Respect My Right To Speak Wrong Kiswahili!
- Category: Peering Eye
- Date 24-10-2004
- 326 views
I have been accused and sentenced to a strange term. My accusers have declared me a Congolese as either a punishment or proof for speaking a diseased (wrong) breed of Kiswahili, though I have consistently pleaded not guilty. These people should know that the Bongo president has already pronounced himself on the issue of dual citizenship, so to brand me a Congolese is to place me on a direct collision course with the head of state and in sharp contrast with the law. I do not want to face a police investigation – ndugu Alfred Tibaingana is very unsympathetic, I hear.
I have been shocked at these wrong, outrageous accusations labeled on me. The very first time, someone accused me of being a Congolese, I was not sure if it was not crime to be a Congolese in Dar es Salaam, and also I had not yet observed myself carefully to ascertain whether my appearance resembles that of the Congolese.
The truth is that I have observed myself many times in a mirror but as soon as I step aside from it, I forget my real appearance. Often, I rely on other people to know whether I am good-looking or an ugly sight, whether I deserve to be loved and respected or hated and despised. I normally look for genuine comments from the new people I encounter; then I return home amused. But I will have to stop this habit since it is proving to be unreliable and dangerous.
On all the previous occasions, I have successfully defended myself that I have never been, I am not, and do not intend to be a Congolese. Interestingly, new charges have always been preferred against me – this time declaring me a Kenyan. Yet again, I have been successful so far, in persuading my accusers that I am not a Kenyan either. What I know for sure is that until the East African boarders are torn down, I will not be anywhere near sharing citizenship with the Kenyans.
Let me tell you. The real problem is that I have been unfairly accused for exercising my right to speak wrong, sometimes colloquial Kiswahili. The obvious fact is that my Kiswahili qualifies to pass as the poorest in the whole of Bongo. However, I had never anticipated all this trouble, considering that it is quite uncommon in Tanzania for citizens to be interested in finding out which part of the country the others originate from or what tribe one is. It is just enough to know that one is a Tanzanian.
Yet on my part, the question that refuses to go away is, “Wewe ni kabira gani?” I have been suspecting that perhaps, since the Congolese president is Kabira, which is the reason people think I am a Congolese because they cannot easily tell my “kabira”. I have sworn by my father that I will not declare my “kabira” to anyone because I do not want to breed and promote sectarianism. Pressed hard to announce my “kabira”, I once chose to mention that I belong to the most conspicuous native race around town – the Masai. On hearing this, my interrogators rolled in the dust in a feat of uncontrolled laughter, demanding that I should speak a little Kimasai.
What is disturbing is that when I tell the truth or insert in a simple lie to flavour a conversation, still I am rarely believed. The apparent sectarian sentiments against me is fanned by my fluency deficiency in speaking Kiswahili. Yet I must interact with the rest of the waswahili, challenging as it may be.
Folks! I want to make it categorically clear that malicious suspicion and wrongful accusation of an innocent, unarmed civilian is itself a crime and very intolerable indeed from the date of publication of this notice. There is nothing like wrong Kiswahili; only appropriate Kiswahili, simplified to suit specific purposes, in the context of the speaker and the linguistic ability of an individual. Those who were lucky to muster the language, as toddlers must not forget to be humble. Kiswahili is an international language and must be allowed to grow and assume new accents, lexicons, and semantics – the more reason we today have the “Dar city slang”. With the adoption of Kiswahili by the African Union and proposals to make it a language of the computer, the East African coastal people have lost the Kiswahili monopoly and must allow it to be sacrificed at the altar of globalisation.
With that in mind, I am looking for a lawyer to assure me that the accusations against me are human rights violations. Then I will be flying to the International Crimes Tribunal in Arusha to lodge my case. Stand warned.
By Venansio Ahabwe
Source: Peering Eye, Sunday Citizen