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The crimes of others

Colors of the Alphabet
Regissør: Alastair Cole
(Zambia/Storbritannia/New Zealand)

Only two percent of Zambia's population speak English, but it is still the official language of instruction in the school. Colors of the Alphabet explores how this practice makes people silent.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

The documentary follows "the modest boy" (as his father calls him) Steward, the helpful M'Barak, who "really loves farm work" (according to his mother), and Elizabeth, who always gets "good" or "excellent" grades at school ( says the proud parents). The three children all live in Lwimba, an agricultural area in Zambia, but speak different local languages ​​at home. When they start in first grade at school, they must deal with yet another language – English.

Colonial language. While the headmaster of the school claims that English has helped Zambia because it has enabled different tribes to understand each other, the documentary is obviously critical of a teaching system that does not primarily teach the mother tongue.

"Must the future be in English?" Is the film's expressed motive. This is really a relevant question in a global situation where almost 40 percent of the world's population does not have access to education in their own language. Throughout the film, the critical perspective emerges as fairly self-affirming.

The children in the film are remarkably silent – it is the adults who provide the talk.

Film claims to tell the story "exclusively from the perspective of three innocent children". The word "innocent" seems to indicate that children are being punished for a crime they have not committed. The borders of Zambia are, of course, a result of the demarcation of the colonial powers once, without regard to anything other than their own interests. This is the main reason why tribes without a common language now have to make a society work, and in that way are dependent on a common language – which in many African countries is what is spoken by the former colonists. In that sense, it is true that Steward, M'barak and Elizabeth – who at school struggle with several local languages ​​as well as English – are "punished" for something they have not had the slightest thing to do.

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The teacher also specifically touches on the history of the colony for hours on a mix of English and the local language of Nyanja. It was a time when "white people from another place" ruled Zambia, and the freedom and independence the country enjoys now is a result of struggle, she explains. "Do you see?" She asks the students, as she does every time she explains something – whether it's the different types of toilets in the world, or the difference between an 50 and an 500 kwacha banknote. The kids turn on their desks with unkind faces.

Mother tongue vs. common language. The frame for Colors of the Alphabet is Nelson Mandela's famous anti-colonialist statement: "If you speak to a man in a language he understands, it goes to his head. If you speak to him in his own language, it goes to his heart. "

There is a lot of common sense – and justice – in the right to use the mother tongue, even within government institutions. But there is also common sense – and fairness – in using a common language, as the principal of the school in Lwimba believes. Moreover, it can be argued that the British lost the copyright of their language a long time ago, just as they lost much of their former power over colonies. With the many versions of English practiced around the world today – from Singlish to Zamblish – English may as well not be regarded as the language of the colonists, but as an expression of "the empire strikes back".

Of course, education becomes more complicated when teaching takes place in a language that is not spoken in your home. It is a situation shared by children in countries such as Zambia as well as children with migration history or children with deaf parents. It is highly relevant to examine the power of language, but the head-and-heart metaphor tends to turn language into something static. Many of us – whether we grow up in Lwimba or Linköping – have always been or will at some point in our lives have to do it in different languages. It applies to education, friendship, work, love and politics. It is quite possible to get more than one language to go to the head as well as to the heart, and it is not always possible to determine which language is really your own and which is not.

Almost 40 percent of the world's population does not have access to education in their own language.

Silent children. The kids in Colors of the Alphabet is remarkably silent. It is the adults who provide the talk: the parents of M'Barak, Steward and Elizabeth, the teacher, the principal. This is how the camera seems to take on the task of representing the children's perspective, as the synopsis promises. We get to know their faces and hands – especially Stewards – quite in depth as the camera repeatedly zooms in on them. But the few words we hear from the three children are mainly small pieces of conversation between siblings on their way to and from school with the camera in their heels. The kids don't even need to be aware that the microphone captures their words in these situations.

Why only these stolen words and not any direct interviews? Can't the children speak for themselves – from their own perspective – if asked? This re-election was probably made to support the criticism of the education system's use of English as a form of libel. This point may be both actual and important, but the film can be said to commit the same crime. Considering that Colors of the Alphabet supposedly a documentary about children, it is astonishingly a documentary about adults.

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Nina Trige Andersen
Nina Trige Andersen
Trige Andersen is a freelance journalist and historian.

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