Traditional Culture

BBC reports on how Bolivia and Peru are defending the right of indigenous peoples to to continue in their cultivation of the coca plant. The leaves have been used by indigenous peoples in South America for medicinal and religious purposes for centuries. Countries such as Bolivia and Peru are under pressure from the UN to curtail all cultivation of the coca plant. The BBC reports that Peru and Bolivia are lobbying for changes to UN conventions on narcotics and controlled substances.

Peru said a balance was needed between allowing cultivation for traditional uses while preventing it for cocaine production.

"One of the principles of humanitarian law is the respect of traditional customs, recognised by the national constitution," said Jose Belaunde, Peru's foreign relations minister.

"The United Nations lacks respect for the indigenous people of Peru and Bolivia who have used the coca leaf since forever," said Peruvian Congresswoman Maria Sumire.

"For indigenous people, coca is a sacred leaf that is part of their cultural identity," she said.

The UN is pushing for tighter controls on the use of the coca leaf:

The International Narcotics Control Board released an annual report on Wednesday that reminded the two governments that use and possession of coca leaves, the main ingredient in cocaine, were limited to medical and scientific purposes.

The two countries should "abolish or prohibit activities... such as coca leaf chewing and the manufacture of coca tea", the report said.

People in the Andes use coca leaves to alleviate hunger and tiredness, for medicinal purposes and in religious rituals.

UN conventions list coca as a dangerous controlled substance, along with cocaine and opium.

For more on the subject, these two books examine the history and the anthropology of the use of the coca leaf in Bolivia and Peru: Coca Prohibition in Peru: The Historical Debates by Joseph Gagliano and The Coca Boom and Rural Social Change in Bolivia by Harry Sanabria.

Globalization and the Burqa

The burqa was the symbol of the Taliban and their strict restrictions on the lives of women in Afghanistan. Now, there is increasing pressure for women to once again wear the burqa, if they had abandoned it after the NATO led forces pushed out the Taliban in many areas of Afghanistan. However, in a strange twist of the globalizing world, it seems that local production is being pushed out by imports from China. As the Washington Post reports:

The Chinese-made burqas’ tightly-crimped folds and machine-produced embroidery have become something of a fashion craze in the last few months in Kabul. As one burqa seller named Hassan explained to me in a crowded Kabul market, “Women love the new, modern style of the Chinese burqas.”

Many of the challenged faced in Europe and North America are also faced by local tailors and local businesses: cheaper imports are pushing them out of the market. However, it is interesting to see how this is occurring in a country where families making pennies to the burqa still cannot outcompete mass produced goods from elsewhere.

Cyber Guerilla Warfare

It seems that there is a form of cyber guerilla warfare now underway as anonymous web surfers are not waging war with Scientology. The video itself is a bit campy, but it is an interesting view into the cyber world. An article in The National Post examines the ways in which anonymous surfers are doing their best to bring down Scientology. This will be an interesting case to follow.

Forgotten History?

The newspaper business is an interesting one. For a number of years, I served as a volunteer for the University of Toronto's student newspaper The Varsity and then later, I worked for the French-language newspaper Le Franco in Alberta. One of the things that I learned from the experience was the art of writing the headline: it must be the right length (not too long, not too short) while summarizing the article. Usually, the journalist has not say in what the headline will actually read. In reading the headline of a story published in The National Post, I was struck by the awkwardness of the headline: "400 years of forgotten history." The published piece itself is not bad, but the the title brings forward the questions "forgotten by whom?"

The fact of the matter is that the 400 year history of Québec is taught in French schools in Canada and this history is quite important to French-speakers. They, for the most part, have not forgotten their history. Also, this history is often features in movies and in the popular media. We French-speakers have not forgotten our history per se, though it could be debated as to how accurate our history is. So, what the headline is really highlighting is not a forgotten history, but rather a history that is ignored by English-speakers. Simply put, parallel histories exist and the history that is remembered by most French-speakers is quite different from the history remembered by English-speakers.

Language politics: Nunavut and Québec

The National Post has published an interesting piece on the survival of Inuktitut in Nunavut and role of the Nunavut regional goverment in promoting the Inuit language. I have reproduced the original below.

The salient point of this article is the need for political intervention to support minority languages. The reality is that languages cannot be dissociated from politics. States choose official languages and states regulate instruction in schools, specifying what languages will be used in teaching and which books shall serve the needs of students. Political intervention ensures linguistic winners and losers and as the Yiddish linguist Max Weinreich quipped in 1945: "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy."

What Weinreich meant is that languages do not become dominant because of their inherent superiority, rather languages come to dominate if they are the languages spoken by powerful states or colonial powers that impose their language as well as their political power speakers of other languages and dialects.

How can languages that were long colonized compete? They must call upon the structures of the state to elevate the status of the long subordinated language whether it be French in Canada or Inuktitut in the Arctic. The article published in the National Post is a perfect example of how political intervention is often necessary to equalize the linguistic playing field.

Losing their language

Inuit look to Quebec as an example of how to preserve their culture

Sara Minogue, Canwest News Service Published: Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Shaun Best, Reuters

IQALUIT -The Ecole des Trois Soleils sits atop a large hill with a commanding view of Frobisher Bay.

About 50 young francophones between the ages of 5 and 14 come to classes here in this red-and-yellow-striped building to be educated in their mother tongue, in spacious classrooms of about 15 students each.

That the school exists in a community of 6,000, in a territory where fewer than 450 people have French as their first language, is remarkable.

"And it's only there because of the fact that there's legislation," said Terry Audla, who, as executive director of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, would like to see similar legislation that would establish Inuktitut-language education throughout the territory.

Nunavut is in the process of writing its own official languages act, one that could give the Inuit language -- which includes its regional dialects -- equal status with English and French, and that could have huge implications for the people and government in the northern territory.

Though its draft versions are considerably less radical than Bill 101, Quebec's strict language law, many Inuit are looking to Quebec as an example of how legislation can strengthen a minority language. Two language bills now on the drawing board would require government and territorial bodies to offer services in Inuktitut, English and French. They would also require private companies and organizations to offer services in Inuktitut.

The bills are careful to maintain language rights for English and French speakers -- so much so that some Inuit groups argue the legislation does not go far enough to make Inuktitut the language of everyday life in Nunavut.

Mr. Audla's organization is among those advocating that the law would give Inuktitut the status of sole official language, as Quebec's Official Language Act of 1974 did for French in that province. He cites Section 35 of the Constitution Act, which guarantees "existing aboriginal rights," including language rights, even though this has never been challenged in court.

He points to flaws in the proposed legislation: The draft Inuit Language Protection Act says Inuit would have the right to "instruction in the Inuit language," but it does not give them the right to receive their entire education in Inuktitut. Similarly, the proposed legislation says the government must produce Inuktitut materials for preschool-aged children, but gives no indication how much Inuktitut material is enough, and provides no accompanying regulations about providing preschool in the Inuit language.

At present, Inuktitut is one of the strongest aboriginal languages in Canada.

Its uvular sounds and ringing Gs are heard daily inIqaluit-- at hockey games, in grocery stores, at the post office, bake sales, church services and meetings that are part of daily life here.

Most children in Nunavut are schooled in Inuktitut until Grade 3; CBC North broadcasts 11 hours of Inuktitut programming daily; and about half of the debates in Nunavut's legislature take place in the language. The Nunavut government intends to make Inuktitut its working language by 2020.

But the number of proficient Inuktitut speakers is rapidly declining and Inuit leaders fear that, without legislation, the language could be lost in only a few generations.

The latest census shows that 64% of Canadian Inuit reported Inuktitut as their mother tongue in 2006, down from 68% a decade earlier. The number of Inuit who speak Inuktitut at home has fallen from 58% in 1996 to 50%.

"Let's not kid ourselves, the state of our Inuit language is in critical condition," said Mary Simon, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national Inuit association. "And if we lose our language, then we will have lost our culture."

Inuktitut speakers must currently rely on relatives or impromptu translators to help them access basic services, such as at the pharmacy, checking into a hotel or even calling the RCMP or fire department. The 2006 census found there are 105 Iqaluit residents who speak neither English nor French, and roughly 2,300 throughout Nunavut. But there are few services for these people in their own language, and no laws requiring anyone to provide them.

A territory-wide household survey conducted in 2001 found 34% of Inuit had difficulty receiving services from the federal government in Inuktitut, and 24% had difficulty receiving such services from the territorial government.

A key debate in Nunavut about the language laws revolves around the question of expense.

Already, a lack of resources has made it difficult for the government of Nunavut to fulfill its obligations to francophones under Canada's Official Languages Act.

In a public hearing on the new laws, held in Nunavut's sealskin-draped legislative assembly chambers last August, Paul Kaludjak, president of the land claims organization Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., said now is not the time to worry about money. Rather, he argued, language rights are a "right of the people," that need to be enshrined in law.

The Nunavut government's draft language bills have received first and second reading in the legislature, and are now under review by the standing committee on language.

Meanwhile, the people of Nunavut are not sitting idly by waiting for their language to fade.

The Nunavut Bilingual Education Society, a group of volunteer teachers, has been producing books and graphic novels in both languages for more than five years.

The Pirurvik Centre, a privately owned facility whose aims are to promote the Inuit language, culture and well-being, recently began offering intense courses in Inuktitut as a second language, including instruction in reading and writing syllabics, the Inuit writing system. In the future, the group plans to offer advanced language courses for Inuktitut speakers who want to expand their language skills.

And at Nakasuk elementary school, located in one of Iqaluit's oldest buildings down the road from the Ecole des Trois Soleils, teachers are working overtime to produce worksheets, posters and books for students in their Inuktitut-language stream.

Last year, Nakasuk also launched a new program: Inuktitut immersion for preschool and kindergarten students destined to start Grade 1 entirely in their mother tongue.

This, principal Carol Horn said when the program launched, is the best way to make sure Inuktitut remains a vital language in Nunavut.