SimonMary Asese Aihiokhai
Listening to The 2021 Holberg Debate on Identity Politics among Cornell West, Judith Butler, Glen Greenwald, and Simon Critchley, I am drawn to reflect on the following. As a student of a colonial language, who has taken seriously the study of the use of language as a tool for the production and instantiation of social power, I conclude that the prophetic turn to advocacy of human dignity for all cannot be achieved through the finesse inherent in the colonial turn that language embodies in the colonizing matrix. The prophetic turn demands an embrace of linguistic barbarism. A barbarian embodies disruption that is experienced in the psyche of the so-called civilized one. The barbarian uses language without the slyness of the native speaker.
The barbarian embodies the end of the civilization of the imperialist. That limit of civilization is the opening into the horizon of hope and new beginnings for all. It is the pathway for new existential and social negotiations for all.
The barbarian embodies saturated grace for society, especially imperialistic societies that have anemic imaginations and cannot dream up a new way of being. The barbarian’s unhinged freedom both in their embodiment and in their usage of language to produce new hermeneutic fields allows for a disruption to occur in a form of social anarchy in the imperialistic world. The energy of the barbarian is the source of enduring life that the new world being created for all will need to survive as its population journey into it.
Linguistic barbarism has a forceful way of producing truth and a consciousness that awakens for all in the imperialistic world. While the civilized places personal comfort at the apogee of social
discourse, one that distracts from the monstrosities of social erasures of others, be they gender, racial, religious, or cultural, linguistic barbarism makes discomfort a source of grace that births-forth a new imaginative fields. It involves speaking with a focus with the intent to disrupt the status quo without compromise.
Do we need linguistic barbarians today? If we do, who comes to mind? There are implications for embracing this turn to linguistic barbarism. The barbarian has to constantly read the signs of the times else, comfort and garments of imperialism will be placed on their shoulders and their prophetic make-up will evaporate. This is the reality of all past revolutions and revolutionaries.
The barbarian comes to the stage with a vision. Over time, they become the dictators. Africa has had its share of such linguistic barbarians. Robert Mugabe is an example. Even nations can embody linguistic barbarism. A case in hand is the United States. In its struggle for independence, it embodied all the ideals of barbarism and this disrupted the imperialistic finesse of imperial Britain. Over time, the United States forgot its own prophetic turn to barbarism. It is now the imperialistic oppressor.
The linguistic barbarian must always be conscious of how she becomes comfortable with the use of language. By reading the signs of the times, the linguistic barbarian must always look at the world and at the society it is helping to transform from the peripheries. Only at the peripheries can the vision be clearer. Discomfort is a graced-marker of such a peripheral existence. This is the transforming power inherent in the prophetic turn to barbarism.
Thinking aloud – May 4, 2024
Link: to The 2021 Holberg Debate: https://www.youtube.com/live/Sv-TXOfI7vg?si=t9QP3Nk1fzef1FkG
Simon Aihiokhai Blogs 