Preserving Diversity to Create Unity: Saving Indigenous Languages in Modern Times

The tolls of globalization have hit indigenous communities harder than any other. After surviving literal extermination at the hands of European colonialists, native cultures around the world now face a more symbolic eradication as the world shrinks smaller and increasingly homogeneous. National Geographic anthropologist Wade Davis sees the extinction of language as one of the most vital factors in the loss of culture and ethnicity: "language isn't just a body of vocabulary, it's a flash of the human spirit...the vehicle through which the soul of each culture comes into the material world." He says that every two weeks a language dies. Today, of the 6,000 linguistic groups still alive in the world, some are spoken by such minuscule numbers of people that less than 0.2% of the world's population speaks half of our languages. The loss of traditional communication is a slippery slope toward the assimilation, acculturation, and possibly eventual annihilation of indigenous peoples.

Ten years ago, the phenomenon of language loss was largely regarded as an inevitable consequence of modernization. Davis notes that traditional societies were often seen as failed attempts at modernity, best to be left in history. The threats to local languages arise from discrimination by government and majority populations, which led indigenous citizens - especially the younger members - to choose mainstream assimilation in order to advance socio-economically. This led to a generational divide where elders were no longer passing language down to their youth. But culture is not static, no matter how ancient it is, and in recent years a new force for the preservation of languages has emerged and strengthened. Largely through the widespread facility of telecommunication, indigenous groups from around the world began to converse and realize that they face the same threats from Australia to Peru to North America. These commonalities have led to the unity amongst threatened communities and a global struggle to adapt technology to their reality. Today this movement has become full-force, and even the United Nations has taken notice by declaring 2008 the "International Year of Languages."

With this recognition that multi-lingualism is an important part of our society, many tools have emerged to preserve endangered languages. Using simple digital recording, local communities can record conversations, stories and songs to then send via e-mail or upload online. One of the biggest tasks in making the internet a more inclusive tool has been to translate browsers into minority languages. This has been especially important in Africa, where the inequality that has increased with globalization is so visible. By making the web more accessible, and therefore more democratic, education is improved by allowing more people to master basic computer skills which then spurs them to continue to enhance local language content, increasing the diversity of voices expressed online. This also has implications for traditional cultures that were historically held in low-esteem and seen as contrary to development. Enlace Quiche is an organization that is creating information communication technologies (ICTs) to train intercultural and bilingual educators in Guatemala. They have developed an online vocabulary in the local language, K'iche', and have found that when children use computers in their native language, "the lessons learned go far beyond mastering basic computer skills. Students are learning that their indigenous language and culture are a vital part of their society."

With the growth of esteem within native communities, the rising generation has sought out ways to merge their grandparents' traditions with the universal youth culture that they are surrounded by. One format that has lent itself with facility to indigenous youth is hip hop, which is all the more easily accessible and transmittable with new forms of global telecommunications on the web. In Africa, there was a period where hip hop thrived merely imitating American gangsta rap, using English slang and profanities. Today we see the emergence of hip hop that relates more to the realities of Africans, and with this the expanding use of local languages in the music. Often the fusion of native dialects with English and French creates wholly new vocabularies, which also has the effect of reviving and incorporating older, dying languages into modern society. In similar vein, Local Noise is a site funded by the Australian Research Council that focuses on Australian hip hop. They found that the storytelling aspects and multicultural roots of hip hop give it particular strength to be adapted to the aboriginal context. In "Indigenising Hip-Hop," one female MC talks about the ease in relating the four essential elements of hip hop to her Fijian traditions: DJing is like alali drumming; graffiti like cave painting; MCing is like her grandfather's public speaking around the kava bowl; and breakdancing is like traditional Fijian dance. Today there are numerous blogs, record labels, festivals and competitions dedicated to promoting native hip hop and cultural exchange. While often times the listeners cannot understand the language that the musician is rapping in, they comprehend the subject because they too have lived through such experiences.

As the International Year of Languages comes to a close, the evolving inclusiveness of the web and the capitalization of this trend by native communities is hopeful. While it remains to be seen if this will stem the disappearance of languages, the mere global concentration on preservation seems to be reversing the trend. With the rising recognition that encouraging the development of multi-cultural, multi-lingual citizens is beneficial for not only traditional communities but also for overall progress of the nation-state, the youngest generation around the world is in the perfect situation to pursue this potential. They no longer need to choose between modernization and the customs of their ancestors, between globalization and traditions. By beginning to view cultures as a dynamic, progressive entity we can promote preservation of endangered societies rather than leaving them to the history books.

As The World Watches On: Youth Participation in the US Elections

With less than 24 hours until the United States elects a new president and consequently ushers in a new era, scouring the blogosphere for posts about the election seemed logical. In the US, the youth vote has received an unprecedented amount of attention this year. Both optimists and pessimists have captured headlines predicting youth turn-out and their effect on the polls tomorrow. Candidates and get-out-the-vote organizations alike have fought to capture the hearts of young Americans using innovative forms of technology, media, and celebrity culture (as evidenced by the Vote or Die ad campaign, seen on the left featuring Paris Hilton). Yet historically the youngest segment of American voters has been the least likely to vote. At CIRCLE, a non-partisan research center focusing on civic engagement of young Americans, studies have found that the youth vote dropped steadily from 1972 to 2000. A surge in the 2004 elections still left less than 50% of young Americans actually voting, the lowest turn-out of any age group. With the world watching, a focus this election cycle has been how to get and keep young citizens engaged. This week I felt motivated to comment on a post that talks about a popular online video that can be personalized to show a fake post-election broadcast revealing the name of a single person whose failure to vote led to Senator John McCain’s victory by one vote. Featured on the New York Times political blog The Caucus, it stresses the great lengths groups have gone to urge American youth to vote and the prominence of the issue in national media.

Secondly, I used a site called Voices Without Votes which seeks to highlight conversations in the global blogosphere about the US election. There I found a post written by a young Brazilian journalist, Paula Góes, on Brazilian perspectives of the candidates. I found the juxtaposition between Brazil and the US particularly relevant because Brazil is one of a handful of countries that has a controversial compulsory voting process, where every literate citizen between the ages of 18 and 70 is required to vote. Although beyond the scope of this week's post, it is worth questioning whether compulsory voting in Brazil is a more effective way of engaging minority voters such as youth than the US system. At first glance it may seem to be so, but in Brazil it also makes it easier for corrupt politicians to buy apathetic citizens' votes and to make many resentful of the political process. Both Brazil and the United States are large, diverse nations facing a myriad of issues involving democratic inclusion of minority groups. They are also becoming so interconnected that the importance this election will have on foreigners' everyday lives is clear. I have included my comments on both blog posts below, though you can also read then in context by following the links.

"Using the Blame Game to Get Out the Vote"

Comment:

Upon reading your article, my first reaction as a young American was sadness that being “humiliated” into voting is a successful technique! I can only imagine how many young Iraqis or Mexican citizens would die to have a say in the election of the American president, yet the youngest age-group of voters in the US is the most historically apathetic. But as I continued down your post, my optimism (and perhaps idealism) returned and I began to take pride in all of the innovative ways young people are being targeted in election campaigns. While researching youth using technology around the world for a university project, I have been inspired by the different ways my generation is becoming socially active. In this election alone young people are using text-messages, online video-conferences, Facebook and a variety of other tools to get involved. A survey done at the Harvard Institute of Politics this fall even found that over two-thirds of 18-24 year olds see political engagement as an effective way of solving our nation’s problems.

I was also curious about your opinion on the overall effect these turn-out efforts will have. Looking back to the 2004 elections, all of the talk about youth registering in droves ended up having a very small effect on the presidential outcome. Do you think that the new era of interactive, individualized technology will have a more positive effect on the numbers of youth voters this time around? You cite in your post that young people are statistically unlikely to go to the polls. Does this stem from historically low levels of out-reach to the young American population or is it a more systematic issue emanating from the overall structure of our election processes? One website I recently came across, WhyTuesday.org questions why our nation lags behind almost all others in voter-turnout and what practical solutions we can take to change the act of voting from a right to an imperative. In other words, will these innovative, get-out-the-vote tools have any effect on voter participation without reforming the current system? Thank you for your time, and I would also like to thank you for your focus on the benefits that technology can have when put to positive youth and for creating avenues for dialogue on the youth vote this election cycle.

"Obama or McCain - Who is Better (Or Less Bad) For Brazil?"

Comment:

I wanted to write and thank you for all of your interesting posts. I spent a semester studying abroad in Brazil this spring and found it fascinating to talk to my Brazilian friends about the contentious primary race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Now that I am home, it is nice to read your posts and stay in touch with the Brazilian perspective as the election nears. It is interesting that you open your post by saying that this is the first US election where Brazilians clearly see issues close to their heart at stake. Do you think this is due to an increasing interconnectedness arising from globalization, or perhaps the severity of problems we are facing in present-day? I indeed often heard my peers in Salvador say that the rest of the world should be able to vote for the American president because what he does so affects other nations, which I always found interesting.

One thing that interests me is to compare is youth participation in the US and Brazil. In the United States, my generation has the lowest turn-out rates of any age group. In Brazil this problem seems to be solved by the compulsory voting system, but while there I found that many expressed resentment at being forced to vote. While compulsory voting should, in theory, increase minority participation in Brazilian politics, it seemed as though the system remains very elitist and white, not very different from politics in the US. From an outsider’s perspective looking in to the American system, how do you think we could get more young people involved? Would a compulsory voting system help the issue or simply mask youth apathy?

One last comment I would like to make is on the popularity of Barack Obama in Brazil (see the Brazilian Obama ad on the right). In a past post, “Will the Elections End up In Another Bradley Effect,” you discuss the racial factor of Barack Obama. The US and Brazil both have a deep racial history, though this is caused by different historical factors that today manifest quite differently. It is interesting that so many Brazilians support Barack Obama (I also saw his face splashed across billboards all over Brazil), when there are so few Afro-Brazilian politicians in relation to their large percentage of the population. Do you think the popularity of Obama in Brazil relates to evolving racial ideals held by the rising generation? Many in the US contribute this to Obama’s popularity amongst the young generation; could it be that Brazilian and American youth are beginning to look more alike as globalization brings us closer together?

Yo Soy Blogger: New Forms of Communication in Cuba

Cuba never strays from American media for long. From reports on which presidential candidate is pandering for Cuban-American votes in Florida, to the debate on whether the economic embargo allows post-hurricane relief aid, this fall is no exception. Despite such interest, the average American knows very little about the realities of life in Cuba due to the US travel embargo and media that is often politically-biased (both on the left and the right of the political spectrum). However, since Fidel Castro passed the presidential torch to his slightly younger brother Raul this past year, a more liberal allowance of luxury goods (such as the legalization of cell phones and computers) has opened up passages of communication to enterprising Cuban citizens, and it is especially encouraging to note that Cuba's youth have been the first to master and capitalize on the tools to spread their voices throughout the global community. As a young American, I feel as though my generation is often criticized for eroding morals and increasing apathy, often it is said, due to the proliferation of technology. Yet I argue that political participation and social activism are in fact facilitated and even spurned by the new forms of technology, as witnessed in the recent presidential elections. It would seem that my generational peers in Cuba are also using  using the same resources as channels of change, which signifies an important process of democratization in Cuba, a country known to have little freedom of speech and political dissent.

Since Fidel Castro stepped down from power in February, many predictions and recommendations for a post-Castro transition to democracy have been explored in the academic and policy-making communities. Within this context, a focus on Cuba's youth as a key component of the transition has emerged. The Latell Report, written by Cuba analyst Brian Latell from the Cuba-Transition Project at the University of Miami, has published a number of articles of the state on Cuba's youth and their role in the political shifts that may be ahead. In the article "Cuba's Lost Generation," Latell warns that "popular expectations for liberalizing change already are high, especially among the youth...given their frustrations and the hardships they endure." He continues to say that this has indeed been recognized as a threat by the Cuban government, who have "openly acknowledged the dangerously profound alienation of Cuba's youth." In the international community, it is generally accepted that such levels of alienation often lead to political violence. Looking ahead to the transition, it is possible that new forms of dissent, such as the internet, have been capitalized on by the rising generation as an alternative to violence. In this respect, I find Raul Castro's efforts to gradually liberalize many government policies on the island as an acknowledgement of this and an attempt at a more peaceful transition. 

According to Latell, it is yet to be seen if Cuba's youth has substantial political organization to tangibly confront their leaders and this is echoed in an article by Sarah Miller Llana and Matthew Clark in the Christian Science Monitor. The article's title calls Cuban youth "Restless but Not Often Political," and starts off with a tag line of: "They just want the freedom to travel and access to the tech touchstones of their generation: iPods, Facebook, and text messages." What some may not be seeing is that the fight for such material items is political in itself, as the demand of these "tech touchstones" is, in the context of globalization, in fact a demand for the freedoms of speech and assembly. While the adult generation in the United States is use to viewing technology as an idle pastime for their youth, the recent presidential elections proved that text messages and Facebook are in fact tools for youth political organization. This is

also the case with our peers 90 miles south of the Florida straits, as seen in February when the call for such social liberalization certainly turned political. At the University of Information Sciences in Havana, students pressed National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcon for answers to questions that ranged from the right to travel, low wages, and access to the internet (see the image at the right which contains a Cuban youth wearing a t-shirt with the @ symbol, peppering Alarcon for answers). In what could only be possible in the current age of technology, a video of the meeting was later posted on the internet site YouTube, sharing with the world this unprecedented, open confrontation between Cuban youths and their government.

In a less formal and much more clandestine setting, Cuban university students capitalized on another form of technology to communicate with their American peers. In a video-conference organized by University of Miami Assistant Provost Dr. Andy Gomez, who is also a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, the Cuban students (whose names were kept secret) sat in an unknown living-room type setting and chatted with their peers for an hour. They asked for university materials and expressed the hope for more contact across the Florida straits, implying that the revolutionary zeal that has historically classified the Cuban milieu has possibly not been passed down to the rising generation. This is an example of an opening of dialogue across national lines--a new phenomenon for both American and Cuban citizens--which is facilitated by access to technology. The new voice that technology gives young Cubans is an alternative to their often limited options of dissent, including the last-resort option of violent protest which is predicted to be a possibility in Cuba's future (see Latell's report on "Cuba's Unquiet Youth"). 

Perhaps the most illustrative example of technology giving a big voice to a marginalized segment of society is the case of one young Cuban woman, Yoani Sanchez, who has used her blog Generation Y to express dissatisfaction with her local reality to readers around the globe. Sanchez's blog, in only a short while since Cuba gained limited access to internet, has promoted an ordinary young Cuban to one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People and garnered enough support in Cuba to pose a threat to the government (they shut down access to Generation Y in March). Sanchez dedicates her blog to "the people like me...Born in Cuba in the 1970s and 80s, marked by rural schools, Russian dolls, illegal emigration and frustration" and discusses a range of topics such as the effects of Hurricane Gustav, the difficulty to get food at government-owned stores and what visitors to the island should bring (potable water tabs, vitamins, school materials, soap, shampoo, children clothes). Apparently Sanchez is not alone as a Cuban blogger, as she lists over a dozen other Cuban blogs and sites in her linkroll. This popular site (see advertisement in the top left of post) not only shows the innovation of Cuban youth to express themselves in a sometimes repressive political environment, but also demonstrates the importance that participation in the global community has for our generation. As the Christian Science Monitor reporter Sara Miller Llana reports in her article about Yoani, when access to Generation Y was shut down in Cuba, she continued e-mailing her entries to friends abroad who then e-mailed her back the thousands of responses from readers, leading Sanchez to consider herself a "blind blogger." The advantages of this creative use of technology as a tool is best understood how Yoani Sanchez describes it to Sara Miller LLana: "though the government has been physically able to stop her, she says, the technology that has made her--inadvertently from her perspective--the spokesperson of her generation is beyond their grasp...'They can try to restrict technology, but we Cubans are very adept.'"

All of the cases we have witnessed in the past year, since Raul Castro came to power, show young people using new technology to advance their marginalized position through the communication of their needs, wants and realities. By garnering support and attention in their local and international communities, these young people are also indirectly getting a voice in the government, who must realize that if they do not pay heed to the voices of the rising generation, they could potentially face outbursts in the streets. This "informal democracy" that the youth are creating for themselves could, in the best of situations, lead to further social openings that would hopefully provide dissatisfied youth with more forms of expression. It is also an important revelation for us in the United States that the ways that young people are using technology go far beyond entertainment and social scenes.