Grassroots links essential for uplift of Kiswahili in SADC

-part of official means of communication, submitted by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, Brig Gen. Wilbert Ibuge. There is a chance that the countries will make an effort but definitely there is plenty of work to be done before Kiswahili can compete as official language.

Since Kiswahili had already been accepted as an official language but not yet formalised, there are significant chances of making this step, so long as the costing level for SADC is not high as a result. This aspect has not been elaborated as to whether impediments of this sort exist, for instance if it means raising the language to the same level as foreign languages used in SADC, namely English, French and Portuguese. Nor was it clear if the earlier admission of Kiswahili included a programme of action in the sense of steps to be taken towards actual formalization, and whether any ground level preliminaries arise.

At times there are procedures in representational bodies where a member suggesting a move, or some kind of legislation, needs to be seconded by another member so that the proposal can be earnestly taken.  It means that Tanzania may still have some work to do at the diplomatic level to obtain formal assent of another country, for instance, requesting or accepting to use documents translated from the official languages as part of its proper communication channels or official archives. If it is merely for retrieval purposes in that language, the scale of formalization would be limited to translating key documents, etc.

When the permanent secretary says that we in Tanzania have recommended Kiswahili to be used as a working language from the ministerial level to the SADC heads of state and government meetings to enable the language to formally become one among official languages in SADC operations, we in Tanzania can grasp the wisdom of that. Yet for this to become a SADC consensus it will have to attract at least one or two countries, as this will also provide a basis for warranting the use of SADC funds for the Kiswahili inclusion programme. Otherwise Tanzania may have to sponsor Kiswahili inclusion activities.

It is for instance true that SADC has been using colonial languages for a long time and from the wisdom of SADC Heads of State and Government, they decided to use Kiswahili at the ministerial level and Heads of State meetings. This is what the permanent secretary remarked, but it can’t be said that this sentiment has sufficient currency in the southern African zone as a whole, where iIts relationship with the Arab Slave Trade hasn’t been forgotten in the region, and to build a consensus this can’t be ignored.

That is why Kiswahili is formalised to give it the prestige it needs for its being used as a routine tool in regional communications, for instance in cross border trade. If work can be done in that direction, the language may rapidly catch up especially if BAKITA and others organize popularization units. It can be done, if we play out part.