the two are meant to play complementary roles in Africa’s development endeavours.
In an interview with Sddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), a Munich based daily newspaper, the then German foreign minister; Klaus Kinkel pleads for regionalisation in Africa. Speaking about the OAU, he says " This large regional organization with a membership of 53 countries, should take over a considerably larger responsibility for Africa than it has done until now. And we should help it in doing that." The need for integration has finally dawned on many people the world over. Africans too have accepted it as an inevitable path to development and success. Speaking to students and staff of Egerton University in Kenya in January 2002, the Tanzanian prime minister, Frederick Sumaye (an alumnus) of the institution stressed the need for closer regional ties. He particularly pleaded with East Africans to take the new East African Community more seriously with a view to forming a political federation in the near future.
Despite all that has happened with regard to integration in Africa, there are those who believe that meaningful cooperation is not attainable in this continent. Ravenhill, who seems to rule out any possibility of success of regionalism in Africa, is one such person. He asserts:
Africa, in fact, is uniquely ill-suited for regional integration; at least, for the form most typically adopted by developing countries: the integration of markets… African economies, far from complementing each other, compete in the world market as exporters of primary products. But, more important, African economies are simply irrelevant to the needs of their neighbours-a problem compounded by the lack of physical infrastructure, which hampers communication. Add to this a variety of languages, currency areas, continuing close ties to ex-metropoles, and a critical shortage of skilled personnel, and one arrives at a very dismal scenario indeed (Ravenhill, 1985: 207).
While it is true that our infrastructure is largely poor and we still maintain ties with our ex-metropoles, the rest of what Ravenhill says is not entirely true. There is a lot of trade among African economies as opposed to his assertion that we are irrelevant to the needs of our neighbours. Neither do we simply compete as exporters of primary products in the world market. Africa, most certainly, has a wide pool of relevant and skilled personnel. As for languages, we have regional languages that can ably take care of our multilingualism. We do not have a hopeless and dismal scenario suggested by Ravenhill.
Indeed, there are many challenges to integration in Africa but then we must face them most bravely. We simply cannot afford to do otherwise. The concern of Africa and Africans is primarily our own concern. We need to take the necessary steps rather than continue cheating ourselves that foreign intervention of whatever form will solve the many economic and social problems that we are faced with. As is rightly pointed out by Ndegwa (1986), the solutions to our problems can only come through strategies based on collective self-reliance. Ravenhill (1985) also argues that we need to develop a basis of cooperation that takes into account our unique circumstances.
Language in Regional Integration
The World Bank has pointed out that in today’s economically integrated world, trade maters more than ever before and that there is compelling evidence that openness to trade is associated with increased growth (WB, 2001). Openness to trade necessarily entails talking with our neighbours to draw up development strategies. How then does the question of language fit in this scenario? Quite naturally we must be able to communicate effectively in order to plan and forge ahead together in whatever integration arrangement we put in place. Without effective communication we cannot talk about integration that involves the majority and goes beyond the meetings held by leaders in the never-ending summits.
Among the most important pillars of a strategy for successful cooperation that have been espoused by Ndegwa (1986) are; education for the people on the need to cooperate; and public acceptance of the need to cooperate. In all these, language is very important. There must be an effective communication system to rally the people behind whatever integration endeavours being made. This will only be achieved if we resort to the use of a language(s) that is easily accessible to the majority.
One problem cited as having been an impediment to plans for a political union in Central America is failure to harness popular grassroots support for the integration process.
The situation is explained thus:
…the integration process-particularly plans for union- has largely been driven by elitist forces. The decision to form a political union has been taken centrally, with little conferring with civil societies, let alone national parliaments. Moves are also a foot to initiate a rapid process for creating the union, and there is consequently a great risk that union endeavours will not achieve any genuine popular anchorage (Publications in English, 2001:2)
A similar risk faces various regional groups in Africa and would also trouble the African Union. We must endeavour to involve our people in whatever agreements we reach and the only sure way to do so is through civic education. They need to feel that various decisions taken by the leaders are taken on their behalf and know how such decisions will impact on their lives. I know no better way to achieve this than using the rich repertoire of our languages to pass the message across. Unfortunately, most of our African governments are repulsed by the mere mention of the term civic education. By insisting on English and other foreign languages as we are doing now, we are only succeeding in shutting out about 80% of our populace from popular participation in the development process.
Development and good governance are important national agenda in many countries. These should be given similar treatment in regional initiatives since there should be as much commonness of policies as possible among member states. Unfortunately, the linguistic means to achieving these goals are usually treated most casually in many countries. Okombo, in Ndambuki (2001:1), observes that the role of languages in achieving those goals is ignored in Kenya. This is true of almost all countries in Africa and the situation needs to be addressed very urgently. The African Union is one body well suited to come up with a solution to the issue.
Okombo further argues that for development to occur, the African masses must be involved through the recognition of the indigenous languages. Whatever policies we come up with must take cognizance of the plural character of Africa if they are to be of any use to Africa and her people. The multilingualism situation in Africa should be treated as a resource rather than a problem. While accepting his contentions, I hasten to add that the whole situation must be handled with plenty of care. We cant afford to accept all sorts of suggestions on the language issue in Africa simply because each group wants its language given a role to play. This was clearly the case in Zambia, during the AU meeting, where Guinea, through its head of state proposed the adoption of Spanish as one of the working languages of the Union. There will be a state of confusion in the African body if we were to accept all languages of the former colonizers. What reason shall we have to deny Portuguese if we accept Spanish? Probably we need to be driven by an assessment of the language use demands in Africa against the available language resources while making decisions on language matters. What direction should we take then with regard to the issue of language in the African Union?
Language, African Unity and Development
Language has been noted to be a very significant ingredient in unity. Consequently, on attainment of independence most African states were faced with the need to choose a language through which national unity could be forged. Most chose the languages of their colonial masters as official and even national languages. These decisions were not easily reached since a number of people opposed them on the grounds that it perpetuated the colonial mentality. However, such decisions were explained on the ground that with the multiplicity of languages within their borders, it would have been difficult to choose one local language and not the other. That was the general trend in Africa apart from a few exceptions like Tanzania that had an already well spread and accepted alternative in Kiswahili.
As it is now, in Africa, all important national and international issues are discussed and decided on in foreign languages. Since Africa was not colonized by a single European power, it follows that Africa is regionalized linguistically as each country maintains links with its colonizer by among other things, maintaining the use of the colonizer’s language. Consequently, we have French, English, and Portuguese speaking Africa. We often hear about either Anglophone or Francophone African leaders summits. Africa is therefore very divided linguistically with regard to foreign languages and a decision to use one at the expense of the other is not possible. That is precisely why we have always had the idea of working languages of important bodies like the O.A.U. to cater for the different interests.
The situation is even worse with indigenous languages. Africa is reputed to be extremely multilingual. There are very many languages spoken in virtually all African states. Despite all that, it still remains a fact that the trend world over is to form regional groups and language is indeed an important part of it. Given that situation, which language would best serve in fostering Africa unity? It has been estimated, for example, that only 5% of Nigeria’s population are able to use English. Igue and Noueni describe a similar situation in Benin (Hansford, 1994:76). The percentages might be different but that is the general trend in Africa with regard to English and all other foreign languages.
Speaking about Benin, Igue and Noueni (1994:59) have captured a true picture of the whole of Africa on this issue. Our leaders at independence and all subsequent regimes have maintained the colonial language policies hence imposing French, English e.t.c on their citizens in most domains. This is what they say:
…This option has had grave consequences for the ability and willingness of the various populations to participate in the process of national, social, cultural and economic development.
This has led to the rather unfortunate situation in which our populations are clearly segregated. One side has the minority who have a mastery of the foreign languages and on the other is the majority who speak one or more of the indigenous languages. As a consequence, those who can speak, read and write these superior foreign languages have acquired undue advantage in accessing knowledge, money, power and status.
…In this way the majority of the people do not participate in the push towards development since they are not able to be integrated into the communication process that is fundamental to the economic, social, political and cultural structures of the modern state…. It is also evident that development can never occur when the great majority are marginalized by the use of a language, which simply allows an elite to conduct a monologue with itself (Igue & Noueni, 1994:60).
As mentioned earlier, one of the major problems that have faced attempts at unity and integration in South America is lack of popular grassroots support. Most of our initiatives also lack mass support because the majority are basically marginalized. Continued insistence on the use of foreign languages only serves to marginalize our people. If integration in Africa is meant to bring positive development and change to the majority at least, we have no alternative but to turn to our languages as a means to achieving whatever goals we envisage.
Fardon and Furniss (1994:85) have put it this way:
…At the same time, economic and technological development, if it is to involve the majority of the people, can be promoted only through the use of African languages.
There is no better way of putting it and I believe there is no way that we can attain any meaningful development through integration by relying on foreign languages.
Quoted in Benjamin (1994:102) Bamgbose sums it by saying:
More recently it is becoming evident that the choice of an ex-colonial language
for the purpose of national integration makes possible only horizontal integration. This involves the combination of the educated elites from the various linguistic groups, which may comprise only 10-15 per cent of the population. The alternative, vertical, integration would enable the integration of elites with masses and allow the vast majority of the people who have no access to the official languages to participate in the social, economic and political system. This sort of integration is only possible through an African language.
According to Benjamin (1994:104), the liberation movement in South Africa, particularly in the 1930’s and 1940’s advocated for English as a lingua franca since it would cut across ethnic divisions. Indeed similar arguments were advanced in other African countries in support of the ex-colonial languages. That argument holds no water any longer because we have African languages, which cut across ethnic divisions. These include; Kiswahili, Hausa, Akan, Fulfulde e.t.c. Maake (1994:119) observes that research in the trade union movement in South Africa has shown that the only way to be able to communicate with the majority of the workers is through African languages. That fact is neither confined to the trade union movement nor South Africa.
African Languages for the African Union
The development of African languages is not only necessary for national integration but for regional integration too. However, even after settling for African languages, there remains the problem of which language(s) should be used due to Africa’s linguistic diversity. It is estimated that there are 2000 languages in Africa (Elugbe, 1994:62). This multiplicity of languages in Africa makes the language question in Africa trickier. Indeed the question of the language best suited for African unity is one that has quite a long history. It has been a subject of concern to a number of scholars and other prominent sons of Africa. According to Benjamin (1994:102), as early as the 1940’s, there was resentment to language policies in Africa. When it emerged that the language policy in South Africa favoured Afrikaans and English at the expense of African languages, a view emerged within the communist party, with the support of the influential Soviet Africanist Prof. I. Potckin for the development of all African languages. However, within the liberation movement, there were pan Africanists who instead supported Swahili as a lingua franca. These were the earlier stages of a long time attempt to front Kiswahili as a fore runner candidate for the position of African lingua franca. Many more people have advocated for its choice.
Chimerah (1998), Okwany (1995), Mukama (1992) and Mazrui and Mazrui (1995) say that Kiswahili is no longer an East African language. It has spread out and is used in different parts of the world particularly in the media and in education institutions. Mazrui and Mazrui (1995) go a step further to state that Kiswahili is the most international of all African languages. Indeed it is the only linguistic export from Africa that has been widely accepted. On what makes a world language, Ohly (1977:119) indicates that such a language should be able to meet the communication needs of various international organizations. Other important requirements include; a wide distribution of speakers in different parts of the world, and a significant number of speakers. These are the factors that contributed to the development of English, French, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic as world languages.
Among all languages of African origin, Kiswahili is the only language with a clear chance of emerging as a world language. It is spoken in varying degrees in Europe, America, Asia and Africa. According to Okwany (1995), it has well over 50 million speakers. Indakwa (1978) observes that the more than 50 million speakers do not in fact include its speaker outside Africa. Kiswahili is the second language in Africa behind Arabic in terms of the number of speakers and the first among 86 Bantu languages (Ohly, 1977). Kiswahili is therefore ahead of other African languages in many respects.
In the Second Congress of Black Writers and Artists in 1958, the issue of an African lingua franca was discussed at length and a decision to choose one language for that purpose reached. Out of the discussions; Kiswahili, Hausa, Mande, Yoruba, Fulfilde, and Wolof were proposed (Indakwa, 1978). And in The Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, held in Lagos Nigeria in 1976, renown scholars; Professors Wole Soyinka and Mohamed Abdulaziz threw their support behind the choice of Kiswahili as Africa’s language. Overall, there is more support for Kiswahili in comparison wit the other suggested languages, mainly because of the following reasons:
While noting that there are many other important African languages, Bamgbose (1994:34) also indicates the fact that Kiswahili has an edge over the others by saying:
Because of the utility of languages like Akan in Ghana, Wolof in Senegal, Hausa in northern Nigeria, Lingala in Zaire, not to mention the more widely spoken Swahili in Eastern Africa, speakers of different languages are embracing them as second languages (Our emphasis).
Despite that realisation of Kiswahili’s wide reach, elsewhere, Bamgbose (1994:36), is attacking Soyinka’s support for Kiswahili on the ground that its development would make it a supra-national language. Again due to the multiplicity of languages in Africa, Kiswahili has very many opponents. Most who hasten to point at its Arabic influence as a weakness and insist that it should not serve as a lingua franca in Africa since it is as alien as English, French, and all the others.
Africa’s multilingualism has occupied very many for quite some time. These include Bamgbose (1994), Benjamin (1994), Okombo (Ndambuki, 2001), and Fardon and Furniss (1994). To most of them, Multilingualism in Africa is seen as a source of problems and an impediment to development. Need that be the position? Don’t we have very well known advantages of multilingualism? If we do, why cant we look on the positive side and work to lessen the negative impact? It has been pointed out, for instance, that there is governmental and academic unease with multilingualism in Africa (Fardon & Furniss, 1994). Can’t we learn from countries that have managed their multilingual situations effectively like Canada (English & French), as well as Switzerland (French, German and Italian)?
We need to develop and encourage multilingualism in Africa by taking note of the significance of both our own indigenous languages and the foreign languages as well. citing Kashoki, Bamgbose (1994:34), insists that multilingualism is not a barrier to national unity and integration; and that a more integrated person is in fact one who is at ease with several languages that are found in the country. As much as we are advocating for Kiswahili, we are aware that all other African languages are important. However, it would not be very easy to develop all of them equally for African Unity. We must also not lose sight of the significant role played by foreign languages. What we therefore need to do is to encourage our people to have a bigger language portfolio.
Bamgbose (1994:42) says:
The conclusion, which seems inevitable in the situation of most developing countries is that a multilingual policy is the only viable avenue for development. African languages will have well-defined roles in education, culture and mass communication without prejudice to the complementary role of LWCS-Languages of Wider Communication. Foreign ideas, concepts and technology will undoubtedly be imported in a foreign language, but such concepts must be transmitted to the masses in a language that they can understand. The economic miracle achieved by countries such as Japan is not based on a widespread dissemination of English; rather it is a result of the domestication of foreign technology in Japanese, and the translation of the productive processes into terms that the ordinary factory hand can understand.
The truth is that in Africa, multilingualism is largely unavoidable and we are better of developing it rather than fighting it. Fardon & Furniss (1994) have said that multilingualism is actually Africa’s lingua franca. We must accept it and try to make it a resource on which our development goals can be attained. Katupha (1994:95) too takes note of our many languages and proposes functional bilingualism as an available compromise between the preservation of our traditions and modernization. Following on his proposal I would like to propose functional multilingualism instead. We need to develop local languages since everyone has linguistic human rights to enjoy in life; regional languages (lingua francas) for wider communication beyond our communities; Kiswahili for long-term wider communication in the African Union, and the European and other foreign languages for international interaction.
Conclusion
In the paper, we have clearly indicated the ever-increasing need for integration for effective participation in a global world. Indeed there are attempts at creating regional groups in various parts of the world and strengthening the already existing ones. For Africa, due to our poor economies, there is more urgent need to come together in the spirit of integration. As much as we have regional groups in Africa, we must work to strengthen the African Union, which can best bring together those many groups for the benefit of all. However, Africa has a unique problem stemming from its multilingual situation and the fact that there are a number of ex-colonial languages competing for supremacy in the continent. Since these many foreign languages are known by a very insignificant few, the only way of bringing as many Africans to own our development initiatives is by a shift in the language policy. We must develop our languages for effective communication with the masses. We have proposed Kiswahili as the language best suited for development as a language for the African union. If that is not easy to attain in the short term, we can develop a number of African languages initially. Towards this end we can pick on Hausa for West Africa, Arabic in the north; Zulu in South Africa, Kiswahili in East and Central Africa while encouraging the continued development of Kiswahili. If for valid reasons Kiswahili is not acceptable, I will vote for any other language as long as it is an African language.
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