2018 Book LanguageVernacularDiscourseAnd PDF

Finex Ndhlovu
Language, Vernacular Discourse

and Nationalisms
Finex Ndhlovu
Language,
Vernacular Discourse
and Nationalisms
Uncovering the Myths of
Transnational Worlds
Finex Ndhlovu
Linguistics
University of New England
Armidale, NSW, Australia
ISBN 978-3-319-76134-3 ISBN 978-3-319-76135-0 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76135-0
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In memory of my father and hero, James Mabhuku Ndhlovu-Mhaso
(1896–1994). Although you did not get the opportunity to receive modern
education, you nevertheless understood its transformative power and the
promises it holds for a better society. All the toil and personal sacrifices you
made to ensure I receive a good education did pay off. You must be smiling
wherever you are right now.
Izinkomo zakho kazihambelanga ize Babamkhulu.
Preface
The roots of this book lie in three stories about my personal encounter
with how perceived identities of non-desired ‘Others’ are imagined and
constructed in everyday casual conversations. The first story is this. A
few years ago, I visited my aunt, umalumekazi (the wife of my moth-
er’s late brother). She had just lost one of her daughters, so I had gone
there to extend my condolences. My aunt and I then spoke about sev-
eral issues, one of which was about her other children who were not
at home at the time. As I had not met them for a long time, I asked
curiously about the whereabouts of all my cousins, including four boys,
one of whom had been with me in primary school several years back.
She told me about the whereabouts of three of her boys—two were
in South Africa, and the other one was said to be in the local city of
Bulawayo. The only boy she skipped mentioning was the one I went to
school with. So, I reminded my aunt that she had not told me where
my primary school classmate was. She looked at me with a smile and
said in the Ndebele language ‘Ah! Ungatshona ubuza lowo? Angithi lowo
usenguPhiri!’ (Ah! Why would you bother asking about that one? Isn’t
he now a Mr. Phiri!) I could not understand why my aunt called her
vii
viii
Preface
son ‘Phiri’—because this was not his real name. She explained further,
followed by a somewhat sarcastic laughter: ‘Ukhonapha eHarare kodwa
uvele kasalugxobi ekhaya. Yikho nje ngisithi usenguPhiri’ (He is right here
in Harare, but he never sets his foot home anymore. This is why I said
he is now a Mr. Phiri!) We both laughed about it.
The surname ‘Phiri’ is common in Malawi and Zambia, and most
people who migrated to Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) in the 1950s to
take on menial jobs on farms and in mines used this surname. Because
they never had rural homes in Zimbabwe, most such people stayed at
the mine and farm compounds and city townships, even during the fes-
tive holidays, such as Christmas, when locals often travel to their rural
homes to catch up with family and friends. The surname Phiri, then,
became a derogatory label or identity marker, not only for people orig-
inally from Zambia and Malawi, but also for local Zimbabwean people
who, upon gaining employment in the cities, chose to stay there and
lost ties with their rural roots. It was precisely why my aunt called her
son ‘Mr. Phiri’; he had stopped coming home several years ago.
The second story happened sometime in 2011 when I visited
my elder brother’s daughters who live in Harare, the capital city of
Zimbabwe. They are both married—the older sister resides in the sub-
urb of Kuwadzana and the younger in Kambuzuma. They, however,
always have regular contact with each other at community events such
as church services, weddings and funeral vigils. So, on my visit in 2011,
I went to Kuwadzana where efforts were made to call the younger sister
to come over and greet me as I had not met her in a very long time. Her
mobile phone kept on going straight to voicemail, prompting the elder
sister to try and figure out what the problem could have been. Speaking
in the local Ndebele language, she provided the following explanation
for why her younger sister’s mobile phone was not being answered:
USazini ube elele emfeni eKambuzuma. Angabe etshontshelwe ifoni yakhe

ngoba eKambuzuma kugcwele amaNyasarandi.
(Sazini spent last night at a funeral vigil in Kambuzuma. Her mobile
phone might have been stolen while she was there because there are a lot
of maNyasarandi people in Kambuzuma).
Preface
ix
Like in the first story, the so-called maNyasarandi in question are

descendants of black African migrants from Zambia and Malawi who
came to Zimbabwe in the mid-1900s. The name maNyasarandi is a
local rendition of Nyasaland, the colonial name of the present-day
country of Malawi. All Zimbabweans who trace their roots to either
Malawi or Zambia are derogatorily labelled as maNyasarandi up to this
day. Regardless of whether they were born in Zimbabwe or not and of
whether they are Zimbabwean citizens by naturalisation or by birth,
such people are perceived as foreigners who are associated with all sorts
of negative things such as petty thieving, pick pocketing, being uncul-
tured and having lack of understanding and respect for local traditions
and customs. It was for this reason that Sazini’s failure to answer her
phone was said to have been possibly as a result of the phone being sto-
len by maNyasarandi who were suspected to have been at the funeral
vigil as most of them live in the suburb of Kambuzuma. Three questions
are prompted by this story. Why is it that all Zimbabweans of Malawian
and Zambian origin are perceived as foreigners, outsiders, strangers and
non-desired ‘Others’? How do entire communities of people, some born
and raised in Zimbabwe (and have never set foot in either Malawi or
Zambia) become associated with petty criminal activities? What is the
effect of the languages used in the discursive construction of the iden-
tities and character traits of the descendants of black African migrants
who arrived in colonial Zimbabwe in the mid-1900s?
The third and most recent story happened in Pretoria, South Africa,
where I spent six months as a visiting research professor at the Archie
Mafeje Research Institute, University of South Africa. I arrived in
Pretoria on 30 June 2015 and stayed at Protea Hotel for two weeks
while looking for long-term accommodation. During my stay at
the hotel, I interacted with lots of people I had met for the first time
although I struggled with language as most of them spoke either
Setswana or Sepedi. However, on one lucky day I bumped onto a young
lady who spoke isiXhosa, which is one of the languages that I can speak
very well. At the start of the conversation, I spoke with her in English
thinking that she also spoke either Setswana or Sepedi that I could not
x
Preface
speak very well. As the conversation progressed, it came to light that she
was in a similar situation as me because she couldn’t speak or under-
stand the two local languages. When I asked her whether she could
speak either Setswana or Sepedi, she replied with a rather sarcastic tone
expressing her frustration about being perceived as a foreigner by the
majority of people in Pretoria. This is what she said: ‘No, I don’t speak
any of these languages and I don’t want to speak them because these people
think that we are foreigners when in fact, we are all South Africans.’ The
question here is: How does a black South African person get labelled
as a foreigner by fellow black South Africans? In what ways do the
myths of foreignness, belonging and indigeneity both defy and coincide
with normatively defined nation-state-centric identity imaginings? Is it
still tenable to frame notions of belonging on language-based identity
imaginings inherited from colonial and apartheid social engineering
policies of separate existence and development of each people?
Together, these three stories sowed the seeds that got me thinking
about the ways we talk about each other, and the cultural and politi-
cal discourses we use to describe others. As stories such as these gain
resonance beyond the micro-social settings of local communities and
get expressed and acted upon at national and international levels, their
effects become even more pervasive. I thought of the role of ‘small talk’
in shaping popular thinking about what it means to be an insider or
an outsider in the context of the well-known migration histories across
current national borders. The identity question and the associated
meanings of belonging are even more complex when identity markers
normally reserved for foreigners are sarcastically used to describe locals
who would have transgressed local traditional norms and expectations
about what it means to belong and behave—like an indigene and not
like a foreigner—or those who happen to speak a different language.
Language, Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms extends these three
stories and uses them as an entry point in reading new meanings into
contemporary identity debates and imaginings at a global scale. The
book addresses key issues and cross-cutting themes around the evolu-
tion of discursive practices, identity narratives and vocabularies of race,
culture, ethnicity and belonging that tend to be framed in ways that
Preface
xi
contradict popular assumptions about the existence of a transnational

world. It brings to the limelight the social construction of national
identity, which is often seen as a product of political processes. The
argument is that the focus on the political has led to the marginalisation
of the social side of national identity construction.
Armidale, Australia Finex Ndhlovu

Acknowledgements
The genealogy of my academic interest in language and society studies

is relatively short, spanning a period of just over two decades. It was
in the early days of my academic career when, as an undergraduate
student in the Department of African Languages and Literature at the
University of Zimbabwe, I got inspired by professors who taught a
unit that was vaguely titled ‘Language in Social Context’. This was an
elective unit that was not very popular with most fellow students in my
class. However, I found the unit quite fascinating as it was markedly
different from what seemed to be a dry, boring, uninspiring and con-
fusing study of theoretical linguistics—phonetics and phonology, X-bar
theory and so on. In this elective unit, I was introduced for the very
first time to the social, cultural and political dimensions of language
that spoke directly to my experiences with the workings of languages in
education and in society writ large. I still remember very well a lecture
on language policy and planning by Prof. Herbert Chimhundu that was
to be the genesis of my long-standing interest in sociolinguistics. To
Prof. Chimhundu, I say thank you so much for being such an inspiring
university teacher because the motivation I got from that one lecture
you gave in the Llewellyn Lecture Theatre became the foundation on
xiii
xiv
Acknowledgements
which I have built my academic career. In those early days, I also had
the good fortune of being taught introductory sociolinguistics by Prof.
Juliet Thondhlana. To Juliet, I also say thank you for those passionate
and well-articulated lectures that still linger vividly in my memory.
In the years that followed my completion of Honours and postgrad-
uate studies, I was appointed to the academic position of lecturer in the
Department of African Languages and Culture at the Midlands State
University (MSU). It was at MSU that my budding academic interests
in language and society studies blossomed as I taught sociolinguistics
units in both the B.A. Honours and B.A. General Degree programmes.
To all my former colleagues and students at MSU, I say thank you for
your collegiality and the challenging questions that we debated together.
Starting from 2005 to the present and, being based in Australia, I have
received tremendous support and mentoring from many senior aca-
demic colleagues: first while at Monash University (where I did my
Ph.D.), then at Victoria University (where I was a postdoctoral research
fellow for three years) and presently at the University of New England
(where I now hold a senior academic position). I am exceedingly grate-
ful to all three institutions for their various research grant schemes and
other forms of academic support that have facilitated the flourishing
of my academic work in language and society studies. To Dr. Sophia
Waters and all my past and current Ph.D. students, thank you for
always asking me about my next book even before the one I am work-
ing on is not yet out. I am especially grateful to the following former
Ph.D. students of mine for challenging my thinking around the issues
discussed in this book: Dr. Thoai Ton, Dr. Jesta Masuku, Dr. Sura Alani
and Dr. Arvind Vijaykumar Iyengar.
To Prof. Lewis Bizo, Head of the School of Behavioural, Cognitive
and Social Sciences at the University of New England, and Assoc. Prof.
Debra Dunstan, Deputy Head of the same School, I say thank you
so much for all your support and encouragement. You both very gen-
erously supported my request to spend four months at the Graduate
Center, City University of New York (CUNY), which enabled me to
finalise the manuscript for this book. I also extend my sincere grati-
tude to the Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC) Program at the
CUNY Graduate Center for appointing me to the esteemed position of
Acknowledgements
xv
Distinguished Visiting Professor. This was an excellent opportunity that

provided a vibrant and collegial intellectual environment that enriched
my research and finalisation of the book manuscript. The office space
with a computer and access to the CUNY intranet and other facili-
ties were invaluable. I would like to thank in particular, Kay Powell
(ARC Fellowship Program Manager), Profs. Don Robothan (Director
of the ARC Fellowship Program), Ofelia García, Tatyna Kleyn, Leketi
Makalela and all other ARC faculty and student fellows for all your sup-
port and the opportunity to network and exchange research ideas.
To my daughter Andiswa, thank you for accompanying me to New
York. It was such a great joy to have you take some time off your main
business of ‘exploring New York City’ and attend seminars with me.
And to the rest of my family—Thembi, Sindiso, Thandi, Zoe and Mylo
(our kelpie who thinks he is human)—I say thank you all for under-
standing that I had to be away from home researching and writing this
book. I hope you will find satisfaction in the pages that follow.
Two of the chapters in this book are greatly revised versions of my
journal articles. I am, therefore, thankful to Taylor and Francis for per-
mission to use the following chapters: Chapter 2 ‘Emergent Political
Languages, Nation Building and Social Cohesion’ (a revised version of
Ndhlovu 2017a) and Chapter 6 ‘Alternative Language of Development
and Economic Empowerment’ (a revised version of Ndhlovu 2017b).
Last but not least, I extend my gratitude to Beth Farrow and the
Production team at Palgrave Macmillan for a job well done.
References
Ndhlovu, F. (2017a). Vernacular Discourse, Emergent Political Languages
and Belonging in Southern Africa. Africa Review, 10(1). [Online version]
https://doi.org/10.1080/09744053.2017.1401783.
Ndhlovu, F. (2017b). Southern Development Discourse for Southern Africa:
Linguistic and Cultural Imperatives. Journal of Multicultural Discourses,
12(2), 89–109.
Contents
Part I Setting the Scene
1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates 3
2 Emergent Political Languages, Nation Building, Social

Cohesion 41
Part II Language, Vernacular Discourse, Narrow Nationalisms
3 Language Policy, Vernacular Discourse, Empire Building 65
4 Language, Mobility, People 105
Part III Citizenship, Indigeneity, Economic Empowerment
5 Chimurengas, Indigenisation, Black Economic

Empowerment 135
xvii
xviii
Contents
6 Alternative Language of Development and Economic

Empowerment 207
Part IV Migration, Borders, Exclusion
7 Migration, Integration Discourse, Exclusion 243
8 Australia’s Operation Sovereign Borders—A World

Without Others? 291
Part V Conclusion
9 Conclusion—Transnationalism or Resurgent Narrow

Nationalisms? 339
Bibiliography 351
Index 377
Abbreviations and Acronyms
ABC Australian Broadcasting Services

ACALAN African Academy of Languages
ACCESS Australian Assessment of Communicative English Skills
ACPEA Australian Council on Ethnic and Population Affairs
ALRI African Languages Research Institute
ANC African National Congress
AU African Union
B-BBEE Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment
CDA Critical Discourse Analysis
CLaRA Communal Land Rights Act
COMESA Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa
CPDA Critical Political Discourse Analysis
DACST Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology
DIEA Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs
DRC Democratic Republic of Congo
ELICOS English Language Intensive Course for Overseas Students
ESAP Economic Structural Adjustment Programme
ESB English Speaking Background
ESL English as a Second Language
EU European Union
FET Further Education and Training
xix
xx
Abbreviations and Acronyms
FTLR Fast Track Land Reform Programme

IMF International Monetary Fund
IRA Immigration Restriction Act
KKK Ku Klux Klan
MDC Movement for Democratic Change
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
NCPZ National Cultural Policy of Zimbabwe
NESB Non-English Speaking Background
NLPAP National Language Policy Advisory Panel
OAU Organisation of African Unity
OREs Occupations Requiring English
OSB Operation Sovereign Borders
PF-ZAPU Patriotic Front-Zimbabwe African People’s Union
PRC People’s Republic of China
SADC Southern African Development Community
SAIRR South African Institute of Race Relations
SBS Special Broadcasting Services
SIEVs Suspected Illegal Entry Vessels
STEP Special Test of English Proficiency
TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
TPVs Temporary Protection Visas
UK United Kingdom
UKIP United Kingdom Independence Party
UN United Nations
UNESCO United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
USA United States of America
VCBLs Vehicular Cross-border Languages
WB World Bank
ZANU PF Zimbabwe African Nationalist Union Patriotic Front
ZTV Zimbabwe Television
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Statistics on education, literacy and employment

in South Africa 44
Table 6.1 Cross-border languages of Southern Africa
(Adapted from Elugbe 1998) 228
xxi
Part I
Setting the Scene
1
Introduction—Theories,
Concepts, Debates
The things that we supposedly know so foundationally about national

identities, national borders, citizenship, parameters of belonging and
entitlement to social and economic benefits of the welfare state, trans-
nationalism and associated meta-languages are not as straightforward
as they seem to be. We are told and believe that the world has become
more and more transnational and interconnected than ever before. We
are also told that societies have become superdiverse—that suppos-
edly unprecedented and unpredictable form of diversity that is per-
ceived to be an outflow of contemporary trends in migration where
people are moving from many places, to many places, through many
places (Vertovec 2007). But in the midst of all this are deep-seated sen-
timents—loud and muted, formal and informal—for narrow, paro-
chial, inward-looking, autochthonous and nation-state-centric narratives
and imaginings of identity and belonging. How do we explain the ten-
sions and contradictions that emerge out of this situation? Language,
Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms seeks to address this and many
other related questions. It examines linguistic and discursive elements
of social and economic policies and national political leader statements
as an entry point in reading new meanings into current topical debates
on border protection, national sovereignty, immigration, economic
© The Author(s) 2018 3
F. Ndhlovu, Language, Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76135-0_1
4
F. Ndhlovu
indigenisation, land reform and black economic empowerment. The

book is a critique of resurgent nationalism-speak that mediates social
and economic policy debates in a world that is otherwise considered to
be transnational and interconnected. It tells the story of tensions and
contradictions between formal policy enunciations on transnation-
alism on the one hand and vernacular expressions of the same on the
other, as they are articulated at the level of the nation-state. The book
adopts the novel yet rarely used vernacular discourse approach to con-
tribute new points of method and interpretation that help us see what
we couldn’t—or wouldn’t—see before in scholarly conversations on
nationalisms, transnationalism and other forms of identity imaginings
in a transient world. The framework of vernacular discourse is leveraged
to unpack and understand political communication in the reproduction
of political power, or domination through political discourse, including
the various forms of resistance or counter-power against such forms of
discursive dominance. In particular, the analysis deals with the discur-
sive conditions and consequences of social and political inequality that
result from the strategic use of language by political elites, bureaucrats
and other political actors, both state and non-state. Case studies include
Australia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, with some passing remarks on
other comparable countries around the world.
Since the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 to end the thir-
ty-year war among major European continental states—Holy Roman
Empire, Spain, France, Sweden and the Dutch Republic—the modern
world system has largely been a world of sovereign nation-states. The
nation-state remains as the most enduring instrument of social and
political closure. In the midst of other emerging units of analysis that
are much bigger and broader, such as regionalism, globalisation and
transnationalism, the nation-state appears to have mutated and taken
new forms that are different from what obtained during the golden age
of nationalism (1950s–1960s). During the golden age of nationalism,
recognition of autonomous nation-states was a major rallying point
for anti-colonial nationalist liberation movements in Africa, Asia and
other regions of the Global South. The nationalist movements were
pushing for political independence and self-determination in those ter-
ritories that were still under European colonial occupation. However,
1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates
5
while the nation-state could have been rightfully typified as a container

in the 1950s–1960s, its present-day iteration sits rather uneasily within
a world system that is now largely governed by the dictates of greater
social, political, economic and cultural cooperation that are somewhat
transnational in outlook. The nation-state is now under immense pres-
sure both from below and from above. From below, the hegemony of
the nation-state is being challenged by the increasing discontent and
dissention of minority groups while forces of globalisation and trans-
national human population movements constitute a potent threat from
above. It suffices to say notwithstanding these challenges posed by both
local and translocal developments that are tied to forces of transnation-
alism and globalisation, the political significance of the nation-state
seems to still remain relevant—but with its borders reconfigured, taking
at least the following three forms.
First, nation-states retain clearly delineated physical borders that
demarcate parameters of territorial rule, sovereignty, monopoly on the
use of force and ‘collectivisation of social risks by means of a state-
sponsored welfare system’ (Mau 2012: 7). This iteration of the nation-
state does not depart that much from the foundational characteristic
of the nation as ‘container’. The second mutation of the contemporary
nation-state is one that relies heavily on citizenship as an instrument of
social closure. This is not about whether one resides within or without
the clearly demarcated physical borders of the nation-state. Rather, it
has more to do with what Halfmann (1998, cited in Mau 2012: 8) calls
the ‘civil inclusionary exclusivity’ acquired by the nation-state. This is
about how the nation-state is still able to control the inclusion—and
by extension, the exclusion—of people in various functional systems.
Regardless of their close connection to the geographical space known
as the nation-state, diverse groups of people can be treated differently
according to whether they are citizens or not. In this context ‘special
rules [may] apply to those persons not citizens of the state in which they
live, rules that regulate the length and status of residence as well as the
rights associated with their residence’ (Mau 2012: 8).
Third, the nation-state remains in symbolic and performative terms
that reflect what some scholars have described as ‘vanishing borders’
and ‘borderless’ or ‘seamless’ worlds (French 2000; Krugman and
6
F. Ndhlovu
Venables 1995; Ohmae 1990). In other words, the prime markers of

belonging to a particular nation-state now have less to do with the phys-
ically bounded container territory and more to do with the symbolic—
the national identity documents we carry, the national cuisine that we
believe defines us, the national dress code that we associate with, the
national day(s) we celebrate and so on. This is about nationalisms of the
mind whereby the idea of belonging to a particular nation-state thrives
in the hearts and minds of individuals and groups alike—regardless
of where those groups and individuals reside physically. Their loyalties
and allegiances are to the nation-state inscribed in their minds, and
the way they are treated by the governing authorities of other nation-
states is largely determined by the travel and identity documents they
carry. So, in the era in which ‘more people are now moving from more
places, through more places, to more places’ (Vertovec 2010: 86), the
nation-state has assumed a different kind of a container—one where
temporalities of closure, inclusion and exclusion coexist within highly
mobile individuals. In other words, though we may not necessarily be
physically located in the nation-states of our citizenship or nationality,
those nation-states still play a significant role in how we live our lives
because we carry them wherever we go. Thus, in its decentralised form,
the nation-state ‘crosses nation-state boundaries, penetrates and is real-
ised in the daily activities of people’ (Albrow 1996: 172).
What is of greater significance here is that in all three reconfigu-
rations, nation-states still retain a double process of closure. That is,
nation-states continue to be characterised by closure of the geographic
space through border controls and closure of the social and political
space for membership through the control of nationality, citizenship and
access to social security and other protections by the state. These two
forms of closure are mutually constitutive: on the one hand, controls of
human population movements into and from a nation-state serve as an
external casing that regulates access to territories. On the other hand,
this casing is embedded with the space of social and political member-
ship through which access to welfare services is managed (Mau 2012).
This essentially means the boundaries of the nation-state have not yet
disappeared and are most likely not going to disappear any time soon.
7
Today, the boundaries of the nation-state are ubiquitous, temporal and

continue to be drawn everywhere. They are no longer only physical, but
are also largely symbolic, performative and invisible and yet still remain
real with their impacts and significance felt everywhere, by all of us.
While the physical border as the only imaginary of nation-state’s sphere
of influence has to some extent receded, it still contains several attributes
of its former self. Traditional attributes of the nation-state such as auton-
omy, self-determination, territorial integrity and non-interference from
other nation-states still remain. Thus, though the previously presumed
congruence between nation-state and society is on the wane and increas-
ingly becoming unpopular, nation-states continue to have the decisive
voice about membership of societies bounded by their borders—no
matter how porous and fluid the borders might be. Nation-states are
not necessarily assuming a new role. Rather, their role has been trans-
formed, reconfigured and expanded beyond the traditional architecture
of a bounded container.
Previous Theorisations
Nearly half a century ago, John W. Barton wrote about dominant per-
spectives on the configuration of the world and implications for the
paths we follow in seeking solutions to world problems.
Which is the more representative model of the world–the world of con-

tinents, islands and states or the world of transactions? If we adopt the
nation-state we will use the language of relations between states and their
relevant power, and have one set of solutions to the problems of conflict
and world organisation. If we adopt the transaction one, we will use a
different language to describe the world society, and have a different set of
solutions to world problems. (John W. Burton 1972: 43)
Persistent changes in the phenomenology of the nation-state (that is no

longer only spatial and physical) are somewhat of a response to social,
cultural, economic and political transformations taking place in the
8
F. Ndhlovu
postmodern world system. Key among these developments are several

complex societal challenges associated with the surge in the mobility
of people, goods, services and capital within and across national bor-
ders. Consequently, we have witnessed the burgeoning of conceptual
approaches seeking to clarify previously unseen tendencies towards
ethno-nationalist and autochthonous sentiment even in those coun-
tries that are generally typified as liberal democracies. Scholars across
the humanities and social sciences have tried to capture the nature of
these unpredictable developments using various summary terms that
are now widely used in mainstream academic conversations and social
policy frameworks. Some such theoretical paradigms include notions of
globalisation, denationalisation, deterritorialisation, postnationalisation
and, more recently, transnationalisation. What unites all these explana-
tory paradigms is that they are couched in a language that betrays imag-
inings of contemporary identities as reified, inflexible and tied to the
now increasingly problematic notion of nationality (in singular terms).
In the remaining paragraphs of this section, I explicate the meanings
and applications of each of these terms as they are understood in pre-
vious research reports. I also show their omissions and blind spots in
greater detail. This is followed by a discussion on how the concept of
vernacular discourse advanced in this book departs from these main-
stream traditional theorisations in ways that take the debate into a new
and innovative direction that draws our attention to mundane everyday
small talk of both political elites and ordinary people.
Post Nationalisation
Pioneered by Yasemin Nuhoğlu Soysal, the postnational model of mem-

bership posits that in transnational or regionalised contexts ‘the rights
and the claims of individuals are legitimated by ideologies grounded in
a transnational community, through international codes, conventions
and laws on human rights, independent of their citizenship in a nation-
state’ (Soysal 1994: 142). In postnational membership, Soysal (1994)
challenges the predominant assumption, both scholarly and popular,
9
that the actions and decisions of the nation-state are the ultimate imper-
ative to regional and transnational engagement. Unlike the classical
model of national identity, which is anchored in territorialised notions
of cultural belonging, the postnational model is an open one that
emphasises fluid and deterritorialised modes of identity and belong-
ing. Thus, from the perspective of the postnational model, national
belonging does not mean containment within geographical confines
of the nation-state in question. Instead, it is about a geographical area
being open to multiple possibilities of trade, social networking and eco-
nomic and cultural exchanges with other players at national, regional
and international levels. Under the postnational model of membership,
the intensification and connectedness of national, regional and global
systems do not necessarily signal that nation-states are organisationally
irrelevant or that their formal sovereignty is questioned (Soysal 1994).
Rather, the point is this: nation-states remain as authorised actors that
function concurrently with regional and international structures of
organising membership, participation and rules of social, cultural, eco-
nomic and political engagement.
Overall, the notion of post nationalism constitutes the foundation
for subsequent theorisations about the present world system whereby
the notion of the nation-state as container is challenged. The usefulness
of seeing the nation-state as the unit of social and political analysis is
problematised because, as Anthony Giddens (1990) observed, virtually
no pre-modern societies were clearly bounded as modern nation-states.
The proliferation of transboundary dynamics and formation has meant
that the thesis on the nation as container category is now untenable and
inadequate—both conceptually and methodologically (Taylor 1996;
Sassen 2003). This means the popular habit of seeing the world through
the lenses of the nation-state is flawed due to the coalescence of mul-
tiple structurations of the global and the local inside a space that has
historically been understood as the national. While nation-state as con-
tainers are thick-walled with their societies perceived as relatively homo-
geneous and isolated from each other (Mau 2012: 7), the reality that
obtains in the atoms of society is quite different.
10
F. Ndhlovu
Globalisation
The term globalisation is among the most mundane concepts that

have come to be associated with the twenty-first-century world system.
Though there are numerable competing interpretations and understand-
ings of how far back we should go in tracing the roots of ‘globalisation’,
there is general consensus on the impact it has in the way we live our
lives today. One thing worth noting from the onset is the root of the
word ‘globalisation’, which derives from ‘global’, thus referring to some-
thing ‘concerned with the whole world, something related to, covering
or influencing the world taken as a whole’ (Elden 2005: 9). A generally
accepted understanding of this concept is one provided by Held et al.
(1999: 16) who define globalisation as a:
Process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spa-

tial organisation of social relations and transactions – assessed in terms of
extensity, intensity, velocity and impact – generating transcontinental or
interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction, and the exercise
of power.
Steffen Mau (2012) simplifies this somewhat loaded definition by relat-

ing the notion of globalisation to the declining significance and influ-
ence of the nation-state as a unit of social and political analysis. He
characterises globalisation as ‘worldwide process of economic, social,
and cultural internationalisation that dilutes the significance of nation-
state borders and [that] leads to an (almost unlimited) expansion of
spaces of action’ (p. 11). Mau cites the work of Albrow (1996) to elab-
orate this definition even further: ‘globalisation is the process whereby
the population of the world is increasingly bound into a single society’
(Mau 2012: 11). For Saskia Sassen (2003), the term globalisation cap-
tures two distinct sets of dynamics. The first involves the formation of
explicitly global institutions and processes—World Trade Organisation,
World Bank, International Monetary Fund, War Crimes Tribunals and
so on. The second is a set of local processes that does not necessarily
scale at the global level as such but still constitutes part of globalisa-
tion. Some such processes include localised national, subnational and
11
regional cross-border social and economic networks and activities ‘with

an explicit or implicit global agenda, as is the case with many human
rights and environmental organisations’ (Sassen 2003: 2). This is essen-
tially about practices that constitute the global and yet are taking place
at a level that is traditionally conceived as the domain of the national
scale.
Amin (1997: 133) interprets globalisation in relational terms as
‘the interdependence and intermingling of global, distant and local
layers, resulting in the greater hybridisation and perforation of social,
economic and political life’. This suggests the rise of what Krükan
and Drori (2009) call a ‘world society’. The notion of ‘world society’
is shorthand for how Western principles and habits of modernity are
exported to the rest of the world through processes that normatively
replicate corresponding standardisations of cultural practices, values,
economic models, institutions and so on. In short, when taken on its
face value, globalisation is about the emergence of a new world order
that is characterised by equality among all—with shared cultural values,
dreams, visions and aspirations about how to live life and live it well.
But a critical look at this concept would indicate that this idealistic
notion of globalisation does, in fact, hide a lot more than it reveals.
The rather uncritical and almost cultic embrace of the concept of
‘globalisation’ and its associated metalanguage of ‘global village’ is prob-
lematic and untenable. Some crucial questions remain unanswered: As
every village has a village head, who is the head of the global village?
And, as every village has a language for conducting its affairs, which lan-
guage is the language of the global village? Any person who grew up or
lived in a village for a reasonable amount of time will know that not
all villages—whether big or small—are democratic and inclusive of the
views of all members of the village community. Most village heads are
never democratic as they often rule with an iron fist usually surrounded
by an equally autocratic palaver of mostly male securocrats. This way of
running the affairs of the village is deliberately designed to give a sem-
blance of rule by consensus while simultaneously concealing the author-
itarian nature of the village system (Ndhlovu 2014). Furthermore, while
every local village might have several languages, it is often the case that
the language of the village head and those within the inner circle of the
12
F. Ndhlovu
political establishment is the one that is the medium for conducting

official business of the village. Tariq Ramadan (2011) has weighed in on
the hypocrisy of the village metaphor:
The global world is a village, they say, yet this village currently appears to
be populated by heedless villagers who ignore their own identity as much
as the identity of their neighbours. Instead of a confident celebration of
our riches, such a situation can only lead to timid, fearful, latent conflicts.
(Ramadan 2011: 20)
Ramadan extends his argument further, noting that ‘life in the ‘global
village’, which is increasingly marked by individualism, has even led
us to doubt that there remain any traces of philosophy behind the cal-
culation of our drives for power and of our respective interests’ (ibid.,
p. 21). The significant point here is that the discourses and metaphors
that underpin the notion of globalisation (and other postmodernist the-
oretical frameworks) are fraught with numerous inadequacies. The idea
that the global world is some kind of a village gives the false impres-
sion that villages are populated by fully engaged villagers who actively
participate in the everyday affairs of their village and who do so in the
interests of their fellow villagers. As Ramadan (2011) clearly argues, this
is simply not true; the majority of people in small local villages (and
by extension members of the global village) are passive, disengaged,
non-proactive and above all driven by self-interest in whatever they do.
Both the local and global villages are also spaces dominated and con-
trolled by a few hegemonic elite who propagate and cultivate normative
linguistic and cultural values that are subsequently imposed on every
other member of the village under the guise of universalism and/or
social cohesion. Therefore, by drawing on the metaphor of the village to
describe issues of culture and identity in contemporary society, the con-
cept of globalisation gives a false sense of equality among world cultures
and a misleading impression that all cultures and identities are recog-
nised as integral part of the so-called global village. What the champi-
ons of globalisation fail to reveal is the fact that beneath this thin veneer
of horizontal global cultural and identity comradeship lie simmering
tensions and multiple forms of both spoken and unspoken or symbolic
13
violence, xenophobia, racism, bigotry and all manner of discrimination

and exclusion. What is even more telling is that it is in this age of high-
sounding ideals of ‘globalisation’, ‘postmodernism’, ‘multiculturalism’
and ‘plurality’ that the majority of the world’s citizens seem to be locked
within their specificities and their differences magnified even more than
ever before. Fear, doubt and suspicion seem to have insensibly colonised
the hearts and minds of people from all around the world—‘the “other”
becomes our negative mirror whose difference enables us to define our-
selves, to identify ourselves…’ (Ramadan 2011: 20).
The key contours of globalisation and those of other similar theoret-
ical suppositions do not answer to these tendencies towards divergences
and cultural insularities in a world that is apparently being portrayed as
having more cultural commonalities than differences. In other words,
globalisation is a summary term for the unfinished modernisation pro-
ject. It is an extension or, rather, reincarnation of the modern world sys-
tem with its insatiable quest for cultural normativity, uniformity and
homogenisation—albeit by stealth. As indicated in the preceding para-
graphs, the genealogy of the notion of globalisation reveals it is an ideo-
logical movement that seeks to deceive, mislead and ultimately provide
a false sense of equality among all, in a world that is evidently unequal
and continues to push in that direction, now more than ever before.
Denationalisation
Like all other theorisations that preceded it, the concept of denationalisa-
tion has been variously defined and subjected to multiple interpretations.
The most commonly cited definition is one given by Michael Zürn (1998,
cited in Mau 2012: 13) who conceives denationalisation as being about
the ‘relative increase of intensity and reach of cross-border exchange or
production processes in the areas of economics, the environment, author-
ity, mobility as well as communication and culture’ (translated by Mau
2012: 13). The significant point in this definition is that denationalisa-
tion takes as its starting point changes to the nation-state to account for
changes in global human relations taking place at multiscaler levels that
articulate with discourses of globalisation. Saskia Sassen (2003) provided a
14
F. Ndhlovu
more refined and robust interpretation. For him, denationalisation is when

‘some components of national institutions, even though formally national,
are not national in the sense in which state practice has constructed the
meaning of that term. [It is when] particular institutional components
of the national state begin to function as the institutional home for the
operation of powerful dynamics constitutive of what we could describe as
“global capital” and “global capital markets”’ (Sassen 2003: 8–9).
Evidently, the emphasis in Sassen’s conceptualisation of denationali-
sation is on political-economic imperatives of globalisation. This, how-
ever, does not negate the salient point about how he correctly draws
our attention to how the roles of nation-state institutions have been
broadened: from (exclusively) serving national interests to implementa-
tion and regulation of global agendas. Denationalisation is, thus, about
a partial delinking of exclusive accountability of such institution as
the legislature, courts of law, human rights commissions and even the
executive arms of government from the nation-state. Under the dena-
tionalisation frame of analysis, there is duality of functions of state insti-
tutions whereby they simultaneously serve the national and the global.
This is exemplified by current international conventions and guidelines
such as those of the United Nations—Millennium Development Goals,
Climate Change Protocols and so on—that require or, better still, com-
pel member states to pass legislative measures, regulations and court
decisions that articulate with global systems. Put crudely, the extreme
version of what denationalisation entails can be said to equate national
institution capture by global imperatives.
Denationalisation, therefore, signals what Sassen (2003: 8) calls ‘the
formation of new geographies of power confronting national states’.
It is about power dispersal or deconcentration of authority to regu-
late the roles of state institutions. The monitoring of how national
institutions discharge their mandates no longer solely rests with the
nation-state. Rather, it is a shared responsibility between the nation-
state and global partners—the aim being to satisfy social, economic
and political imperatives at both the local/national and global scales.
One thing that endures is what Michel Foucault (1972) called ‘gov-
ernmentality’—that is, the propensity, the desire and the mentality
to want to manipulate, control and ultimately govern by enlisting the
15
spontaneous consent of those on whom power is to be exercised—

subjects, citizens, nationals, non-nationals and all. The nation-state
continues to function as the articulator of these new social, cultural
and political configurations.
Deterritorialisation
The concept of deterritorialisation is associated with the work of

French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guttari (1987, 1988,
1994). Delueze and Guttari argued that a territory is created through
the dual processes of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation. Thus,
for Deleuze and Guattari, deterritorialisation is about ‘the relation
between thought and territorial placing, between internal and external
exile, and bears relation to notions of nomad thought, hybridity and
diaspora’ (Elden 2005: 9). That is, components of social, political or
physical space are separated, made autonomous and then re-assembled/
re-constituted to attain new meanings within a new territory. Thus,
‘deterritorialisation epitomises the liberating feeling of disconnection
and represents the lines of flight that simultaneously make the exist-
ence of a territory possible, and destabilize its fixed character’ (Mikula
2008: 48). The premise is that as individuals and groups move across
the globe, they undergo complex social re-articulation whereby they
are simultaneously uprooted from one territory and reterritorialised in
another. This is about the ‘dialectic of territorialisation/deterritorialisa-
tion, a mixture of spatial fixity and unfixity’ (Castree 2003: 427). The
key point here is one about the social process of mapping identity onto
space in ways that challenge homogenising approaches of most main-
stream national identity theories.
Deterritorialisation is, in theory and in practice, an offshoot of the
discourse of globalisation. The point of departure in deterritorialisation
is not necessarily about the effects of the internationalisation of trade,
the homogenisation of culture or the perceived evaporation of the
power of the nation-state. As Stuart Elden (2005: 8) argues, the con-
cern is with ‘how the concept of globalisation has been thought geo-
graphically, that is spatially’. Elden (2005) goes on to point out that
16
F. Ndhlovu
suggestions that we have moved away from territorial understandings

of politics, culture, identity and so on fail to conceptually elaborate the
notion of territory itself. In other words, though the diminishing role of
the nation-state as a unit of social and political analysis is not questiona-
ble anymore, this does not in any way suggest that territory is no longer
inherently tied to the nation-state. Regardless of the scale at which it
is imagined (be it local, national, regional, transnational or global),
the idea of territory remains as one of the underpinning pillars of the
present world system.
Therefore, the deterritorialisation interpretation of the present world
system posits that territory continues to occupy the foundations of
how we view social, cultural, political and economic arrangements.
Deterritorialisation does not refute the existence of territory. Instead, it
pushes for new and more complicated ways of conceptualising territory—
ways that enable us to decouple previous links between space, identity and
belonging and stability. In the words of Papastergiadis (2000: 117), the
conceptual framework of deterritorialisation situates the notion of com-
munity in multiple locations, splits loyalties and challenges mainstream
theorisations that conceive territory as tied to physical geographical spaces.
The idea of space and territory posited in deterritorialisation is one that
transcends the ‘container’ or geometric view associated with concepts of
Newton and Kant (Taylor 1994). With its critique of spatial understand-
ings of territory, deterritorialisation aligns with Doreen Massey’s concep-
tualisation of space as a site of indeterminacy, a sphere of the possibility of
the coexistence of difference and multiplicity—‘a simultaneity of stories;
that sense of right now’ (Massey 2003: 109).
By way of summary, the concept of deterritorialisation is essentially
about how territory (including the idea of the nation-state) is both
about fixed, impermeable boundaries and the political usage of space/
territory as an emergent concept. Deterritorialisation is about the flu-
idity and temporality that underscore the competence of individuals
to reconfigure their social lives and identities under different space and
time conditions. On the one hand, the framework of deterritorialisation
challenges the simplistic view that mobility necessarily undermines the
significance of places and territories. On the other hand, it underscores
the fact that through individual and collective practices, connections
17
between places and people are established, thus bringing back into iden-
tity narratives the idea of territory (Mau 2012). Deterritorialisation is
a useful concept that helps us think anew the notion of territory and
see how the logic of territoriality is both played out and challenged (in
equal measure) in the present world system (Elden 2005: 10). This is
particularly so when it is conceived in the context of the current height-
ened mobility of people, goods and services and the intensity of inter-
cultural contacts among people from differing backgrounds, from both
the Northern and Southern orbits of the world.
Transnationalisation
The concept of transnationalism is a quite contemporary buzz word

that abounds in much of the relevant social science literature (see, e.g.,
accounts by Mau 2012; Vertovec 2006, 2007; Sassen 2003). The origins
of this concept are tied to the burgeoning body of migration research
interested in how transborder social spaces are largely constituted by
migrants and migrant organisations (Mau 2012). Drawing on the work
of Smith (2001), Steffen Mau (2012: 17) says ‘transnationalism refers
to the relational and horizontal character of the political, economic and
social processes taking place today, and is interested in social actions and
transactions which make the walls of the nation-sate appear porous and
increasingly permeable’. Saskia Sassen (2003: 15) characterises transna-
tionalism as ‘a response to the fact that the nation as container category
is inadequate given the proliferation of transboundary dynamics and for-
mations’. Thus, like other theorisations that preceded it, the concept of
transnationalism draws our attention to the growing significance of new
supra—or inter-governmental forms of social, political and economic
regulation that play out at multiscale over and above the framework of
the nation-state. Pries (2002) dissects the notion of transnationalism
even further by noting in particular its bifurcated form. He identifies a
broader version and a narrower version of the concept as follows. The
broader version of transnationalism refers to all forms of exchange, com-
munication, life practices, solidarity, feelings of affiliation and employ-
ment relations that cross the borders of the nation-state. On the other
hand, the remit of the narrower understanding of the term is limited to
18
F. Ndhlovu
those forms of transboundary social, economic and political relations

and networks that have achieved a certain level of institutionalisation
and permanence (Pries 2002 cited in Mau 2012: 19). The narrower con-
ception of the term underscores formalisation of networks and exchanges
as an important caveat for what constitutes a transnational process or
activity. That is to say, not every border crossing activity or social transac-
tion amounts to transnationalism; it has to be formalised for it to fit into
the label. As I argue in the paragraphs that follow, the concept of trans-
nationalism is limited in several respects, both in its border and narrower
interpretation.
Like all other seemingly novel and progressive, but very deceptive
theoretical frameworks that preceded it, transnationalism is not a sui
generic phenomenon. It is necessarily interested and is inspired by spe-
cific players with vested political interests. The singular most prominent
theme that unites transnationalism with all other theoretical frame-
works reviewed in the preceding paragraphs is one about the errone-
ous assumption that the present scale and intensity of migration-driven
diversity are necessarily a new phenomenon. I submit that there is abso-
lutely nothing new and novel about the perceived complexities being
described by this burgeoning body of theorisations. This is because
migration—which is said to be the main reason behind heightened lev-
els of contact among people from disparate social, cultural, religious and
political backgrounds—is itself not a new phenomenon at all. Many
‘pre-modern’ and pre-colonial African societies, for example, were char-
acterised by high levels of human population movements for all sorts of
reasons including barter trade, adventures, and seasonal pastoral migra-
tions. However, these early forms of African migration have so far not
been recognised as fitting under the rubric of ‘typical’ migration typolo-
gies. Rather, they have been labelled as ‘nomadic’ movements, a derog-
atory term that takes away the value and significance of pre-colonial
forms of African migration (Ndhlovu 2014). Furthermore, the body
of literature on early human civilisations is replete with examples illus-
trating the long history of the social processes of migration and cultural
diversity. Turner and Khondker (2010), for example, recount William
McNeill’s (1986) observation about how cities in the Middle Ages were
home to people from different nationalities and races because they were
the loci of business and trade.
19
Two of the oldest mosques were built in China—one in the port city
of Guanzhou in the south and the other in Xian for the benefit of the
Arab Muslim traders in the first millennium […]. Dhaka, the capital city
of Bangladesh, was home to various nationalities in the eighteenth cen-
tury. Foreign and Indian merchants, traders and bankers—Europeans,
Armenians, Pathans, Turanis, Marwaris, and other up-country Hindus—
came to Dhaka to do business. (Turner and Khondker 2010: 176)
This clearly shows that what is currently being described as previously

unseen developments in human population mobility does not nec-
essarily typify a new phenomenon. These developments have always
been there even in pre-modern times. The incipient increase in the
number of new theories particularly coming from the Global North is
symptomatic of the Western world playing catch-up game. Since the
Enlightenment period and the onset of the modern world system, most
Western societies had always been used to outward migration. European
travellers, adventurers, missionaries, merchants, fortune seekers, coloni-
alists and all traversed the world and occupied territories they invaded,
by force and by stealth. For this reason, unlike their colonisers, people
in colonised regions of the world got used to living with the culturally
different Other. What is happening now is a situation where more and
more people from the Global South are migrating to the Global North.
This comes across as a new phenomenon that is a source of angst in
Western societies because they are not used to living with people other
than those who look like themselves and who are largely from their
own orbit of the world. It is in this context that contemporary forms
of migration are misconstrued as new phenomena that call for new
explanatory paradigms and social-theoretic frameworks. But as I have
already indicated above, this is more about Western societies waking up
to the realities of something that has always been part of human society.
The only difference is that we are now witnessing different categories of
migrants moving to those regions of the world where they are labelled as
the non-desired other.
The previous theories of migration reviewed above do not sufficiently
map today’s multiplication of practices, social and political networks and
identities of both groups and individuals at local, national and global
scales. The major limitation of these mainstream theorisations is one about
20
F. Ndhlovu
their persistent focus on the logic of states and the scale of the state at a
time when we see a proliferation of non-state actors, cross-border processes
and associated changes in the scope, exclusivity and competence of state
authority (Sassen 2003: 7). All previous theorisations are also characterised
by their non-critical approach to the supposed existence of a transnational
world. They overlook the lived experiences of individuals and communi-
ties in different parts of the globe that suggest the idea of transnational
worlds is, in fact, a myth. It is shorthand for subtle cultural homogenisa-
tion that sustains marginalisation, exclusion and erasure of identities and
cultural practices of the majority of people in the world. In the midst of
the pomp and fanfare about perceived growth in interconnectedness of
national societies, we continue to see an unprecedented rise in tenden-
cies towards autochthony and parochial forms of inward-looking ultra-
nationalist sentiments. Examples include the recent resurgence of far-right
nationalist political formations and social movements in the USA (e.g.
neo-Nazi organisations such as Ku Klux Klan (KKK)), Europe (e.g. the
Defend Europe movement) and even in Australia (e.g. United Patriots
Front). All these pseudo-social political movements are driven by racist,
xenophobic, anti-refugee and anti-immigrant agendas. The activities of
these and other similar groups are aimed at creating an image of a ‘world
without others’ (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2017) whereby they systematically
express their disdain and hatred of coexistence and mixing of people from
differing cultural, ethnic, religious, linguistic and political backgrounds.
As I have argued above, previous theorisations around these issues
have exhibited a strong tendency to focus at the macro-structural level
while overlooking the equally important role of actors operating at the
micro-social level of society. Therefore, any new conceptual framework
that claims to look differently at issues around migration and diversity
must seek to make significant theoretical contributions beyond mere
empirical observations of human population movements from one
point to another. In their present iteration, all theoretical approaches
reviewed in this section do not seem to measure up very well when con-
sidered against this premium. They need to be complemented by more
nuanced frameworks that help us see what we couldn’t—or wouldn’t—
see before. In the section that follows, I show how Language, Vernacular
Discourse and Nationalisms is one such attempt at filling these methodo-
logical and conceptual lacunae in the field of mobility studies.
21
This Book
Language, Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms joins the quite con-
temporary conversations that centre on the tensions and contradictions
of nation-state-centric identity imaginings in a world that is conceived
as integrated yet simultaneously pluriversal. This book adds to cur-
rent academic debates the novel perspective of vernacular discourse as
a way to read new meanings into what is essentially a vexed topic that
has exercised the minds of several generations of social scientists. The
book contributes new points of method and interpretation that have
so far been overlooked in the previous body of work. Vernacular dis-
courses are conceived here as every day or mundane ‘…texts or forms of
speech and conversations that emerge from discussions between mem-
bers of self-identified smaller communities within the larger civic com-
munity’ (Ono and Sloop 2012: 13). These are discursive practices and
other forms of ‘language’, ‘grammars’ and ‘vocabularies’ that emerge out
of small talk in public spaces whose effect is felt when they are trans-
lated and acted upon to inform popular thinking and perceptions about
identities, being and belonging (Ndhlovu and Siziba 2014). Vernacular
discourses constitute communities, construct social relations and protest
identity and cultural representations circulating in mainstream or domi-
nant culture. Using the notion of vernacular discourses, this book specif-
ically draws our attention to the languages and meta-discursive regimes
that shape and mediate myths of a transnational world against the back-
drop of resurgent inward-looking and autochthonous nationalisms.
The book examines social and economic policy documents as well
as statements made by elected national political leaders and traditional
authorities who speak on behalf of the people they lead and represent
at both national and international forums. Political leader discourses
are, by and large, considered to be national and representative of the
broader sentiment within respective constituencies. While it includes
some passing remarks on other comparable regions of the world, the
book specifically focuses on past and present social and economic pol-
icies in Australia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The overall intention is
to glean insights that illustrate the particular point about how vernac-
ular discourses and various forms of nationalist language undermine
popular assumptions about a transnational world that is supposedly
22
F. Ndhlovu
inclusive and is characterised by horizontal comradeship among all,

regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion and so on. Notions of
vernacular discourse and emergent political languages are used in this
book to probe and challenge these myths of transnationalism that are
buried within social and economic policies of South Africa, Australia
and Zimbabwe. The aim is not to dwell into a grand survey of the fields
of economics, politics, history and cultural studies. Rather, it is to look
at discursive and linguistic issues that betray narrow forms of national-
ism in these selected countries and the extent to which they illustrate
similar issues from elsewhere around the world. Therefore, the p olitical,
economic, historical and cultural issues covered constitute sites and
meta-discursive terrains where questions on language, vernacular dis-
course and narrow nationalisms are playing out in ways that have never
been seen before.
In spite of concerted political attempts at national and international
levels that have projected illusions about the existence of a transnational
world, such a world does not exist in practice. Litany of everyday lived
experiences, mainstream popular discourses as well as vernacular dis-
courses suggest that a transnational world is, in fact, a myth. Various
forms of powerful discursive clichés—defensive, ethno-nationalist,
racial, jingoistic, xenophobic, rebellious, emancipatory, patriarchal,
cultural-nationalistic and chauvinistic—undercut and challenge the

credibility of such populist imaginings of a truly transnational world
that is populated by a community of global citizens with shared values,
ideals and aspirations. The discourses of several political leaders in the
world today—from left to right, liberal to conservative, dictatorial to
democratic, Global North to Global South, East to West and developed
to developing—betray the existence of worlds that are imagined in ways
that are inward-looking, autochthonous and ethno-nationalistic. Such
worlds are consistently framed in the language and discourse of narrow
nationalisms that are racist, nativist and exclusionary, and that are often
expressed in terms of binary oppositions: citizens versus aliens; indig-
enous versus non-indigenous; black versus white; nationals versus for-
eigners; and legal immigrants versus illegal immigrants. All these forms
of narrow nationalisms contradict and contest commonly held assump-
tions about transnational and interconnected worlds.
23
More recent leader utterances in Africa, Australia, Europe and the

USA suggest that these tendencies towards narrow nationalisms that are
at odds with pretentions of transnationality are, in fact, an international
phenomenon that persists to this day. Speaking at the Earth Summit
in 2002, then Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe fired off a salvo
at then British Prime Minister Tony Blair saying ‘we have fought for
our land, we have fought for our sovereignty, small as we are we have
won our independence and we are prepared to shed our blood to pro-
tect the nation […]. So Blair, keep your England and let me keep my
Zimbabwe’ (The Telegraph, 2 September 2002). In neighbouring South
Africa, Goodwill Zwelithini, King of the Zulu people, uttered the fol-
lowing statement that was widely interpreted as having re-ignited violent
xenophobic attacks on black African migrants in April 2015: ‘When for-
eigners look at [us] they say let us exploit the nation of idiots. As I speak,
you find their unsightly goods hanging all over our shops; they dirty our
streets. We cannot even recognize which shop is which, there are foreign-
ers everywhere. We ask foreign nationals to pack their belongings and go
back to their countries’ (Mail & Guardian, 7 April 2016).
In Australia, then leader of the Liberal Party, Tony Abbott, ran a
mandate with a military-style ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’, which
subsequently became official policy of the Coalition government follow-
ing their election victory on the 7th of September 2013. This policy,
which is essentially aimed at ‘protecting Australia’ against perceived
‘invasion’ by asylum seekers arriving on the country’s shores by boats,
derives from former Australian Liberal Prime Minister John Howard
who once declared: ‘We will decide who comes to this country and the
circumstances in which they come’ (Liberal Party of Australia 2013: 4).
Along the same lines, in February 2011, then French President Nicolas
Sarkozy declared that ‘We have been too concerned about the iden-
tity of the person who was arriving [in France] and not enough about
the identity of the country that was receiving him’ (The Telegraph,
11 February 2011). In a televised interview in which he singled out
Muslim immigrants, Sarkozy went further, saying ‘… we don’t want
a society where communities coexist side by side’ (ibid.), thus sug-
gesting a push for a somewhat seamless, homogeneous and cohesive
French society contrary to the country’s long history of the ‘melting
24
F. Ndhlovu
pot’ socialisation process. Again in 2011, then Prime Minister of the

UK, David Cameron, defended his country’s decision to not join the
European Union single currency zone, arguing that such a move would
hurt Britain’s economic and ‘national interests’. He declared that he
wanted ‘to make sure we get a good deal for Britain [and that] Britain
would never join the euro’ unless there were ‘proper protections for key
British interests’ (Cameron 2011). As we now all know, the UK eventu-
ally withdrew its European Union membership following the June 2016
Brexit referendum. The decision by the majority of the British people
to vote in favour of leaving the European Union (dubbed the Brexit
vote) is a stark reminder about the persuasive power of narrow national-
ist sentiments that thrive on whipping up fear and cultural stereotypes,
which eventually gain currency as they spread through vernacular dis-
courses. During the Brexit campaign, the public domain was awash
with a cacophony of voices—competing and colliding with one another
in a rather shameless race to the bottom that betrayed the vanity and
insincerity of the much-vaunted notion of transnationalism. Brexit
campaign leaders such as Nigel Farage (then leader of UKIP) and Nigel
Johnson (now Foreign Secretary in the Teresa May-led Liberal govern-
ment) declared the outcome of the Brexit referendum was the first step
towards re-asserting sovereignty of the UK. They even went further to
suggest that the 24th of June had to be recognised as their independ-
ence day. But independent from what or who? Britain was never colo-
nised or forcibly occupied by anyone. If anything—as we all know—it
is the British who had the biggest colonial empire on earth and those
imperial tendencies are still ongoing today, albeit by stealth through var-
ious types of proxies. Therefore, the vernacular rhetoric around Britain
regaining its independence and sovereignty (from the European Union)
clearly betrays a strong sentiment against transnationalism and a bor-
derless global world order of interconnectedness that we are constantly
reminded is now an integral part of our universe.
The election of Donald Trump as President of the USA in November
2016 is further evidence of a global movement towards insularity and
inward-looking xenophobic sentiment at a time when we are made to
believe the world has become more interconnected and transnational
than ever before. It is inconceivable that a ‘self-proclaimed racist, a rabid
white supremacist, a neoliberal zealot, and a strong believer in the world
25
of whites without others’ (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2017: 36) would ascend to

the presidency of the USA. This would most unlikely have happened if
indeed the contemporary world was truly transnational. The one sure
thing that made possible the election of an extremely bigoted individual
to the office of President of the USA is that globalisation or transna-
tionalism is a contradictory process that unleashes human movements,
enhances demographic heterogeneity, intensifies cultural encounters
and intersections and shrinks space-time. And yet, the same processes
of globalisation and transnationalism simultaneously magnify the par-
adigm of difference and distinctions, amplify cultural and political
divides, loosen constraints and limitations and license prolific racial
alienation. Donald Trump is now notoriously well known for popu-
larising the expression ‘America for Americans’, itself a plagiarised and
adulterated version of Theodore Roosevelt’s well-intentioned May 1916
speech at St. Louis. When Roosevelt coined this expression, he was call-
ing for unity and inclusivity in his imagining of being and becoming
American—in ways that transcend myth of origin and the racial and
religious divides.
In summarising what he meant by ‘America for Americans’, Roosevelt
said:
I appeal to all our citizens no matter from what land their forefathers came
[…] to shun with scorn and contempt the sinister intriguers and mischief
makers who would seek to divide them along lines of creed, of birthplace,
or of national origin. I ask them to remember that there is but one safe
motto for all Americans, no matter whether they were born here or abroad,
no matter from what land their ancestors came; and that is the simple and
loyal motto, AMERICA FOR AMERICANS. (Roosevelt 1916: 9)
This was, indeed, a fitting clarion call for national pride, national sov-
ereignty and national unity that came in the middle of the First World
War when all nation-states at the time were seized with the onerous
task of rallying their populations towards defending their territories.
Although Roosevelt coined this expression at a time when forces of glo-
balisation and transnational human population movement were not as
pronounced as they have now become, he seems to have been well ahead
of his time as he grasped the need to rise above narrow, parochial and
26
F. Ndhlovu
ethno-nationalist imaginings of national identity and belonging that we

see today. This is in stark contrast to the current American President,
Donald Trump. In spite of having assumed political office at a time when
national identities have become so complex, fluid and unpredictable such
that they eschew any easy generalisation, Donald Trump’s imagining of
American identity is one that is exclusionary; one that betrays a dim view
of the diverse cultural, linguistic, religious and political backgrounds of
non-desired members of the American society. For him, the expression
‘America for Americans’ is about the desire to exclude, discriminate, vil-
ify and banish people along the lines of perceived country of origin, reli-
gion, race and so on. This is attested by his controversial executive order
soon after assuming office in January 2017 in which people from some
six Muslim nations were prohibited from entering the USA.
What all the above examples of leader utterances suggest is this: nar-
row state-centric and inward-looking nationalism seems to be influenc-
ing the language of current political and identity debates in a manner
that is anachronistic to pretentions about the existence of a transnational
world that is supposedly characterised by horizontal comradeship at
both local and translocal levels. The ideology of nationalism and various
forms of ethno-nationalist sentiment continue to underpin contempo-
rary global structural arrangements as well as bilateral relations among
states and territories. Language, Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms
examines the complex overlay of multiple nationalist linguistic and
discursive practices that shape and mediate these political debates and
conversations about social and economic policies around the world. It
provides a fresh and critical look at the language and other discursive
tropes that are couched in terms that tend to reinforce inward-looking
nation-state-centric identity imaginings in a world that is perceived to
be more transnational than ever before. The cross-cutting argument is
that while the nationalist ideology does, in several ways, provide states
with a sense of community, it has, at the same time, assumed vari-
ous forms that implicate competing demands for substate autonomy,
ethno-nationalist sentiment, nation-state legitimacy and the unprec-

edented rise of forces of regionalism and globalisation. The specific
focus is on the contradictions, continuities and disjunctures that punc-
tuate social, economic and political policy frameworks globally and,
27
specifically, in neo-colonial societies. In this vein, Language, Vernacular

Discourse and Nationalisms is a timely intervention that addresses current
topical issues that have dominated platforms of various national and
international political players since the dawn of the twenty-first century.
At the heart of the discussion in the book are the following theoretical
and empirical questions that have so far not been adequately addressed
in previous research scholarship:
• Why has the ideology of nationalism been so potent and long-lasting

in contradiction to the expectations of other competing social theo-
ries of recent times?
• Is the contemporary postmodern world really transnational as we
suppose it to be?
• How do the language of nationalism and associated metadiscursive
regimes compete with and contradict popular myths and beliefs
about the existence of a transnational and interconnected world?
• How do political discourses that inform mainstream conversations
and policy frameworks on economic empowerment, social transfor-
mation, land reform, nationalisation of natural resources and regula-
tion of migration negate the ideals of comity, inclusivity, intercultural
understanding, social cohesion and promotion of pluriversality in the
so-called transnational era?
• Whose interests are served and whose interests are undermined by
nationalist language and vernacular discourse?
Though I do not intend to be doctrinaire about my responses, I would

argue that these questions cannot be answered in the abstract and that
to get plausible answers, we need to search in the right places. The com-
mon practice among many social scientists and commentators is to ana-
lyse policies and other formal documents that enunciate official political
positions on matters of identity and belonging—and just leave it at
that. Language, Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms argues that while
these are, undoubtedly, valuable sources of such information that forms
part of the data set for this book, it is imperative for us to also look
elsewhere. The book, therefore, draws the reader’s attention to casual,
informal statements and utterances made outside of or on the sidelines
28
F. Ndhlovu
of formal government and political party platforms. It is in places such

as these that we get to hear the personal opinions of the politician, the
bureaucrat and the layperson—way out of the gaze of the official insti-
tutional apparatus. For this reason, the framework of analysis for this
book is built around the vernacular discourse approach, which allows
us to answer big questions of mundane micro-social phenomena. Case
studies include the language of land reform, nationalisation and indige-
nisation of the economy in Zimbabwe; language policy making and cit-
izenship in Zimbabwe; the language of black economic empowerment,
land reform, social transformation and concomitant discourses of xeno-
phobia and anti-immigrant sentiment in South Africa; and the language
of migrant integration and border protection policies in Australia.
Zimbabwe, South Africa and Australia have a Victorian British link,
and this common element partly informs their nationalist language.
Furthermore, nationalist linguistic and discursive practices are directly
attributed to racism, exclusion and other forms of discrimination that
have punctuated the past and present histories of all three countries.
Therefore, although Australia went on to be a predominantly Anglo-
Saxon country while Zimbabwe and South Africa became Africanised
pseudo-British ideologues with some doses of communist-nationalist
rhetoric, the logics of their social policy frameworks on belonging, cit-
izenship, migration and entitlement are fundamentally the same. The
book interrogates some of the conventional wisdom and commonly
accepted tropes surrounding various taxonomies of nationalist discourse
across the three countries. In doing so, it sheds light on the underlying
meaning of the language used to talk about black economic empower-
ment, national interest, national sovereignty, national border protection,
territorial integrity and so on. The book also adds a new angle to the
debate on transnationalism and globalisation by pushing forward a
more applied agenda to establish a clear and empirically based illustra-
tion of the continuities and contradictions that underpin current social,
political and economic policy frameworks around the world and the
debates they invite. The three case studies drawn from two different
regions of the world provide this book with the much needed global res-
onance, thus setting it apart from previous studies on this topic.
29
Although there are several other previous books on nationalism dis-

courses and debates (e.g. Sunderland 2012; Dorman et al. 2007;
Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Ndhlovu 2013; Jackson and Molokotos-
Liederman 2015), most of them lack the focus that Language, Vernacular
Discourse and Nationalisms brings. None of these previous studies pro-
vides meta-analysis of specific economic and social development policies
from a vernacular discourse approach that opens a new window into
how nationalism-speak continues to undergird the framing of interna-
tional politics and identity discourse. Although Claire Sunderland’s
(2012) book titled Nationalism in the Twenty-First Century is among
the most recent appraisals of the nationalist ideology and concomitant
discourses on transnationalism and globalisation, it does not go beyond
the affirmation of nationalism as the unit of social and political analysis.
Sunderland’s book, in fact, posits that globalisation and transnationalism
are not fundamentally antagonistic to the logics of nineteenth-century
nationalism. With specific focus on the cross-cutting themes of trans-
nationalism and contradictions of nationalist discourse, Language,
Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms brings a comparative edge to the
table of ideas around these issues. It provides a counter-argument to the
position that Sunderland advocates. The book argues that the vestiges of
nineteenth-century nationalism that continue to inform current global
social, economic and political conversations are untenable insofar as they
put narrow nation-state-centric interests ahead of the common good for
humanity across the globe. This book adds a new angle to the debate by
pushing forward a more applied agenda to establish clear and empirically
based understandings of those social, political and economic forces that
sustain nationalism discourses in a world that is popularly seen as being
undeniably transnational.
Therefore, the unique contributions of Language, Vernacular Discourse
and Nationalisms lie in that it surpasses both the single-country case
study approaches and the less critical views about the language of nation-
alism that we find in most previous studies on this topic. This book is
a pioneering and groundbreaking study in this area in that it provides
a combination of strong new theorisation (the vernacular discourse
approach) and empirical interventions on the subject of transnational-
ism. It also has a distinct and unique edge over previous studies insofar
30
F. Ndhlovu
as it considers the language of nationalisms to be something that inter-

weaves four temporalities in the genealogy of international politics,
namely the precolonial/pre-modern, colonial, the postcolonial and the
current postnational developments of transnational economic and polit-
ical integration. The argument is that all these imperatives can only be
fully understood from multidisciplinary approaches, hence the integra-
tion of cultural, developmental, economic and political variables in dis-
cussing the issues around the language of nationalisms. For this reason,
the singular most important contribution of this book is about its cri-
tique of nationalist linguistic and discursive practices that mediate social
and economic policy frameworks in a world that is simplistically consid-
ered as transnational.
Organisation
This book consists of nine chapters as follows. This chapter introduces
the book and lays out its theoretical and empirical contributions to the
topic of nationalist discourse and its implications for the widely held
views about transnationalism and globalisation. The chapter shows how
this book joins the ever-increasing scholarly debates and conversations
around the resurgence of various forms of nationalisms and how—in
spite of assertions about existence of transnational worlds—the lan-
guage of nationalism has remained attached to a set of unpromising
associations with identity imaginings of the last millennium. In addi-
tion, the chapter shows how contemporary developments of globalisa-
tion, regionalism and unprecedented patterns of transnational human
population movement across the world have seen the burgeoning of
new theoretical frameworks that try to explain what exactly is going
on. One of the key arguments of this chapter is that by examining the
language and nationalist discourses of bureaucrats, politicians, pol-
icy makers and ordinary citizens and transposing them on a series of
recent social, political and economic policy statements, we can begin to
develop a more nuanced and revised consideration of the enduring sig-
nificance of nationalism in contemporary societies. The concluding sec-
tion summarises the entire book, showing how the rest of the chapters
are tied together by the overarching theme of vernacular discourse.
31
In Chapter 2, the book turns to the twin notions of vernacular

discourse and emergent political languages as summary terms that
describe the spontaneous, derogatory and demeaning linguistic and
discursive strategies used casually by both ordinary people and polit-
ical elites in ways that influence public opinion and definitions of
insiders and outsiders. The notions of vernacular discourse and emer-
gent political languages flourish in those marginal spaces occupied
by ordinary men and women whose voices are absent from main-
stream political discourses on belonging, social cohesion and nation
building. Some of the emergent political languages examined in this
chapter include manyasarandi, machawa, mamoskeni, mabrantaya,
mabwidi and amakwerekwere—all of them being derogatory epithets
intended to demean, ridicule and ultimately exclude specific indi-
viduals and groups of people perceived as belonging to undesirable
ethnicities, nationalities or geographical regions. While the specific
focus is on identity contestations that were prompted by the 2008
and 2015 anti-immigrant sentiment in South Africa, the chapter also
draws on examples from Zimbabwe with some passing remarks on
Botswana to illustrate particular points about the long historical gene-
alogy of vernacular discourses and emergent political languages that
dates back to the period of colonial encounters. The chapter addresses
the following key questions: What does the social and political his-
tory of vernacular discourses and emergent political languages tell us
about current meanings, ideas and narratives about social cohesion
and nation-building in South Africa? Whose interests are at the heart
of social cohesion and nation-building initiatives in post-apartheid
South Africa? Why is it that the general public does not seem to buy
into the current government-led social cohesion and nation-building
initiatives? What do emergent political languages and vernacular dis-
courses on identity and belonging hide and reveal about formal, legal-
istic and state-centric social cohesion and nation-building initiatives?
The conclusion is that notions of vernacular discourse and emergent
political languages both confirm and challenge—in equal measure—
the homogenising and reductionist assumptions of political state-
ments that tend to contradict the stated goals of social and economic
policy frameworks.
32
F. Ndhlovu
Chapter 3 discusses the intersections of language policy, identity

formation and nation building in Zimbabwe. It argues that political
aspirations for empire building by the ruling elite have come to be pop-
ularised and legitimised as language policy and nation-building initia-
tives in postcolonial Zimbabwe. While Zimbabwe is characterised by a
high degree of linguistic and cultural diversity, it is only the Shona and
Ndebele languages (mother tongues of the majority of the ruling elite)
that continue to be promoted and propagated as the rallying point for
the country’s perceived postcolonial nation-building project. This push
for exclusionary postcolonial nation building has led to the unprec-
edented constriction of educational and economic opportunities for
speakers of socio-politically ‘weak’ or ‘minority’ languages. Drawing on
insights from the constructivist perspective on the nation and national
identity, the analysis reinterprets the politics of language and identity
formation in postcolonial Zimbabwe. It does this by examining the
postcolonial language policy transformations in Zimbabwe and how
these have significantly influenced notions of citizenship and national
identity. The conclusion is that far from being part of a genuine and
all-inclusive nation-building enterprise, Zimbabwe’s national language
policy initiatives constitute vernacular discourse for empire building.
In Chapter 4, the focus shifts to the theoretical underpinnings and
the attendant social policy and political consequences of approaches to
three interrelated areas of current concern in the field of language and
society studies, namely (1) conceptualisations of the language profiles
and practices of immigrant communities; (2) transnational migration
and migrant identities; and (3) imaginings of diaspora cultures and
identities. The chapter argues that standard ideological frameworks
that came with the industrial revolution and the invention of the mod-
ern nation-state have seen debates on language, migration and diaspo-
ras being attached to a set of unpromising associations—language as a
monolithic ontological entity; diasporas as backward-looking with nos-
talgia for ‘homeland’; and immigrant communities as somewhat reified,
inflexible and never changing. Immigrant and diaspora linguistic and
cultural identities have historically been looked at through the lenses
of the two battalions of groupism: multiculturalism and multilingual-
ism. The chapter concludes that limitations of mainstream approaches
33
to the conceptualisation of linguistic and cultural identities of diasporas

and immigrants remind us of the need to consider multilingualism and
multiculturalism as concepts that encompass multiple and diverse views
on lects, language forms and other modes of communication, including
symbolic, metaphorical and discursive modes.
Chapter 5 examines linguistic and discursive aspects of more recent
economic nationalisation and indigenisation programmes in Zimbabwe
that are popularly known by the umbrella term of ‘Third Chimurenga’.
These include the Fast Track Land Reform programme that started
in year 2000; the 2005 urban slums clearance exercise code-named
‘Operation Murambatsvina’; and the 2008 Indigenisation and Economic
Empowerment policy. Each one of these programmes is considered
to be a site where resurgent nationalist imaginings of identity, belong-
ing, citizenship and entitlement are discursively constructed and legit-
imised before they get translated into action within wider society. The
chapter analyses the language and political discourses that betray paro-
chial ethno-nationalist tendencies in ways that question and challenge
the perceived transnational character of the Zimbabwean society. At
the height of the Fast Track Land Reform programme and Operation
Murambatsvina, officials of the ZANU PF government used the state-
owned media as a platform of churning out ultra-nationalist insults at
members of the main opposition political party, the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) and their supporters who are perceived as
not being patriotic and loyal enough to the Zimbabwean nation-state.
Their language was characterised by the frequent use of terms such as
these: ‘sellouts’, ‘enemies of the people’, ‘neocols’, ‘puppets of Western
imperialists’, ‘terrorists’, ‘saboteurs’, ‘anti-government lobbyists’, ‘running
dogs of imperialist forces’, ‘violent cronies of the MDC’, ‘political dis-
sidents’ aimed at ‘undermining national interest’. The United Nations
Special Envoy, Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, was not spared this name-
calling barrage for compiling an allegedly ‘damning’ report on the con-
duct and after-effects of the urban slums clearance in Zimbabwe in 2005.
She was described as a ‘misguided puppet of Tony Blair’, and her report
labelled as ‘value-laden’, ‘typical of neo-colonial conspiracy’, ‘part of the
Anti-Zimbabwe Global Campaign’ and full of ‘diplomatic naivety’. All
these linguistic and discursive practices used to describe fellow citizens
34
F. Ndhlovu
are clearly anachronistic to the populist image of Zimbabwe as a society

that is pluriversal, superdiverse and socio-politically inclusive.
The analysis of Zimbabwe’s Third Chimurenga and Indigenisation
and Economic Empowerment policies are extended to illuminate new
insights on South Africa’s Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment
(B-BBEE) and land reform policies. The argument is that B-BBEE,
which constitutes the main pillar of South Africa’s post-apartheid
transformation agenda, is underpinned by invocation of a narrow and
inward-looking perspective on transforming the country’s social, polit-
ical and economic landscape. It is further argued that the reified and
reductionist framing of BEE and associated elements of the transforma-
tion imperative have resulted in two unintended consequences: (i) alien-
ating the majority of the very same black people that the policy seeks
to empower and (ii) diminishing opportunities for the beneficiaries of
these empowerment policies to contribute towards realisation of the
ideals and aspirational goals of the transformation agenda. I conclude
by suggesting that the discourse and praxis of social transformation in
South Africa needs to be conducted in a language that indicates there
is political will and commitment to help previously marginalised black
South Africans to actually have their lives transformed in meaningful
and truly empowering ways.
Chapter 6 is a critique and rebuttal of theoretical and conceptual
underpinnings of indigenisation and economic empowerment policies
that are at the political platforms of governing authorities in Zimbabwe
and South Africa. The argument is that mainstream understandings of
‘development’ that inform economic empowerment and indigenisation
policies discussed in Chapter 5 are underpinned by Northern develop-
ment discourse. Northern development discourse makes general claims
to universal relevance and, consequently, turns a blind eye to contextual
particularities and the diversity of social actors’ contexts. In this chapter,
I propose alternative trajectories of development by introducing the
notion of Southern development discourse, which pays particular atten-
tion to the role of local linguistic and cultural imperatives in mediating
economic development, empowerment and social progress. The chapter
argues in support of the affordances and promises that African linguistic
35
diversity and cultural resources hold for creativity and innovation. These
are considered as key drivers of sustainable economic development and
social progress.
Chapter 7 addresses questions around Australian migration policy
and related social policies and how such policy frameworks remain
locked in old, tired and reductionist logics of nationalist multicultur-
alism—an issue that has escaped the attention of many scholars and
commentators. The chapter seeks to extend into new directions the
notion of race and racism in Australia by bringing to spotlight subtle
and overt forms of discrimination that are hidden under the fissures and
fault lines of liberalism discourses such as ‘migrant integration’, ‘social
inclusion’ and a range of other immigration-related measures such as
language and citizenship testing regimes. Another important discus-
sion point is one around the persistence of the nationalist imaginary
of Australia as a country that is seen as having an own ‘foundational
myth’ into which all new waves of migrants and refugees must ‘inte-
grate’. Problematic concepts such as ‘migrant integration’; ‘Australian
way of life’; and ‘un-Australian’ are examined to show how they do not
sit well within the multiplicity of cultures and traditions of people who
call Australia home. The profiles of people who now call Australia home
are far more complex, diverse and dynamic to be accommodated within
the traditional nationalist paradigm with its narrow focus on the coex-
istence of many cultures alongside each other. The Australia of today
and, indeed, the entire world is a lot more different to the Australia
of the 1970s due to the prevailing situation in which ‘more people are
now moving from more places, through more places, to more places’
(Vertovec 2010: 86). Whereas the Australian population of the 1970s
was made up of indigenous Australians, European settlers and Asian
immigrants, this picture has changed drastically with people from virtu-
ally all over the world now living in this country as permanent residents,
citizens, skilled migrants, temporary residents or humanitarian entrants.
This concludes that the breadth and depth of Australian diversity has
become too thick and needs to be looked at from the vantage point of
alternative cultural frames in order to capture the complexities of con-
temporary identities and identity narratives.
36
F. Ndhlovu
Continuing with the Australian case study, Chapter 8 examines

Australia’s ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ policy, which became the
launch pad for the newly elected Liberal Coalition Government in
September 2013. The argument advanced here is that this policy is a
clear statement of national sovereignty as it emphasises the need for the
country to control its borders, which are imagined in spatial terms—
as constituting a completed and closed horizontality. Such a view of
Australia contradicts the dynamic and open-ended nature of current
global cultural and political identities. It misses the crucial point about
present conditions of unprecedented voluntary and forced movements
of human populations, goods and services, which are aided by the incip-
ient rise in information communication technologies. These have meant
that national borders are now social and transient virtual spaces that are
constantly under construction. Unlike what they used to look like when
they were invented in the late eighteenth century, national boundaries
and their associated cultural and political identities are now always in
the process of being (re)made and (re)negotiated; they are never fin-
ished and are never closed. However, in spite of the overwhelming evi-
dence of cultural, linguistic, religious and political pluralities across the
globe, nation-state-centric forms of cultural and political insularity are
still being pursued and vigorously defended by the governing authori-
ties of individual countries. This is particularly the case in Australia and
in other comparable countries in Western Europe and North America
that happen to be the preferred destinations for most migrants and
refugees. The chapter concludes that in spite of their supposedly good
intentions, policies such as ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ betray myths
of an own world without others. All of this is motivated by the nation-
alist catechisms of safeguarding national interest, national sovereignty
and territorial integrity—at all costs—even if it means going against the
common values of humanity that require us to extend a helping hand to
those whose lives are in harm’s way.
The concluding chapter ties together the various lines of argument
and cross-cutting themes of the entire book. It returns to the foun-
dational questions of the book by reiterating the observations made
about the three case studies (Australia, South Africa and Zimbabwe). It
also reiterates the extent to which the persistence of the language and
37
discourse of narrow nationalisms in these three countries constitutes a

global problem. The concluding chapter also revisits the politics of eco-
nomic nationalisation, indigenisation and border protection policies in
order to show how the logics of these policy frameworks are premised
on false suppositions about the existence of a world that is supposedly
transnational and interconnected while simultaneously inward-looking.
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2
Emergent Political Languages,
Nation Building, Social Cohesion
Introduction
The existing creed that southern African discourses and labels of
‘Othering’, such as amakwerekwere (a derogatory term for describ-
ing black African migrants by black South Africans) and manyasa-
randi (a derogatory term for describing Malawian migrants by black
Zimbabweans), are manifestations of racism or xenophobia (Neocosmos
2006; Crush 2008; Sharp 2008; Everatt 2011) tells us only half of the
story. A more detailed and exhaustive account of the endemic and often
violent discourses of ‘Othering’ can only be achieved through the inte-
gration of alternative explanatory paradigms for these phenomena. They
include that these discourses are located in the complex socio-historical
trajectory of the oppressed and marginalised people, who endured
colonialism and apartheid and who only perceive or achieve levels of
agency and voice by perpetuating the same identity imaginings of iso-
lation that kept them in bondage. These mundane rhetorics of label-
ling and ‘Othering’ are directed at other Africans—a particular kind
of African—refugees and asylum seekers, many of who have run away
from political persecution and socio-economic disempowerment in

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76135-0_2
42
F. Ndhlovu
their countries of origin. This kind of African is socio-economically at

the same level as perpetrators, although he/she is seen as a competitor
for jobs and other social amenities. The professional African migrants
including academics, architects, medical doctors and others escape such
labels as they live in upscale urban areas together with other elites.
In this chapter, I address a highly topical but exceedingly com-
plex set of issues pertaining to how political dissonance or consensus
emerges and gains momentum in identity imaginings of both state and
non-state actors. I examine official rhetorics on identity and belonging
and how these are taken up and resemiotised as they circulate in con-
versations at different scale levels. While the specific focus is on iden-
tity contestations that were prompted by anti-immigrant sentiments
that flared up in South Africa in May 2008 and April 2015, I also draw
on examples from Zimbabwe with some passing remarks on Botswana
to illustrate particular points about the long historical genealogy of ver-
nacular discourses and emergent political languages that dates to the
period of colonial invasion and occupation of southern Africa. I use
the twin notions of vernacular discourse and emergent political lan-
guages as summary terms that describe the spontaneous, derogatory
and demeaning labels used casually by both ordinary people and politi-
cal elites in ways that influence public opinion on conceptions of insid-
ers and outsiders. Vernacular discourse refers to everyday or mundane
‘…texts or forms of speech and conversations that emerge from discus-
sions between members of self-identified smaller communities within
the larger civic community’ (Ono and Sloop 2012: 13). Vernacular
discourse constitutes communities, constructs social relations, and pro-
tests identity and cultural representations circulating in mainstream or
dominant culture. The related concept of emergent political languages
refers to discursive practices and other forms of ‘language’, ‘grammars’
and ‘vocabularies’ that emerge out of small talk in public spaces whose
effect is felt when they are translated and acted upon to inform popular
thinking and perceptions about identities (Ndhlovu and Siziba 2014).
Both vernacular discourses and emergent political languages flourish
in those marginal spaces occupied by ordinary men and women whose
voices are absent from mainstream nation-state-centric imaginings of
identity and belonging.
2 Emergent Political Languages, Nation Building …
43
In the sections that follow, I draw on theories of vernacular discourse

and emergent political languages to address questions on how emerging
political discourses become entextualised and circulate across societal
scales. What does the social and political history of vernacular dis-
courses and emergent political languages tell us about current identity
narratives in southern Africa? What do emergent political languages and
vernacular discourses on identity and belonging hide and reveal about
formal, legalistic and state-centric imaginings of identity and belonging?
How do we understand the anti-black African immigrant sentiment in
southern Africa if we adopt the analytical framework of vernacular dis-
course and emergent political languages?
Contextualising the Debate:

The Problem of Inequality in South Africa
It is important to highlight from the onset the social, political and eco-
nomic context in which current identity debates in southern Africa are
playing out. A look at the example of post-apartheid South Africa will
help illustrate the specific line of argument being advanced. The pre-
vailing social and economic arrangements in South Africa are charac-
terised by obscenely high levels of inequality that were put in place by
the apartheid regime. Apart from racially and ethnically based social
hierarchies that bear testimony to the visible legacy of apartheid policies
in contemporary South African society, another layer has been added—
one that is based on the myth of the paradigm of difference between
black South Africans and fellow black Africans from elsewhere on the
African continent. Furthermore, recent statistics (see Table 2.1) indicate
skewed patterns of equity, access and participation in areas such as basic
education, further education and training (FET), higher education and
employment. The statistics betray endemic inequalities along the lines
of ethnicity, race, indigeneity/autochthony and myth of origin.
The significant point here is that most black South Africans have
been left behind educationally partly because they do not have access to
the highest quality education offered at former Model C schools, which
44
F. Ndhlovu
Table 2.1 Statistics on education, literacy and employment in South Africa

Area of interest Statistics and source
Inter-ethnic relations 60% of South Africans have difficulty
understanding people from other ethnic
groups (Rudwick 2006; Gounden 2010)
64% of black South Africans do not social-
ise with people outside their own ethnic
group (Gounden 2010)
(I)literacy levels 24% of black South Africans who are
15 years + are functionally illiterate
(Information South Africa 2013; Adjai
and Lazaridis 2013)
Higher educational qualifications White 65%, Indian 40%, Coloured 17%,
Black 14% (Adjai and Lazaridis 2013)
FET college completions 2007/2008 Pass rate 35%, dropout rate
29% (SAIRR 2010; Gewer 2011)
Employment (top managers) 70% white; 13.6% black (Ndenze 2015)
were a preserve for white children under the apartheid system of govern-
ment. Such schools that enjoyed disproportionate government resource
and infrastructure support during apartheid continue to provide excel-
lent education (Ndhlovu 2013; Heugh 2000). On the other hand, those
that did not, most of which are in black, coloured and Indian town-
ships continue to underperform despite improvement in levels of gov-
ernment funding. There is concern over poor management of schools
in these townships, which in most cases are still managed by those that
suffered from the negativities of apartheid Bantu Education (Banda
2003; Van der Berg 2001; Spaull 2013). Bantu Education was an infe-
rior form of education designed for black South Africans by the apart-
heid government. The Bantu Education Act that was passed into law
in 1953 gave the South African government the power to structure the
education of native South African children, separate from white South
African children. This law engrained an apartheid-framed education sys-
tem that was predicted to impede the advancement of black children
(Spaull 2013). Consequently, black township children who were at the
lowest rungs of the vertical apartheid racialised chain of socio-economic
benefits are still caught in the web of poverty in the new South Africa.
Illiteracy rates are reported as being high for black South Africans with
45
around 24% of black people over 15 years old reported as being func-
tionally illiterate; teachers in township schools where matric pass rate
is low are reported as being poorly trained (Adjai and Lazaridis 2013).
While 65% of white and 40% of Indian South Africans over 20 years
old have a high school or higher education qualification, only 14%
of blacks and 17% of the coloured population have a higher educa-
tion qualification (South Africa 2013; Adjai and Lazaridis 2013). The
Commission for Employment Equity’s latest report into transforma-
tion in the workplace indicates that nationally, 70% of top managers
are white while the proportion of black people at the same level is only
13.6% (Ndenze 2015). In addition to deep-seated resistance by the
white-dominated companies to open up opportunities for black South
Africans, these disparities are also partly due to the fact that the major-
ity of black students who graduate from public schools come out with
poor results that do not put them in a pathway for success to higher
education and skills training (Ndhlovu 2013). What we see from the
above numbers is a situation where the push for ‘formal equality in a
situation of inequality [clearly] favours the dominant’ (Bourdieu 2005,
p. 225). Current government-led social cohesion initiatives in South
Africa are taking place in a context of pervasive social, educational, eco-
nomic and political inequalities. The major limitation of such initiatives
is that they are elitist and state-centric as they do not fully integrate the
non-institutional voices of ordinary South Africans in shaping imagin-
ings of social cohesion and identity narratives.
Therefore, like elsewhere on the African continent and globally:
The ruling elites, who may often have been recruited from a dominant
ethnie or coalition of ethnic groupings, [are] tempted to fashion a new
political mythology and symbolic order not only to legitimate their
authoritarian regimes, but also to head off threats of endemic ethnic con-
flict and movements of secession. (Smith 1991, p. 41)
As we have come to know from recent developments in South Africa,

these hollow and skewed constructs of identity and belonging have
not fully accommodated the diverse identities of immigrant and some
reticent indigenous groups. Consequently, we continue to witness a
46
F. Ndhlovu
situation whereby ordinary people resist—in both overt and subtle

ways—the normatively constructed post-apartheid identity of a rain-
bow nation that belongs to all who live in it, in just the same way they
resisted the imposed apartheid fragmentation. The failure to fashion a
broad-based post-apartheid South African identity that is Pan-African
in outlook has been brought to bear by the ever present phenomenon of
emergent political languages such as the makwerekwere/amakwerekwere
label. I turn to these later on after discussing the equally important
notion of vernacular discourse.
Vernacular Discourses and Formation

of Emergent Identities
The concept of vernacular discourse first appeared in the 1960s as an
analytical category in cultural and social theory. In her groundbreaking
article titled ‘Vernacular Culture’, Lantis (1960) used the term vernacular
rather loosely to refer to cultural norms and practices of ‘the common-
place’—those aspects of culture that remained accessible to all against the
backdrop of a ‘high’ culture that was only accessible to the elite sections
of society. During these early days in the evolution of the concept of ver-
nacular, two broad meanings came to be associated with it:
On the one hand, vernacular forms [were conceived as] those available to
individuals or groups who are subordinated to institutions, and, on the
other hand, they [were considered to be] a common resource available to
everyone through informal social interaction. Based on this dual mean-
ing, the vernacular came to refer to discourse that coexists with dominant
culture but is held separate from it. (Howard 2008, p. 493)
This bifurcated view suggests that vernacular is conceived as a form of

local discourse that is distinct from larger institutional discourses but
is also simultaneously ‘a shared resource, a census communis [common
sense], or community doxa [common belief or popular opinion], a com-
munal chorus that emerges from the multiplicity of voices speaking
in the noninstitutional discursive spaces of quotidian life’ (ibid., 493).
47
Howard (2008) criticised these conceptions of vernacular, noting in

particular their overreliance on a strict division between the subaltern
counteragent and the hegemonic institutional voice that always seeks to
dominate.
The vernacular discourse approach is critical of identity imagin-
ings that tend to privilege narratives of widely disseminated texts
and speeches of powerful and influential figures at the expense of the
voices of ordinary men and women—the syndrome of big men as sole
authors of history. A few examples from the American Civil Rights
Movement, the South African Anti-apartheid Movement and other
political and social movements around the globe come to mind. These
include Martin Luther King Jr.’s (1963) ‘I have a Dream Speech’,
Nelson Mandela’s (1964) ‘An Ideal I am prepared to die for’, Mahatma
Gandhi’s (1997) ‘Hind Swaraj’, Václav Havel’s (1986) ‘The Power of the
Powerless’ and Frantz Fanon’s (1963) ‘Wretched of the Earth’. The texts
and speeches produced by revolutionaries such as these are often objects
of study that are widely remembered, admired and emulated not only
because they are politically significant but also because of how they have
shaped both individual and group identities. For example, the contem-
porary African-American identity debate in the USA was inspired by
and is seen as intricately intertwined with Luther King’s ‘I have a Dream
Speech’. Similarly, the South African rainbow nation identity has been
written and continues to be imagined in terms of the dreams, visions
and inspirational speeches of influential people like Nelson Mandela,
Thabo Mbeki and other prominent Pan-Africanists such as Kwame
Nkrumah, Kenneth Kaunda and Julius Nyerere.
Notwithstanding the influence of the speeches of these luminaries in
shaping identity imaginings of national groups, community groups and
individuals alike, some critics have suggested a cautionary approach to
their impacts (Ono and Sloop 1995). The point of greater significance
here is this: in addition to these widely disseminated texts (read: oral
speeches, written texts and other discourses), we also need to consider
‘marginal’ or ‘less powerful’ texts that have profound effects on commu-
nities. This is because analyses whose focus is limited to dominant docu-
ments, texts and speeches run the risk of ‘missing out on, and writing out
of history, important texts that [under]gird and influence local cultures
48
F. Ndhlovu
first and then affect, through the sheer number, local communities, cul-
tures at large’ (ibid., 19). In other words, while discourses of the powerful
are important, their limitation is that they are steeped in an ideology that
does not listen to the voices of ordinary men and women who constitute
the atoms of society. Identity formation processes that proceed from and
are interpreted through the filter of formal rhetoric alone are problematic
in insofar as they ignore rank-and-file voices. The three pervasive con-
sequences of such approaches are that (a) they lead to a skewed picture
of the public sphere by defining it in terms of privileged voices; (b) they
miss resistance found in seemingly mundane expressions, such as modes
of politeness that, to the knowing eye of the oppressed, convey an ironic
critique of domination, but to the blind eye of the censor evade detec-
tion; and (c) they ignore dialogising exchanges between the dominant
and dominated within and across classes (Hauser and McClellan 2009).
As Hauser and McClellan further caution:
A focus on leader statements interprets bodily displays of opposition

through the filter of a movement’s formal rhetoric rather than regarding
them as rhetorical performances in their own right… Ignoring rank-
and-file voices deflects attention from the hidden transcripts of resistance
developed in hush harbours on the ground that later puncture the pat-
ina of the official realm as public expressions of discontent. (Hauser and
McClellan 2009, p. 25)
This clearly suggests that vernacular discourse constitutes communities,

constructs social relations and protests identity and cultural representa-
tions circulating in the dominant culture (Boyd 1991). One of the
main contours of vernacular discourse is that in criticising culture that
is produced within mainstream discourses, it simultaneously creates
subjectivities that both confront and reproduce hegemonic discourses
in equal measure—that is to say, although it is partially true that ver-
nacular discourse is reactive and counterhegemonic, it also affirms the
status quo. In other words, vernacular discourse may also reinforce the
dominant ideology insofar as it represents both the inside and outside
of institutions (Howard 2005)—it simultaneously affirms and con-
tests. Vernacular discourse is, essentially, what Hasian (2001) has called
49
‘extra-judicial’ discourse; that discourse about the law but which is at the
same time separate from legal institutions. In this regard, vernacular dis-
course must be understood as something that is ‘common to all, but held
separate from the formal discursive products of legal institutions … it is
associated with the informal action of the community’ (Howard 2008,
p. 494). As will be argued in section that follows, southern African dis-
courses of ‘Othering’ such as makwerekwere/amakwerekwere and manyas-
arandi exemplify this bifurcated nature of vernacular discourse.
Overall, vernacular discourse emphasises the role of informal social
forces in shaping the discourse of agents over time. It seeks to account
for non-institutional power by imagining a fluid, temporal and tran-
sient division between the vernacular and the institutional. What we
learn from the concept of vernacular discourse is that we need to con-
sider the complex interdependence of the non-institutional and the
institutional in our conversations around issues of identity formation.
This means we have to look at group and individual identities as per-
formative elements emanating from the dialectical interplay of formal
and informal everyday lived experiences. Vernacular discourses and the
ensuing identity imaginings should be seen as means by which the ver-
nacular (the marginalised, the subaltern) gains an alternate authority
by usurping the monopoly of the hegemonic system to power—albeit
by stealth. In integrating this economy of subordination into its per-
spective, vernacular discourse enables us to account for previously unex-
plored hybrid agencies that both resist and sustain some of the issues
around identity contestations in contemporary southern Africa.
In the next section, the concept of vernacular discourse is used to
explain the evolution of emergent political languages and how they have
always been connected with identity formation processes in southern Africa
from the early 1900s through to the twenty-first century. The applica-
tion of the notion of vernacular discourse extends into new directions our
understanding of identity formation processes and their intersection with
such emergent political languages as manyasarandi (a derogatory label for
black African migrants from Nyasaland; present-day Malawi), machawa
(a derogatory label for black African migrants who speak the Chewa lan-
guage of Zambia and Malawi), mabrantaya (a derogatory label for black
African migrants originally from the city of Blantyre, Malawi), mamoskeni
50
F. Ndhlovu
(a derogatory label for black African migrants from Mozambique) and

makwerekwere/amakwerekwere (a derogatory label for all black African
migrants in South Africa and Botswana who come from north of the
Limpopo River). In analysing these derogatory labels, the chapter sheds
some new insights into why it is that southern Africa has, since the early
1900s, been characterised by litany of these and similar exclusionary iden-
tity narratives that have consistently worked against concerted attempts at
fashioning a Pan-African notion of identity and belonging. The use of these
ethnocentric labels has not abated from the time they came into the public
domain in the twentieth century. Their resurgence continues—not solely
at the behest of structured institutional voices but also as a consequence of
how they have crystallised around informal non-institutional sentiments of
ordinary men and women in the streets, in townships, in shopping malls,
in taxis, in buses, at train stations and in virtually all other public spaces.
My overall argument here is that there is need for greater attention to be
paid to the vernacular rhetoric that occurs among social actors who exist
on the margins of mainstream political and social conversations on identity
and belonging. A suggestion is also made about how scholarly critiques of
identity formation processes must take into account the nature and per-
suasive power of vernacular discourse in order to develop a more nuanced
methodological framework for settling identity questions on which opin-
ions significantly differ.
Emergent Political Languages as Vernacular

Discourse
As has already been indicated in the preceding sections, emergent polit-
ical languages are spontaneous rhetorical discourses that emerge in the
public sphere. They are often inspired by the desire to construct, label
and consign some individuals or cultural groups into stereotyped iden-
tities, with the ultimate intention to exclude the non-desired ‘Other’.
Among the emergent political languages that have appeared in the recent
history of southern Africa are the following: manyasarandi, machawa,
mamoskeni, mabrantaya and makwerekwere/amakwerekwere. The first
four labels were commonly used by Zimbabweans in the early to the
51
late 1900s to denigrate black African migrants from Malawi, Zambia

and Mozambique who came to Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) to work as
cheap unskilled farm and mine labourers. Because they never had rural
homes in Zimbabwe, most such people stayed at the mine and farm
compounds and city townships, even during the festive holidays, such as
Christmas, when locals often travel to their rural homes to catch up with
family and friends. For this reason, they were and continue to be derog-
atorily labelled as ‘cultureless’ and ‘totemless’ people. For example, at an
election campaign rally in 2002, president Robert Mugabe singled out
residents of the working class suburb of Mbare (Harare) and referred to
them as ‘undisciplined, totemless elements of alien origin’ (Daily News,
14 October 2002) as they were perceived to be supporters of the main
opposition political party, the Movement for Democratic Change. These
emergent political languages that were rampant in colonial Zimbabwe
(and that are still being used today, albeit sparingly) were not violent
and did not draw on vernacular discourses about competition for space,
resources, infrastructure, access to employment opportunities, social ser-
vices and so on. Pedzisai Mashiri (2005: 1) says they involved the trad-
ing of non-violent ethnocentric stereotypes, ethnonyms, nicknames,
jokes, insults and folk-stories. Mashiri goes on to point out that the use
of these non-violent ethnocentric stereotypes in Zimbabwe was largely
bidirectional; that is to say, the machawa, manyasarandi and mamoskeni
were not always on the receiving end of such labelling. Rather, they also
developed their own ethnocentric nicknames, slurs, insults and jokes
that they used to describe what they saw as stupidity, laziness, coward-
ice and exploitative tendencies of Zimbabweans, especially Zezuru or
Shona men more generally. The people of Malawian, Mozambican and
Zambian origin retaliated by using such terms as masambadovi (literally,
those who consume a lot of peanut butter) and maZuzuru (a deliberate
distortion of the non-derogatory maZezuru ethnic name to connote lazi-
ness, cowardice and exploitative tendencies) as derogatory labels for local
Zimbabweans (Mashiri 2005: 13).
More recently, the tendency for black southern Africans to use emer-
gent political languages against fellow black Africans has been evident in
the development and popularisation of the term makwerekwere, in South
Africa and Botswana. Historians, social anthropologists, sociologists,
52
F. Ndhlovu
cultural studies experts, demographers and other social scientists who

have commented on the 2008 and 2015 violent attacks on black African
migrants in South Africa have sought to explain the origins of the term
makwerekwere. According to Fancis Nyamnjoh (2006, p. 39):
Makwerekwere means different things in different contexts, but in South

Africa it means not only a black person but also one who hails from a
country assumed to be economically and culturally backward in relation
to South Africa.
Nyamnjoh goes on to trace the genealogy of the concept of makw-

erekwere by connecting it to the early and late colonial theories of civ-
ilisation, modernity and (under)development. In particular, he draws
attention to colonial and apartheid archives of knowledge about the
cultural identities of ‘Africans’ that were produced by early colonial
social anthropologists, missionaries, travellers, native affairs commis-
sioners and administrators (Comaroff and Comaroff 1997). Drawing
on their Western-centred theories of development, civilisation and the
very essence of being human, colonial academics constructed images
and narratives about Africans as backward, savages and uncivilised sub-
humans who are still evolving into complete human beings. A range of
myths, cultural stereotypes and misunderstandings about African cul-
tural identities—such as these, and that date back to the heyday of the
nineteenth-century colonial invasion of Africa—continue to excite the
imaginations of many within the academic community and the wider
society. For Nyamnjoh (2006), these vestiges of colonial narratives con-
stitute the underpinning pillar of vernacular discourses and emergent
political languages that fuel the anti-black African immigrant senti-
ment in the present-day South Africa. Like those used by Zimbabweans
against Mozambican, Malawian and Zambian immigrants, the emergent
political language of makwerekwere is loaded with derogatory undertones
that are intended to demean, ridicule and ultimately exclude specific
individuals and groups of people perceived as belonging to undesirable
ethnicities or nationalities that presumably do not sit well within popu-
lar imaginings of an ‘authentic’ South African or Batswana identity. It is
important to note that what sets apart the emergent political languages
53
that were used in Zimbabwe in the 1900s from those currently used in
South Africa and Botswana is the fact that the latter are accompanied by
the use of physical violence that has resulted in loss of human life, seri-
ous injuries to those deemed to be the non-desired other and destruc-
tion of property. For more detailed accounts on the nature and extent
of violence and destruction of property that characterised recent attacks
on the so-called makwerekwere in South Africa, please refer to Adjai and
Lazaridis (2013), Sharp (2008), Neocosmos (2006), Sichone (2008),
and Everatt (2011). Furthermore, unlike in Zimbabwe, recent emergent
political languages in South Africa and Botswana are predominantly one
way—makwerekwere are always on the receiving end of both the eth-
nocentric slurs and the attendant violence; they have not developed an
explicit and systematic counter-narrative or language of ridicule that has
the same denigrating effect on South Africans.
Previous scholarly conversations and debates that have engaged these
derogatory identity labels have interpreted them as manifestations
of either racism or xenophobia (see, e.g., Harris 2001, 2002; Danso
and Macdonald 2001; Morris 1998; Crush 2001, 2003; Sharp 2008;
Neocosmos 2006; Sichone 2008; Everatt 2011). This chapter contests
both explanations on the following grounds. First, the definition of rac-
ism in the relevant social science literature says it is ‘the belief that all
members of a purported race possess characteristics, abilities or qualities
specific to that race, especially as to distinguish it as inferior or supe-
rior to another race or other races’ (Hoyt 2012: 225). Along the same
lines, the related notion of xenophobia is defined as ‘…a form of atti-
tudinal, affective, and behavioural prejudice toward immigrants and
those perceived as foreign… [T]he term has been historically used to
emphasise a sense of fright of outsiders…’ (Yakushko 2009: 43–44).
Licata and Klein (2002: 323) elaborate on this definition by pointing
out that ‘xenophobia is intricately tied to notions of nationalism and
ethnocentrism, both of which are characterised by belief in the supe-
riority of one’s nation-state over others.’ The argument is that if we go
by these definitions, the emergent political languages that have shaped
contemporary southern African identity narratives cannot be reduced to
questions of racism and xenophobia. The cultural, linguistic, racial and
political profiles of the majority of the people upon whom the so-called
54
F. Ndhlovu
‘racism’ and ‘xenophobic’ violence has been visited in the recent past
defy the classical definitions of these concepts. My considered view is
that we are dealing here with phenomena that are more complex than
racism and/or xenophobia—phenomena that have a long historical
genealogy and that are intricately connected to the political economies
of southern African nation-states. If indeed emergent political languages
such as manyasarandi, machawa, mamoskeni, makwerekwere and many
more are fomented by racist and xenophobic attitudes, how is it that it
has consistently been people belonging to the same/shared racial group
(black Africans) against one another? How do we explain the fact that
the so-called xenophobic violence has been targeted at black Africans by
fellow black Africans who share the same Pan-African political identity
and who have shared political histories of being former colonial sub-
jects of non-African racial groups? Given that xenophobia is defined
as fear of foreigners or strangers, why is it that these emergent politi-
cal languages are rarely used as labels for white migrants whose histo-
ries and racial backgrounds lie outside the African continent? In any
case, how does a black African person become a stranger and a foreigner
on African soil? What exactly is the source of all these narrow, inward-
looking and parochial forms of stereotyping and stigmatisation of black
African immigrants? There are obviously no easy and straightforward
answers to these questions. However, a few possible explanations are
provided below.
The first plausible explanation lies in a more historically grounded
analysis of the impact of discourses of the isolationism of the apart-
heid era, the cultural superiority of white South Africa and the post-
apartheid nation-building and national identity formation processes. It
appears the vestiges of colonial and apartheid citizenship ideologies are
still firmly ensconced in the body politic of South Africa. Local South
African research (e.g. Rudwick 2006; Gounden 2010; Hoeane 2004)
indicates that one of the most serious problems facing post-apartheid
South African society is the persistent failure to forge meaningful inter-
cultural relationships among the different ethnolinguistic and racial
groups that continue to exist as isolated enclaves. Statistics from surveys
carried out by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) indi-
cate that over a third of South Africans do not have day-to-day contact
55
with people outside their own racial or ethnic group (Hoeane 2004).
IJR surveys further indicate that 60% of South Africans have difficulty
in understanding people from other ethnic/racial groups, with 64%
of black South Africans saying they do not socialise with people out-
side their own ethnic group (ibid.). Therefore, what we have in prac-
tice is a case of multiple monolithic ethno-nationalist identities that
are more or less similar to what prevailed under the apartheid model of
citizenship—the only difference being that this is no longer based on
formal policy but instead it is underpinned by informal and vernacu-
lar discourse. The problematic conceptions of citizenship and belong-
ing inherited from the apartheid Bantustan and/or Homeland policies
are still inadvertently retained in this way and are inconsistent with the
post-apartheid ideals of a Pan-African South African identity that seeks
to promote social cohesion and cross-cultural understanding among all
who call South Africa home.
In the early 2000s when the South African anti-immigrant senti-
ment was not as violent as it became in 2008 and 2015, most research-
ers found that there were negative perceptions within the wider South
African community about an influx of black African migrants. Black
African migrants were accused of stealing jobs from locals and were
seen as a burden on scarce resources and public services such as schools
and medical care, infrastructure, land and housing (see, for example,
Neocosmos 2006; Nyamnjoh 2006). The most recent research reports
suggest that amakwekwere are still currently perceived as competing for
informal trading and insufficient job opportunities with black South
African citizens who are already living in poverty and below the border-
line (Crush 2008; Everatt 2011; Adjai and Lazaridis 2013). While there
is no doubt that the majority of black South Africans are poor and have
very limited employment opportunities. The view that amakwerekwere
are the cause is contested and challenged. This is a much broader insti-
tutional or systemic problem, and this line of argument is supported in
the next few paragraphs.
The wider societal implication of the depressing statistics on low lev-
els of literacy, poor further education and training college completions
and limited access to higher education (see Table 2.1) is that we end up
with many unskilled and unemployed young people roaming the streets.
56
F. Ndhlovu
On the other hand, we have immigrants with both entrepreneurial skills

(that lend them into the informal economy) and very good tertiary
and postschool education (that lend them into the formal job market).
Therefore, the natural instinct of unemployed young South Africans
with very limited educational and entrepreneurial skills is to vent their
anger and frustration on the soft targets, namely makwerekwere. Yet, the
main source of the unenviable livelihoods of the majority of black South
African people is the failure by the post-apartheid political establish-
ment to empower them in meaningful ways. While there is no doubt
that black South Africans now do have the political and civil liberties
that they were denied under the apartheid system, they still remain dis-
empowered educationally and economically. For this reason, I refute
local community perceptions reported in previous studies that sug-
gest that violent attacks visited upon makwerekwere are a consequence
of the latter stealing jobs from local South Africans. As I have already
indicated, this is a systemic issue. Makwerekwere come to South Africa
with skills that are required by both the formal and informal sectors of
the economy, which the majority of black South Africans are unable
to fill due to the educational disadvantages they suffered during apart-
heid and continue to endure under the post-apartheid dispensation.
Makwerekwere are not responsible for the limited educational and entre-
preneurial skills of the restive young black South African people. What
the black South African people should be asking is: Why is it that, more
than two decades after the end of apartheid rule, they still do not have
the same educational and entrepreneurial skills that compare favoura-
bly with those of ‘makwerekwere’ and those of white South Africans?
They should also be asking why it is that the mainstream economy of
South Africa (e.g. the financial services sector, the real estate, the mining
industry and so on) still remains predominantly in white hands.
The second explanation for black Africans being the soft tar-
get is this: unlike Caucasian or white migrants, the majority of black
African migrants are immersed among the generality of ordinary
South Africans. With the exception of those that are highly skilled
(e.g. those working as university academics, entrepreneurs, chief exec-
utive officers of big transnational corporations, and those employed
by well-paying non-governmental organisations), the majority of black
African migrants live in townships together with poor, unskilled and
57
unemployed South Africans. This clearly puts them on the spotlight as

they are seen to be living better lifestyles while their local South African
neighbours wallow in poverty and live below the breadline. It is pre-
cisely for this reason that whenever the anti-immigrant sentiment flares
up in South Africa, the victims tend to be those people who live in high
density townships such as Alexandria, Thembisa, Mamelodi, Soweto
and Khayelitsha. Highly skilled black African migrants who live in afflu-
ent suburbs and gated communities that have their own shopping malls
away from the city centres and townships escape the violent attacks as
they rarely mix with poor and unemployed ordinary South Africans.
What we see from the deployment of the vernacular discourse and
emergent political language of makwerekwere in South Africa is a repro-
duction of colonial and apartheid narratives about black African cul-
tural identities that were invented and popularised under the banner of
modernisation theories of civilisation and development. In other words,
interpretations of what it means to be a mukwerekwere (singular form of
makwerekwere/ amakwerekwere) have emerged over time as racialised and
ethnicised identities formed under imperialism, colonialism and apart-
heid that continue to hang like a nightmare on the South African body
politic. As Ndlovu-Gatsheni has argued, these colonially inherited iden-
tity narratives are refusing to die and continue to throw up toxic ques-
tions around issues of belonging, citizenship, entitlement and ownership
of resources in South Africa (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2012: 1). So, overall,
the issue of makwerekwere is not about xenophobia, neither is it about
racism—otherwise white immigrants would bear the most brunt by vir-
tue of their racial affiliations. Rather, I would interpret this as misdirected
anger and frustration whereby the vernacular discourses and forms of
small talk that start at micro-social settings are popularised, acted upon
and then translated into violent attacks and hatred of the perceived
non-desired other. The argument that makwerekwere are undesirable in
South Africa because they steal local people’s jobs is too simplistic and
unconvincing. There is no way that makwerekwere can steal jobs from
South Africans considering that this country has some of the stringent
employment regulations in the world such as the Broad-based Black
Economic Empowerment policy whereby South African employers are
compelled by law to consider black South African citizens before opening
the offer to foreign nationals (Republic of South Africa 2004).
58
F. Ndhlovu
Furthermore, the claim about there being an influx of makwerekwere

who have squeezed the rest of the South African population out of the
labour market and who have chocked the country’s infrastructure and
social services does not stack up against the hard facts on the ground.
Reliable population data, including the most recent census figures
provided by South African Government agencies such as Statistics
South Africa, indicate that migrants (coming from all over the world)
constitute only 3–4% of the total population of South Africa, which
currently stands at just over 54 million (Republic of South Africa
2014). Anecdotal estimates suggest that even when undocumented
immigrants are taken into account, the number of migrants to South
Africa does not exceed 5% of the total national population. Now, in
the light of these statistics, it just does not make sense to believe that
such a small proportion of the population can clog the infrastructure,
social services and labour market of South Africa. As already indi-
cated above, makwerekwere are accused of being a threat to the sur-
vival of the people of South Africa who live in poverty and under the
breadline. But how does the majority (95–97%) get threatened by an
unarmed 3–5% section of the population? It is my considered view
that what is at the heart of the problem here are economic and polit-
ical issues that need to be addressed through meaningful and broad-
based social cohesion initiatives that take into account the interests
of people who currently live on the margins of South African society.
While the politics of South Africa has been opened since 1994 to
give the black population those civil rights and political freedom that
were a preserve of the minority white population under the apart-
heid regime, the economic front has not been opened wide enough.
Economic opportunities still remain closed to the majority of black
South Africans because the post-apartheid dispensation has not ade-
quately empowered them with the requisite educational, vocational
and entrepreneurial skills that would give them a competitive edge in
the labour market. This is the root of the problem and not erroneous
perceptions about an ‘influx’ of ‘marauding’ migrants who are per-
ceived as posing a threat to the very existence of ordinary black South
Africans.
59
Conclusion
The majority of people labelled as foreigners or outsiders through the
use of vernacular discourses and demeaning emergent political languages
are, in fact, southern African citizens—either by birth or naturalisation.
The tendency to describe them as undesired intruders of alien origin
betrays the limits of mainstream nation-state-centric identity and citi-
zenship imaginings that are resemiotised and re-articulated through ver-
nacular discourses. As argued in this chapter, the challenges of belonging
and identity formation in southern Africa can be pinned down to two
systemic issues. The first is about the glaring disconnect between politi-
cally driven identity imaginings and vernacular expressions of the same.
The second is about misdirected anger and frustration of black South
Africans who have, for over two decades, been let down by their very
own black government but choose to vent their anger on soft targets—
the makwerekwere. I, therefore, suggests that we need a paradigm shift in
our imaginings of identity and belonging in ways that frame these issues
in much broader terms that transcend the traditional straitjackets of the
nation-state-centric scheme of things. There is a compelling need to not
only recognise but to also fully integrate the non-institutional voices of
ordinary people in order to avoid the rise of vernacular discourses and
emergent political languages that have so far fuelled unwarranted social
and political cleavages in the community and society.
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Part II
Language, Vernacular Discourse,
Narrow Nationalisms
3
Language Policy, Vernacular Discourse,
Empire Building
Introduction
In countries like Zimbabwe, located in the southern African region,
at the centre of nation building pulsates a hegemonic language policy,
which is inextricably intertwined with the very process of identity for-
mation. Like many other postcolonial states in Africa, Zimbabwe is a
product of armed resistance against British Empire. It is, however,
intriguing that the current ruling elite’s political imaginations, aspira-
tions and language policy formulation approaches reflect a reproduction
of colonial ‘empire building’ that was intolerant of linguistic and cul-
tural diversity. This makes Zimbabwe an interesting case study because
out of sixteen languages only two (Shona and Ndebele), which are
mother tongues of the majority of ruling elite, are privileged as rallying
point for the nation-building project. Consequently, speakers of those
languages deemed to be ‘minority’ experience not only a sense of exclu-
sion from the nation but also constriction of educational and economic
opportunities.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76135-0_3
66
F. Ndhlovu
A reinterpretation of the politics of citizenship through examining

language policies, therefore, presents an interesting entry point that
sheds new light on complex identity formation processes in postcolo-
nial African societies. With specific focus on the Zimbabwe case study,
I analyse five language policy documents. These include the National
Cultural Policy of Zimbabwe, the 1987 Education Act, the Position Paper
on Zimbabwe’s Language Policy, the National Language Policy Advisory
Panel (NLPAP) report, as well as the Nziramasanga Commission on
Education and Training in Zimbabwe. A predominant feature of these
language policy documents is their insistence on imposition of Shona
and Ndebele linguistic and cultural norms as the defining pillar of what
it means to be Zimbabwean. This simplistic bimodal and bicultural
view on social formations in Zimbabwe has culminated in a skewed
perception of Zimbabwean citizenship and nationhood. I interro-
gate these policy documents with the view to exposing how they have
been deployed as technology for legitimising and perpetuating skewed
and exclusionary imaginings of Zimbabwean national identity and
citizenship.
Citizenship is both a social and a political process that seeks to con-
struct a uniform identity for culturally diverse peoples existing within
clearly delineated geographical frontiers. Citizenship is, by definition
and design, a contested concept sustained by politics of exclusion and
inclusion in so far as it constructs parameters by which some people
are included and others left out of the nation-state. Citizenship is also
a social institution underpinned by a repetitive pattern of collective
practices legitimated by normative justification (Czarniawska 2000).
This means citizenship is a product of discursive interactions that
involve the placing of self and other into particular positions, which
can either facilitate or hinder effective participation in all spheres of
public life (Ndhlovu 2009a). For postcolonial Zimbabwe, contesta-
tions over citizenship and identity formation have intersected with lan-
guage policy, processes of nation building and social integration and
political power contestations. There are three forms of power contesta-
tions, namely state, discourse and ideological power (Tollefson 1991).
Language policy represents all three forms of power in the following
respects: state power in terms of it being a product of the bureaucrats;
3 Language Policy, Vernacular Discourse, Empire Building
67
discourse power as language policies are imposed by unequal individu

als (the policy makers/bureaucrats and the dominated ethnic minori-
ties); and ideological power in terms of belief of which languages are
worthy of government propagation and which ones are not and what
is a worthwhile language policy decision (economically) and what is
not (Shohamy 2001). The argument is that by virtue of their value as
instruments widely used for gate-keeping, discrimination, coercion
and control, language policies constitute another site for the exercise of
power by politicians and bureaucrats. An analysis of language policies
within the context of broader issues of power, ideology, the nation-state,
hegemony, dominance and social structure helps us see technologies of
exclusion that underpin vernacular discourses on recognition of linguis-
tic diversity and multiculturalism.
Conceptual Issues
The burgeoning body of social science scholarship shows that notions
of citizenship and identity are multilayered, self-imposed and ascribed
by others and as such require a critical analysis informed by robust
social–theoretical framework (Blackledge 2005; Ndhlovu 2007; Koven
2007). When Michael Hechter (1975) introduced the notion of ‘inter-
nal colonization’, his intention was to demonstrate the endemic rela-
tions of domination and subordination between two or more groups
of people presumed to be having a shared citizenship/national identity.
As opposed to more traditional forms of colonisation in which an alien
or foreign power invades and imposes its authority on another country,
internal colonisation is achieved through subtle means. The phenom-
enon of internal colonisation and how it plays out is captured by the
‘Celtic fringe’ described in Michael Hechter’s book Internal Colonialism:
The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536–1966. With
particular focus on the marginalisation of the Celtic ethnolinguis-
tic group in national development during the formation of the British
Empire, Hechter provides a detailed analysis of the nature of unequal
power relations between the superordinate and subordinate language
groups existing within a shared geographical territory:
68
F. Ndhlovu
The superordinate group, now ensconced as the core, seeks to stabi-

lize and monopolize its advantages through policies aiming at the insti-
tutionalization and perpetuation of the existing stratification system.
Ultimately, it seeks to regulate the allocation of social roles such that
those roles commonly defined as having high status are generally reserved
for its members. Conversely, individuals from the less advanced group
tend to be denied access to these roles. This stratification system assigns
individuals to specific roles in the social structure on the basis of objective
cultural distinctions [and not skin colour or race]. (Hechter 1975: 39)
Therefore, within the internal colonisation model, inequalities are felt

as members of the dominated ethnic groups seek employment, educa
tion and socio-political opportunities in an environment where the
culture and language of the dominant group are part of the criteria
for upward social mobility (Bulcha 1997). In the context of postcolo-
nial Zimbabwe, this description typifies asymmetrical power relations
between minority language speakers on the one hand and mother
tongue speakers of Shona and Ndebele on the other.
The concept of internal colonisation is also connected to Robert
Phillipson’s groundbreaking work on linguistic imperialism, devel-
oped in particular to analyse the spread of English as an international
language. Linguistic imperialism has been defined as the dominance
asserted and maintained by the establishment and continuous reconsti-
tution of structural and cultural inequalities between dominating lan-
guages and other languages. In the words of Phillipson:
Linguistic imperialism is a theoretical construct, devised to account for

linguistic hierarchisation, to address issues of why some languages come
to be used more and others less, what structures and ideologies facilitate
such processes … it attempts to bring into sharper focus the hidden past
of English Language Teaching (ELT) worldwide, its aetiology and archae-
ology. (Phillipson 1997: 238)
In Zimbabwe, these tenets of linguistic imperialism have implicitly been

employed in advocating the need to undo colonial injustices by con-
ferring more functional and institutional statuses to the country’s two
national languages, Shona and Ndebele. Such discourses are premised
69
on the thinking that as the de jure official language of Zimbabwe,

English is the country’s ‘killer language’, which should be removed and
substituted by selected indigenous languages that are perceived as more
nationally ‘authentic’ and better grounded in both pre- and postimpe-
rial frameworks.
This approach to the critique of language use in Zimbabwe is too
simplistic insofar as it fails to appreciate the fact that linguistic impe-
rialism and its associated forms of socio-political exclusion are not only
about ‘foreign’ versus ‘indigenous’ languages since power imbalances
also exist among the indigenous languages themselves. The argument
being that the quest for socio-economic and political domination by
Shona and Ndebele language speakers is a major factor contributing to
the unenviable situation of minority language groups that are conspicu
ous by their absence from the Zimbabwean citizenship and identity
discourse.
It is argued here that linguistic imperialism has to be seen as firmly
resident and located within the ideological underpinnings of domina-
tion, subordination, assimilation and linguistic homogenisation that
have very little to do with whether the dominating language/ethnic
group is ‘foreign’ or ‘indigenous’. It is further posited that these char-
acteristic features of language-based domination are not unique to the
English language as they also underpin unequal power relations among
the African languages of Zimbabwe. Therefore, although the status of
English in Zimbabwe is discussed in some parts of this chapter, the
study is, by and large, not about English hegemony, which is considered
an old and exhausted question. The socio-politics of language-based
exclusion exercised by Shona and Ndebele language speakers over the
minority language groups and its linkages with quests for monolithic
nation building and citizenship constitute the new question at the core
of the ensuing discussion.
Pierre Bourdieu’s model of the symbolic value of language is the
third component of the analytical framework employed in analysing the
intersection of language policy, identity and citizenship in Zimbabwe.
According to Bourdieu’s model, the symbolic value of one language
variety over others is inscribed in everyday relations among differ-
ent language speakers in multilingual contexts. This construction of a
70
F. Ndhlovu
social world which discriminates against speakers of some languages and

favours speakers of the dominant language is said to occur almost unno-
ticed in what Bourdieu calls a ‘quasi-magical and often invisible pro-
cess’ (Bourdieu 1991). Thus, according to the model of symbolic value
of language, the misrecognition of minority languages as irrelevant enti-
ties to the citizenship and national identity matrix becomes inscribed
in the obviousness of ordinary experience. This ultimately contributes
to the imposition of the dominant language and culture. The model
of the symbolic value of one language over others is employed in this
chapter to illuminate the way in which the symbolically dominated
minority languages of Zimbabwe have been valorised as part of ‘prob-
lems’ that could potentially hinder Zimbabwean national unity, political
integration and social cohesion. The perceived threats of vibrant linguis-
tic and cultural pluralism have culminated in the imposition of Shona
and Ndebele cultural norms as the rallying point for a uniform national
identity. This constitutes the symbolic power of language, defined by
Bourdieu in the following terms:
[Symbolic power] is a power which the person submitting to grants to the

person who exercises it, a credit with which he credits him, a fides, an auc-
toritas, with which he entrusts him by placing his trust in him. It is power
which exists because the person who submits to it believes that it exists…
the politician derives his political power from the trust that a group places
on him. He derives his truly magical power over the group from faith in
the representation that he gives to the group and which is a representa-
tion of the group itself and of its relation to other groups. As a representa-
tive linked to those he represents by a sort of rational contract, he is also a
champion, united by a magical relation of identification with those who,
as the saying goes, ‘pin all their hopes on him’. (Bourdieu 1991: 21)
Therefore, symbolic power is derived and enhanced by the fact that a

number of groups (both the dominating and the dominated) may
sometimes cooperate with one another to maintain social order and to
perpetuate existing social systems. Such an unwritten agreement is what
Shohamy (2001: 21) calls the ‘conspiracy of silence’, an unspoken but
self-perpetuating alliance between the dominated, institutions and the
71
bureaucrats. Therefore, the power of those who introduce skewed lan-

guage policies does not always lie in their ability to impose their will on
marginalised groups. Rather, it lies in some type of a rational contract
between those in power who want to dominate and those who want to
be dominated and grant those in power to do so, for example by shift-
ing from their mother tongues to hegemonic languages for ideological
and pragmatic reasons. In a book titled Weapons of the Weak: Everyday
Forms of Peasant Resistance, James C. Scott argues that hegemonic ideas
do not easily penetrate into the lower levels of social strata without
being resisted because the subjects of domination are not entirely weak
(Scott 1985). The dominated have other means by which they can pot-
hole, ridicule, demean and ultimately resist the forces of domination.
This means
Conformity is calculated, not unthinking, and beneath the surface of

symbolic and ritual compliance there is an undercurrent of ideological
resistance, just as beneath the surface peace there is continuous material
resistance. (Yee 1995: 2)
The argument is that the dominance of Shona and Ndebele in

Zimbabwe, besides being facilitated by the structural conditions in
place, has something to do with the overt and tacit cooperation of mar-
ginalised sections of the Zimbabwean society. Thus, inasmuch as those
in power want to control and dominate, there is also a strong willing-
ness on the part of the subjects to be dominated and controlled so as to
perpetuate their existing social structure.
In short, power is not always coercive but has a big element of con-
sent captured in Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony (Gramsci
1971). According to Gramsci, hegemony is the process of alliance build-
ing; it entails the organisation or mobilisation of the masses through
an intricate balancing of coercion and consent (Ives 2004). Dominant
groups in society, including fundamentally but not exclusively the rul-
ing class, maintain their dominance by securing the ‘spontaneous con-
sent’ of subordinate groups through the negotiated construction of a
political and ideological consensus which incorporates both dominant
and dominated groups (Strinati 1995: 165). In the ensuing discussion,
72
F. Ndhlovu
language policies are considered part of the hegemonic project of

Zimbabwean citizenship and national identity formation achieved
through a combination of alliance building and spontaneous consent of
minorities leading to Shona and Ndebele linguistic triumphalism.
The (Dis)Empowering Nature

of Language Policies
Language policies are products of complex ideological processes that
both empower and disempower different sections of society in equal
measure. Though language policies are generally designed with good
intentions, they also have a darker side. They often result in unintended
consequences, such as the social, economic and political exclusion or
marginalisation of speakers of minority ethnic and reticent languages.
First, language policies sometimes wrongly consign languages and their
associated cultural identities into bifurcated categories of ‘superior’ and
‘inferior’, ‘useful’ and ‘less useful’, and ‘important’ and ‘unimportant’.
This breeds all sorts of injustices, inequities and exclusions, as the for-
tunes of ethnolinguistic groups and individuals within them become
indexically tied to those of their languages. In multiethnic and multilin-
gual contexts, such as southern Africa, language policies can determine
who has access to schools, who has opportunities for economic advance-
ment, who participates in political decisions, who has access to govern-
mental services and who gets treated fairly by governmental agencies
(Brown and Ganguly 2003). Language policies can determine who gets
ahead and who gets left behind. Language policies do, indeed, affect
the prospects for ethnic success—for both ethnic groups and the indi-
viduals in these groups. Politics, economics, community development,
advocacy activities and active participation in all other aspects of life
will remain elusive for the majority as long as they are conducted in lan-
guages other than those spoken and easily understood by all sections of
society, both local and translocal. The prevailing conditions in all south-
ern African countries are such that active citizenship participation and
national political deliberations are mediated mainly in standard national
and official languages, such as isiZulu, isiXhosa, Setswana, Tshivenda,
73
Sesotho, isiNdebele, ChiShona, Chinyanja, Portuguese, English and

Afrikaans (among others). This is exclusionary. For example, partici-
patory democracy requires that the deliberations of legislators be con-
ducted and communicated in languages understood by and accessible to
all citizens, including those labelled as minority ethnolinguistic groups.
The second problem about language policies is that they have tradi-
tionally proceeded along the route of what has come to be known as
the ‘standard language ideology’. Language ideologies are beliefs that we
hold about what constitutes language. Our responses to the question
‘what is language?’ explicitly or implicitly betray our language ideolo-
gies. On the other hand, the related concept of ideologies about language
refers to beliefs that we hold about what language is for, or why we need
language. Our responses to the question ‘what are languages used for?’
betray our ideologies about language. Both language ideologies and ide-
ologies about language are cultural representations—whether explicit or
implicit—of the intersection of language and human beings in a social
world. They both link language to identity, power, aesthetics, morality
and epistemology—and, indeed, to just about everything else we do in
life. Ideologies and beliefs about language are also deeply rooted in per-
sonal biographies, and in political and educational contexts (Shohamy
2009). Through such linkages, language ideologies and ideologies about
language underpin not only linguistic form and use, but also significant
social institutions and fundamental notions of person and community
(Woolard and Schieffelin 1998). Language ideologies and ideologies
about language proceed from, and are shaped by, what Walter Mignolo
(2000) calls ‘locus of enunciation’, that is our point of departure in
looking at the world and everything in it, including how we conceptual-
ise things called ‘languages’.
Third, dominant language policy regimes have missed these very
important points about the social transactional nature of human com-
munication and the promises it holds for a more nuanced and pro-
gressive understanding of cultural identities. Language policies seeking
to promote additive bilingualism, for example, are founded upon a
very specific view of language, a view that takes languages to be ‘enti-
ties’ which, when accessed, will then be beneficial to the speakers. In
this regard, additive bilingualism and multilingualism must also be
74
F. Ndhlovu
understood as particular ways of thinking about language. In an

edited volume, aptly titled Dangerous Multilingualism, Blommaert
et al. (2012) capture key themes expressed by the most recent and
burgeoning body of academic scholarship critical of the ‘endanger
ing’ nature of mainstream conceptualisations of bilingualism and
multilingualism. Pitting the modernist notions of ‘order’ against ‘dis-
order’, ‘purity’ against ‘impurity’ and ‘normality’ against ‘abnormality’,
Blommaert et al. (2012: 18) argue that the older tradition of sociolin-
guistic theorisation saw ‘problems with multilingualism … as prob-
lems of (dis)order, and the solutions that emerged out of such analyses
rarely brought real benefit to the multilingual subjects to whom they
were addressed. The reason for this failure was that sociolinguists of
that era tended to overlook the complexity of the phenomenology of
multilingualism-on-the-ground’.
Blommaert and colleagues further advise that we need to start with
our ‘feet on the ground from a strong awareness that the phenomenol-
ogy of language in society has changed, has become more complex and
less predictable than we thought was. We have the advantage over earlier
generations of being able to draw on a far more sophisticated battery
of sociolinguistic insights and understandings’ (ibid.: 18). Taking a cue
from these insights, I argue that, in its current iteration, the notion of
multilingualism and how it is incorporated in language policy frame-
works is, indeed, a very dangerous one because it hides more than it
reveals. Some of the things that are hidden by seemingly progressive
multilingualism discourses include: (i) that the process of enumerating
multiple monolithic ‘language’ objects is underpinned by the principles
of the standard ideology and (ii) that like other similar (post)modernist
notions—emancipation, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, universal-
ism and globalisation—the mainstream conception of multilingualism
is part of the global imperial designs constituting ideological leanings
of elite researchers and those in power bent on keeping certain groups
out of their areas of interaction (Makoni 2012). In what I would con-
sider to be the most candid critique of the misleading and disingenuous
nature of ideologies that inform mainstream understandings of multi-
lingualism, Makoni (2012: 192–193) argues that
75
[Multilingualism] contains a powerful sense of social romanticism, creat-

ing an illusion of equality in a highly asymmetrical world, particularly in
contexts characterized by a search for homogenization […] I find it discon-
certing, to say the least, to have an open celebration of diversity in societies
marked by violent xenophobia, [racism, discrimination, and so on …]
A close look at the epistemological architecture of multilingualism

in applied settings (such as multilingual education and multilingual
national language policies) does reveal that this concept reinforces social
class hegemony and privilege by masking endemic inequalities, narrow
forms of ethno-nationalisms and xenophobia. The argument is that lan-
guage policy and planning research need to focus not only on the politi
cal contexts in which it operates, but also on the nature of the concepts
of language that underpin the different options—to question not only
the realpolitik, but also the reallinguistik of the twentieth century, which
appears to be still ensconced in twenty-first-century academic debates
and conversations around this topic. In order to contextualise and also
illustrate this line of argument, I examine in the remaining sections of
this chapter Zimbabwe’s postcolonial language policy regime and its
entanglement with issues political, economic, cultural, identitarian and
by extension exclusionary.
Zimbabwean Vernacular Rhetoric on Language

and Ethnicity
The language profile of Zimbabwe typifies the general linguistic situation
of most of southern Africa: a high degree of multilingualism, with numer-
ous minority languages1 and a handful of languages of wider national and
international communication. In addition to English and several other
1The term ‘minority language(s)’ is used here to refer to languages’ varieties that are accorded
very limited or no functional space in mainstream domains of everyday social life. The concept of
‘minority language(s)’ used in this chapter does not necessarily refer to sizes of speaking popula
tions, but rather it refers to the socio-political status of a given language in relation to other lan-
guages within a shared linguistic ecology.
76
F. Ndhlovu
non-indigenous languages, there are at least 16 African languages spoken

in Zimbabwe. These include Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan,
Nambya, Ndau, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, Sign Language, Sotho, Tonga,
Tswana, Venda and Xhosa (Hachipola 1998). The National Constitution
of the Republic of Zimbabwe confers official status to all of these languages
(Government of Zimbabwe 2013). However, the de facto position is that
Shona and Ndebele are the country’s national languages, while English is
the sole official language. The rest are conferred the inferior minority lan-
guages status and have very limited or no space at all in the country’s edu-
cation system, in the print and electronic media, law and administration as
well as in general public life. English, Shona and Ndebele dominate these
spheres of Zimbabwean public life. The institutional and functional sta-
tuses that each category of languages enjoys or suffers from easily translate
into the respective speaking populations’ levels of access to rights and privi-
leges as well as overall participation in national affairs.
According to the 19822 National Census of Population and Housing,
Shona is the biggest ethnic/language group constituting 75% of the
total national population followed by Ndebele (16.5%). African
indigenous minorities constitute 7.5%, while non-African minorities
(including English) account for 1% of the total national population
(Government of Zimbabwe 1982). Popular thinking in Zimbabwe is
that Shona and Ndebele acquired the national language status by virtue
of the numerical supremacy of their native speakers. Consequently, the
country has been literally divided into two broad geolinguistic regions
of Matabeleland and Mashonaland, and all ethnic groups, regardless of
whatever language they speak, are erroneously considered to be either
Ndebele or Shona depending on the region in which they reside. It
is, therefore, not uncommon to hear the following kind of casual talk
when Zimbabweans meet for the first time: ‘urimuShona or uliNdebele? ’
and ‘unotaura or uyakhuluma? ’ [Are you a Shona or Ndebele person?
and Do you speak Shona or Ndebele?]. Many uninformed outsiders
have also come to assume that Zimbabwean African groups comprise
2Since 1982, there has never been a systematic count of the Zimbabwean population in terms of
its linguistic and ethnic complexion. The 1992 and 2002 National Population Census question-
naires were both conspicuous for their exclusion of questions on language and ethnicity.
77
only of Shona and Ndebele people. This simplistic assumption about

the ethnic and linguistic complexion of Zimbabwe has crystallised into
a citizenship and identity discourse that completely ignores and margin-
alises cultural identities other than those of Shona and Ndebele ethnic
groups. The homogenising belief that overlooks the tapestry of cultural,
ethnic and linguistic formations in Zimbabwe has been reinforced and
legitimised through mundane vernacular discourses of both the political
elites and ordinary people.
In Zimbabwe, linguistic affiliation is always conflated with ethnicity
and ‘tribe’ and the subject of tribalism, ethnicity and linguistic diver-
sity is something that is not normally debated or discussed openly
(Muzondidya and Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2007). People whisper about eth-
nic differences and about tribalism. It is considered a bad thing to talk
about. In fact, it is just like talking about witchcraft—you do not go
about saying so and so is a witch. Therefore, issues of linguistic plural
ism, ethnic identity and multiculturalism have been mystified and over-
politicised to a point where people believe they should not be talked
about—except of course in homogenising and reductionist terms that
reiterate the politically correct assumption that every Zimbabwean is
either Shona or Ndebele. This is mainly because ethnic pluralities and
linguistic diversities are misconstrued as the bedrock of secessionist ten-
dencies and supra-nationalisms. Such perceptions are located within the
popular equation of ethnolinguistic group with ‘tribe’, which translates
to tribalism in an antagonistic sense.
Owing to fears of the perceived multiple hegemonies that may arise
out of overt recognition of a vibrant multilingual dispensation, both
linguistic diversity and cultural pluralism are viewed in negative light.
Consequently, postcolonial efforts at trying to avert perceived language-
based political divisions have resulted in the so-called tribal balancing
policies that have promoted Shona and Ndebele as the only national
languages of Zimbabwe. Evidence for this is found in the current divi-
sion of Zimbabwe into two geolinguistic regions (Matabeleland and
Mashonaland), implying that the two ethnic groups (Ndebele and Shona)
are officially considered to be the only sovereigns in their respective
regions. Such policies are also connected to the postcolonial notions of
identity and citizenship premised on the nationalist catechisms of cultural
78
F. Ndhlovu
uniformity and linguistic homogeneity (whereby Shona/Ndebele linguis-

tic/cultural norms are imposed as the rallying point for Zimbabwe’s post-
colonial nation-building enterprise). This practice is also evident in the
allocation of senior political positions by both the governing Zimbabwe
African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) party and all opposi
tion political parties. The so-called ‘tribal balancing’ policies of all politi-
cal formations have entrenched a de facto system in which the president
is Shona (so far in ZANU PF, he has been and remains Zezuru), depu-
tised by two vice-presidents (one Ndebele and the other either Karanga
or Zezuru). The main opposition political party, the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) has followed in the footsteps of ZANU PF
but has taken this ‘tribal balancing’ policy even a step further by having
a party president deputised by three vice-presidents. This has resulted
in the tribal balancing card being the decisive factor in the composition
of national leadership at the expense of meritocracy and good leader-
ship credentials. Worse still, the taken-for-granted assumption that every
Zimbabwean is either Ndebele or Shona has led to further marginalisa
tion of minority ethnolinguistic polities whose identities are not fully
integrated into the nation and its developmental agenda.
Another disturbing phenomenon in Zimbabwe is the exploitation
of ethnicity as a coalescing factor or rallying point in building alli-
ances of exclusion and inclusion. Issues around ethnic differences and
the politics of minoritisation have come to constitute the major deter-
minants of struggles for socio-political and economic influence and
power. During the 1980s, for instance, the political conflict between
two nationalist parties, ZANU PF and PF ZAPU, eventually assumed
ethnic and regional dimensions when the government tried to resolve
this political problem by turning it into a Shona–Ndebele ethnic issue
during the Gukurahundi massacres (Lindgren 2005; Ndlovu-Gatsheni
2003; Alexander 1998; Alexander et al. 2000). There have also been
many other instances in both colonial and postindependence Zimbabwe
where people from different ethnic affiliations, such as Karanga,
Manyika, Ndau, Zezuru, Kalanga and Ndebele, have entered into eth-
nic coalitions to outwit each other politically (Sithole 1980, 1999).
These exclusionary and often parochial approaches to postco-
lonial nation building and identity formation have reduced socio-
politically weak polities to irrelevant entities in issues of citizenship and
79
the national debate. Such discursive practices have also failed to real-
ise that a nation is an ever-evolving construct, with strong centripetal
forces that transcend narrow ethnic, regional, linguistic and historical
cleavages. Any nation-building enterprise premised on the celebration
of ethnic and cultural norms of one specific group to the total exclusion
of others negates the spirit and letter of engendering unity in diversity.
Rather than becoming an entity constructed through discourses that
exclude some citizens by labelling them as irrelevant minorities, a com-
prehensive nation-building project should be about inclusion, incor-
poration and managing diversity. However, in the case of postcolonial
Zimbabwe, members of socio-politically powerful ethnic groups have
adopted totalitarian approaches to nationhood that have so far con-
stricted democratic space for those perceived to be ethnic minorities. In
addition to party political power plays, social policies and in particular
language policies have featured prominently as yet another site where
skewed nation-building and citizenship agendas have been actuated.
I show how and why in sections that follow.
Language Policy as Vernacular Discourse

Comprehensive language policy formulation programmes are gener-
ally believed to be those that enlist the input of a wide range of stake-
holders such as language speakers, educational institutions, media
practitioners, book publishers and language experts (Ndhlovu 2009b;
Chimhundu 1998; Tollefson 1995). The Zimbabwean experience has,
however, proved to be a far cry from this ideal. Most of Zimbabwe’s
postcolonial language policy formulation initiatives have always been
dominated by the central government—in the form of government
commissioned language boards and panels. These government-
appointed commissions have been conspicuously dominated by par-
tisan individuals who either belong to the country’s dominant ethnic
groups or are sympathetic to mainstream political thinking on nation-
hood and identity. This well-calculated government monopoly over
the business of fashioning language policies has seen all other players
pushed to the peripheries of mainstream debates and conversations
around these issues of national importance. Of major concern is the
80
F. Ndhlovu
increased marginalisation of those ethnic and linguistic groups that

have always been side-lined through under-representation in language
policy formulation bodies.
The documents that have come to be taken as the premise for
language treatment and language status allocation in postcolonial
Zimbabwe were produced under these circumstances of exclusion and
subtle cultural oppression. The five language policy documents examined
in the remaining parts of this chapter were heavily influenced by postco-
lonial nationalist ideologies of subtle cultural assimilation and exclusion.
The 1987 Education Act

The 1987 Education Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) is one
piece of legislation that set the tone for a citizenship discourse that
marginalises and ignores the identities of minority language groups
in postcolonial Zimbabwe. While the Act might have been specifi-
cally promulgated as a guide to the policy on the teaching and learn-
ing of languages in the country’s education system, its provisions have
been used to influence policy decisions in all other sectors that deal
with language issues, for example the print and electronic media, arts
and culture, law and administration, business and commerce as well
as political discourses on Zimbabwean national identity. The Act can,
indeed, be conceived as constituting the ideological and pragmatic basis
for linguistic and cultural injustices in all these domains of language
use and development. Section 55 of the Act, which has significantly
influenced decisions on language use in everyday Zimbabwean social
life, is cited here in full:
1. Subject to the provisions of this section, the main languages of

Zimbabwe, namely Shona, Ndebele and English, shall be taught
in all primary schools from the first grade as follows:
(a) Shona and English in all areas where the mother tongue of
the majority of the residents is Shona; or
81
(b) Ndebele and English in all areas where the mother tongue of
the majority of the residents is Ndebele.
2. Prior to the fourth grade, either of the languages referred to in par-
agraph (a) and (b) of subsection (1) may be used as the medium
of instruction, depending on which language is more commonly
spoken and better understood by the pupils.
3. From the fourth grade, English shall be the medium of instruction
provided that Shona or Ndebele shall be taught as subjects on an
equal-time-allocation basis as the English language.
4. In areas where minority languages exist, the minister may author-
ise the teaching of such languages in primary schools in addition
to those specified in subsections (1), (2) and (3) (Government of
Zimbabwe 1987).
There are a number of points which demonstrate that the Act con-
stitutes the basis for the marginalisation of minority identities in
Zimbabwe. Firstly, the Act is conceived within the neo-classical dis-
courses of ‘major’ and ‘minor’ languages. The assumption that Shona,
Ndebele and English are the country’s major languages is oblivi-
ous of the historical circumstances that pushed these languages into
their present majority language status. Shona and Ndebele were ele-
vated to their current national language status in the 1930s follow-
ing professor Clement M. Doke’s report on the language situation in
colonial Zimbabwe without extensive consultation. Doke formally rec-
ommended in his 1931 Report on the Unification of the Shona Dialects
that Shona and Ndebele be recognised as the sole official African lan-
guages of Mashonaland and Matabeleland, respectively (Doke 1931).
Therefore, it is important for us not to miss this historic recommenda-
tion as it has continued to shape and mediate patterns of language use
and conceptions of Zimbabwean citizenship and identity to this day.
By imposing Shona and Ndebele as the only African languages that
should be taught as school subjects, the Act takes a cue after the work
of Doke, thereby legitimising the exclusion of minority languages.
Paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (1) implicitly advance a mis-
taken assumption that every Zimbabwean is either a Shona or Ndebele
82
F. Ndhlovu
language speaker. Based on the nationalist discourse of monolithic

linguistic categories, the Act dissects the country into the broad geo-
linguistic regions of Matabeleland and Mashonaland, which are deliber-
ately named after the two ‘main’ language groups: Ndebele and Shona.
In other words, all other ethnic groups such as the Tonga, Nambya,
Dombe, Kalanga, Venda, Sotho, Xhosa and Shangaan are by sleight of
hand considered as having no ‘land’ of their own, which implies their
identities are irrelevant to Zimbabwean national identity.
The provisions of the 1987 Education Act are also conspicuous
for lacking a firm and unequivocal commitment to the teaching and
learning of minority languages in the Zimbabwean schooling system.
Subsection 4 of the Act, which focuses on minority languages, is not
binding at all as it states that the minister may authorise the teaching
of such languages in primary schools. This means the implementation
of this clause depends on the discretion of the Minister of Education,
Sport and Culture. He/she may as well decide not to authorise the
teaching/learning of ‘minority’ languages in those areas where they are
dominant. To date, this has often turned out to be the case since minor-
ity languages are not in the school curriculum beyond the elementary
primary school level. Considering that in modern society the school is
the main agent of socialisation, it becomes apparent that children from
minority speech communities are being socialised in alien cultural val-
ues, detached from their local worldviews and imprisoned in an imag
ined concept of Zimbabwean citizenship and identity.
Later amendments to the Act stipulate that in those areas where
minority languages may be included in the school curriculum, this
should be only up to the Seventh Grade. One is left wondering as to
what should happen after Grade 7 since minority languages are conspicu-
ously absent from the curricula of all Zimbabwean secondary schools and
most higher and tertiary institutions (an exception is Great Zimbabwe
University that offers some of the minority languages in its curriculum).
So, what is the point of learning a language that will soon be abandoned
for more ‘prestigious’ ones in Grade 7? The exclusion of minority lan-
guages is based on the economic principles of cost–benefit analysis, where
it is argued that teaching these languages causes an unnecessary strain on
financial, human and material resources.
83
However, what is most surprising is that the same tertiary institutions

are making concerted efforts to include in their curricula more and more
of what are considered as modern languages (e.g. Chinese Mandarin,
Afrikaans, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian) which are hardly
spoken in the country. Such negative attitudes towards indigenous
minority languages, which have been legitimised through undemocratic
language policies, constitute another recipe for irreversible language shift
among Zimbabwe’s marginalised ethnolinguistic communities. Because
‘language and cultural identity, and language and self-identity, are inexo-
rably linked, the death of any language comes with the irreplaceable loss
of a picture of human creativity’ (Grenoble and Whaley 1998: xix). For,
when languages disappear, it becomes difficult to recognise the breadth
and depth of human cognitive capacity, let alone to account for it.
Owing to its glaring inadequacies, ambivalences and ambiguities, the
Act can be described as a piece of legislation ostensibly designed to solid-
ify Zimbabwe’s postcolonial hegemonic project of subtle cultural and
linguistic imposition. Regarding the dangers of embracing and impos-
ing some kind of linguistic uniformity on culturally diverse societies,
Thompson cautions that a completely homogeneous language or speech
community does not exist in reality: it is an idealisation of a particu-
lar set of linguistic practices which have emerged historically and have
certain social conditions of existence (Thomson 1991). This idealisa-
tion is the source of what Bourdieu (1991) calls the illusion of linguis-
tic communism. By taking a particular set of linguistic practices as a
normative model of correct usage, an illusion of a common language is
produced that ignores the social–historical conditions which have estab-
lished a particular set of linguistic practices as dominant and legitimate.
Bourdieu goes on to say through a complex historical process, some-
times involving extensive conflict, a particular language or set of linguis-
tic practices has emerged as the dominant and legitimate language, and
other languages or dialects have been eliminated or subordinated to it.
This dominant and legitimate language, this victorious language, is what
is commonly taken for granted. The idealised language or speech com-
munity is an object which has been preconstructed by a set of social–
historical conditions endowing it with the status of the sole legitimate or
‘official’ language of a particular community (Bourdieu 1991: 5).
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F. Ndhlovu
In Zimbabwe, Shona and Ndebele are increasingly being portrayed as

standard languages, which should be spoken and understood uniformly
by all citizens, including ethnic minorities that have their own languages.
This perspective on language and identity is reflected in the country’s
media and language-in-education policies informed by the ideology that
views minorities as people with ‘wrong’ languages or worse still as lin-
guistically blank. Zimbabwean citizens of minority ethnic backgrounds
are thus perceived as blanks in need of being filled with Shona/Ndebele
linguistic norms that will supposedly enable them to understand and
acquire the so-called Zimbabwean national values as if the said values are
a commodity coded in one particular language variety. Such a simplis-
tic view on language choice, use and attitudes in multilingual societies is
‘intrinsically linked to language ideologies, relations of power, political
arrangements, and speakers’ identities’ (Bourdieu 1991: 35).
In short, insistence on having Zimbabwean citizenship implicitly con-
ceived only in terms of Shona and Ndebele is a form of vernacular dis-
course designed to suppress multiple ethnic identities. The triumph of
the two official national languages through the Zimbabwean education
system is, therefore, about the politics of legitimating unequal power rela-
tions in citizenship and national identity discourse. Whereas the ultimate
goal of education should be that of inspiring critical thinking by being
open to various options for the interpretation of facts, the Zimbabwe case
study tells a totally different story. The system of education in this south-
ern African nation has come to constitute an arena for the fashioning of
skewed and exclusionary regimes of knowledge that celebrate Shona and
Ndebele triumphalism as the hallmark of national identity.
The National Cultural Policy of Zimbabwe (NCPZ)

The National Cultural Policy of Zimbabwe (NCPZ) was compiled in
1990 by the then Ministry of Sport, Recreation and Culture. It is the
document that governs the development, improvement, management
and understanding of arts and cultural issues in Zimbabwe. NCPZ has
had a recognisable and coherent impact on the construction of cultural
identities in the country. The section of the policy focusing on these
issues states that:
85
Zimbabwe’s indigenous languages constitute a rich linguistic and liter-

acy heritage for all Zimbabweans and should provide fertile ground for
enhancing national understanding and national unity. Research will be
carried out in indigenous languages so that dictionaries, orthographies,
textbooks, literary works as well as scientific and technological works are
available in these languages. Priority will be given to those projects which
enable these languages to be developed to a stage where they can be uti-
lized at the highest educational levels so that they are able to effectively
deal with all development issues. (Government of Zimbabwe 1990: 8)
According to the NCPZ, an ideal national language policy is expected

to achieve the following goals:
• Clearly define the status of all the languages in use in Zimbabwe.

• Define short-, medium- and long-term goals in respect of the devel-
opment, promotion and use of languages in Zimbabwe.
• Determine the methods and resources to be used in achieving the
stated goals as well as targets and problems to be solved.
This vision of a national language policy is stated in terms of what

Bamgbose calls the canonical model of language planning which ‘forces
language behaviour into the narrow mould of economic planning’ in
which goals are established, means selected and outcomes predicted
in a systematic, explicit and ahistorical manner (Bamgbose 1987: 8).
By sticking to the rigour of economic planning models, the NCPZ
approach to language policy formulation has contributed to the current
situation in which Zimbabwe’s marginalised languages are not priori-
tised in the media, education, research and literary development because
prioritising them in these domains is perceived as uneconomic.
In keeping pace with the guiding principles of the NCPZ, current
language research and development activities are largely biased towards
the exclusive promotion of the so-called main languages, thereby cre-
ating a false impression that a truly Zimbabwean identity is one that
is crystallised around Shona and Ndebele cultural norms. Of inter-
est to note is the African Languages Research Institute (ALRI), which,
in over two decades of existence, has concentrated on Shona and
Ndebele research projects. ALRI has produced two monolingual Shona
86
F. Ndhlovu
dictionaries (Duramazwi RechiShona—the General Shona Dictionary

and Duramazwi Guru RechiShona—the Advanced Shona Dictionary),
two monolingual Ndebele dictionaries (Isichazamazwi sesiNdebele—the
General Ndebele Dictionary and Isichazamazwi sesiNdebele esiKhulu—
the Advanced Ndebele Dictionary) as well as specialised dictionaries
(children’s dictionaries; musical and biomedical dictionaries; linguistic
and literary dictionaries) in the two national languages.
The strategic plan of ALRI shows that research will be extended into
other local languages—though this seems to be a mere tokenistic and
palliative gesture. A close look at the activities of ALRI indicates that
it is informed by the same old school of thought that has continu-
ously sought to marginalise all other languages, thereby enabling the
two national languages to enjoy their superior status of being the pil-
lar of postcolonial citizenship and identity formation. For instance, it
is not clear why the researchers at ALRI thought it necessary to start
by collecting information and compiling dictionaries for only Shona
and Ndebele. Shona already has a long history of documentation, while
Ndebele has also been fairly recorded since the late nineteenth century.
One would certainly have expected a situation in which marginalised
languages are prioritised since they have gone for too long without any
extensive recorded research. While commendable, the efforts of ALRI
largely appear to have inadvertently contributed towards entrenching
the nationalist hegemonic project in which Shona enjoys the status of a
major African language in the country, followed by Ndebele.
The Position Paper on Zimbabwe’s

Language Policy
The Position Paper on Zimbabwe’s Language Policy, which was pre-
sented at the 1997 Intergovernmental Conference on Language Policies
in Africa, correctly observes that ‘in terms of the [existing] legal pro-
visions and instruments, Zimbabwe has no language policy document
as such’ (Government of Zimbabwe 1997: 19). The same paper fur-
ther observes that provisions of the 1987 Education Act, Section 55
of Part XI and the objectives set out in the National Cultural Policy of
87
Zimbabwe have come to be considered as the guiding instruments for

allocating statuses and functions to Zimbabwean languages.
The Position Paper on Zimbabwe’s Language Policy cites the follow-
ing excerpt from the NCPZ:
Among the objectives of the National Cultural Policy is that of ensuring…

the development and promotion of African languages such that business,
science and technology as well as history and literature will be accessible
to Zimbabweans in national languages. To this end, research and other
activities in the development of relevant terminologies will be funded
and promoted in order to meet the demand of national languages in an
industrial society. (Government of Zimbabwe 1997: 21)
In presenting its vision of a comprehensive language policy for Zimbabwe,

the team that came up with the Position Paper on Zimbabwe’s Language
Policy was heavily influenced by the above-mentioned provisions of the
National Cultural Policy. While the research team correctly pointed out
that Zimbabwe’s indigenous languages constitute a rich linguistic and lit-
erary heritage for all Zimbabweans, they seem to have fallen into the trap
of the popular vernacular rhetoric that perceives Shona and Ndebele as
the only indigenous languages, which should be recognised in Zimbabwe.
Under section three, which is entitled ‘Comprehensive National Language
Policy’, the paper dwells so much on comparing the statuses and func-
tions of Ndebele/Shona and English as if they were the only Zimbabwean
languages. For instance, in its critique of the colonially inherited superior
status of English over African languages, the paper states that:
Equally significant is the nominal status of Shona and Ndebele as

national languages … The use of Shona and Ndebele in business, in such
aspects as commercial advertisements, administrative posters, labelling of
products and instructional materials in industry, are areas where the pro-
posed paper will provide a definite pattern of behaviour and general prac-
tice. (Government of Zimbabwe 1997: 10, emphasis mine)
It can be seen from the foregoing that by constantly and persistently

advocating the promotion of national languages, Shona and Ndebele,
without mentioning even a single minority language, the Position Paper
88
F. Ndhlovu
on Zimbabwe’s Language Policy is guided by the postcolonial national

ist quest for a non-pluralistic language policy regime. Also, the paper
attempts to make a big issue out of the unequal power relations between
English and Zimbabwe’s two national languages. This is a deliber-
ate attempt at diverting the attention of the majority of the people of
Zimbabwe from the real issues affecting marginalised language groups.
The position of English as the country’s official language is certainly no
longer a contested issue. What is at stake at the moment is the contin-
ued marginalisation of minority linguistic identities from mainstream
discourses on Zimbabwean national identity—all at the behest of insti-
tutional policies spearheaded by Ndebele- and Shona-speaking political
elites and government bureaucrats.
As James W. Tollefson (1995: 10) observed more than two decades
ago, ‘the ideology of speaking the dominant language (unilingualism)
is an ideology that helps to perpetuate exclusionary policies and sustain
inequality’. In other words, the quest for a Zimbabwe National Language
policy that promotes the status of Shona and Ndebele to the detriment
of all other indigenous languages is a perpetuation of the same oppressive
and undemocratic colonial policies in the sense that non-members of the
majority language group are being coerced through the policy into seeing
themselves as mother tongue speakers of either Shona or Ndebele.
The Position Paper on Zimbabwe’s Language Policy fails to recog-
nise that there is a link between micro-social and macro-social decisions
about language, which require ‘social theoretical explanations apart from
demographic descriptions’ (Salami 2004: 261). This means any compre-
hensive language policy is expected to uphold the dictum that decisions
on language use should appeal to the historical and political identity of
the nation as well as to the identities of all the forces struggling within it.
The National Language Policy Advisory Panel

(NLPAP) Report
The 1998 Report by the National Language Policy Advisory Panel
(NLPAP) is yet another document loaded with perspectives that
have influenced the direction of language policy debates in postcolo-
nial Zimbabwe. The document was produced by a six-member panel
89
headed by renowned sociolinguist, Herbert Chimhundu, who was, at

the time, professor of African languages at the University of Zimbabwe.
Mark Daniel Nkiwane, also a well-known language and culture expert
in Zimbabwe, was the secretary to the panel. The NLPAP report is
based on interviews carried out in three out of the ten provinces of
Zimbabwe. The report identifies all languages that are also reported
in Jerome Hachipola’s (1992) Survey of the Minority Languages of
Zimbabwe. NLPAP findings and recommendations were also arrived at
through the use of a wide array of secondary sources that include pub-
lications on language policy and planning, the 1987 Education Act,
the Language Plan of Action for Africa, the Harare Declaration by
Ministers and Heads of Delegations representing African States as well
as the Position Paper on Zimbabwe’s Language Policy.
While the methods, procedures and recommendations of the NLPAP
report appear to be quite detailed, the document has numerous omis-
sions, contradictions and instances of what one could term academic
timidity. For example, in its executive summary, the NLPAP report
observes that there are ‘two potentially serious problems that could
derail the whole process of implementing a national language policy
in Zimbabwe: the politicisation of language issues and the personalisa-
tion of expertise in language issues’ (Government of Zimbabwe 1988).
This is a valid and pertinent observation. However, it is disheartening to
note that the panel does not touch on this issue at all in the body of the
report. Who is politicising language issues and for what purpose? Who
are the experts that personalise their expertise? Why in any case would
language issues be politicised and personalised? In the earlier sections of
this chapter, I discussed issues around linkages between so-called tribal
balancing in Zimbabwean political arrangements and perceptions about
linguistic and cultural diversity. The latter is seen as somewhat of a hot
potato. This perception has filtered into the language policy arena, thus
entangling the whole language policy making enterprise with contests
for political power and control of the levers of the state and government.
Sadly, the NLPAP report skirts around these crucial questions, and this
constitutes a glaring inadequacy in a document that has greatly influenced
the direction of language policy in Zimbabwe. Failure to bring to the
limelight, in very clear and unambiguous terms, those political forces that
hinder the implementation of democratic language policies demonstrates
90
F. Ndhlovu
betrays a high level of academic timidity on the part of architects of the

NLPAP report. By overtly choosing to gloss over the issues that consti-
tute the politicisation of language in postcolonial Zimbabwe, the NLPAP
report tows the line of political correctness, thereby falling into the same
trap of the very same politicisation of language that it purports to critique.
The other inadequacy of the NLPAP report lies in that while it
appears to be a well-researched document supported with oral submis-
sions, it falls short of this premium. A thorough scrutiny of the profiles
of all participants that were interviewed by the expert panel suggests the
report is an elitist piece of work that supposedly represents the views of
a wide spectrum of citizens.3 A number of observations can be made
from the listed profiles of NLPAP interviewees. First, the majority of
the interviewees (71%) are senior government officials and civil serv-
ants. This makes the NLPAP report an elitist document whose views do
not represent the interests of the generality of the Zimbabwean popu-
lace. Second, ordinary men and women who speak different languages
of Zimbabwe (especially the so-called minority languages) are conspicu-
ously missing from the NLPAP target group. Third, in choosing to deal
with unitary categories (cultural associations) as subjects of their study
while overlooking the already marginalised grass roots, the NLPAP team
perfectly fits into the postcolonial nationalist hegemonic project of con-
structing a monolithic view of Zimbabwean national identity. The dif-
ferent cultural associations do not necessarily represent the views of all
interest groups in a minority language community. The language policy
vision of NLPAP is, in the main, one that aspires towards entrenching
and perpetuating the dominant constructs of national political power
in ways that legitimise the continued subjugation and subtle cultural
oppression of the already marginalised sections of Zimbabwean society.
3The breakdown of the 69 interviewees listed on pages 58–60, for instance, presents the following
groups: university and college lecturers (6); education officers (21); school heads (11); teachers
(9); book publishers (2); Zimbabwe Teachers Association representative (1); members of parlia-
ment (7); Dombe Cultural Association (5); Kalanga Cultural Association (2); Nambya Cultural
Association (2); Sotho Cultural Association (2); and Venda Cultural Association (1).
91
The Nziramasanga Commission on Education

and Training in Zimbabwe
The 1999 Report by the Nziramasanga Commission on Education
and Training in Zimbabwe (hereafter referred to as the Nziramasanga
Report) also falls within the same conceptual framework that informs
all other reports which have been reviewed so far. In its introduction
to Chapter 8, which deals with language policy, the Nziramasanga
Report correctly acknowledges that Zimbabwe is a multilingual country.
However, the report goes on to self-contradict where it presents a grand
narrative about the importance of ChiShona and IsiNdebele as if they
were the only indigenous languages of Zimbabwe.
The two indigenous languages, ChiShona and IsiNdebele play a key

role in facilitating participation by all in the process of development.
Throughout the colonial era, African languages and African culture were
denigrated. ChiShona and IsiNdebele should be taught throughout the
country to guarantee mutual respect of each other’s language and culture
in a multi-lingual environment and for peace and tolerance. Literacy in
both ChiShona and IsiNdebele would help to create a new generation
of Zimbabweans who are proud of their languages, values, the diversity
of their cultures and heritages. (Government of Zimbabwe 1999: 156,
emphasis mine)
Here, the symbolic power of language is attested through the confla-

tion of Shona and Ndebele linguistic norms with Zimbabwean national
identity. In addition to the above, the Nziramasanga Report further
comments that the ‘the Commission is in agreement that the status
of ChiShona, IsiNdebele and English be written into the constitution
and that the linguistic rights of other language communities be rec-
ognized’. This constitutes ample testimony to the Commission’s con-
structed false assumptions about the linguistic situation in Zimbabwe.
The Commission takes it for granted that every person in Zimbabwe is
either a Ndebele or a Shona language speaker, thus echoing erroneous
perceptions that abound in everyday vernacular discourses about the
languages of Zimbabwe and the ensuing ethnic and cultural identities.
92
F. Ndhlovu
On the basis of these misrepresentations—if not outright false-

hoods—the Nziramasanga Report advocates a language policy that
promotes the status of Shona and Ndebele languages to the level of
English. Again, this turns out to be an old argument that is informed
by hegemonic nationalist ideologies that lump together all the lin-
guistic groups of Zimbabwe for the perceived purposes of ‘building a
united, strong and self-reliant nation’ (Salami 2004: 274). Such a view
is simplistic and misleading in the sense that to the speakers of minor-
ity languages in Zimbabwe, the fact of English language hegemony is
far more remote than the reality of Shona and/or Ndebele linguistic
imperialism. For minority ethnolinguistic polities in ‘Mashonaland’ and
‘Matabeleland’, the most worrisome thing is one about the immediacy
and mundane nature of the imposition of Shona and Ndebele linguistic
norms in their everyday lives.
Therefore, like all other government commissioned language boards
and panels that preceded it, the Nziramasanga Commission produced
a report that demonstrates a high degree of insensitivity to the need
for total recognition and inclusion of minority languages and cultures
in defining a much broader and all-inclusive notion of Zimbabwean
citizenship. The report attempts to divert the Zimbabwean people’s
attention from a skewed national identity discourse underwritten by
Shona/Ndebele linguistic imperialism by harking back to an old and
exhausted question of English language hegemony.
The phenomena of linguistic imperialism and language-based forms
of political exclusion have gained importance in the relevant literature
(see, e.g., Phillipson 1992; Skutnabb-Kangas 2000; Pennycook 1994).
The ultimate goal of linguistic imperialism is to ensure the domi-
nated identify with the cultural norms of the dominator and accept
the hegemonic language. This is not an intrinsic property of any one
particular language or group of people. It is an ideology and a way by
which speakers of privileged/socio-politically powerful language varie
ties impose their linguistic norms on speakers of less fortunate/domi-
nated languages. Therefore, any language has the propensity to be
hegemonic and imperial if conditions that make it assume such a sta-
tus are present. In the case of Zimbabwe, it can be argued that Shona
and Ndebele are imperial languages from the viewpoint of minorities
93
whose linguistic and cultural practices are subsumed under these two.
Consequently, quests for socio-economic and political domination by
Shona and Ndebele language speakers become major factors in the con-
struction of a citizenship discourse that marginalises and ignores other
ethnic polities. In this context, language policies have come to consti-
tute another site for subtle cultural oppression and social exclusion.
Language Policy, Citizenship and Identity Politics

The language policy documents examined in the preceding sections
have had some pervasive effects on commonsense assumptions about
the linguistic complexion of postcolonial Zimbabwe. All of them have
painted a false bicultural and bilingual picture of the country. The per-
vasive effects of these policy documents can be summed up as follows:
• The subjugation of the individual and the community to the

nationalist-constructed view of a bicultural and homogeneous

Zimbabwean society modelled around linguistic and cultural norms
of socio-politically powerful sections of the Zimbabwean society.
• The religious and almost cultic celebration of a skewed nation-
building agenda that does not tolerate linguistic pluralism and cul-
tural diversity.
• The sacrificing of minority language rights at the altar of hegemonic
political expediency.
• A preoccupation with the old, tired, exhausted and no longer debat-
able question relating to the colonially inherited superior status of
English over African languages.
• The desire to promote the continued hegemonic ascendancy of the
Shona and Ndebele languages to the total exclusion of all other lan-
guages of Zimbabwe (Ndhlovu 2005).
Overall, the language policy documents betray what comes across as

an unholy alliance between policy making and the politics of identity
formation in Zimbabwe. Echoing Benedict Anderson’s (1991) concep-
tion of the nation as an imagined community, Lo Bianco (2001) has
94
F. Ndhlovu
interpreted language policies as institutionalised apparatus for giving

voice to, and legitimising, the dominant ideologies of the nation-state.
Language policies constitute the intellectual means by which the voices
of marginalised groups are suppressed during the process of construct-
ing a unitary and monolithic citizenship. Lo Bianco further argues that
conceptualisations of language planning reveal an assumption about a
national order typical of modernity insofar as they portray the nation-
state as ‘unilingual in an unproblematic national standard language in
which the population is literate’ (Lo Bianco 2001: 33).
This view on the interplay between language policy and nation build-
ing is exemplified by the Zimbabwe case study analysed in this chapter.
The situation in which Zimbabwean minority identities are suppressed
and considered not worthy of government promotion and propagation
also typifies Michael Hechter’s concept of internal colonisation: that is,
Shona and Ndebele are the colonisers while minority groups are the col-
onised. This can also be re-articulated in terms of Pierre Bourdieu’s the-
sis on the symbolic value of language. In this case, the symbolic value of
Shona and Ndebele languages translate into metaphors and vernacular
discourses of a skewed Zimbabwean citizenship, one that ignores and
marginalises minority ethnolinguistic identities.
Lo Bianco has also highlighted the role of discourse in the field of lan-
guage and cultural politics. Noting that one of the greatest challenges to
language planning is to accommodate discourse, Lo Bianco defines dis-
course as ‘forms of life that integrate language in use with social identi-
ties rather than its narrower linguistic sense of connected stretches of
language’ (Lo Bianco 2001: 34). Discourse poses a two-pronged challenge
for language plans and policies: first, it is more than a mere conduit of
transmitting and receiving pre-established meanings; and secondly, dis-
course requires a certain recursivity within the discipline of language plan-
ning. In other words, discourse needs to be subjected to thorough scrutiny
because it structures and pervades language planning as a practice. In
other words, language plans and policies are made in, and through, dis-
course and ‘the object of such discourse-made language planning is itself
language (i.e., language planning plans language via discourse) and lan-
guage policy is often conducted via a contest of discourses’, thus connect-
ing policy making with power and identity formation.
95
In its social role, language planning is increasingly used by public

institutions to signal permissible or discouraged forms of social iden-
tity. And, although statements of policy are principally concerned with
a documentary function (i.e.‚ setting out administrative action in educa-
tion, law, policing, health, or some other public policy arena), they also
carry a rhetorical function, validating some and silencing other interpre-
tations of the nation. This means being more than simply enunciations
of intended government action, language policies tend to reveal author-
ised forms of cultural and linguistic behaviour. As Street (2003: 16) has
observed, policy making is a form of discursive politics in which there is
contest over meanings, which means that the power to name and define
is crucial to real practices and to policy making. I illustrate this line of
argument in the next section that looks at language policy as shorthand
for empire building (often marketed as nation building).
Language Policy—Shorthand for Empire

Building
Issues of language use and language status in Zimbabwe are intricately
intertwined with the politics of the nation-building metaphor. Attempts
at using language as the rallying point in forging national unity, national
integration and a uniform national culture can be arguably interpreted
as aimed at institutionalising and legitimising the existing power imbal-
ances among Zimbabwean ethnolinguistic polities. Nation building in
Zimbabwe has revolved around the promotion of mainly Shona and
partly the Ndebele linguistic and cultural norms, this being premised
on the assumption that people identify with one another and with their
nation when they speak a uniform language and share a homogenous
national culture. This is tied to the modernist catechism of ‘one nation,
one language’, ‘one people’ in a simplistic way that not only fails to rec-
ognise but also tries to erase the natural diversity of language practices.
Contrary to the ideal expectation that a comprehensive nation-
building approach should accommodate political plurality and harness
cultural diversity, Zimbabwe’s ideology of language policy making is
one that is inclined towards a totalitarian vision of nationhood based
on Shona and Ndebele cultural norms. A close look at the unfolding
96
F. Ndhlovu
of postcolonial nation building and national integration in Zimbabwe

shows that the general feeling among the political elites is that in
terms of the number of speakers and by virtue of the socio-political
power that its speakers wield, Shona can be imposed as the language
of Zimbabwe just like Setswana is imposed in Botswana. This suggests
that nation building is not feasible in a multilingual dispensation. But is
this really true? Is such an argument viable and defendable? In any case,
what are the implications of such a nation-building paradigm for the
economic, social, cultural well-being of language groups other than the
ones incorporated into the national agenda?
In the light of the above questions, one is left wondering whether the
ongoing process of over-promoting and popularising officially recog-
nised national languages and their cultural norms do really constitute
what could be termed a genuine nation-building project. My consid-
ered view is that what is currently happening in Zimbabwe is consist-
ent with the methodological and conceptual orientations of empire
building, rather than nation building. The current Zimbabwean model
of nation building is just another package of domineering tendencies
aimed at marginalising socio-politically weak ethnolinguistic polities.
The celebration of dominant cultural norms as national values has noth-
ing to do with nation building. Rather, it has everything with empire
building—a situation where the emperors (Shona- and/or Ndebele-
speaking political elites) want their language(s) to be spoken in every
corner of Zimbabwe. It is, therefore, this idea of empire building that is
at the forefront of exclusionary political ideologies, which are projected
as nation building. The bottom line is that one cannot build an empire
and have no language for the empire because the empire goes with a
language and the emperor’s language is the language of the empire.
What emerges from the foregoing argument is that the philoso-
phy informing the current approach to nation building and language
policy making in Zimbabwe is one of uniformity where multiplic-
ity is not tolerated, starting from the highest political levels. Thus, the
Zimbabwean ideology of nation building is a very simple one: there
must be one leader, one party, one language and one culture for all
time. This means that in postcolonial Zimbabwe, language and cul-
tural issues have been usurped and appropriated into political projects
97
that have been marketed and popularised as nation-building initiatives

(Ndhlovu 2009b). Apparently, such politicisation of the language ques-
tion has left the status of minority languages and their speakers at low
ebb, since they are not fully integrated into the national agenda. The
Zimbabwean ideology of exclusive nation building based on the notion
of one language, one culture and one nation has parallels elsewhere. In
a contribution to the book Language and Nationalism in Europe, edited
by Stephen Barbour and Cathie Carmichael (2000), Judge (2000) gives
a lucid account of how the French perception of nation, state, peo-
ple and nationalism has, over time, created an impression that France
is a monolingual country. In the chapter titled ‘France: One state, one
nation, one language?’ Judge (2000: 44–82) shows how the hegem-
onic ascendancy of the French language resulted in the suppression of
regional languages such as Alsatian, Breton, Basque, Catalan, Corsican,
Flemish (or Dutch) and Occitan—and, by extension, the marginalisa-
tion and disempowerment of ethnic speakers of these languages.
In the light of the foregoing analysis, it is notable that the nexus of
language policy making and nation building in Zimbabwe is a compli-
cated and multifaceted issue that interweaves processes of ethnic manip-
ulation and exclusion. The current nation-building enterprise can best
be typified as reinforcement to a pre-eminent degree and a continuation
of colonial language policy regimes. In other words, while the objective
of promoting Shona and Ndebele during the colonial period was that
of enhancing administrative convenience, the same has been popular-
ised as nation-building in the context of the postcolonial dispensation.
However, the common denominator in both situations is that of control
and manipulation. While, to a large extent, nation building should be
about inclusion, incorporation and managing diversity, the Zimbabwean
situation shows that the same has become a discursive trump-card and a
convenient weapon in the exclusionary politics of the ruling elite.
Equally important, is the observation that official thinking regarding
the notion of unity in Zimbabwe is based on the nationalist catechisms
of ‘linguistic uniformity’ and ‘cultural homogeneity’. These hollow
nationalist constructs have proved to be intolerant of linguistic plural-
ism and cultural diversity. As a result, national unity and national inte-
gration have come to mean bringing together Shona and Ndebele minus
98
F. Ndhlovu
all other ethnolinguistic groups constituting the linguistic ecology of

Zimbabwe. When politicians talk of unity in Zimbabwe, the thinking is
that they are uniting the Shona and Ndebele ethnic groups. This general
belief derives from the fact that most Zimbabwean music is played in the
two languages, poetry is recited in those languages, the national anthem
is in those two languages, and hence political leaders are seen as repre-
sentatives of Mashonaland and Matabeleland. Language policy is another
way of justifying these forms of cultural assimilation—albeit by stealth.
Owing to the constraining demands of this minimalist and simplistic
conception of unity, Zimbabweans from ethnolinguistic backgrounds
other than Shona and Ndebele, have been forced to quickly board the
train of national unity and national integration without full knowledge
of its destination and terminus. I argue that there is need for a para-
digm shift whereby national integration and national unity are concep-
tualised in broad terms that go beyond the traditional straitjackets of
simply saying ‘let us all come together and be a united nation’. There
is a compelling need to enthuse and fully integrate all the Zimbabwean
cultural and linguistic collectivities into the national unity project. This
would be unlike the current nationalist-inspired model of nation build-
ing whereby those that are regarded as minority language speakers sim-
ply find themselves in a train that goes nowhere for them. It is only the
master who knows where the train should go. Minority language groups
are being used as additions in the consolidation of numbers for the pur-
pose of winning elections, domination, manipulation and exploitation.
Language and language policy making, therefore, no longer become
tools for development but rather they are turned into technology for
gaining political power; they are used and manipulated for political
expediency rather than cultural empowerment.
Postcolonial attempts at using Shona and Ndebele languages as rally-
ing points for national integration and national unity, have been under-
pinned and mediated by tactics of political coercion, intimidation and
manipulation. As opposed to what used to be the case during the colo-
nial period where discrimination and related injustices were couched
in terms of race or skin colour, the postcolonial order is characterised
by the emergence of social classes premised on language-based forms of
exclusion and deprivation. Due to the postcolonial policies of assimi-
lation, all languages in Matabeleland have lost ground to Ndebele and
99
those in Mashonaland have yielded to Shona hegemony. This form of

language marginalisation, which often translates into economic depri-
vation and socio-political discrimination, can be interpreted as a form
of internal colonisation based on language rather than race or skin col-
our. The phenomenon of internal colonisation and how it plays out in
postcolonial Zimbabwe is comparable to the ‘Celtic fringe’ described
by Michael Hechter (1975) in the British imperial context. Within the
system of internal colonisation, the intersections of language, power
and inequality are felt as members of the dominated ethnic groups seek
employment, education and socio-political opportunities in an environ-
ment where the culture and language of the dominant group are part
of the criteria for upward social mobility (Bulcha 1997). In the context
of postcolonial Zimbabwe, this description is exemplified by the asym-
metrical power relations between minority language speakers on the one
hand and ethnic Shona/Ndebele on the other. Institutions have been
created to which access is contingent upon the ability to communicate
in the country’s two national languages, that is, access to education, cor-
ridors of political power and general upward social mobility, depend
on one’s competence in Shona and Ndebele. Therefore, the fortunes
of minority languages have come to be indexically linked to those of
their speakers, which means the symbolic and communicative statuses
attached to languages often have a significant impact on the socio-
economic and political prospects of those who speak them (Tollefson
1991; Pennycook 1994). In other words, apart from being viewed in
purely linguistic terms, problem of language-based marginalisation and
national identity formation in postcolonial Zimbabwe have to be situ-
ated within the broader context of social class contestations over politi
cal power, resources and ideology. This analysis is brought to a sharper
focus by James W. Tollefson’s (1991) thesis of historical structural analy
sis that views language as one of the several loci around which revolve
struggles over ideology formation, domination and control. In the case
of Zimbabwe, it is notable that the marginalisation of minority ethno-
linguistic polities is a manifestation of ongoing processes of institution-
alising the hegemonic ascendancy of mainly Shona and partly Ndebele
cultural norms through a combination of policy making and subtle
forms of cultural assimilation.
100
F. Ndhlovu
Conclusion
The language policy enterprise in Zimbabwe has been intricately
entwined with processes of constructing a supposedly bicultural
Zimbabwean identity in a nation of fluid and multiple ethnolinguis-
tic groups. All the policy documents examined in this chapter indicate
they were conveniently tailor-made to serve the interests of ‘majority’
groups seeking to dominate and control speakers of so-called minority
languages. The end result has been another form of linguistic imperial
ism and internal colonisation in which Zimbabwean citizenship is con-
ceived using terms that impose Shona and Ndebele linguistic norms
on other ethnic groups. An amalgam of politically and culturally based
domineering attitudes has confounded the question of language, nation
building and national identity formation in postcolonial Zimbabwe.
Nationality has so far been conceived in minimalist terms that empha-
sise Shona and Ndebele cultural norms, thereby forcing all other ethnic
groups to assimilate into an imagined Zimbabwean national identity.
This chapter has highlighted a situation in which the two Zimbabwean
national languages, Shona and Ndebele, have been successfully imposed
on the speakers of marginal languages as an intrinsic part of ‘modern-
ization’, ‘nation building’ and ‘progress’ (Ndhlovu 2009b). The enter-
prise of fashioning new mental structures based on Shona/Ndebele
linguistic norms has consequently ushered sentiments of stigmatis-
ing, downgrading, invalidating and excluding other language speakers
from mainstream national activities. Language policies and the exclu-
sive nation-building enterprise have become proxy to the institution-
alisation of language-based inequalities in Zimbabwe. Therefore, while
nation-building may indeed be a great idea, what is bad about it is the
exclusionary route that proceeds by ignoring and marginalising the con-
tribution of minority polities to the national agenda. I argue that rather
than becoming an entity constructed through discourses that exclude
speakers of minority languages, a comprehensive nation-building pro-
ject for Zimbabwe should, to all intents and purposes, be about inclu-
sion, incorporation and managing diversity.
101
Overall, I would say that language policy initiatives in Zimbabwe

have more to do with building a Shona and Ndebele empire than any-
thing else. This has been the case during the colonial period and it still
remains the same in the postcolonial dispensation. As no emperor would
build an empire and not have a language and a culture for it, Shona and
Ndebele languages have been deployed to the process of empire building
in Zimbabwe, with language policy and the metaphor of nation build-
ing being used to legitimise the whole project. The empire goes with a
language and the emperor’s language is the language of the empire. This
is exactly what the Zimbabwe case study reveals: a well-orchestrated and
well-calculated strategy of weaving into the so-called nation-building
project hegemonic Shona and Ndebele linguistic norms and the cul-
tural baggage they carry. Therefore, far from being part of a genuine and
all-inclusive nation-building enterprise, I see Zimbabwe’s national lan-
guage policy initiatives as constituting vernacular discourse for empire
building.
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4
Language, Mobility, People
Introduction
It is now well known, both within academic circles and in the public
domain, that processes of transnational migration and the global emer-
gence of diverse diaspora communities have led to an unprecedented
increase in ‘connections between language ideologies, privileged lin-
guistic codes, and political concepts and practices that shape the diverse
ways we perceive ourselves and others’ (Bauman and Briggs 2003: ii).
These developments call for fresh, robust and more nuanced theoreti-
cal lenses for engaging the contending issues around the linguistic and
cultural identities of immigrants and diasporas. The focus is on the
theoretical underpinnings and the attendant social policy and polit-
ical consequences of approaches to the three interrelated areas of cur-
rent concern in the field of language and society studies, namely (1)
conceptualisations of the language profiles and practices of immigrant
communities; (2) transnational migration and migrant identities; and
(3) imaginings of diaspora cultures and identities.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76135-0_4
106
F. Ndhlovu
A major cross-cutting argument advanced here is that standard ide-

ological frameworks that came with the industrial revolution and
the invention of the modern nation-state have seen debates on lan-
guage, migration and diasporas being attached to a set of unpromising
associations—language as a monolithic ontological entity; diasporas as
backward-looking with nostalgia for ‘homeland’; and immigrant com-
munities as somewhat reified, inflexible and never changing. Immigrant
and diaspora linguistic and cultural identities have historically been
looked at through the lenses of the two battalions of groupism: multicul-
turalism and multilingualism. These dominant theoretical frameworks
that undergird current academic debates and conversations around
these issues have not engaged in substantial ways the reflexive relation-
ship among the notions of language, immigrants and diasporas. In par-
ticular, multicultural approaches to diaspora identities and multilingual
interpretations of the linguistic attributes of immigrants have been, and
continue to be, couched in terms that view both language and culture
in monolithic and reifying terms. The theoretical and conceptual log-
ics of both of these lenses are fraught with several limitations and blind
spots that have resulted in problematic and inadequate understandings
of immigrants and diasporas. Seen through the theoretical frames of
multiculturalism and multilingualism, diasporas and immigrants are per-
ceived as having uniform attributes that are tied to their countries of ori-
gin, with language and nationality (both conceived in monolithic terms)
being considered prime markers of group and individual identities. The
limitation of this approach is that it ignores the complex migration jour-
neys, itineraries, histories and life stories of diasporas and immigrants, as
well the impact of these events on identity narratives.
Historical Perspectives on Diasporas

and Immigrants
The term diaspora has a long historical genealogy and is generally asso-
ciated with experiences of forced displacement, dispersal and migrancy
dating back to the era of the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism. It
has continued to evolve over the last few decades, taking different and
4 Language, Mobility, People
107
competing, but often converging, iterations. One consistent theme in

the definitional understanding of diaspora across the humanities and
social science research has been its framing around the concepts of race
and ethnicity. William Safran (1991) considers diasporas as consisting
of categories of people that include expatriates, political refugees, alien
residents, immigrants and ethnic minorities who are dispersed from
their homelands but maintain myths or memories about their coun-
try of origin. He goes on to provide a four-point taxonomy of diaspora
identities in a rather reductionist and inflexible manner that considers
them as indexically connected to some presupposed ethnic or national
identity. Safran’s typological perspective on diasporas is further refined
by Cohen (1997), who retains the reductionist typology approach. This
perspective is problematic as it ignores the complex lived experiences of
diasporas and how such experiences mediate the cultural sensibilities
and identity imaginings of groups and individuals. The undue emphasis
on typologies undermines the ‘potentialities’ and ‘capabilities’ of dias-
poras in the sense that it lacks attention to the various creative possi-
bilities opened by the past and present cultural experiences of diasporas
and their impacts on local and translocal levels of interaction. Such per-
spectives on diasporas and immigrants are consistent with the logics of
multiculturalism, a social policy framework that was adopted by many
Western liberal democracies from the 1960s, ostensibly as a measure for
increased recognition and accommodation of immigrant and minor-
ity cultural identities. Multiculturalism was seen at the time as part of
a larger human rights revolution motivated by the desire to overturn a
range of pre-World War II illiberal and undemocratic relationships of
hierarchy, which had been justified by racialist ideologies that explicitly
propounded the cultural superiority of some racial groups over others
(Bissoondath 1994; Kymlicka 2012). The foundational logic of mul-
ticulturalism was, therefore, to challenge the legacies of earlier ideolo-
gies of ethnic, cultural and racial hierarchisation and replace them with
democratic values of equality, diversity and the respect and recognition
of cultural difference. However, notwithstanding their supposedly posi-
tive intentions, multiculturalism policies have never achieved what they
were intended to do. They, in fact, have a darker side that has seen the
persistence of racial hierarchies, inequalities, and the social stigmatisa-
tion of diaspora and immigrant communities.
108
F. Ndhlovu
Multiculturalism policies have produced what can be termed multi-

ple monoculturalisms, multiple monolingualisms and multiple mon-
olithic identities that exist side by side in a shared geopolitical space
known as the nation-state. The conceptual framework of multicultural-
ism has failed to step up to the realities of transnationalism—including
multiple competing and contending relations of modernities that trav-
erse the ever-shifting frontiers of belonging and identity formation.
Multiculturalism and its associated policy ideals have been criticised for
unintentionally contributing to the further isolation, negative stereo-
typing and marginalisation of immigrants, diasporas and other ethnic
minorities (Kymlicka 2012).
These limits of the ideological assumptions of multiculturalism
require us to rethink our understandings of cultural and identity politics
in immigrant and diasporic contexts and require us to address two theo-
retical questions and their implications for social policy in diaspora and
immigrant settings:
1. Are the logics of multiculturalism celebrated among many Western

liberal democracies able to sufficiently articulate the transnational
frames needed to comprehend the cultural identities of immigrants
and diasporas?
2. In what ways do discourses of multiculturalism in nations of the
Global North end up being alibis for exceptionalism in relation to
migrant and diaspora linguistic and cultural identities?
Flowing from these questions are four observations about multicultural-

ism. First, the logic of multiculturalism can be seen as having reinforced
neoliberal modes of governmentality in which the values of minorities
are imprisoned and sacrificed at the altar of the hegemonic ambitions of
the nation-state with its desire to govern and control unfettered. This is
evidenced by the recent introduction of immigrant integration policies
and citizenship tests in many Western liberal countries as technology
for normalising migrants to the linguistic norms and cultural values of
host societies. A European Union-wide study by Van Avermaet (2009)
reports that Belgium, Germany, France and the Netherlands have lan-
guage and cultural values testing regimes that require immigrants to
109
demonstrate (a) an understanding of the values and norms of the ‘host

country’ and (b) proficiency in the language of the ‘host country’ (see
also Extra and Spotti 2009). These policies constitute subtle linguistic
and cultural oppression orchestrated in the name of cultivating social
cohesion in multicultural societies that have large immigrant pop-
ulations. The same kinds of policies have been instituted in North
America, notably in Canada and the USA (Davidson 2008); in the UK
(Blackledge 2005, 2009); and in Australia (Ndhlovu 2008).
Second, multicultural ideology seems loaded with misleading,
tokenist, and reifying view of communities as never-changing, socially
bounded entities. This point is evident in public media discourses and
in social and political polices that homogenise linguistically and cultur-
ally diverse groups of immigrants through the use of such classifiers as
nationality/country of origin and national language. In an article exam-
ining the limitations of language and nationality as prime markers of
African diaspora identities in Australia, Ndhlovu (2009) considers the
discourses of politicians, social service providers and government poli-
cies and their contributions to the invention of misconstrued and ste-
reotyped identities of African migrants. Ndhlovu (2009: 17) says, ‘The
popular line of thinking about who Africans are appears to go like this:
because they all look alike (by virtue of the colour of their skin), origi-
nate from the same continent (Africa), and are presumed to be speakers
of perceived “standard” African languages, then their behaviours, their
needs, their attitudes and the things they are capable of doing (or not
capable of doing) are the same’. These homogenising discourses that are
prevalent in most immigrant receiving countries of the Global North
turn a blind eye to individual, community and social diversities that are
an integral characteristic feature of migrants and diasporas. All of this
points to the limits of multiculturalism policies and their tendency to
classify and homogenise people in ways that are oblivious to local and
translocal levels of diversity.
The third observation is about multiculturalism’s overemphasis on
the maintenance of culture while paying less policy attention to socio-
economic imperatives and other non-cultural aspirations of groups and
individuals, including linguistic ones. With specific reference to the UK
and other countries in Western Europe, Davidson (2008) bemoans the
110
F. Ndhlovu
problematic nature of essentialist ideals of national identities, simplistic

monolingual thinking and fear of perceived threats posed by foreign/
immigrant cultural values. He sees these perceptions as fomenting what
Michael Billig (1995) calls ‘banal nationalism’—a summary term for
those forms of nationalist ideological habits that are enacted, re-enacted
and embedded in everyday life and in the practices of state institutions
in almost unnoticeable, hence ‘banal’ ways (Piller 2011: 60). As indi-
cated in the next few paragraphs of this section, multiculturalism pol-
icies of most Western countries have taken a banal form in relation to
immigrants and diasporas in which the very people who are supposedly
being included are seen as threats to the national cultural identities of
host societies. The usefulness of multiculturalism has recently come
under intense scrutiny from political leaders of leading Western liberal
democracies, particularly in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks
in the USA, the Bali bombings of 2002 and the July 2005 bombings in
London. For example, in February 2011, then French President Nicolas
Sarkozy suggested that the concept of multiculturalism was a ‘failure’,
declaring that ‘We have been too concerned about the identity of the
person who was arriving [in France] and not enough about the iden-
tity of the country that was receiving him’ (The Telegraph, 11 February
2011). In a televised interview in which he singled out Muslim immi-
grants, Sarkozy went further, declaring that ‘… we don’t want a soci-
ety where communities coexist side by side’ (The Telegraph, 11 February
2011), which suggests that multiculturalism has failed to achieve the
neoliberal ideals of a somewhat seamless and cohesive French society.
Fourth, multiculturalism has been criticised for often being an offi
cial and institutional tool for producing inequality, instead of function-
ing as a framework for inclusion (Shome 2012). This fourth observation
stems from the realisation that multiculturalism seems to have facil-
itated the cultural and linguistic profiling of different groups of peo-
ple leading to the persistence of colonially inherited social hierarchies,
which are often easily justified on the grounds of maintaining cultural
difference. Consequently, the somewhat reified social structures sus-
tained by the rosy promises of multiculturalism have inadvertently pro-
vided fodder for many forms of inequality, including the entrenchment
111
of bigotry and discrimination, or what Bonilla-Silva (2006) calls ‘color-

blind racism’ or ‘racism without racists’—that is, a new form of racial
inequalities and attitudes reproduced through practices that are subtle,
institutional and that appear non-racial on the surface.
These limitations of multiculturalism are well summarised by Stuart
Hall (2001: 3), who notes that ‘over the years the term “multicultural-
ism” has come to reference a diffuse, indeed maddeningly spongy and
imprecise, discursive field: a terrain of false trails and misleading univer-
sals. Its references are wild variety of political strategies’. Several other
political theorists (e.g. Brubaker 2001; Joppke 2004; Shome 2012;
Vertovec and Wessendorf 2010) have added their voices to this rebuttal,
questioning in particular the basic premises and assumptions, as well as
claims about the perceived alliance between multiculturalism and liber-
alism. For Raka Shome (2012: 145), the biggest downside of multicul-
turalism lies in its conceptual logics that ‘often remain situated within
a nation-centered ethos of citizenship, justice, rights, and identity, and
also in West-centric assumptions about “freedom,” “belonging,” and
“democracy”’. In particular, the current multiculturalism discourse fails
to adequately capture developments associated with the globalisation of
media, capital and culture, and the assertion of multiple non-Western
modernities that have given rise to new and complex identities and iden-
tity narratives. Overall, the theoretical concepts and logics of multicul-
turalism have not been able to speak to what Gassan Hage (2010: 235)
has typified as the ‘ungovernable intercultural and transnational relations
that interrupt nation-based multicultural governmentality’. Therefore, in
order for us to fully grasp the shifting linguistic and cultural landscapes
of immigrant and diaspora communities around the world, we need to
re-examine the tendencies and conceptual frameworks through which we
theorise the experiences of these people and the issues besetting them.
To synthesise the preceding points on the limitations of multicul-
turalism, let us consider the example of Australia, where multicultur-
alism policies were introduced in the 1970s by the Liberal government
of Malcom Fraser. In Australia, multiculturalism policies have always
been seen as a positive move that paved the way for a more open, toler-
ant and welcoming Australian society against the backdrop of previous
112
F. Ndhlovu
policies that were overtly discriminatory. Australian multiculturalism

policies sought to achieve a number of things, including cultural main-
tenance and institutionalising ethnic difference; addressing the neg-
ative consequences of Australia’s old identity as ‘white’ and ‘British’;
and providing an identity option for an Anglo-Saxon settler society
without its own founding myth (Joppke 2004). Three policy doc-
uments that shaped the form and content of the Australian multicul-
turalism discourse include the Galbally Report of 1978; the Australian
Council on Ethnic and Population Affairs (ACPEA) document titled
‘Multiculturalism for All Australians: Our Developing Nationhood’
(1982); and the National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia
(Australian Government 1999). The latter was the key Australian gov-
ernment statement on multiculturalism that was to shape national
discourse in this area during the first decade of the twenty-first cen-
tury. However, it is important to note that the National Agenda for a
Multicultural Australia could not avoid falling into the trappings of a
resurgent and supremacist White Australia policy,1 as it stated: ‘Our
British heritage is extremely important to us. It helps to define us as
Australian…. It is a large part of what makes Australia attractive to
immigrants and visitors …’ (cited in Joppke 2004: 246). Consequently,
there were several colourful clichés that emerged at the time, seeking to
project Australian multiculturalism as one of the most enviable policies
ever devised. Some such clichés included the following: ‘multicultural-
ism is a matter for all Australians’; ‘the development of a multicultural
society will benefit all Australians’ (Galbally 1978); ‘we must be mul-
ticultural to be national’ (Castles et al. 1988); ‘take away multicultural
Australia and you have nothing’ (Betts 1999). However, as Barry York
(1992) and Gwenda Tavan (2005) recount, the introduction of mul-
ticulturalism policies in Australia did not halt discrimination against
1White Australia policy was a policy that legalised racism, discrimination and exclusion of non-
white people from immigrating to Australia in favour of those of Anglo-Saxon heritage. The
White Australia policy was crafted at the same time that Australia became a federation in 1901.
Although this policy was gradually abolished beginning from the late 1950s and was replaced
with multiculturalism, its remnants continue to inform current debates and conversations on
Australian national identity.
113
various groups of immigrants, including Filipinos, Syrians, Afghans,

Indians, Armenians, Egyptians, Papuans and Maoris, among others.
This clearly betrays the limits of Australia’s multiculturalism policy, even
in those early days when it was viewed in a positive light across the cul-
tural and political divide.
What we see here is a consistent coupling of multiculturalism with
Australian nationhood and national identity. While this might have
appeared to be attractive at the time, it has since proven to be prob-
lematic in the sense that a multicultural identity was not, and has
never been, a uniquely Australian phenomenon. Multiculturalism pol-
icies were introduced at just about the same time in other comparable
immigrant societies such as Canada and the USA. Furthermore, an
endemic problem with conflating multiculturalism and national iden-
tity is that such an approach has led to the failure and ultimate demise
of multiculturalism as a policy framework for meeting the social and
economic needs of contemporary immigrant and diaspora popula-
tions. Multiculturalism policies are currently under attack not only in
Australia, but also in other Western countries due to the lingering per-
ception that they feed ‘separatism’ and the ‘ghettoization’ of immigrants
and other ethnic minorities.2
This brief example of Australia shows that the policy of multicultural-
ism has long outlived its perceived usefulness and now exists as a shadow
of its former self. The profiles of people who now call Australia home are
far more complex, diverse and dynamic to be accommodated within the
traditional multiculturalism paradigm with its narrow focus on the coex-
istence of many cultures alongside each other. The Australia of today and
the wider world is different from the Australia of the 1970s due to the
prevailing situation in which ‘more people are now moving from more
places, through more places, to more places’ (Vertovec 2010: 86). The
cultural and linguistic identities of present-day immigrants and diasporas
in Australia require new theorisation that takes into account migration
2For example, in 2010, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that multiculturalism had
been an ‘utter failure’. Similarly, British Prime Minister David Cameron bemoaned the failure of
multiculturalism, which he suggested was fostering extremism.
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F. Ndhlovu
stories, complex linguistic profiles, life histories and experiences. Whereas

the Australian population of the 1970s was made up of indigenous
Australians, European settlers and Asian immigrants, this picture has
changed drastically, with people from virtually all over the world now
living in the country as permanent residents, citizens, skilled migrants,
temporary residents or humanitarian entrants. The breadth and depth of
Australian diversity has become more complex than ever before.
Recent studies in regional and metropolitan Australia show that new
waves of immigrants and diasporas have complex linguistic repertoires
and cultural profiles that surpass current explanatory frames of multicul-
turalism and multilingualism paradigms. Refugee-background African
diasporas in particular are reported as having an overlay of nested lan-
guage profiles reflecting their convoluted migration journeys that took
them through several countries as asylum seekers (Ndhlovu 2013a,
2014). Six categories of language types are reported as being used widely
by African immigrants and diasporas in regional and metropolitan
Australia. First are varieties of English, mainly African Englishes and
Australian English, which are used across a range of domains, includ-
ing in employment participation and social networking processes with
other (non-African-background) communities in Australia. The second
category is that of African cross-border languages, such as Swahili, Kriol,
Arabic and Amharic that are spoken across the national borders of more
than two African countries. These were found to be important means of
facilitating social networking and community building by people origi-
nally from the same regions in Africa. For example, Kriol (and its vari-
ants) is a common language for people from the West African nations
of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Gambia and Cameroon.
Similarly, Swahili is a common language for most people from Kenya,
Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, South Sudan and Democratic Republic
of Congo (DRC). A third category of languages is that of small ethnic
languages spoken mainly at the family level, where they function as a
means for intergenerational transmission of close-knit family ties and
cultural practices. The fourth category is that of languages acquired
along the refugee journey, in countries of first, second or third asylum.
For instance, some people who migrated as refugees from the DRC,
Rwanda, and Burundi were found to be proficient in the Shona and
Chinyanja languages of Zimbabwe and Zambia, respectively.
115
This complex picture of language practices was found to be enriched

even further by the use of a fifth category of language types, namely
discursive and cultural practices. These are means of communication
and social interaction that fall outside mainstream understandings
of ‘languages’ as codes with identifiable and analysable structures and
grammatical systems. Discursive languages are those unspoken and
unspeakable symbolic gestures, cultural expressions, memories and
desires that are not coded in words but are nevertheless loaded with
meanings about the cultures, life experiences and identities of diasporas
and immigrants.
The point of greater significance worth our emphasis here is this: we
should not lose sight of the ability of different types and categories of
diasporas to construct, shape and (re)negotiate their identities, their
everyday life and their transnational character in ways that sidestep the
limits of typology-based approaches of multiculturalism.
The Multilingualism/Monolingualism Debate:

Limitations and Blind Spots
The distorted and skewed conceptualisations of migrant and diaspora
identities emanating from the logics of multiculturalism discussed earlier
have not been made any better by the multilingualism/monolingualism
debate. Multilingualism has in recent years become a buzzword in pub-
lic, political, and scholarly debates and discourses in many linguistically
and culturally diverse societies around the world. It has come to repre-
sent and to be equated with best practices in many social and educa-
tional policy areas, such as bi-(multi-)lingual education, social inclusion,
immigrant social service provision, regional and continental integration,
active citizenship participation and inclusive education. However, there
still remain several theoretical and empirical questions around the cur-
rent meanings and understandings of multilingualism. The following are
some of the contending questions about the multilingualism discourse
that have so far received inadequate attention in the majority of main-
stream sociolinguistic research: What language ideologies and ideologies
116
F. Ndhlovu
of (or about) language underwrite the concept of multilingualism from

a policy perspective and from an academic practitioner’s perspective?
What political-economic conditions are feeding into and sustaining
the ongoing multilingualism discourse, including those discourses that
inform ideas on immigrant and diaspora identities? What does the cur-
rent framing of the multilingualism discourse reveal and hide about
languages? What are the assumptions and blind spots of the current
understanding of multilingualism as a discourse and as a policy frame-
work in immigrant and diaspora contexts?
Multilingualism is currently conceived as being in an oppositional
relationship with the equally problematic notion of monolingualism.
Drawing on his extensive work dating back to the 1980s, renowned
Australian sociolinguist Michael Clyne introduced the notion of what
he termed the ‘monolingual mindset’, which has become a summary
term for the critique of beliefs and fallacies about linguistic normativ-
ity that are prevalent in many Western societies. With its roots in the
standard language ideology (Milroy 2001), the concept of ‘monolingual
mindset’ has to a large degree been the subject of recent academic con-
versations in the context of multilingualism and development in pre-
dominantly immigrant contexts. But what does this concept entail, and
how has it been engaged in previous and current sociolinguistics schol-
arship? Locating it within political and public policy statements symp-
tomatic of conservative politics in Australia, Clyne (2008: 348) defines
the ‘monolingual mindset’:
[…] as seeing everything in terms of a single language. This includes (a)

regarding monolingualism as the norm and plurilingualism (whether bi- or
multilingualism) as exceptional, deviant, unnecessary, dangerous or unde-
sirable, (b) not understanding the links between skills in one language and
others, and (c) reflecting such thinking in social and educational planning.
In explaining why the monolingual mindset continues to dominate

societal attitudes towards language in almost every country in the
world, Michael Clyne brings everything down to a set of what he calls
fallacious clichés and assumptions. He examines four such fallacies:
117
1. The overcrowded curriculum fallacy: whereby the school curriculum

is perceived as being already saturated by other learning activities,
thus leaving no room for multilingual education;
2. The fallacy of competing literacies: the false impression that the mul-
tiple literacies that come with multilingual instruction models will
compete with each other and result in poor educational outcomes for
students;
3. The fallacy of the unfair advantage: the false impression that students
from predominantly multilingual families will have an unfair advan-
tage over their peers perceived as being from (English) monolingual
family backgrounds;
4. The fallacy of the sufficiency of Global English: the erroneous per-
ception about the existence of a standard variety of English that is
spoken and understood by everyone around the world (Clyne 2008).
These fallacies, which mainly revolve around the perceived benefits of

English language skills over skills in other languages, are said to have
detracted many societies from seeing and pursuing the opportunity to
develop and utilise their language potentials. This chapter takes this line
of argument a step further and argues that one of the greatest fallacies
of all, which has been at the forefront of propagating and promoting
the ‘monolingual mindset’, is the standard ideology—that set of belief
systems that underpin not only the dominant view about language,
but also our thinking about the world and everything in it more gen-
erally. The contemporary world is imagined as a standard universe full
of standard things—such as standard monetary systems, weights and
measures and, indeed, standard languages (Milroy 2001). The point of
greater significance here is that people are not naturally bigoted or intol-
erant of others’ lingual practices just because they have a ‘monolingual
mindset’. At the heart of the matter are questions of language concep-
tualisations and epistemologies. What is our concept of the ‘lingual’ in
‘monolingualism’ and ‘multilingualism’?
Critics of the ‘monolingual mindset’, including those scholars who have
pioneered groundbreaking ideas using metaphors such as linguistic impe-
rialism (Phillipson 1992, 2007); linguicide and linguistic human rights
(Skutnabb-Kangas 1998, 2000; Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson 1989);
118
F. Ndhlovu
and language diversity as biodiversity (Harmon 1996; Harmon and Maffi

2002), have done so in ways that inadvertently reinforce and legitimise the
standard language ideology. The metaphors of linguistic imperialism, lan-
guage rights as human rights and linguistic diversity as ecological diversity
have overall been well received by a sizable section of the sociolinguistics
academic community. However, a closer look at these metaphors reveals
that they signal a sense of despair and giving up on important arguments
about the need for diversity of conceptualisations in the language ideo-
logical debate. We need to push the boundaries of linguistic conceptual-
isations beyond the current hegemonic standard language imaginings.
Although the high-sounding metaphors of human rights, anti-imperialism
and biodiversity resonate with contemporary international conversations
around social justice and equity issues, passionate appeals to them have
not done much good because the standard language ideology remains
ensconced as the only valid and legitimate conceptual framework that
informs mainstream understandings of what is meant by a ‘language’.
Therefore, the important point about the current framing of the
‘monolingual/multilingual’ mindset dichotomy worth emphasising is
that it misdirects and misrepresents the notion of language diversity.
Like multiculturalism, the current framing of multilingualism is fraught
with many blind spots and unpromising associations. The counting of
multiple standard languages equates to what could be termed ‘multiple
monolingualisms’ (Ndhlovu 2014), which does not necessarily translate
into meaningful recognition of the multiple ways in which people from
different parts of the world both conceptualise and use languages. What
is being missed by such a view of multilingualism is that the issue is not
so much about the ‘number’ of such ‘objects’ that are accommodated in
language-in-education and other social policies, for example.
Rather, the important point is one about how such entities are con-
ceptualised. An edited volume by Blommaert et al. (2012), aptly titled
‘Dangerous Multilingualism’, clearly captures the key themes expressed
by an emerging body of academic scholarship critical of the ‘endanger-
ing’ nature of dominant conceptualisations of language and multilingual-
ism. Pitting the modernist notions of ‘order’ against ‘disorder’, ‘purity’
against ‘impurity’ and ‘normality’ against ‘abnormality’, Blommaert
and colleagues meticulously document language ideological processes
119
of power and their effects on the real-life chances of multilingual sub-

jects. The older tradition of sociolinguistic theorisation saw ‘problems
with multilingualism … as problems of (dis)order, and the solutions that
emerged out of such analyses rarely brought real benefit to the multilin-
gual subjects to whom they were addressed. The reason for this failure
was that sociolinguists of that era tended to overlook the complexity of
the phenomenology of multilingualism-on-the-ground’ (Blommaert
et al. 2012: 18) (my emphasis). This is precisely the point being raised
here—an argument for the need to reimagine our conceptualisation of
language and the associated notions of monolingualism and multilingual-
ism. As Blommaert and colleagues advise us, we need to start with our
‘feet on the ground …, from a strong awareness that the phenomenology
of language in society has changed, has become more complex and less
predictable than we thought it was. We have the advantage over earlier
generations of being able to draw on a far more sophisticated battery of
sociolinguistic insights and understandings’ (Blommaert et al. 2012: 18).
Taking a cue from these insights, this chapter argues that in its cur-
rent iteration, the notion of multilingualism is, indeed, a very dangerous
one because it hides more than it reveals. Some of the things that are
hidden by the seemingly progressive multilingualism discourses include
the following: that the process of enumerating multiple monolithic ‘lan-
guage’ objects is underpinned by the principles of the standard ideology;
that the current concept of multilingualism is part of the hegemonic
neoliberal political project seeking to pacify those sections of the global
community (including immigrants and diasporas) whose epistemolo-
gies are marginalised and are absent from the table of ideas on language
conceptualisations; that the concept of multilingualism in its current
framing is an extension of Euro-American regimes of coloniality of
knowledge (Quijano 2000)—the fatalistic belief or assumption that the
West is the logical starting point of valid and relevant theory because of
its privileged position of being the site where dominant knowledge has
been produced; and finally, that, like other similar neoliberal conceptual
frameworks—emancipation, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, univer-
salism and globalisation—multilingualism is part of the global imperial
designs constituting a cover-up by elite researchers and those in power to
keep certain groups out of their areas of interaction (Makoni 2012).
120
F. Ndhlovu
Thus, in confronting some of the societal problems attributed to the

prevalence of the ‘monolingual mindset’, we need to understand that we
are dealing with epistemological and conceptual questions centring on
how the things we call languages have been and continue to be ideolog-
ically imagined in ways that fail to appreciate the diversity of alternative
language conceptualisations. These are the issues that should preoccupy
our attempts at addressing the consequences of the ‘monolingual mind-
set’. Our focus must shift away from ontological ‘language things’ to
conceptual and epistemological imaginings of how real human beings
communicate in everyday real life, using real language. We need to
diversify our conceptual imaginings of ‘language’ by opening up to
those philosophies of ‘language’ that see it from a diversity of perspec-
tives, including those that view languages as communicative resources,
repertoires and discursive practices (see, e.g., Blommaert 2010;
Canagarajah 2007; Jacqemet 2005; Ndhlovu 2013a; Pennycook 2010).
It is only after we have shifted from the current monolingual philoso-
phy of language to the philosophy of diversity of language practices that
we can start talking about overcoming the effects of the ‘monolingual
mindset’ in immigrant and diaspora settings.
Writing more than four decades ago, pioneering sociolinguist Einar
Haugen raised some of the earliest reservations about the standard ide-
ological concept of language as we have come to know it today. For
Haugen (1972: 325), ‘the concept of language as a rigid, monolithic
structure is false, even if it has proved to be a useful fiction in the devel-
opment of linguistics. It is the kind of simplification that is necessary
at a certain stage of a science, but which can now be replaced by more
sophisticated models’. Since the onset of Western modernity in the
1500s and the subsequent invention of the modern nation-state, the
standard language ideology has reigned supreme and has had pervasive
influences and impacts on the discourse and praxis of linguistics and
allied disciplines. In this regard, we might want to focus our attention
on the agency of professional linguists—how they have consistently and
systematically been complicit in the hegemony of the standard language
ideology. The discipline of linguistics and its preoccupations (including
121
its contributions to theories of language education) have long been

held hostage to undemocratic and fundamentalist epistemologies of
language propagated by expert linguists who act as gatekeepers in the
service of high-sounding neoliberal political projects of Western moder-
nity—globalisation, universalism, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism
and, indeed, the much avowed notion of multilingualism—all of them
being shorthand for the standard ideology. There are several elements of
the standard language ideology that are clearly hegemonic and require
a close look from a critical perspective. Chief among the critiques that
have been raised against the standard language ideology are the follow-
ing: that standard language ideologies are conservative; that they are
elitist and based on class-linked privilege; that standard language ideol-
ogies are purist insofar as they seek to cleanse ‘sloppy’ or ‘loose’ linguis-
tic usage; that they are myopic about their own class basis in the sense
that they fail to acknowledge their own epistemological fundamental-
ism; and that standard language ideologies iconically and discursively
map values onto linguistic features and styles, in a universalistic fashion
(Coupland and Kristiansen 2011). This critique points us to the pro-
pensity of there being hegemonic and manipulative intentions behind
the desire to control and engineer linguistic usages in particular ways,
such as those informing current multilingualism and multiculturalism
understandings of immigrants and diasporas.
What is required is for linguists and other social science experts to
explore and engage with other understandings of ‘language’ in order
to effectively address the multiple ways in which society’s needs, such
as access to educational opportunities and other social services, can be
adequately theorised and addressed sufficiently. By looking at language
from this angle, the intention is to highlight the various ways in which
individuals can find richness and strength in their linguistic capabil-
ities, which would ultimately see them achieve their full potential as
active and engaged citizens. This approach to language and linguistic
usages promises to enable us to see the value and necessity of all types
of knowledge and all ways of reading and interpreting the world of
immigrants and diasporas.
122
F. Ndhlovu
Alternative Imaginings of Language, Immigrants

and Diasporas
Although much has been written about the pitfalls of both the cur-
rent framing of multilingualism and the critique of the ‘monolingual
mindset’, the question still remains: How can both concepts be looked
at differently in order to provide a better and more nuanced under-
standing of the language practices of immigrants and diasporas? As
already indicated, the real substance of the matter is not necessarily
about embracing multiple pre-given ‘language’ objects, as is the case
with the current framing of multilingualism. The problem with cur-
rent philosophies of language is that conceptually all languages—be
they hegemonic languages such as English, French, Spanish or immi-
grant minority languages such as Tamil, Vietnamese, Nuer or Pulaar
in the case of Australia—are imagined as being monolithic, stable, and
invariable in ways that sidestep the vocabulary of diversity of language
practices. Monolinguals and multilinguals share a similar conceptual
and epistemological understanding (or mindset) of what constitutes
language. Whether they are seen from a monolingual or multilingual
perspective, the things that we have come to know as ‘languages’ are
imagined as countable ontological objects. It is precisely for this rea-
son that we continue to witness the hierarchisation of languages in
multilingual societies as much as in monolingual ones. It is, indeed,
also for this reason that in spite of having a multilingual language-in-
education policy that prescribes eleven official languages, the entire
South African education system continues to be predominantly medi-
ated in English and Afrikaans (Ndhlovu 2013b). The problem with
South Africa’s multilingual language policy and other similar policies
around the world is that they focus on ‘language as object’ while turn-
ing a blind eye on those things that matter most, namely the diversity
of language practices. All standard languages that are currently consid-
ered to be the official languages of South Africa (Zulu, Xhosa, Swati,
Sepedi, Sotho, isiNdebele, Vhenda, Tsonga, Setswana, English and
Afrikaans) are colonial/apartheid impositions that were later embraced
by the post-apartheid political system for the purposes of building
123
social cohesion, political control, manipulation and cultural normali-

sation. All other language forms and the cultural identities associated
with them were, and continue to be, erroneously considered constitu-
ent parts of these standard languages.
The sad admission, which is most likely going to ruffle the feathers
of many scholars and students of linguistics (including those in the
sub-disciplines of applied linguistics and sociolinguistics) is this: we
have for a long time been preoccupied with less important questions,
allowing the ‘monolingual mindset’ to persist unabated. Scholars from
the Global North and those from the Global South alike have devoted
a lot of time and energy arguing in defence of the wrong things—the
so-called ‘heritage’, ‘ethnic’, ‘minority’ and ‘migrant’ languages that
are perceived to be at the mercy of the ‘monolingual mindset’ that has
sustained the hegemonic dominance of world languages like English,
French, Portuguese and Spanish. Arguably, the major cause of the lack
of traction in the critique of the ‘monolingual mindset’ is the way aca-
demic experts have conceptualised it in their conversations. In their cur-
rent framing, most academic critiques of the ‘monolingual mindset’ are
cast in a monolingual view of language whereby the latter is conceived
as a reified, ontological and enumerable object. Probably the most per-
vasive limitation of the current framing of both multilingualism and the
‘monolingual mindset’ critique is the ideological leaning on the stand-
ard language ideology.
When the author of this chapter started thinking about the ideas pre-
sented here, he had a few conversations about them with a colleague
who indicated she was sympathetic to this line of argument. However,
she was also frank enough and expressed her strong concerns about
‘how are we ever going to teach English to speakers of other languages
(TESOL) for example, if we discard norms of “correct” grammar, pro-
nunciation, spelling and other linguistic forms?’ While this is a very real
and legitimate methodological concern for TESOL teachers, its biggest
limitation is that it misses the crucial point about the epistemological
and conceptual issues raised in this chapter. The important question is
this: Why is it that TESOL educators and other language teachers insist
on teaching normative standard language practices in classrooms that
are populated by students who use a diversity of language practices? As
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F. Ndhlovu
already noted, language teachers and all other educators are locked in
their comfort zones of standard language ideological thinking that they
embraced during their training and have consistently been reinforced
further by their professional practice in spaces that are shaped by the
idea of a standard universe. They, therefore, rightly find it difficult, if
not impossible, to think outside the box of the ‘monolingual’ view of
language teaching because alternative and competing epistemologies
and pedagogies of language are currently not being well received in
educational and other social policy settings. This is where the problem
is. What we need is a new philosophy of language that is cognizant of
the fact that people use and conceptualise language in diverse ways and
that the language classroom is not an exception. We will never know or
come to terms with what alternative philosophies of language have in
store for us unless we take a bold epistemological move out of our com-
fort zones and step into that space of the unknown—the space that will
provide us with opportunities to get a feel of what it means to live and
do things in the orbit of an unstandardised universe.
As Makoni and Pennycook (2007) have argued, what speakers need
is ways of negotiating difference rather than negotiating codes that are
shared with others. Pre-modern and pre-colonial communities around
the world interacted with each other using a range of pragmatic strat-
egies that are still prevalent in contemporary societies. These include
speech accommodation; interpersonal strategies that utilise repair,
rephrasing, clarification, gestures, topic change, consensus-oriented,
mutually supportive interactions (Gumperz 1982; Seidlhofer 2003);
and attitudinal resources such as exercising patience, tolerance and
humility to negotiate difference (Higgins 2009).
Rather than focus on rules and conventions, we must focus on strat-
egies of communication (Canagarajah 2007). These strategies of man-
aging and accommodating linguistic difference without necessarily
resorting to standard language ideological approaches teach us that the
wisdom of language practices in pre-modern communities and con-
temporary communities should not be ignored. We have to learn how
communication has always worked, not in spite of, but because of the
rampant diversity of language practices before European modernity sup-
pressed this knowledge through the invention of commonality, categori-
sation, classification and codification.
125
For all the reasons raised in this and the preceding section, it can be
argued that those scholarly opinions and social policy frameworks that
favour multilingualism (in its current iteration) over monolingual-
ism are ill-equipped to confront and ultimately bust the effects of the
‘monolingual mindset’. This is because current multilingualism con-
versations are ‘still trapped in the logic of the theoretical model [of
language as a standard, pre-given entity] which they are trying to super-
sede’ (Bourdieu 1977: 26). All this amounts to what Walter D. Mignolo
(2007, 2011) has called change without a difference in the sense that
the concept of language in mainstream framings of multilingualism
is underpinned by the same standard language ideology that informs
monolingual thinking.
Conclusion
In the light of the limitations of mainstream approaches to the con-
ceptualisation of linguistic and cultural identities of diasporas and
immigrants, one way forward is to consider multilingualism and mul-
ticulturalism as concepts that encompass multiple and diverse views on
lects, language forms and other modes of communication, including
symbolic, metaphorical and discursive modes. A much broader under-
standing of the notion of language is proposed—one that covers any
or all of the following: dialect continua, cultural practices and identi-
ties, discursive practices, electronic mediated communication practices,
traditions, customs, social relationships, connections to the land and
nature, religion, spirituality, worldviews and philosophies, proverbial
lore and so on. In other words, the concept of language should be seen
as not always referring to a noun; it can be an action word or even a
describing word. Such reconceptualisation is captured by the notion of
languaging, which ‘serves as a vehicle through which thinking is artic-
ulated and transformed into an artifactual form … a process which
creates a visible or audible product about which one can language fur-
ther’ (Swain 2006: 97). This proposition extends what has been called
‘hybrid language use’ (García 2009) in order to account for the sys-
tematic, strategic, affiliative and sense-making processes characterising
real language practices of real people in real life. This view of language
126
F. Ndhlovu
posits that linguistic usages must be seen as grounded in social trans-

actions of local communities of practice, or what Alastair Pennycook
(2010) termed the ‘locality of language practice’ whereby all language
types are conceptualised in ways that transcend the idea of language as
a pre-given entity. What we need to appreciate is the fact that all views
on language, including those that undergird the ‘monolingual mindset’,
are located in certain histories and are articulated from certain perspec-
tives. This means that if we are to successfully circumvent the ‘monolin-
gual mindset’ in order to develop a more nuanced conceptualisation of
immigrant and diaspora identities, we need to first of all overturn or, at
the very least, set aside those ideological frameworks that have usurped
and monopolised the domain of language definition and conceptualis-
ation. This is the most important step that we need to take before we
can try to address methodological questions around language and social
justice, and language and citizenship participation in immigrant and
diasporic contexts.
As indicated in the preceding sections of this chapter, what we are
faced with is an epistemological and conceptual question that requires
us to think more deeply about language, culture and identity, and to
theorise them in ways that supersede current standard ideological
frameworks. We need to steer the debate away from an obsession with
methodological concerns about how to teach ‘language’ towards engag-
ing the hard and difficult questions centring on the philosophy and
phenomenology of language, culture and identity in immigrant and
diaspora contexts. Most current and previous scholarly conversations
and social policy frameworks critical of the ‘monolingual mindset’ suffer
from the limitation of doing so using the same ideological and episte-
mological apparatus that has sustained the standard ideology since its
emergence at the time of the invention of Western modernity. Language
experts and social policy makers pushing for the recognition of lan-
guage diversity have for a long time been and continue to be engaged
in a pointless pursuit of those pre-given and enumerable entities called
‘languages’. In that process, they have failed to see and address crucial
questions about the diversity of language practices and the window of
127
opportunity provided by alternative conceptualisations of language.

Therefore, without necessarily attempting to dismiss or underestimate
the contributions of previous work in the field of language and society
studies, this chapter suggests broadening the horizon of language con-
ceptualisation—in ways that draw our attention to real language prac-
tices of real people in real life. Theories of language should consider how
communication operates in complex and unpredictable ways among
different cultural groups and in different contexts and settings. This
means we need to embrace a philosophy of language that is cognizant of
the diversity of local and translocal epistemological imaginings of what
constitutes language. This is where we should direct our energies as we
undertake the onerous task of moving beyond current framings of mul-
ticulturalism and multilingualism and their effects on the imaginings of
diasporas and immigrants.
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Part III
Citizenship, Indigeneity, Economic
Empowerment
5
Chimurengas, Indigenisation, Black
Economic Empowerment
The land issue remains the central national question claiming all our energies
and attention in order to secure its genuine and lasting resolution. The
national land question enjoys Siamese closeness to the question of our
National Independence and Sovereignty. We knew and still know that land
was the prime goal for King Lobengula as he fought British encroachment
in 1893; we knew and still know that land was the principal grievance for
our heroes of the First Chimurenga, led by Nehanda and Kaguvi. We knew
and still know it to be the fundamental premise of the Second Chimurenga
and thus a principal definer of the succeeding new Nation and State of
Zimbabwe. Indeed, we know it to be the core issue and imperative of
the Third Chimurenga which you and me are fighting, and for which we
continue to make such enormous sacrifices. (Mugabe 2001: 93)
Our perspective on the land reform programme derives from our strug-
gle for sovereign independence, and the compelling fact that the last and
decisive years of that struggle took an armed form that demanded of us
the precious and ultimate price of our blood. We died for our land. We
died and suffered for sovereignty over natural resources of which land,
ivhu, umhlabathi is the most important. (Mugabe 2001: 109)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76135-0_5
136
F. Ndhlovu
Introduction
South Africa’s (Broad-based) Black Economic Empowerment
(B-BBEE) policies and the Zimbabwean Chimurenga and Economic
Indigenisation policies were motivated by the desire to achieve social
transformation by redressing political and economic imbalances inher-
ited from the colonial and/or apartheid histories of the two countries.
An analysis of the linguistic and discursive aspects of economic nation-
alisation, land reform and indigenisation programmes in Zimbabwe
and South Africa enables us to see the elements of policy discord and
inconsistences that have escaped the attention of previous social scien-
tific analysis. The overall goal is to uncover those discursive and linguis-
tic elements that illustrate the existence of narrow forms of nationalism
and nativist undertones that are anachronistic to popular and simplistic
assumptions about transnational worlds. This is done by analysing pol-
icy documents and political leader statements on economic indigenisa-
tion, land reform and black economic empowerment in both countries.
Accordingly, the ensuing discussion is organised into two sections as fol-
lows. The first section looks at the case of Zimbabwe and focuses on the
following: the Fast Track Land Reform programme that started in year
2000; the 2005 urban slums clearance exercise code-named ‘Operation
Murambatsvina’; and the 2008 Indigenisation and Economic
Empowerment policy. I classify all three under the generic term
‘Third Chimurenga’. In the second section, I turn to post-apartheid
South Africa and cover two key policies, namely BBEE and the Land
Restitution and Redistribution Acts. All these policies and programmes
are considered as sites where resurgent nationalist imaginings of identity,
belonging, citizenship and entitlement have been and continue to be
discursively constructed and legitimised before they get translated into
action within wider society. I conclude by arguing that the language and
discourses that frame economic empowerment and social transforma-
tion in South Africa and Zimbabwe betray parochial ethno-nationalist
tendencies in ways that contradict the perceived transnational character
of societies in both countries.
5 Chimurengas, Indigenisation …
137
Third Chimurenga—Moral
and Social Justice Imperatives
The umbrella term ‘Chimurenga’ comes from the Shona language
of Zimbabwe and refers to a nationwide uprising or revolt especially
against a racist, discriminatory or oppressive social, political or eco-
nomic system. In the subsequent analysis, I interpret the notion of
‘Chimurenga’ as a form of vernacular discourse—a metadiscursive
regime that captures series of social, economic and political movements
in Zimbabwe that were all motivated by the desire to ‘liberate’, ‘emanci-
pate’ and ‘empower’ the black/indigenous people. The genealogy of such
movements dates back to the 1890s wars of resistance against British
colonial occupation, through nationalist liberation movements of the
1960s–1970s up to the more recent land redistribution and indigenisa-
tion policies. For this reason, ‘Chimurenga’ is not an event or a one-off
episode, but series of social and political movements characterised by a
running theme of anti-colonialism and anti-West rhetoric with a strong
anti-establishment banter, so to speak.
There have so far been three main Chimurengas in the modern his-
tory of Zimbabwe. The first was the 1896–1897 uprising against British
colonial invasion of the Zimbabwe plateau—also popularly known
as the Ndebele/Shona uprising. The defeat of the indigenous people
by the British during the First Chimurenga marked the beginning of
formal British colonial occupation of what later came to be known as
Southern Rhodesia. The catastrophic consequence of the colonisa-
tion of the Zimbabwe plateau was the imposition of legislated rac-
ism, discrimination, apartheid and forced removal of black Africans
from their ancestral lands to pave way for white colonial settlers. Two
major apartheid-type pieces of legislation that legalised segregated pat-
terns of access to land were the Land Apportionment Act (1930) and
the Native Land Husbandry Act (1951). Both restricted the rights of
Africans to land ownership by banishing them into what came to be
known as Reserves. These were the driest, poorest, most inhospitable
and disease-infested parts of the country with unreliable rainfall where
black Africans were forcibly relocated to pave way for growing white
138
F. Ndhlovu
settler population. Segregation was at the time—as is the case in most

present-day societies—never accidental but an overflow of direct and
deliberate state political processes and policies. This was, therefore, the
genesis of the land question which has always been and remains at the
core of Zimbabwe’s economic, social and political policy debates and
contestations. It then follows that the 1896–1897 revolt was fundamen-
tally a struggle for the recovery of lost land and dignity by the indige-
nous people of the Zimbabwe plateau. The story of the colonisation of
Zimbabwe (and that of Africa in general) is well documented in the rel-
evant body of historical literature and, therefore, now too well known to
rehearse (see, e.g., Ranger 1985, 1989; Davidson 1991; Rodney 1972;
Needham et al. 1984). For this reason, I will not belabour the reader
with the history of colonisation except by way of passing remarks as and
when necessary in relevant parts of this chapter.
The centrality of the land question was summed up by Herbert
Chitepo, then Chairman of the Zimbabwe African National Union
(ZANU), in his speech given on a trip to Australia in 1973.
I could go into the whole theories of discrimination in legislation, in res-

idency, in economic opportunities, in education. I could go into that,
but I will restrict myself to the question of land because I think this is
very basic. To us the essence of exploitation, the essence of white domina-
tion, is domination over the land. That is the real issue. (Herbert Chitepo
1973, cited in Johnson 2017)
Arguments for equitable land redistribution continued to dominate

political discourse even after Zimbabwean people had attained self-rule.
Addressing members of the predominantly white Commercial Famers
Union in Matabeleland in July 1989, the late Vice-President Joshua
Nkomo pleaded:
I don’t think we are being unreasonable if we say you [white] commercial

farmers, who own the best and the bulk of Zimbabwe’s land because of
history, should share part of it with the indigenous, displaced and landless
blacks who are the majority. (Sunday Mail, 9 July 1989)
139
Joshua Nkomo was reported as having gone further by saying that the
situation inherited at independence in 1980 was ‘morally unacceptable,
economically unjustifiable and politically untenable’ (The Financial
Gazette, 10 August 1989).
The Second Chimurenga, in which Herbert Chitepo and Joshua
Nkomo cited above were among the key players, started in the late
1950s and took the form of mass nationalist movements. It culmi-
nated in an armed nationalist liberation struggle from the mid-1960s
until 1979 when peace negotiations for a political settlement ushered
in political independence and majority rule on 18 April 1980. At the
heart of both the First and Second Chimurenga were two contentious
issues: the land question and the quest for civil liberties—that is, the
treatment of black people as equal human beings who deserved fair,
equal and unfettered access to their ancestral land. Although both the
First Chimurenga and Second Chimurenga fall outside the scope of this
chapter, they were undoubtedly a precursor to the Third Chimurenga,
which is at the core of the discussion. The Third Chimurenga started
around year 2000 in pursuit of the unfinished business of the two
preceding Chimurengas. At the heart of the Third Chimurenga (which
is still ongoing) are issues around land acquisition, land redistribution
and economic empowerment of indigenous Zimbabweans who were
victims of colonial injustices. The moral and social justice imperatives of
the Third Chimurenga are very clear and not subject to much contesta-
tion: redressing the colonial legacy of social and economic policies that
were skewed against the black people. However, the point over which
opinion is vast and varied is one around the modalities of executing the
Third Chimurenga. With an eye on the linguistic and discursive tropes
that inform both the policy frameworks and the political leader state-
ments, I analyse below the Third Chimurenga. My intention is to bring
to the fore the exclusionary, discriminatory, racist, disempowering and,
thus, contradictory tone of movements, policies and programmes that
are supposedly motivated by the quest for inclusivity, equity, fairness
and social justice.
140
F. Ndhlovu
The Policy Ideals

In this section, I analyse the language of the stated goals of the Land
Acquisition Act (1992) as amended in 2004 and the Economic
Empowerment and Indigenisation Act (2008). Both policies are char-
acterised by rigorous, thorough and watertight legislative provisions and
protections, thus presenting an impression of positive intentions that
are beyond reproach. However, a critical discourse analysis of key terms
and recurring themes would show that these policies hide a lot more
than they reveal. In the analysis that follows I bring to light the dis-
cursive tropes of both policies that betray narrow politically motivated
intentions that are hidden beneath the thin veneer of legalism, redress,
social justice and equity.
I start with the Land Acquisition Act of 1992, which unleashed
what has been described as the fiercest land reform debate ever known
in the history of Zimbabwe. The land reform policy was intended to
remedy the skewed land partition that was inherited from the British
colonial era. Under British colonial rule, nearly 5000 white commercial
farmers took possession of more than half the country’s prime/produc-
tive land, thus leaving several million of black Zimbabweans impover-
ished and overcrowded on less fertile land. According the World Bank
(1991), land redistribution in post-colonial Zimbabwe was critical and
justified for poverty alleviation and essential for political sustainability
and, indeed, imperative for increasing economic efficiency. This view
is consistent with and validates arguments that have been consistently
advanced by the Zimbabwean political leadership from the dawn of
political independence to the present. In a speech at the Imbisa Plenary
Assembly in Harare on 30 July 2001, President Robert Mugabe gave
an historical account of the land question in Zimbabwe, locating it
squarely within the continuum of the Chimurengas, past and present.
The main basis of our fight with settlers, a fight which began at the very
onset of colonialism, had been the national question of land. It informed
Zimbabwe’s entire politics, generated solid support base for the armed
struggle with all its attendant hazards, and spurred our fighters, right
up to the bitter end. Land, Land was the cry […]. Apart from being the
141
basis of our liberation struggle, its loss was the basis of African poverty
and indigence in this country. To this day, alienation remains casually
linked to the poverty and backwardness of our people. Equally, to this
day, its allocation is largely as shaped by the same forces and decrees. The
goal and struggle for self-determination and sovereignty included, in fact,
rested and depended on our sovereign right, access, control and use of
those natural resources which God in his infinite generosity gave us – the
land, all creatures great and small that crawl on it, the plants, the rivers,
and streams of water, clear and dirty, the soils, the pebbles, rocks, hills
and mountains. All that God gave us all who belong to this land to use.
(Mugabe 2001: 36–37)
In remarks made at yet another occasion, ‘Africa at 40?’ Conference

in London on 28 October 1997, President Robert Mugabe tied
Zimbabwe’s land reform programme to the broader Pan-African agenda
for total political and economic liberation.
The roots of genuine democracy in Africa derive from our anti-colonial

peoples’ struggles whose goals incorporated civil liberties, national unity
and the economic empowerment of all our people in place of bondage,
ethnic fragmentation and chattel status. The task of our people and gov-
ernments today is to transform this inherited economic structure so that
the people can fully benefit from the exploitation of their labour and
resources. (Mugabe 2001: 19)
During the first post-independence decade of 1980–1990, the then

prevailing willing seller willing buyer principle had led to a conserva-
tive market-led reform policy. The 1985 Land Acquisition Act, though
drawn in the spirit of the 1979 Lancaster House ‘willing seller, will
ing buyer’1 clause (which could not be changed for ten years), gave the
government the first right to purchase excess land for redistribution to
the landless. However, the Act had a limited impact, largely because
1The ‘willing seller willing buyer’ was part of the deal reached at the 1979 Lancaster House
Conference, which resulted in a new constitution that led to the independence of Zimbabwe after
nearly two decades of armed struggle between the nationalist movements and the Rhodesia Front
forces of Ian Douglas Smith.
142
F. Ndhlovu
the government did not have the money to compensate landowners.

Besides, most white commercial farmers mounted a vigorous opposi-
tion to the act. Not many of them were willing to sell off to the govern-
ment some of the land they owned. Because of the ‘willing seller, willing
buyer’ clause, the government was powerless in the face of the farm-
ers’ resistance. As a result, between 1980 and 1990, the government
acquired only 40% of the targeted 8 million hectares (19.77 million
acres) of land, and 71,000 families out of a target of 162,000 were reset-
tled. Much of the land acquired during this phase was of poor quality
(Moyo 1995, 2001, 2003).
Here is what Robert Mugabe had to say in 2001 in relation to the
limitations of the land clauses in the Lancaster House agreement:
The Lancaster House Conference of 1979 gave us political sovereignty

with many conditions and entrenchments, which we were determined to
overcome later in the political battlefield. We compromised so the war
could end and lives saved. The Lancaster House Conference failed to
solve the principal grievance of land, which had caused the war of libera-
tion in the first place […]. The colonial power has reneged on its promise
[to provide funds to support the acquisition of land]. Instead it is siding
with its children here to perpetuate conditions of internal white coloni-
sation in this country. What was Government to do in order to fulfil the
just mission? (Mugabe 2001: 37)
I deliberately reproduced this long quotation from Mr. Mugabe to illus-

trate the particular point about how the current and still ongoing land
question in Zimbabwe—and everything that has gone wrong about it—
rests at the feet of both the government of Zimbabwe and former colo-
nial power, Britain. The relevant part of the Lancaster House Agreement
(Section 16) read in part:
Every person will be protected from having his property compulsorily

acquired except when the acquisition is in the interests of defence, pub-
lic safety, public order, public morality, public health, town and coun-
try planning, the development or utilisation of that or other property in
such a manner as to promote the public benefit or, in the case of under-
utilised land, settlement of land for agricultural purposes. When property
143
is wanted for one of these purposes, its acquisition will be lawful only
on condition that the law provides for the prompt payment of adequate
compensation and, where the acquisition is contested, that a court order
is obtained. (Republic of Zimbabwe 2005)
It was with respect to this clause that Lord Carrington, representing the
British Government at the negotiations, made the following undertak-
ing in October 1979:
We recognise that the future government of Zimbabwe, whatever its

political complexion, will wish to extend land ownership. The British
government recognises the importance of this issue to a future Zimbabwe
government and will be prepared, within the limits imposed by our
financial resources, to help. We should for instance be ready to provide
technical assistance for settlement schemes and capital aid for agriculture
development projects and infrastructure. If an agricultural development
bank or some equivalent institution were set up to promote agricultural
development including land settlement schemes, we would be prepared to
contribute to the initial capital. (O’Donoghue 2009: 18)
The Lancaster House Conference, which gave birth to Zimbabwe’s

Constitution, is the crucible of the perennial land issue that is still rag-
ing nearly four decades after the attainment of political independence.
What we also see in Mr. Mugabe’s speeches are clear and present signs
of a frustrated man—a man who feels he has a mandate to deliver socio-
economic and political justice for the black people of Zimbabwe but
has both of his hands tied to the back. The land clauses of the Lancaster
House Constitution protected white interests at the expense of the gen-
erality of the black population. The British clearly reneged on their side
of the bargain. Here is what Claire Short, then UK Secretary of State
for International Development under the new Labour Government
of Mr. Tony Blair, said in a letter to the Zimbabwe Government in
November 1997:
I should make it clear that we do not accept that Britain has a special
responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe. We are
a new government from diverse backgrounds without links to former
144
F. Ndhlovu
colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and as you know we were col-
onised not colonisers. (The Guardian, 2003)
It was this outright arrogance and grandstanding by the UK Labour

Government, which stoked the fires of anarchy that were to follow
in Zimbabwe. The refusal by the new British government to fulfil the
promise made by their predecessor (Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative
Government) to provide funds for the acquisition of land under the
‘willing seller, willing buyer’ principle as agreed at Lancaster House
was the stroke that broke the camel’s back. In an opinion piece titled
Lancaster House Accords: What Britain owes Zimbabwe, constitutional
lawyer, Ken Sibanda, argues that ‘the agreement of a government, in
this case a treaty/accord takes priority ahead of change of party pol-
icy. A winning political party cannot wish aware treaty obligations
and responsibilities made in the name of the Crown’ (Sibanda 2015).
Sibanda goes further by raising a pertinent question on the implica-
tions of what comes across as betrayal and treacherous behaviour by the
British: Is the black government supposed to address colonial damages
all on its own; does Britain get to walk away from its moral obligation
in the name of bad governance? He concludes by pointing out that
good governance has nothing to do with the Lancaster Accords of 1979.
The truth of the matter is agreeing parties must respect the conditions,
history and ethics of their agreement.
It was partly for this reason that the issue of land reform was back
on the political agenda following the expiry of the Lancaster House
Constitution on 18 April 1990. Pressures from a variety of quarters,
both internal and external, had been brought to bear on the government
during the intervening period. In particular, the adoption in 1990 of a
document declaring National Land Policy had generated intense con-
troversy. In accordance with the principles set out in that document,
the government sought to facilitate the acquisition of land for resettle-
ment purposes, first by amending section 16 of the Lancaster House
Constitution and subsequently by enacting the Land Acquisition Act.
In formulating its policy, the government of Zimbabwe recognised the
need to both redress inequalities in land distribution and to take into
account current national and international socio-economic realities.
145
This was a noble course of action guided by equally sensible intentions.

To this effect, the land acquisition policy was built around rosy,
high-sounding and progressive concepts and key concepts such as rule
of law, redress, social justice, equity, the respect for property rights,
market-led reform, empowerment, and principles of willing seller, will-
ing buyer, and fair compensation for improvements on the land. This is
what President Robert Mugabe said in his 2001 book titled ‘Inside the
Third Chimurenga’:
Indeed, the land reform programme is a comprehensive policy interven-

tion which targets those who bore children for the liberation struggle and
therefore for the emancipation of our Nation, namely peasants […]. Our
policies on land reforms are very clear. Land comes from the white domi-
nated commercial sector where a disproportionate amount of prime land
continues to be held for speculative purposes. The end result should be a
one-farmer one-farm outcome in a de-racialised commercial agricultural
sector. (Mugabe 2001: 94–95)
These are all keywords that point towards good and constructive
intentions—at least as far as the policy framework goes. But a politi-
cal discourse analysis of leader statements from Zimbabwe and Britain
reveals a strategic use of language that allows both sides to do things that
contradict policies and treaties. This is called political discourse whose
properties include ‘speaking audibly, directing oneself to an audience,
and respecting a topical (semantic) organization that is compatible with
the issue on the (political) agenda at hand’ (van Dijk 1998: 23). Other
aspects of political discourse include using specific structures of lan-
guage in strategic ways to enhance the legitimation of political power—
phonology, graphics, syntax, meaning, speech acts, style or rhetoric,
conversational interactions, among others. When politically contextu-
alised, these properties of text and talk are necessarily part of political
discourse. In order to unpack and understand them and their effect in
political communication, we have to perform critical political discourse
analysis (CPDA). CPDA deals especially with the reproduction of
political power, power abuse or domination through political discourse,
including the various forms of resistance or counter-power against such
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F. Ndhlovu
forms of discursive dominance. In particular, such an analysis deals with

the discursive conditions and consequences of social and political ine-
quality that result from such domination (van Dijk 1993; Fairclough
1995). Therefore, in addition to the social, economic and political argu-
ments around land reform in Zimbabwe, another significant angle that
is relevant to the debate is the linguistic one. In particular, it is impor-
tant to look at those things that are hidden in the language of (i) the
Lancaster House negotiations; (ii) arguments advanced by the British
Labour Government in denying responsibility to bear the costs of
land purchase; (iii) political statements made by Robert Mugabe and
other members of his government; and (iv) policies and relevant polit-
ical announcements justifying chaotic farm invasions from year 2000
onwards.
The application of CPDA to the political speeches of Robert Mugabe
and Claire Short cited above would lead us to the following conclu-
sions. First, Claire Short’s letter to the Government of Zimbabwe
in which she denies British responsibility for the costs of land acqui-
sition betrays the existence of escape clauses in the Lancaster House
Agreement. The land clause in section 16A of the constitution drafted
at Lancaster House specified that land was to be redistributed on
Willing Buyer Willing Seller basis for the first 10 years awaiting pol-
icy review. There is a glaring loophole in the wording of this provi-
sion, which both Claire Short and some members of the Zimbabwean
white commercial farming community took advantage of. The notion
of ‘willing seller willing buyer’ constitutes an escape clause—that is, a
term or condition in a contract that allows a party to that contract to
avoid having to perform the contract. What this clause means in prac-
tice is that for land to be redistributed there has to be both a willing
seller (white commercial farmers) and a willing buyer (the Government
of Zimbabwe). The significant point here is one about ‘willingness’ by
both parties to enter into an agreement. Arguably, as we now know,
the Government of Zimbabwe was willing to buy the land, but, in the
absence of compulsion, the white commercial farmers were not will-
ing to sell the land they owned. Another equally important part of
this is one about the source of funds for buying the land. Records of
the proceedings and subsequent agreements entered at the Lancaster
147
House negotiations indicate that the former colonial power (British

Government) had an obligation to pay compensation for agricultural
land acquired for resettlement, through an adequate fund established
for the purpose. However, as was the case with the ‘willing buyer will-
ing seller’ clause, it appears the language of the compensation clause
was not binding enough, thus giving successive British government a
perfect excuse for reneging on this promise. This is political discourse
par excellence at play. Here, we see a situation whereby ‘preferred struc-
tures and strategies that are functional in the adequate accomplishment
of political actions in political contexts’ (van Dijk 1998: 25) being
embedded in treaties and agreements in ways that are non-binding. The
overall goal is to provide the responsible party (in the case successive
British Governments) the leeway to void the agreement. This is pre-
cisely what Claire Short did. She took advantage of the escape clauses
in the Lancaster House Agreement and even went further by giving
them yet another spin by claiming that she and the majority members
of Tony Blair’s Labour Government ‘were colonised and not colonisers’.
This later attempt at appropriating colonial victimhood is a discursive
strategy aimed at diluting and denigrating the validity of compensation
claims being made by the Government of Zimbabwe. It is all wrapped
in the real politik of political talk and text; it is not so much directly
the social and political economy that is at play here. Rather, it is the
‘symbolic economy of language and discourse that controls the minds
of political actors and hence their actions’ (van Dijk 1998: 44). So,
the long and short of it is that the battle for an amicable resolution to
Zimbabwe’s long-standing national land question was lost and won at
the linguistic and discursive terrain of the Lancaster House Conference
of 1979.
Now, in the case of Robert Mugabe’s speeches quoted above, we see
the deployment of linguistic and discourse structures of persuasion; lex-
ical items; and other ways of talk that seek to emphasise or de-empha-
sise political attitudes and opinions, garner support, manipulate public
opinion or legitimate political power (van Dijk 1998). Some such levels
and dimensions of discourse that exemplify these themes and motifs in
Mr. Mugabe’s speeches include the consistent use of pronouns of legit-
imation ‘we’ and ‘our’; emphasis on the binary opposition between
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F. Ndhlovu
‘white settlers’ and ‘black Zimbabweans’; and constant reference to the

‘liberation struggle’, ‘sacrifices’, ‘misfortunes of black people’, ‘unright-
eous decrees of colonialists’, ‘long outstanding injustices’, ‘histori-
cal injustices’, ‘bitterness and hurt’, ‘political sovereignty’, ‘economic
empowerment’ and many more. The overall goal of such strategic use
of passionate and emotionally charged linguistic and discursive tropes
is to whip up the emotions of a restive but naïve and gullible section
of the population that can be politically manipulated with relative ease.
This is essentially about agenda setting whereby the tone of the politi-
cal speech becomes the tone of his audience. In particular, the constant
and repetitive use of collectivising pronouns ‘we’ and ‘our’—also known
as pronouns of political legitimation—is informative. Robert Mugabe’s
intention here is to rally the troops behind the agenda that he has set by
tapping into this very old, tried, tested and, therefore, well-established
strategy of political persuasion. He carefully uses this language of legit-
imation as way to create an impression of collective responsibility and
collective decision-making, which enables him to garner the support
of a gullible but increasingly sceptical following. Furthermore, Robert
Mugabe strategically spiritualises the land question by quoting Biblical
verses and by tapping into African spirituality and tradition. For exam-
ple in the epigraphs at the start of this chapter, he refers to the Shona
spiritual leaders of the Second Chimurenga, Nehanda and Kaguvi as a
way to bring a religious dimension to the land question. He does the
same thing in most of his other speeches where he constantly talks
about ‘our God given resources’ dismantling ‘decrees of misfortune’
and ‘unrighteous decrees’ that saw black people live as slaves on the
land that ‘God gave them in his infinite generosity’. Zimbabweans are
some of the most religious and spiritual people in the world and Robert
Mugabe and fellow politicians know that. Conservative estimates indi-
cate that 85–87% of the Zimbabwean population self-report to be fol-
lowers of the Christian faith (Nations Encyclopedia, 2016; CIA World
Fact Book, 2017). Some followers of the Christian faith also dabble
in African traditional religion. One of the underpinning pillars/teach-
ings of these religious belief systems is reverence to authority, especially
if those in authority invoke spirituality to support their actions. Again,
Robert Mugabe and the majority of his political acolytes are aware of
149
this fact, which they then leverage as a form of soft power in pursuit of
their political agendas. The political invocation of spirituality is a meta-
phor for the myths of transnational worlds—the perceived existence of
a continuum between the world of the living and worlds of supernat-
ural or spiritual forces (God and the living–dead). But the question is:
Do such worlds really exist and if they do are they really in commun-
ion with the world of the living to a point where they can be invoked
to justify political actions in the way that Robert Mugabe does? Some
would argue that such worlds do indeed exist but only in the hearts and
minds of those who believe rather than as objective reality. Nevertheless,
the pervasive effects of the perceived existence of spiritual transnational
worlds are felt by all who inhabit the world of the living—insofar as
they are appropriated in processes of political legitimation.
People who do not know much about Zimbabwe often wonder why
Robert Mugabe has been able to unleash his authoritarian rule for
nearly four decades uninterrupted. There are of course several reasons
for this, and his ability to leverage the soft power of the Christian faith
and African traditional religion/value systems is one of them. Power is
often generally conceived as being hard, brutal and coercive or force-
ful. However, following on Antonio Gramsci’s groundbreaking work on
hegemony theory, the relevant body of social science literature is replete
with accounts of different manifestations of power and the exercise of
power that do not necessarily entail the use of brutal force in the tradi-
tional sense of the word.
French philosopher and social theorist, Michel Foucault (1972), says
power is fluid and elusive in the sense that it manifests itself in vari-
ous forms. This means power is there everywhere—and wherever there
is power, there are power differentials. Foucault further contends that
power must be understood as ‘power/knowledge’ (Caputo and Yount
1993: 6), which implies that knowledge is what power relationships
produce in order to spread and disseminate ‘legions of adapted, ambient
individuals’ (ibid.: 6). This multiformed nature of the notion of power
shows that power relations are not always underpinned by force and
violence. Rather, the exercise of power is embedded in subtle systems
that lie hidden below the tightly knit grid of material realities, such as
people’s religiosity that I have alluded to in the case of Zimbabwe. The
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F. Ndhlovu
powerful will always seek to construct power discourses that entrench

their positions and/or sources of power.
Some of the mainstream social science literature classifies power
into three categories: visible power, invisible power and hidden power
(Gaventa 2006, 1980; VeneKlasen and Miller 2002; Scott 1990).
Visible power, which relies mostly on brute force, is overt and based
on the assumption that decision-making arenas are neutral play-
ing fields in which any players with issues to raise may engage freely.
Visible power also assumes that actors are conscious and aware of their
grievances and have the resources, capacity and agency to make their
voice heard (Powercube.Net 2011: 10). However, in spite of such pre-
tentions about openness and equality for all, the mechanics of visible
power is anchored on many gate-keeping strategies that prevent certain
actors from getting to the decision-making table, thereby ensuring cer-
tain issues are kept off the agenda. The second form of power is hidden
power, which is used by vested interests to maintain their influence and
privilege by creating barriers to participation, by excluding key issues
from the public arena, or by controlling politics ‘backstage’, or behind
the scenes, in subtle and covert ways. According to Schattschneider
(1960: 71), hidden forms of power proceed by ensuring that alterna-
tive choices are limited, that less powerful people and their concerns are
excluded and that the rules of the game are deliberately set to be biased
against certain people or issues. Thus, hidden forms of power thrive on
the ‘mobilization of bias’, where ‘some issues are organized into politics
while others are organized out’ (ibid.: 71). Chief among common strat-
egies of operationalising hidden forms of power are: instituting dom-
inant rules and procedures, framing some issues in ways that devalue
them, use or threats of sanctions, and discrediting the legitimacy of
actors who are challenging the status quo. Overall, hidden forms of
power are about how people are negatively affected by power in ways
that invisibilise, diminish and marginalise their voices and/or capacity
to have their voices heard.
The third form of power is an invisible one. Gaventa (1980) says
invisible power involves the ways in which powerless groups demon-
strate awareness of their rights and interests through the strategic adop-
tion of dominating ideologies, values and forms of behaviour. Thus,
151
invisible forms of power proceed through strategies of: appropriation

and counter-hegemony, in order to subvert, pothole and overturn ine-
qualities and exclusions imposed by those who control visible and hid-
den forms of power. As can be seen, there is a thin line between hidden
and invisible forms of power—the difference is in terms of the actors:
while hidden power is used by the elite or dominant sections of society
to silence the subaltern, invisible power is a counter-strategy deployed
by the ‘weak’ to fight back and subvert hegemonic systems—albeit in
subtle ways that might appear quiescent and yet effective. Going by
all the speeches cited in this chapter and others which could not be
included on account of space constraints, it is apparent that Robert
Mugabe has strategically combined all these forms of power in persua-
sive ways that have seen him successfully gaining the acquiescence of the
majority of the Zimbabwean people.
These discourses on power are integral to the Gramscian theory
of hegemony, as they make it clear that the articulation of consent is
rooted firmly in institutionalised practices comprising the appropri-
ation of belief systems and patterns of thought. This means the ideas
of the ruling class are, in every epoch, the ruling ideas—that is to say,
the class that is the ruling material force of society is, at the same time,
its ruling intellectual force. While those who lack the means of mental
production might have some wiggle room insofar as they can appropri-
ate dominating ideologies to their advantage (invisible power), they are
overall subject to the whims, machinations and caprices of the domi-
nant class—seeing that they can only fight back using the ideological
and cultural apparatus of the dominant class. This process of ideolog-
ical control by the dominant class is the linchpin of Gramsci’s theory
of hegemony—the conquest of power through an intricate balancing of
coercion and consent.
The spiritualisation of the land question in Zimbabwe is part of
this. It has resulted in all the seemingly legalistic and sober language
espoused in policy enunciations being dispensed with in a very subtle
and cunning way. The rhetoric about the land reform programme being
aimed at redress, equity and social justice—‘one-man one-farm’ and so
on—is thrown out the window as the dictates of political expediency
reign supreme over policy imperatives. Contrary to the rights-based
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F. Ndhlovu
land reform policy enunciations that appear to be premised on the

rule of law, the execution of the Third Chimurenga was characterised
by what came to be known as ‘jambanja’. It took the form of sponta-
neous, haphazard and chaotic commercial farm invasions, anarchy and
vigilantism. But Robert Mugabe chose to call this ‘demonstrations’ and
‘commercial farm occupations’. As indicated above, politics was at the
forefront of everything else, with veterans of the liberation war (Second
Chimurenga) and other ZANU PF political functionaries taking on
the proverbial roles ‘judge, jury and executioner’ at the same time. It
was under these chaotic circumstances that the notions of Zimbabwean
citizenship, belonging and nationality ceased being civic matters and
instead became indexically tied to the cardinal rule of ‘political correct-
ness’. Some Zimbabwean citizens by birth, descent or naturalisation
who were suspected of holding political views that were anti-ZANU
PF—regardless of race and ethnic background—were arbitrarily
stripped of their citizenship and the right to vote in national elections.
Numerous research reports by notable academics and non-governmental
organisations highlighted the partisan nature of the land reform pro-
cess whereby only the politically connected and especially those deemed
to be loyal and patriotic members of the ruling ZANU PF party were
rewarded with farm land under the Third Chimurenga.
What we see in all of this is the redrawing and redefinition of bound-
aries of citizenship and belonging as well as the re-calibration of the
prime markers of indigeneity. The conventional understanding of an
indigenous Zimbabwean was systematically narrowed and constricted
to only refer to politically correct individuals who were then entitled to
receiving farm land. Known or suspected members of opposition polit-
ical parties, black and white alike, were stripped of their right to equal
citizenship as they were denied access to the land that was being dished
out like confetti to loyal and patriotic members of ZANU PF and their
sympathisers. This clearly marked the emergence of hierarchies of cit-
izenship within the Zimbabwean body politic—the very same hierar-
chies that all the Chimurengas sought to reverse. We have a situation
whereby members of the governing ZANU PF political party and their
sympathisers are effectively the de facto first-class citizens of Zimbabwe.
Everyone else occupies the lower rung as second-class citizens. This
153
mimics the colonial situation in which societies were bifurcated along

racial lines where white people enjoyed the privileged position of first-
class citizens with blacks/indigenous Africans relegated to the inferior
subject position. Ugandan social scientist Mahmood Mamdani elo-
quently captures colonial hierarchies of citizenship in his 1996 book
aptly titled Citizen and Subject. Mamdani’s account of citizenship hier-
archies in African colonial societies compares quite favourably with
what we see in twenty-first-century postcolonial Zimbabwe. The only
difference is that parameters of citizenship hierarchies have changed;
they are now socially and politically defined unlike colonial ones that
were based on race and skin colour.
A category of Zimbabweans who bore the most brunt of this insidi-
ous onslaught on citizenship is that of descendants of people originally
from Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique who came to then Southern
Rhodesia as migrant labourers in the early to mid-1900s. Most are sec-
ond-, third- or even fourth-generation descendants and do not know
any home other than Zimbabwe. However, at the height of the Third
Chimurenga, the majority of them were stripped of their Zimbabwean
citizenship—by decree. For example, at an election campaign rally in
2002, President Robert Mugabe singled out residents of the suburb of
Mbare (Harare) where most of these people live and referred to them
as ‘undisciplined, totemless elements of alien origin’ (Daily News, 14
October 2002) as they were perceived to be supporters of the main
opposition political party, Movement for Democratic Change (Ndhlovu
2015; Campbell 2003). Effectively, what Robert Mugabe meant was
that these people are not full or equal citizens of Zimbabwe by virtue
of their myths of origin. This is in spite the fact that they were born
in Zimbabwe and that officially they are citizens of this country by
birth and by descent. Furthermore, because the majority of these
Zimbabweans predominantly worked in mining towns and commer
cial farms, they became the major victims of the chaotic farm inva
sions as they lost their jobs and subsequently became homeless. Unlike
other black Zimbabweans, most descendants of African migrants never
had a rural home in Zimbabwe. Therefore, they stayed at the mine
and farm compounds and city townships, which were their permanent
homes, even during the festive holidays, such as Christmas, that time of
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F. Ndhlovu
the year when other black Zimbabweans generally travel to their rural
homes to catch up with family and friends.
A third tier in the postcolonial citizenship hierarchy is that of white
Zimbabweans, mostly descendants of commercial farmers. Again, the
majority of people in this category are second-, third- or even fourth-
generation white immigrants who hold valid and legitimate Zimbabwean
citizenship in terms of the country’s constitution. However, owing to
the racialised, nativist and exclusionary approaches to land reform,
white Zimbabwean citizens are treated as aliens in a blatantly dis-
criminatory way. For example, the online newspaper, NewZimbabwe.
com, recently carried a news item where Lands Minister, Douglas
Mombeshora, explained the government’s new land tenure system
that will grant long-term (99 years) leases to resettled black farm-
ers and short-term (5 years) leases to the remaining white commercial
farmers.
We are looking at ensuring that [black] farmers get 99-year leases at the
time they go onto the land or are approved to occupy a piece of land
[…] There are white farmers who have been approved by our provincial
officers to continue farming after satisfying a number of requirements.
We will be giving such farmers five-year leases that are subject to renewal
upon meeting certain conditions at the expiry of the documents. This will
enable us to collect land taxes from these farmers. We do not want a sit-
uation where we repossess land from a white farmer and then wake up
to see that farmer back again under the guise of a partnership. (Douglas
Mombeshora, quoted in NewZimbabwe.com, 29 October 2017)
The minister is also reported having reiterated President Robert

Mugabe’s position that black Zimbabweans ‘who are unable to uti-
lise the land should surrender it back to the state than enter into part-
nerships or lease it to white farmers’ (NewZimbabwe.com, 29 October
2017). This clearly betrays the racist nature of the Zimbabwean land
reform programme, which lies hidden beneath high-sounding but
hollow statements around ‘redress’, ‘black economic empowerment’
and ‘anti-colonialism’. These political and policy statements on land
tenure have to be called out for what exactly they—an anti-white
155
Zimbabwean, racist and discriminatory position that goes against the

spirit and letter of fair and equal treatment of citizens enshrined in
the national constitution. Apart from race-based discrimination and
the politicisation of the land tenure system, what would be the moti-
vation for granting white Zimbabwean farmers 5-year leases when their
black counterparts are getting 99-year leases. This is an unfair and ret-
rogressive policy position that exposes the lies and duplicity behind
Mr. Mugabe’s pronouncements on equity and fairness in dealing
with the land question. This view on the political reformulation of
Zimbabwean citizenship and access to land based on race and party loy-
alty was echoed by one commentator interviewed by NewZimbabwe.com:
Zanu PF political logic clouds judgement and so through pronounce-

ments such as the minister’s, we have shifted from nationalism (President
Mugabe’s early 80’s let’s turn our swords into plough shares speech) to
nativism based on race and party loyalty. (Mike Mavura, quoted in
NewZimbabwe.com, 30 October 2017)
Again, what we see here is a consistent subjective redefinition of

Zimbabwean citizenship, belonging and entitlement in ways that are
anachronistic to the normative conception of Zimbabwean national
identity. Given that the descendants of black African migrants were
born and lived at commercial farms their entire lives, the ideal situation
would have been to offer them the opportunity to own those farms that
had been repossessed from their former employers (the latter should not
have been dispossessed of all their land in the first place since they are
bona fide citizens of Zimbabwe). This would have been the most logical
thing not only because the people in question were Zimbabwean citi-
zens but also because they stood a better chance of putting the land to
good use since they had been practising (and learning) from the white
commercial farmers their entire lives. This obviously was not the pre-
ferred route for the government of Zimbabwe since, as I indicate below,
the entire land reform programme and the resettlement exercise were
driven more by parochial political interests than imperatives of eco-
nomic productivity, sustainable social development, equity, fairness and
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F. Ndhlovu
social justice. All these noble ideals that were written in the land reform
policy proved to be hollow constructs that were trashed by imperatives
of political expediency as the ZANU PF government and its func-
tionaries embarked on a shameless race to the bottom that saw sanity
being systematically overtaken by chaos and impunity. Nothing could
have been more vernacular than this—to have the civic notion of citi-
zenship enshrined in the country’s national constitution thrown out of
the window and its place taken by narrowly defined, racist and polit-
ical party constructs of ‘patriotism’ and ‘loyalty’. What we have seen
from Robert Mugabe’s speeches and those of his ministers is vindictive
reverse racism being carried out under the guise of land reform and eco-
nomic empowerment. A political discourse analysis of the linguistic and
discursive strategies used reveals to us attributes of a bitter, angry and
vindictive man who is concerned more about getting back at his erst-
while former enemies than with establishing rapprochement with fellow
Zimbabweans from the white commercial farming community. I addi-
tion to all of this, Robert Mugabe has frequent forays into the art of lies
and deception. He persistently harks into the mantra ‘we died for our
land; we died and suffered for sovereignty over natural resources’ and so
on. True, Robert Mugabe may have spent some 11 years in detention,
but he did not die. His use of the pronoun of legitimation (we) is essen-
tially aimed at whipping up the emotions of the majority of poor black
Zimbabweans who suffered during the colonial period and are still suf-
fering today due to his nearly four decades of misrule. In fact, the claim
that he also ‘died’ is quite bizarre and hypocritical. Robert Mugabe is
actually refusing to die, both physically and metaphorically. He is
only six years shy of being a centenarian when the average life expec-
tancy of ordinary Zimbabweans is just under 40 years, having dropped
down from around 61 years at the time he came into power in 1980
(Thornycroft 2006). The Zimbabwean average life expectancy is nearly
two and half times less than his, which is testimony to his catastrophic
policies that have crippled health, social services and food security in a
country that was once the breadbasket of the entire southern African
region. Metaphorically, Robert Mugabe is refusing to die in the sense
that his legacy of misrule and destruction of the Zimbabwean econ-
omy, including the commercial agricultural sector that used to be the
157
backbone of the country, seems to continue unabated. All these nega-

tive consequences of what others have termed ‘Mugabeism’ (Ndlovu-
Gatsheni 2009, 2015) are embellished in his political discourse that is
built around a combination of the language of legitimation, the lan-
guage of victimhood and associated metalanguages that spiritualise
his actions as a way to insulate the chaotic land reform exercise from
scrutiny. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2009) says Mugabeism is a contested phe-
nomenon that is characterised by at least four motifs. The first is that
‘Mugabeism’ is a summation of a constellation of political controver-
sies, political behaviour, political ideas, utterances, rhetoric and actions
that have crystallised around Mugabe’s political life. The second, which
is proffered by nationalist aligned scholars, views Mugabeism as a Pan-
African redemptive ideology opposed to all forms of imperialism and
colonialism and dedicated to a radical redistributive project predi-
cated on redress of colonial injustices. The third motif proceeds from a
neoliberal-inspired perspective that sees Mugabeism as a form of racial
chauvinism and authoritarianism marked by antipathy towards norms
of liberal governance and disdain for human rights and democracy.
The fourth motif presents Mugabeism as populist phenomenon pro-
pelled through articulatory practices and empty signifiers. In summary,
Mugabeism ‘can be read at many levels: as a form of left-nationalism;
as Afro-radicalism and nativism; as patriarchal neo-traditional cul-
tural nationalism and as an antithesis of democracy and human rights’
(Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2009: 113). In the context of Zimbabwe, Robert
Mugabe has created and presided over a toxic political culture of impu-
nity, looting, scapegoating and denial of equal citizenship among peo-
ple who hail from diverse ethnic, racial, linguistic, cultural and political
backgrounds—yet all of them call Zimbabwe home. Appealing to spirit-
uality and invoking memories about people who genuinely sacrificed
their lives during the war of liberation is one discursive trope that
Robert Mugabe uses to avoid being held to account for his actions that
have torn apart the dictates of civic citizenship and equality of all that
should be the linchpin of postcolonial Zimbabwean national identity.
Robert Mugabe said the land reform process was motivated by the
desire to get a ‘one-man one-farm’ outcome in a ‘de-racialised commer-
cial agriculture sector’. But these are all lies and deception. If anything,
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F. Ndhlovu
the status quo of skewed land ownership pattern has been maintained—
if not worsened—following the partisan manner of land redistribution.
The only thing that has changed is the colour and political affiliations of
multiple farm owners. It is on record that the majority of politicians in
Robert Mugabe’s government as well as bureaucrats, senior civil servants
and other ZANU PF functionaries own multiple pieces of land—thanks
to the largesse of Mr. Mugabe. The commercial farming sector has not
been deracialised by any stretch of imagination. If anything, it has been
heavily politicised, further racialised and then destroyed.
As we have come to know with the passage of time since the early
2000s when the Fast Track Land Reform programme kicked in, instead
of the economic success and prosperity that were promised in policy
pronouncements and political leader statements, the majority of the
resettled people were fast-tracked into poverty, desperation and vulner-
ability. They have been unable to make a living out of the land due to
a combination of factors: lack of knowledge of farming, lack of inputs
and capital and general poor attitude towards farming. Like any other
profession, farming is not something that anyone without training
can do with any degree of success. Consequently, most newly resettled
farmers could not even produce enough to feed themselves, let alone
the nation as a whole. In his autobiography, Cephas G. Msipa, the late
Governor of the Midlands Province and Minister in President Robert
Mugabe’s cabinet, gave a scathing but candid critique of the land reform
programme. Here is some of what he said in relation to the failure of
newly resettled farmers to make good use of the land:
Most of those silos [that used to be stocked with grain from commercial
farms] are empty now and run down. We concentrated on distributing
land without giving much thought to the effects on production. The gov-
ernment is more concerned with political interests than economic ones.
(Msipa 2015: 140)
This is a very honest and frank assessment by a man who was at the
forefront of both the Second Chimurenga and Third Chimurenga in
Zimbabwe. People, therefore, got exposed to further political manip-
ulation as they relied on partisan food handouts distributed by the
159
government. Resettlement areas were turned into hotbeds for ruling

party political indoctrination programmes, maleficence of all manner
and type, violence, impunity and wanton violation of human rights
(Campbell 2003). Newly resettled areas thus joined the long list of
rural districts and villages that have traditionally become no-go areas for
opposition political parties during election campaigns.
So, in essence, as many other commentators have concluded
(Scoones et al. 2011; Moyo 2014; Masiiwa 2004), the much-vaunted
Fast Track Land Reform programme (first strand of the Third
Chimurenga) turned out to be yet another form of vernacular discourse.
It is shorthand for institutionalised economic, political and social mar-
ginalisation of those groups and individuals deemed to be politically
incorrect and unpatriotic. But worse still, the major downside of all
this is that there were very few winners: the whole exercise was a cata-
strophic disaster for the majority of people who were allocated blocks
of land with very limited material and financial resources, let alone
technical skills needed to make productive use of the land. The whole
land reform exercise in Zimbabwe is a classic example of how not to
pursue redress for past social, economic and political inequities because
in the end it achieved so many unintended consequences whereby the
very same people who left behind during the colonial period are mostly
worse off than they were before.
Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment

Our government does not pay much attention to the economy. It spends
too much on politics. Its policies don’t attract foreign direct investment.
They are inconsistent and ambiguous. Take the 51:49 per cent share
requirement in the indigenisation policy that became law in 2008. Our
attitude is take it or leave it. We are showing little or no interest in foreign
direct investment. Generally, the message to the outside world is that it is
not worth trying to do business in Zimbabwe today. (Msipa 2015: 137)
The second strand of the Third Chimurenga is the Indigenisation and

Economic Empowerment Act (2008). Among the main goals of the
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F. Ndhlovu
policy are the following: ‘to provide for support measures for the further
indigenisation of the economy; to provide support measures for the eco-
nomic empowerment of indigenous Zimbabweans…’ (Government of
Zimbabwe 2008). Three key concepts that are of interest and to which
I turn the focus of my analysis in the next few paragraphs are ‘empow-
erment’, ‘indigenisation’ and ‘indigenous Zimbabwean’. I analyse each
concept in relation to how it is defined in Part I of the Indigenisation
and Economic Empowerment Act. I then go on to show some of the
limitations and blind spots of each concept vis-à-vis what I consider to
be the underpinning pillars of a truly empowering economic empower-
ment policy regime.
First is the concept of ‘indigenisation’, which is defined as follows in
the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act:
Indigenisation means a deliberate involvement of indigenous Zimbabweans

in the economic activities of the country, to which hitherto they had no
access, so as to ensure the equitable ownership of the nation’s resources.
(Government of Zimbabwe 2008)
The Act defines the related concept of ‘indigenous Zimbabwean’ in the

following terms:
Indigenous Zimbabwean means any person who, before the 18th of

April, 1980, was disadvantaged by unfair discrimination on the grounds
of his or her race, and any descendant of such person, and includes any
company, association, syndicate or partnership of which indigenous
Zimbabweans form the majority of the members or hold the controlling
interest. (Government of Zimbabwe 2008)
On face value, the definitions of both concepts do clearly suggest a pos-

itive intent that is consistent with the postcolonial agenda of redressing
the effects of skewed colonial policies that had deliberately marginal-
ised and excluded the majority of the black people from full and equi-
table economic participation. However, a more critical look at these
definitions that takes into account the history of the adoption of the
term ‘indigenous’ would reveal the true intention of the policy—that
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of reverse racism. Cephas G. Msipa, who was responsible for the

Indigenisation and Privatisation portfolio in his capacity as Minister of
State in the President’s office at the time, recounts the history and origi-
nal intentions of the policy in the following terms:
[…] the word ‘indigenous’ was not part of our vocabulary. In fact, the title
‘indigenisation’ was suggested by Patrick Chinamasa, the attorney-gen-
eral. We had wanted a ministry of ‘Black economic Empowerment’ but he
advised us that the term ‘black’ had racist connotations. We hoped that if
the government chose ‘indigenisation’, it would be more acceptable. The
United Nations had made respect and advancement of ‘indigenous people’
an important element of its human rights position. So we zeroed in on
‘indigenisation’. (Msipa 2015: 147)
This quotation on the real politik of Zimbabwe’s indigenisation pol-

icy is quite revealing. What is clear here is that the original intention
of the policy was to focus on the economic advancement of ‘black’
Zimbabweans. The term ‘indigenous’ was adopted only insofar as it
aligned with the evolving dictates of political correctness with the wider
international community. As Msipa further points out in his memoirs
‘this was a new concept in Zimbabwe and the first thing we had to do
was to explain what it meant. The official intention was to ensure that
black Zimbabweans could participate meaningfully in the economy
of their country’ (pp. 147–148). And true to the official intention,
Zimbabwe’s indigenisation and economic empowerment policy has
sought to exclusively benefit black people and, in particular, those black
people who are known to be members of the ruling ZANU PF party
and their sympathisers. So, essentially, the language of the indigenisa-
tion policy hides as much as it reveals—in equal measures. On the one
hand, the policy hides the deliberate intentions of the government of
Zimbabwe to exclude white Zimbabwean citizens from benefitting from
the provisions of the indigenisation policy—regardless of their individ-
ual circumstances, including economic status and political persuasion.
Historians of Zimbabwe’s colonial history have documented the sto-
ries of white Zimbabweans who were economically disadvantaged and
incarcerated by successive colonial governments for being on the wrong
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side of history as they supported the cause of black majority rule. Sir
Garfield Todd and members of his family are one such example of white
Zimbabweans who suffered and paid a high economic and political
price for being on the side of black people. His tenure as prime minister
of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (1953–1958) was dogged
with controversy due to his anti-racist stance that costs him his political
career. Originally from New Zealand, part of Garfield Todd’s biography
in the Encyclopedia Britannica reads as follows:
In 1934 Todd went as a missionary to Southern Rhodesia, where he ran

a mission and helped build clinics and schools, among them a teaching
school for blacks where many of Zimbabwe’s future leaders were edu-
cated. Todd was first elected to Parliament in 1946. He was elected prime
minister in 1953 and supported independence from Great Britain. […]
his push to grant suffrage to educated blacks provoked his cabinet to
resign, and he failed to secure a second term. In the 1960s Todd joined
forces with black nationalists against Prime Minister Ian Smith, and he
was repeatedly placed under house arrest. When Mugabe came to power
in 1980, he appointed Todd to the Senate, but the elder statesman even-
tually spoke out against the corruption in his former ally’s administration
and left the post five years later. (Sparks 2017)
The anti-racism stance of Garfield Todd is attested by Cephas Msipa,

one of the beneficiaries of the education, health and other social wel-
fare services that Todd and his wife provided at Dadaya Mission. ‘Sir
Garfield Todd was vehemently opposed to racism; in fact he was col-
our blind. He lived among the people in Shabani communal area and
became part of us. When pregnant women near the mission were hav-
ing problems in delivering, they called him for help, and he would go at
any time of the day or night. Thanks to him, I grew up thinking that all
men are equal, regardless of colour’ (Msipa 2015: 19). It is the likes of
Garfield Todd, their descendants and many other white Zimbabweans
of their disposition who are being unfairly excluded by the current indi-
genisation policy, which specifically seeks the economic advancement of
black people. All of this is hidden in the politically correct language of
‘indigenisation’ and ‘indigenous Zimbabwean’. Following this analysis
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of what is hidden, it can be argued that the language of Zimbabwe’s

indigenisation and economic empowerment also reveals the agenda
of reverse racism and vindictive retribution. The use of the seemingly
neutral and politically correct, yet ambiguous concept of ‘indigenous’
reveals the deliberate intention to leave it open to multiple interpreta-
tions that allow for politicisation of what should ideally be a noble goal
of redressing the colonial legacy of social and economic inequalities.
However, an important question arises: Who is indigenous to
Zimbabwe? In other words, what are the parameters of Zimbabwean
indigeneity? This is a question that cannot be answered in the abstract
in the sense that it requires a deeper understanding of Zimbabwean
history that predates the arrival of Europeans in the late nineteenth
century. Within the United Nations (UN) scheme of things (which
Zimbabwe’s Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment policy pur-
ports to mimic), the term indigenous is used to refer to the first peo-
ples, the first nations or the longest known living cultures of specific
territories. A more comprehensive UN definition of indigenous people
follows:
Indigenous peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures

and ways of relating to people and the environment. They have retained
social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct
from those of the dominant societies in which they live. Despite their cul-
tural differences, indigenous peoples from around the world share com-
mon problems related to the protection of their rights as distinct peoples.
(United Nations, n.d.)
The UNE Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues specifies five key

guiding parameters of indigeneity: self-identification as indigenous
peoples at the individual level and accepted by the community as their
member; historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler soci-
eties; strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources; dis-
tinct social, economic or political systems; distinct language, culture and
beliefs; form non-dominant groups of society; and resolve to maintain
and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as distinctive
peoples and communities. The UN goes further in saying indigenous
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peoples have sought recognition of their identities, way of life and their
right to traditional lands, territories and natural resources for years, yet
throughout history, their rights have always been violated. Indigenous
peoples, today, are arguably among the most disadvantaged and vulnera-
ble groups of people in the world. Consequently, the international com-
munity now recognises that special measures are required to protect their
rights and maintain their distinct cultures and way of life. Commonly
cited examples of communities around the world that fall within the
purview of this definition of ‘indigenous people’ include the Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Island people of Australia, the Maori people of New
Zealand, the Lakota in the USA, the Mayas in Guatemala, the Aymaras
in Bolivia and the Saami of Northern Europe (United Nations, n.d.).
In the context of southern Africa, indigenous, peoples include the
Khoi, San, Korana, Griqua and Nama aboriginal peoples that cur-
rently exist as small isolated communities in south-western Zimbabwe,
Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. They are believed to have inhab-
ited this part of the world for 60–90,000 years. All other black peo-
ples of southern Africa, including those in present-day Zimbabwe,
who claim to indigeneity, are, in fact, descendants of Bantu migrants.
The Bantu peoples migrated from Western Africa—near modern-day
Nigeria—southward and eastward, spreading out across all of the south-
ern half of the African continent. This migration is estimated to have
started at about 1000 b.c., and ended at about 1700 a.d. (Fagan 1966;
Shinnie 1965; Davidson 1991; Labouret 1962).
Therefore, while the appropriation of the term ‘indigenous’ might
be politically expedient insofar as it helps advance the anti-colonial
and anti-imperialist agenda of the current government of Zimbabwe,
its adoption overlooks and ignores several complex historical facts.
The genealogies and historiographies of the majority of the so-called
indigenous Zimbabweans are overstated. They do not fit within the
UN definitional understanding of indigenous peoples. The question
here is: How far back in time do we go in tracing who qualifies to be
an indigenous person? If we follow the UN guidelines, only the Khoi
and San people would count as the bona fide indigenous people of
Zimbabwe. All other ethnolinguistic groups, including the dominant
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Shona, Ndebele and white Zimbabweans, are descendants of migrants

who arrived on the Zimbabwe plateau at different times in the history
of this territory. However, if our point of reference is the period of colo-
nial encounters—the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. white man—then we are
talking about a different story altogether, which qualifies every black
Zimbabwean person to lay claim to this new category of indigeneity.
But the question still remains: Does the history of Zimbabwe only start
at the point of colonisation? If so, what are the implications of using
formal colonisation by Europeans as the reference point for discourses,
conversations and policy debates on indigenisation and economic
empowerment? These are all important questions that lay bare some of
the glaring blind spots and omissions that are hidden in the language of
the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act.
The third concept of interest that is defined in the 2008
Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act is that of ‘empower-
ment’. According the Act, ‘empowerment means the creation of an envi-
ronment which enhances the performance of the economic activities
of indigenous Zimbabweans into which they would have been intro-
duced or involved through indigenisation’ (Government of Zimbabwe
2008). It is evident that the meaning of empowerment here is a corol-
lary of the subjective, flawed and problematic interpretations of ‘indig-
enisation’ and ‘indigenous Zimbabwean’. The language used in defining
‘empowerment’ is meant to ensure beneficiaries of the said measures of
economic advancement are members of the narrowly defined notion of
Zimbabwean indigeneity.
These objectives and measures are elaborated in greater detail in
Part II, which mainly focuses on the modalities of how public com-
panies and any other businesses operating in Zimbabwe are to cede
at least fifty-one per cent of their shares to indigenous Zimbabweans.
Section 3; subsection 3 of Part II lists three special interest groups of
indigenous Zimbabweans that the Government is specifically deter-
mined to make sure they benefit from the Indigenisation and Economic
Empowerment policy. These are (a) women, (b) young persons under
a prescribed age and (c) disabled persons as defined in the Disabled
Persons Act [Chapter 17:01 ]. These are, indeed, some of the most dis-
advantaged and vulnerable sections of the Zimbabwean society that
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need dedicated Government policy intervention to ensure they are left

behind. The political economy of Zimbabwe, like those of many other
countries around the world, is heavily dominated by able bodied male
adults, most of who are politically connected and, therefore, have direct
or indirect access to the levers of power, distribution and control. For
this reason, it is only fair and prudent that women, young people and
disabled persons be accorded some special protections to enable them to
participate and contribute to their own social and economic well-being
as well as those of their families and communities.
Having said the above, I would argue that the Indigenisation and
Economic Empowerment policy should have gone further than this
in identifying those sections of Zimbabwean society that require some
specific affirmative action. We need a more sophisticated language
and a much broader repertoire of grammars and vocabularies for talk-
ing about women and young people as social categories. In addition to
gender and age identifications, we are talking about people who answer
to other multiple identities that may confer them social, economic and
political privileges, thus removing them from the normative category
of disadvantaged groups. Some women are politicians, professionals
and successful business persons in their own right. Others are wives,
daughters, daughters-in-law, aunties and nieces of powerful political
elites, thus enabling them to access positions of power and influence
by association. A spectacular example here is that of Grace Mugabe,2
the wife of President Robert Mugabe. Grace is undoubtedly the most
2At the time of writing this chapter, Grace Mugabe and her husband were still the most power-
ful individuals in Zimbabwe until Robert Mugabe was deposed in a military ‘coup that was not
a coup’ on the 15th of November 2017. Although both Grace and Robert Mugabe have now
disappeared from the political scene in Zimbabwe, their legacy of rampant and flagrant abuse
of political power (Mugabeism) still remains firmly ensconced in the national body politic. The
political rhetoric under new president Emmerson Mnangagwa suggests the desire to chart a
new trajectory underpinned by the dictates of good governance and rule of law. However, it still
remains to be seen whether the good talk will be followed through with actions. Preliminary
post-Mugabe developments suggest that it might as well be a very long way before we can
start seeing a genuine departure from the previous regime. Apart from the softening of the
Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act, the bulk of the social, economic and political
policy settings and the personnel in charge largely remain the same—the old guard that has
supped with Robert Mugabe for decades and thus still trapped within the toxic, vindictive and
intolerant political culture of patronage that is akin to Mugabeism.
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powerful and most influential woman in Zimbabwe right now. She is

economically affluent as she owns the best farmland in the Mazoe area
of Mashonaland. In addition to economic power, Grace has accumu-
lated a lot of political influence to the point of being the kingmaker
in the current political succession debate within the ruling ZANU PF
party. In fact, describing Grace Mugabe as a kingmaker is an understate-
ment because she seems to be angling to succeed her near-centenarian
husband as the next president of Zimbabwe. This is power that she has
accumulated by association and it is definitely working very well for her.
Similarly, not all young people in Zimbabwe are economically disadvan-
taged because, like women, they are not a homogeneous group. Some
are daughters, sisters, sisters-in-law, sons, sons-in-law, uncles, nephews
and nieces of powerful political figures. Others are politically and eco-
nomically powerful in their own right—by virtue of being active mem-
bers of the ruling ZANU PF party.
These multiple and mutating identities of women and young
people leave a lot to be desired about the current provisions of the
Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act. How do we know
that it is the genuinely disadvantaged women and young people who
are benefiting from the targeted provisions of the policy? And what
mechanisms are in place to ensure those women and young people who
are already economically affluent by association are not double dip-
ping? The answers to these questions are not found anywhere in the
Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act. What is very clear
though is that the clause in which women and young people are pre-
sented as the most disadvantaged indigenous Zimbabweans is open to
abuse and manipulation in ways that contradict the aspirational goals
and objectives of the policy. A more critical reading of this clause, there-
fore, suggests that the language used is deliberately meant to be ambigu-
ous in ways that both hide and reveal—in equal measure. That is, while
the clause reveals the overall objective of the policy (which is to eco-
nomically empower indigenous Zimbabweans), it is also simultaneously
couched in a language that hides the fact that the measures are deliber-
ately vague so they can be easily manipulated and abused. For example,
the burden of proof would rest with anyone who attempts to ques-
tion why politically connected women and young people are the main
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beneficiaries of the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment meas-

ures than someone who abuses or rots the system because the policy is
silent about specifics on individuals’ socio-economic and political attrib-
utes. The only criteria that matter most are those of being an indigenous
Zimbabwean woman or an indigenous Zimbabwean young person.
Further analysis also reveals that the levels of disadvantage among
indigenous Zimbabweans other than women, young people and the
disabled vary greatly along a range of divides, but the two most impor-
tant ones are ethnicity and regional background. Zimbabwe is gener-
ally misconstrued as a predominantly bicultural and bilingual country
(see Chapter 3). Yet, as most people would know, Zimbabwe is a mul-
tilingual and multiethnic country with at least eighteen African e thnic
groups that include Shona, Ndebele, Kalanga, Nambya, Tonga, Sotho,
Dombe, Xhosa, Tonga of Mudzi, Venda, Shangani, Tshwawo, Tswana,
Barwe, Sena, Doma, Chikunda and Chewa (Hachipola 1998; Ndhlovu
2006, 2009). Of these, only Shona and Ndebele are recognised as
the official national languages precisely because they both have a pro-
portionately large number of speakers. But the levels of ethnolinguis-
tic and cultural diversity are way too complex than this simplistic and
reductionist assumption. This is particularly so if we were to break
these ethnolinguistic groups into their granular forms, coming down
to the levels sub-ethnic, clan, totemic and dialect groups. For example,
though Ndebele is generally used as the prime marker of people from
the Matabeleland region and some parts of the Midlands, there are sev-
eral ethnic and language groups that are subsumed under it: Tonga,
Nambya, Kalanga, Fengu, Venda, Sotho, Birwa, Tshwawo and many
more.
Each of these groups that are subsumed under the Ndebele sociocul-
tural/political formation in the context of the Matabeleland region do
also have other micro-formations that follow the lines of clans, totems,
chieftaincies and so on. Similarly, what we know as Shona is a complex
conglomeration of diverse ethnicities that were forced to identify as one
supposedly uniform group by a combination of historical factors such
as colonisation and of course the mere accident of geographical prox-
imity. The well-known level of abstraction in the Shona group gener-
ally stops at identifying the five major sub-ethnic groups: Karanga,
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Manyika, Zezuru, Ndau and Korekore. These date back to the work
of early missionaries and colonial academics such as Clement Martyn
Doke (Chimhundu 2005; Ranger 1985, 1989; Ndhlovu 2006, 2009).
But each of these has several sub-ethnicities that follow different lines
of cultural traditions, totemic systems and myths of origin. The Ndau
are one perfect example of how identify affiliations are fluid such that
groups and individuals can move in and out of different identities at
different times in their history. The Ndau people have always protested
that they were not part of the Shona group. They were subsumed under
Shona by virtue of their geographical proximity to Shona ethnic groups
in the eastern part of Zimbabwe. Up until 2013, Ndau was officially
considered to be a dialect of Shona, but this changed following the writ-
ing the new national constitution of the Republic of Zimbabwe that
recognises Ndau as a separate language, in fact, one of the country’s six-
teen official languages.
It is, therefore, at this micro-social level of analysis that we get to see
the multiple layers of minority or marginalised groups that may not
have automatic access to available avenues of economic empowerment.
Some minority groups may require more or less the same levels of tar-
geted support systems as those provided to women, young people and
the disabled. The point of greater significance here is that the provi-
sions of access that are spelt out in the Indigenisation and Economic
Empowerment Act need to be rethought and broadened such that they
cover these complex and multiple layers of disadvantage and exclusion
that are deep-seated within the Zimbabwean body politic. The current
framing of the economic empowerment policy is built around a false
and misleading assumption that there is a uniform level of economic
disadvantage among the indigenous people of Zimbabwe. As I have
already indicated, this misses the crucial point about the complexity of
ethnolinguistic and cultural heterogeneity that may help us pursue more
fruitful lines of enquiry in our search for more holistic and inclusive
approaches to affirmative action and economic empowerment.
This takes us to yet another equally important point—that of
regional background. It is well known that although Zimbabweans
from all the regions, districts and provinces of Zimbabwe endured the
same form of segregation, discrimination and economic marginalisation
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F. Ndhlovu
under successive colonial governments, the story is quite different in

the post-colonial dispensation. While the rest of the country reaped
the fruits of political independence from 1980 to this present day, the
people from Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands Province were
left behind during the first decade due to political disturbances that
have come to be known as Gukurahundi. This sad chapter in the his-
tory of post-colonial Zimbabwe added another layer of marginalisa-
tion and economic disadvantage that should have been written into the
Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act in 2008. Put simply,
the people of Matabeleland and some parts of the Midlands Province
where I come from (Zhombe, Silobela and Lower Gweru) are ten years
behind the rest of the country. Any genuine and sincere empowerment
policy that seeks to advance the economic fortunes and social well-being
of all the indigenous people of Zimbabwe must not overlook this fact
of history. My argument here is simple and straight forward: though I
share the overall aspirational goal to economically empower all indig
enous Zimbabweans, not all such people are starting at the same level.
Some, namely those from the Mashonaland, Manicaland and Masvingo
provinces, are already way ahead, having started the recovery process
in 1980. Some, if not most, people from Matabeleland and parts of
the Midlands Province are way behind, having lost the first ten years
of independence. This is a significant point that appears to have been
downplayed in the crafting and implementation of the indigenisation
and economic empowerment policy.
Therefore, a glaring fallacy of the framework and modus oper-
andi of the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment policy is one
about the myth of a transnational Zimbabwean identity that is sup-
posedly characterised by a form of horizontal comradeship that tran-
scends ethnic, regional, political and social divides. For this reason, the
policy mimics the language and vernacular discourse of nationalism
and nationalist ideology—that catechism of one nation, one language,
one culture, one people. Such obsession with a ‘mono’ view of the
universe obscured policy makers and political leaders from seeing the
multiple cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversities that should be inte-
grated in policy frameworks. In the light of the foregoing, the question
becomes: What exactly is to be achieved through the indigenisation and
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economic empowerment policies? While there is no simple answer, one

may hasten to say the outcomes will largely depend on what kind of
community the entire project seeks to produce.
The previous body of sociological and political science literature
has suggested that there are generally two types of communities that
social and economic policies such as the Indigenisation and Economic
Empowerment Act produce. The first is the political community (nation-
alism), and the second is the sociological community (nationalism)
(Fishman 1968; Lee and Newby 1983; Crow and Allen 1995; Smith
2001). Joshua Fishman (1968) noted that these concepts require rather
more careful differentiation than they have usually received because they
each have very definite implications. He defined a sociological commu-
nity as a sociocultural entity that may have no corresponding politico-
geographic realisation. He went further to say ‘its discriminanda are
essentially at the level of authenticity and solidarity of group behaviours
and group values, rather than at the level of governmental, politico-
geographical realizations and implementations’ (Fishman 1968: 39). On
the other hand, unlike in the sociological community, social solidarity
‘is not a precondition for the existence of a political community and for
how a national political community can attain such solidarity in succes-
sive steps’ (ibid., 39).
The two permutations flagged above produce different sets of out-
comes when considered in the context of debates around indigenisation
and economic empowerment policies. First, if the nationalism model is
embraced as the underpinning conceptual framework, then the cultiva-
tion of a strong transnational Zimbabwean political community will be
paramount. In other words, notwithstanding the relevance of cultural
and economic considerations, the quest for cultivating shared social and
economic prosperity for all people across the entire country (regardless
of political persuasion, ethnicity, cultural background and region of ori-
gin) will be at the forefront. The task at hand will be that of building a
sense of horizontal and vertical comradeship (Anderson 1991) among
the diverse polities, spanning from colonial, through the moments of
liberation struggles, to the postcolonial period.
The second permutation is one motivated by the desire to build
a sociological community (nationism), which will yield different
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outcomes. There is legion of both theoretical and empirical studies that

consider the sociological model of community from a range of perspec-
tives. The first clear conceptualisation of the sociological community
was developed in the early 1900s by C. J. Galpin (Smith 2001), after
which followed a number of competing but somewhat related views.
Fishman (1968: 40) says the sociological model of community is char-
acterised by existence of ‘ideological emotional components of attach-
ment to nationality and nations’. Taking after the work of Willmott
(1986), Lee and Newby (1983), as well as Crow and Allen (1995),
Smith identifies three key parameters that define understandings of soci-
ological community:
1. Place—referring to a territorial community where people have some-

thing in common, and this shared element is understood geographi-
cally (locality).
2. Interest—here, the underpinning principle is one where people have a
shared characteristic other than geographical location. The difference
in spatial location is not decisive, but factors such as religious belief
or ethnic origin are.
3. Communion—this has to do with a sense of (emotional) attachment
to a place, group or idea. It entails a profound meeting or encoun-
ter—both in physical and spiritual terms (Smith 2001: 2).
In summarising the above, Smith says sociological communities are best

approached as ‘communities of meaning’, and the boundaries between
one community and another do not necessarily have to be physical, as
they may as well exist in the minds of the beholders. ‘This is the sym-
bolic aspect of community boundary and is fundamental to gaining an
appreciation of how people experience community’ (Smith 2001: 2).
In my analysis, I build on and extend this body of literature by con-
ceptualising the two notions of nationality and nation more broadly to
also refer to the traditional fractures of ‘ethnic’ group, cultural group,
village, chiefdom and the problematic notion of ‘tribe’, among oth-
ers. This entails embracing Benedict Anderson’s (1991) characterisa-
tion of nations as imagined communities—imagined insofar as they
exist in the hearts and minds of those who claim affiliation and loyalty
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to them. Following this logic, I would argue that Zimbabwe has to be

imagined as a transnational community that should ideally include and
accommodate the multiple nations that exist within its borders. The
question that arises under this scenario is this: How does the current
Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment policy articulate with
these multiple and complex ethno-nationalities that constitute the idea
of Zimbabwean indigeneity? The answer to this question should be
ideally located in the rhetoric and practice of the Third Chimurenga,
which I turn to in the next section.
Third Chimurenga—Rhetoric and Practice

The Fast Track Land Reform Program and the controversial urban
slums clearance exercise turned out to be fertile ground for the propa-
ganda sloganeering that was manifested in the form of term creation,
semantic shifts, dysphemism, euphemism, mystification, lexical harden-
ing, word disapproval, repetition, censorship, popular appeal as well as
semantic broadening. Ordinary everyday English language expressions
were arm-twisted to assume new meanings depending on the intentions
of the ZANU PF political elite. Old men and women who had been
practising subsistence agriculture for decades suddenly turned into ‘new
farmers’. The term ‘settler’, which for over a hundred years pejoratively
referred to white colonial intruders, suddenly ameliorated; it now refers
to the ‘legitimate and rightful’ indigenous owners of the land. People
who hold alternative views that are not in consonance with the politi-
cal thinking of the ruling elite regarding the unpopular policies of the
ZANU PF government are variously described as ‘sell-outs’, ‘enemies of
the people’, ‘imperialist lap-dogs’ and ‘unpatriotic traitors’. These and
related expressions were repeated several times in the printed and elec-
tronic media, in speeches at national events (such as Independence and
Heroes Day celebrations), as well as at ZANU PF political rallies.
In the next parts of this section, I provide a detailed analysis of four
propaganda techniques that were used by the ZANU PF administration
in seeking to popularise its controversial land reform and indigenisation
and economic empowerment policies.
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F. Ndhlovu
Word Approval
This is a process whereby certain words and phrases are deliberately

given special prominence and respectability by their frequent use in
influential circles and in the mass media. Word approval often results in
certain profanities that were traditionally unacceptable suddenly becom-
ing commonplace in the mass media and in everyday social discourse.
For instance, all people perceived to be against the disorganised Third
Chimurenga and Operation Murambatsvina were given a variety of labels
that are traditionally unacceptable. Officialdom, in the form of the pre-
sidium, cabinet ministers and other ZANU PF officials, gave themselves
the leeway to use the public media as a platform of hurling insults at
members of the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) and their supporters. Some of the unpalatable terms
frequently used (mainly by the ruling party’s minister of Information
and Publicity, Jonathan Moyo) include the following: ‘sellouts’, ‘enemies
of the people’, ‘neocols’, ‘puppets of Western imperialists’, ‘terrorists’,
‘saboteurs’, ‘anti-government lobbyists’, ‘running dogs of imperial-
ist forces’, ‘violent cronies of the MDC’, ‘political dissidents’ aimed at
‘undermining national interest’.
This kind of discourse is always used to discredit the MDC and the
civic organisations aligned to it—both local and international. The
United Nations Special Envoy, Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, was not
spared this name-calling barrage for compiling an allegedly ‘damning’
report on the conduct and after-effects of the urban slums clearance in
Zimbabwe in 2005. She was described as a ‘misguided puppet of Tony
Blair’, and her report labelled as ‘value-laden’, ‘typical of neocolonial
conspiracy’, ‘part of the Anti-Zimbabwe Global Campaign’ and full of
‘diplomatic naivety’ (The Chronicle Online, 19 September 2005 and The
Herald Online, 17 August 2005).
At that time (and it appears it is still the same even now), anyone
who held an opinion perceived to be contrary to ZANU PF political
ideology automatically fell into the fold of the country’s ‘hostile detrac-
tors’. Such labels often got naturalised over time to a point where they
ended up being viewed as real and commonsense—an integral part
175
of strategies of legitimising new and emergent political identities that

were being constructed at the time. From a critical discourse analysis
perspective:
Naturalization is the royal road to commonsense. Ideologies come to be

ideological commonsense to the extent that the discourse types which
embody them become naturalized. This depends on the power of the
social groupings whose ideologies and whose discourse types are at issue.
In this sense, commonsense in its ideological dimension is itself an effect
of power. What comes to be commonsense is thus in large measure deter-
mined by who exercises power and domination in a society or a social
institution. (Fairclough 1992: 8)
Therefore, in a typical hegemonic fashion, the ZANU PF elite stepped

up the ante by adding covert strategies of ideological domination onto
overt mechanisms of physical repression for which they are infamously
well known.
Word Disapproval
Under this strategy, certain words or phrases that expose the user to
disagreeable social reactions (like personal abuse and other forms of vic-
timisation) are deliberately disapproved by officialdom. For instance,
in the process of trying to recover ZANU PF’s ‘glorious yesteryears’,
government officials, politicians and the state media employed this
propaganda technique to vilify perceived enemies. The ruling politi-
cal elite disapproved a wide array of terms popularly used by opposi-
tion parties and those who did not share the sentiments of the Mugabe
regime. Officialdom disapproved the use of the term ‘farm invasions’
when describing the manner in which liberation war veterans and other
ZANU PF sympathisers violently seized commercial farms from erst-
while ‘descendants of former colonial masters’. Cabinet ministers and
all other ZANU PF politicians preferred to use the term ‘demonstra-
tions’ instead. Horace Campbell (2003) characterised the situation
that prevailed in Zimbabwe during the Third Chimurenga as execu-
tive lawlessness. In the words of Campbell, ‘executive lawlessness is an
176
F. Ndhlovu
appropriate way to characterize the use of state violence [in Zimbabwe]

against the political opposition, especially against farm workers’
(Campbell 2003: 78–81).
In line with Campbell’s observation, it can be noted that executive
lawlessness exists when the politics of law and order is mainly rhetorical
and with widespread disregard for the law by those who are empow-
ered to uphold it. This means the major democratic crisis in Zimbabwe
is the crisis of hegemony, or a situation where the ruling classes have
regularly failed to win the ideological struggle. Indeed, the Mugabe
regime has consistently resorted to these unorthodox tactics of survival
following the exhaustion and bankruptcy of nationalism as an ideology
of the new millennium. The quest for entrenching ZANU PF political
hegemony and regime security saw the unfortunate executive lawless-
ness being given the respectable name ‘fast track land reform’ by the
end of year 2000.
The government of Zimbabwe worked in collusion with the veterans
of the 1970s liberation war to perpetrate all forms of executive lawless-
ness under the guise of ‘legal demonstrations’. Under the direction of
Ignatius Chombo, then minister of local government, war veterans and
other ZANU PF sympathisers operated like a storm-trooper force that
was a law unto itself and could not be touched by the police or army.
They literally attacked both farm workers and farm owners with impu-
nity under the guise of ‘reclaiming land’, yet their ulterior motive was
the liquidation of all opposition elements ahead of the 2000 parliamen-
tary and 2002 presidential elections. During this period, the Mugabe
regime can best be described as having been commandist, militarist and
lawless (Campbell 2003).
The other litany of terms whose meanings were twisted in favour of
ZANU PF political ideology include: ‘good governance’, ‘democratic
principles’, ‘dictatorship’, ‘regime change’, ‘rule of law’, ‘violation of
international law’, ‘human rights’, ‘subversion of democratic process’,
‘stolen election’, etc. The ruling political elite created the impression
that both the Third Chimurenga and Operation Murambatsvina were
carried out in a progressive way by ensuring that the foregoing unpal-
atable terminology was not frequently used in the public media. By
disapproving the authenticity of labelling the actions of the ZANU PF
177
government as being in violation of democratic principles, individual

human rights, international law as well as good governance in the con-
duct of the Third Chimurenga, the ruling elite sought to entrench its
political future that was threatened by the emergence of a new polit-
ical contender, the MDC. This newly formed opposition political
party posed the most potent challenge to the decades-long ZANU PF
hegemony, as it commanded overwhelming support from the country’s
working class, civic organisations and the generality of the Zimbabwean
populace, in both rural and urban areas.
Repetition and Euphemism
In this case, a selection of words, phrases and other forms of discourse

are deliberately given prominence through repetition. This propaganda
technique entails disguising whatever is intrinsically ugly, repulsive,
immoral or otherwise unacceptable behind more attractive, less offen-
sive or neutral labels (Pratkanis and Aronson 1991). At the hands of
ZANU PF politicians and their social engineers, euphemism became a
sinister device used to deceive and indoctrinate the public into accept-
ing things that are otherwise intrinsically repugnant—all in the name
of regime security. The violation of property rights through violent sei-
zures of land and the indiscriminate destruction of houses was euphe-
mistically referred to as ‘repossessing our cultural heritage’, ‘redressing
colonial injustices’, ‘cleaning the cities’, ‘stopping economic crimes’,
‘countering economic sabotage’, ‘reorganizing small-to-medium enter-
prises’, ‘reducing the high crime rate’, ‘arresting such social ills as pros-
titution’, ‘stopping the hoarding of consumer commodities’, ‘stemming
disorderly or chaotic urbanization’, ‘minimizing the dangers of dis-
ease outbreaks’ and ‘reversing environmental damage’ (The Herald, 17
August 2005 and The Financial Gazette Online, 22 September 2005).
The seemingly good intentions of the Third Chimurenga and Operation
Murambatsvina that were marketed using this grandiloquent terminol-
ogy turned out to be mere political sloganeering, as the people affected
by them became worse off—they were left with no food, no shelter and
no sources of income (United Nations 2005).
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F. Ndhlovu
The hooligan behaviour of liberation war veterans who went about

beating people and invading properties (Campbell 2003) was repeat-
edly and euphemistically acknowledged as the activities of ‘loyal’, ‘patri-
otic’ and ‘truly Zimbabwean nationals’ who were seeking to ‘empower’
the landless rural people. However, as it later turned out, the so-called
martyrs and champions of ‘black economic empowerment’ were, in
fact, driven by the populist, hegemonic and militaristic interests of an
embattled regime whose political future was taking a nosedive. The
majority of the rural folks in whose names the farms were invaded are
still crowded in the poor and unproductive pieces of land that they
have been occupying for decades. Those who were ‘patriotic’ enough to
receive pieces of land have seen such land go fallow, as they have no clue
about how to make good use of it. This goes a long way to demonstrate
that discourse manipulation by the Mugabe regime, as well as the activ-
ities of the war veterans, was no more than cheap politicking aimed at
propping up waning grassroots support for the ruling party.
Popular Appeal
Popular appeal involves a situation in which the propagandist’s message

is packaged or presented in a way likely to disarm criticism. The ZANU
PF government used this technique to justify the violent farm inva-
sions that started in year 2000. Popular appeal is an artful compound of
bogus philanthropy, cloying sentimentality, euphemism and superficial-
ity, all designed to help the medicine go down all those gullible throats
(Gerbner 1978).
In a bid to convince the people of Zimbabwe and the international
community about the nobility of the Third Chimurenga and Operation
Murambatsvina, ZANU PF’s propaganda machinery popularised the
use of selected words and phrases that appealed to the sentimental-
ity of ordinary men and women. The endless list of such terminology
included: ‘patriotism’, ‘sovereignty’, ‘self-determination’, ‘nationalism’,
‘territorial integrity’, ‘national interest’, ‘mature democracy’, ‘the will of
the people’, ‘heroic sons and daughters of Zimbabwe’. The net effect of
all this manipulated jargon was to legitimise the violation of the rights
179
and freedoms of those sections of the Zimbabwean society perceived to

be against the status quo. An impression was created through the pro-
cess of discourse control that, in Zimbabwe, there is a unique notion
of village-based human rights and democracy that is underpinned by
an inbuilt tendency towards consensus. This, unfortunately, turns out
to be no more than fictitious wishful thinking, for, as Gero (2000: 32)
points out, human rights and democracy are not culturally relative.
Authoritarianism, for instance, be it European or African, is under-
pinned by one common denominator: the subjugation of the individual
into a theocratic, or natural, order of things.
The foregoing behaviour of the ZANU PF government of
Zimbabwe is comparable to the political propaganda of Nazi Germany
(1933–1945). After attaining political power in 1933, Hitler’s Nazi
Party embarked on a policy of literally ‘putting everyone in the same
gear’ (Ehlich 1989). Joseph Goebbels spearheaded this propaganda
policy, which was set up under the Ministry of Information and
Propaganda. All the mass media in Germany was controlled by this
ministry that manipulated and arm-twisted ordinary, everyday expres-
sions into vehicles for Nazi dictatorship ideology. Ordinary terms such
as the word ‘worker’ were subjected to the process of lexical hardening
through endless repetition in the media. In Nazi Germany, the word
‘worker’ came to be associated with contexts of ‘honesty’, ‘war’, ‘honor’,
‘religion’ and ‘national loyalty’ (Mesthrie et al. 2000). A similar situ-
ation has prevailed in Zimbabwe since the year 2000. The term ‘new
farmer’, for example, has been repeatedly associated in the media with
the meanings of ‘patriotism’, ‘loyalty’, ‘progressive’, ‘anti-imperialist’
and ‘economic empowerment’, among others. The English language
has become part of the discursive techniques and strategies of neutrali-
sation whereby ‘euphemistic labeling is used to disguise the severity of
actions; and ‘advantageous comparison’ in which benefits and draw-
backs are contrasted in a way that makes reprehensible acts righteous’
(Enticott 2010: 5).
The discursive technique of neutralisation is precisely aimed at
that—to neutralise and/or dilute—the effect of a patently reprehen-
sible action. Sykes and Matza (1957, cited in Enticott 2010), suggest
that neutralisation techniques allow offenders to simultaneously accept
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F. Ndhlovu
societal norms while acting contrary to them. Similarly, Mooney (2007:

161) has argued that ‘techniques of neutralization allow the passage
from one core system to another’. Drawing on the work of Sykes and
Matza, Enticott (2010: 6) identifies five underpinning elements of neu-
tralisation techniques: ‘denial of the victim’ (premised on the belief that
whoever is harmed by an action deserved its consequences); ‘denial of
responsibility’ (whereby offenders argue that their actions were caused
by forces beyond their control); ‘denial of injury’ (based on the belief
that no one suffered as a result of a morally unacceptable action);
‘appeal to higher loyalties’ (here offenders cite the importance of small-
group loyalty in preference to society at large); and ‘condemnation of
the condemners’ (which refers to statements that suggest disapprovers
are hypocrites who have caused more harm).
All the above motifs of the discursive strategy of neutralisation are
consistently evident in ZANU PF narrative scripts. They see themselves
as victims of the Euro-American regime change agenda, which is moti-
vated by the desire to protect the interests of white commercial farmers
who lost their land to the Third Chimurenga. The forcible and often
violent acquisition of land from white commercial farmers that started
in 2000 (itself a reprehensible and morally unacceptable action) was
justified by recourse to neutralisation strategies of denial of responsibil-
ity, denial of injury and appeal to higher loyalties. The centrality of the
English language in this entire political discourse lies in that it proved
to be an effective medium of communicating a seemingly positive story
about Zimbabwe by the ZANU PF government throughout their ten
years of diplomatic standoff with the Western world. The English lan-
guage was successfully deployed to ZANU PF political propaganda
strategies of ‘condemning the condemners’ in a manner that no other
language could have done. The communicative currency and social
capital of English as the language of empowerment and access to the
world were all strategically deployed in reminding the British and the
Americans about their heinous colonial past—the message being that
they, too, had lots of skeletons in their cupboards and, therefore, had
no moral authority to condemn what the ZANU PF regime was doing
in Zimbabwe. President Robert Mugabe’s eloquent English-medium
speeches read at different UN summits as well as at home (particularly
181
at Independence and Heroes Day celebrations) attest to the prag-

matic functions of English at this point in the history of postcolonial
Zimbabwe.
Some Passing Remarks on South Africa

The dispossession of our people of the land that is theirs remains one of
the most burning national grievances. The gross injustice of this historic
crime has been compounded by the racists` arrogant attempt to deprive
the African majority of their inalienable birthright as citizens of their
country, South Africa. Millions of our people in the rural areas are bru-
tally exploited as agricultural workers on farms carved out of their ances-
tral lands. The land question must be resolved, if needs be, the hard way.
(Tambo 1985)
The programme of reversing land dispossession must be undertaken
in a manner that corrects the injustice while also promoting agricul-
tural stability and food security. (Jacob Zuma, cited in Africa Research
Institute 2013)
This section examines the language of South Africa’s land reform and
B-BBEE policies. It goes further and analyses the broader discourse on
social transformation that underpins these two policies. The argument
is that as is the case with Zimbabwe’s Third Chimurenga, the main pil-
lars of South Africa’s post-apartheid transformation agenda are under-
pinned by invocation of a narrow and inward-looking perspective on
transforming the country’s social, political and economic landscape. It
is further argued that the reified and reductionist framing of B-BBEE
and associated elements of the transformation imperative have resulted
in two unintended consequences: (i) alienating the majority of the very
same black people that the policy seeks to empower and (ii) diminish-
ing opportunities for the beneficiaries of these empowerment policies to
contribute towards realisation of the ideals and aspirational goals of the
transformation agenda. I conclude by suggesting that the discourse and
praxis of social transformation in South Africa needs to be conducted in
a language that indicates there is political will and commitment to help
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F. Ndhlovu
previously marginalised black South Africans to actually have their lives

transformed in meaningful and truly empowering ways.
Although South Africa is not the main focus of this chapter, it does
in many ways provide a compelling point of comparison for the discus-
sion on Zimbabwe. For the following reasons, South Africa bears the
hallmarks of my theoretical arguments and empirical observations on
Zimbabwe. First, like in the case of Zimbabwe, South Africa has a polit-
ically and emotionally charged debate around colonially inherited race-
based imbalances in patterns of land ownership. The land question was
at the heart of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa as much
as it was at the centre of the war of liberation in Zimbabwe. Second,
as was the case with Zimbabwe, South Africa attained majority rule
and democratic governance through a protracted negotiated settlement
in which the land question remained as unfinished business. Third, as
was the case in Zimbabwe, progress in South Africa’s land redistribution
exercise has been stalled by the ‘willing seller willing buyer’ clause due
to reluctance or unwillingness by the white commercial farming com-
munity to sell off some of their land for resettlement purposes. Fourth,
as was the case in Zimbabwe in year 2000, the debate on the conten-
tious land question in South Africa gathered momentum in 2014,
exactly two decades after the end of apartheid. Additionally, the South
African case study is useful in contextualising Zimbabwe’s intractable
land reform and indigenisation and economic empowerment policies to
developments elsewhere in the broader southern African regional con-
text. It is precisely for these reasons that I provide in the remainder of
this chapter some passing remarks and running commentary on the
language of land reform and black economic empowerment policies in
South Africa.
One of the major social policy issues that the post-apartheid gov-
ernment of South Africa has consistently been seized with since 1994
is the desire to push back and ultimately eradicate the frontiers of
the legacy of apartheid policies that structurally inhibited the partici-
pation of black South Africans in what was essentially a legislatively
race-based economy. In attempting to tackle the underdevelopment
of its black population, the South African government put in place a
raft of deracialisation and equity measures in keeping with the values
183
and principles of redress enshrined in the National Constitution. In

the words of Moyo, post-apartheid South Africa is one country ‘where
systems and policies to deal with land reform are probably the most
advanced from a legal perspective, but where the resources, patience
and other practical issues to execute reform effectively are becoming
serious hurdles in implementing policies’ (Moyo 2014: 68). Similarly,
South Africa’s indigenisation, black economic empowerment policies
and allied legal instruments for redress are well ahead and quite compre-
hensive relative to those that obtain in Zimbabwe and other comparable
countries in the region that are faced with similar land reform issues.
Furthermore, as can be seen from the two epigraphs at the beginning
of this section, South African policy frameworks and leader statements
are couched in a language that clearly indicates caveats meant to cir-
cumvent wanton excesses and extrajudicial activities in both the land
reform process and the economic empowerment exercise. Some of the
important phrases that underscore these parameters are about correcting
‘the injustice while also promoting agricultural stability and food secu-
rity’; and implementing ‘B-BBEE in an effective and sustainable man-
ner in order to unleash and harness the full potential of black people
and to foster the objectives of a pro-employment developmental growth
path’. These set apart the tone and intent of the South Africa from the
Zimbabwean approach that is built around the language of land repos-
session and ceding majority ownership of companies to black people
but with no clear guidelines on the importance of productivity, sustain-
ability and food security. It seems in the case of Zimbabwe transfer of
land and company shares from white people and/or foreigners is the
be-all and end-all.
Land Reform in South Africa

As was the case with the analysis of the Zimbabwe situation, I will not
expend a lot of time and space on the details of the long and well-docu-
mented history of the land question in South Africa. I will instead turn
to those aspects of this history that are necessary for purposes of illumi-
nating specific points about the centrality of language and discourse to
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F. Ndhlovu
our understanding of the successes and failures of the land reform pro-
gramme. It is imperative to note from the outset that the land question
in South Africa featured prominently in the negotiations that brought
an end to apartheid and ushered in a new democratic political dis-
pensation. The background to South Africa’s land question is more or
less similar to that of Zimbabwe discussed above. However, the rheto-
ric, policy debates and overall context of land reform in South Africa
slightly depart from the Zimbabwean approach as indicated by the
following extract from the ANC’s 2012 land reform policy discussion
document:
Land Reform is not just another social transfer where benefitting citizens
receive government largesse. It is and should be seen as autonomy-foster-
ing service delivery. This view of land reform projects service delivery as
a key site at which the assumptions and stigmas associated with vulnera-
bility in our society may be challenged and the appropriate resources for
developing the capacity for autonomy provided. Service delivery via land
reform should play an important role in clearing the way for disadvan-
taged previously marginalized individuals to exercise their capacity to act
autonomously, to be full economic and social participants in the South
African Project. (African National Congress 2012: 3)
The land reform process in South Africa is characterised by the wide-

spread use of the buzzword ‘service delivery’. This is a cross-cutting con-
cept in the post-apartheid social and economic policy discourse, which
emphasises the role of the state in delivering to the generality of the
population those services they lacked under the apartheid system of gov-
ernance. Consistent with this theme of service delivery, South Africa’s
approach to land reform has revolved around the five interrelated
themes of acquisition of land for redistribution; definition and qualifi-
cation of beneficiaries; land rights and tenure in various contexts for citi-
zens and non-citizens; land settlement and production models; and state
support to productive land (African National Congress 2012: 20).
Upon assuming political power in 1994, the African National
Congress government had on its agenda the need to redress historical
185
injustices in skewed land ownership that were entrenched by the 19133

and 1936 Land Acts.4 These discriminatory apartheid policies effectively
excluded the black population from the ownership of close to 90% of
land. At the attainment of democratic political governance in 1994,
approximately 87% of the land was owned by whites and only 13%
by blacks (Blank and Hart 2017). The apartheid land policies divided
South Africa into a core area that was deemed white and a periphery
of ten ethnically defined ‘African’ ‘homelands’ or ‘Bantustans’, plus a
number of tiny ‘coloured’ reserves (Walker 2013). This race-based land
dispossession caused enormous suffering and hardships among millions
of black South Africans, thus making it one of the main issues on the
agenda of the anti-apartheid struggle.
The legal basis for land reform in South Africa is provided by the
1993 Interim Constitution, Section 25(7) of the 1996 Constitution
and the Restitution of Land Rights Act of 2004. The South African
Constitution gives people and communities who had been dispos-
sessed of land after 19 June 1913 the right to restitution of that prop-
erty or to fair compensation. In 1994, the Restitution of Land Rights
Act 22 was promulgated in terms of the Interim Constitution of the
Republic of South Africa Act 200 of 1993 for that purpose. The Act
also established a Commission on Restitution of Land Rights in 1995
under a Chief Land Claims Commissioner and seven Regional Land
Claims Commissioners representing the nine provinces with the man-
date to assist claimants in submitting their land claim, receive and
3The 1913 Land Act defined a ‘native’ as ‘any person, male or female, who is a member of an
aboriginal race or tribe of Africa; and shall further include any company or other body of persons,
corporate or unincorporated, if the persons who have a controlling interest therein are natives’.
Section 1, sub section ‘a’ of the 1913 Natives Land Act stated, ‘a native shall not enter into any
agreement or transaction for the purchase, hire, or other acquisition from a person other than
a native, of any such land or of any right thereto, interest therein, or servitude thereover’. This
affected millions of Africans, with its most catastrophic provision for Africans being the prohibi-
tion from buying or hiring land in 93% of South Africa. In essence, Africans despite being more
in number were confined to ownership of only 7% of South Africa’s land (South African History
Online http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/natives-land-act-1913).
4Under the 1936 Natives Land Act, the land set aside for black people was extended from 7.3%
to almost 13%. However, ownership and/or purchase of land by ‘Natives’ outside the stipulated
reserves was still forbidden (O’Malley 2007).
186
F. Ndhlovu
acknowledge all claims lodged and advise claimants on the progress of

their land claim (Walker 2013; Lahiff 2009). A suite of more recent
legislative frameworks to actuate the land reform process have been
put in place. These include the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy
(2006), State Land Lease and Disposal Policy, Recapitalisation and
Development Policy Programme (2014), Traditional Leadership and
Governance Framework Act (2003), Communal Land Rights Act
(2004), Strengthening the Relative Rights of People Working the Land
Policy (2014).
Following on these policies, the post-apartheid South African
approach to land reform rests on three pillars: restitution, redistribu-
tion and tenure reform (Africa Research Institute 2013). I explain these
below and also highlight their limitations and blind spots in relation to
the goal of redressing historical injustices and imbalances in patterns of
land use and ownership.
First is the restitution approach. According to Blank and Hart
(2017), the restitution programme was established for the sole pur-
pose of providing equitable redress to victims of racially motivated land
dispossession, in line with the provisions of the Restitution of Land
Rights Act of 1994. Additionally, the Act seeks to resolve restitution
claims through negotiated settlements that restore land rights or award
alternative forms of equitable redress to claimants such as compensa-
tion of claimants at below market prices (Blank and Hart 2017). The
land restitution programme follows provisions of the White Paper
on South African Land Policy (1997), which favours a market-based
approach whereby the concept of ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ is the
cornerstone of policy. The rationale for this approach is that though
land dispossession under white minority rule had been achieved
through racially discriminatory legislation and violence, it would be
unhelpful for the post-apartheid government to follow a similar route.
This would work against the spirit of achieving nation building while
simultaneously addressing the land issue. For this reason, the restitu-
tion programme has overall depended on voluntary market transactions
(Blank and Hart 2017).
There are several flaws with the language and approach of the land
restitution programme. First, the use of the concept of ‘compensation’
187
has seen ‘a vast majority of beneficiaries—92%—opt to receive finan-

cial compensation’ (Africa Research Institute 2013) rather than get
back their ancestral land. For two reasons, I see this as a huge injustice:
(a) the level of financial compensation is way below the market value
of the land, which means beneficiaries are short changed and (b) the
whole idea of financial compensation is a neoliberal approach that puts
a lot of emphasis on imperatives of the market economy while overlook-
ing social and cultural significance of land. Land restitution should also
be about providing the dispossessed claimants the opportunity to regain
their lost dignity by having a place they call their own—a place that
they can use for cultural and traditional purposes, beyond economic
ones. Another major limitation of the land restitution programme is
that it has been painfully slow and has so far not achieved the desired
goal of addressing the colonial legacy of land dispossession. In its May
2013 briefing note on land reform in South Africa, the Africa Research
Institute gave a scathing report card on the ‘willing buyer, willing seller’
principle of the restitution programme.
In the absence of compulsion, most land owners have been reluctant

to sell to the state. Collusion between sellers, land valuers and govern-
ment officials – have inflated market prices. Furthermore, purchased
land has been widely scattered and often unsuitable for beneficiaries.
Redistribution based on WSWB (willing seller willing buyer) has done
little to diminish landlessness, tenure insecurity and rural poverty. (Africa
Research Institute 2013)
Essentially, the implication here is this: regardless of the fact that land
dispossession was an indisputable historical event, measures for redress
have to be implemented in the context of contemporary South African
and global political, legal, economic and social realities. This entails
abiding by the dictates of section 25 of the Constitution of the Republic
of South Africa, which both guarantees secure property rights and
obliges the state to ‘enable citizens to gain access to land on an equitable
basis’ (Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996).
The second pillar of South Africa’s land reform programme is that
of redistribution whose main goal is to create a new class of black
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F. Ndhlovu
commercial farmers who would inherit existing white commercial

farms. A key underpinning premise of land redistribution in South
Africa is the need to strike a balance between redress and sustainabil-
ity, a point that was underscored by President Jacob Zuma in his 2014
State of the Nation speech: ‘The programme of reversing land disposses-
sion must be undertaken in a manner that corrects the injustice while
also promoting agricultural stability and food security’. It is precisely for
this reason that the South African government seems to have so far pro-
ceeded with a high degree of caution. Concerns about triggering higher
and volatile food prices through a more radical land redistribution exer-
cise seem to loom large in the South African approach (Africa Research
Institute 2013). But at the same time, it is this cautionary approach that
betrays the pre-eminence of neoliberal discourse over a language that
pushes the agenda of redress and equality of opportunity in access to
land. In particular, the neoliberal discourse has led to a situation where
‘class is slowly becoming a more significant determinant of land owner-
ship than before 1994’ (Walker 2013). Therefore, as was the case with
the restitution part, land redistribution has been dogged by systematic
failures to deliver the envisaged redress and correction of the apartheid
legacy of race-based land ownership patterns. This leads us to the third
pillar—that of land tenure.
Tenure reform in South Africa is a contested but neglected area of
land reform policy (Department of Land Affairs, 2002). Legislation
designed to improve tenure has so far been ineffective. Security of
tenure has remained precarious for most rural South Africans (Lahiff
2009). For example, it is estimated that about 942,300 black farm
workers were forcibly removed from commercial farms between 1994
and 2004 on grounds that this was private land (Lahiff 2009). The
government then went on to create what came to be known as ‘agriv-
illages’ for farm dwellers and also introduced in 2004 the Communal
Land Rights Act (CLaRA). Under CLaRA, the legal power for alter-
ing or determining land tenure arrangements in communal areas was
transferred from the state to traditional authorities (Kepe 2009). This
essentially erased the prospect of individual title to land in communal
areas, thus falling back to the pre-1994 model of homeland boundaries
in which power is vested in unelected local authorities.
189
Consequently, racial classification of national land as ‘white’ and

‘black’ still persists in ways that bear testimony to the appropriation of
the language of apartheid whereby land tenure/ownership followed the
race divides (see, e.g., provisions of the 1913 and 1936 Land Acts cited
above). Overall, although the South African approach to land tenure is
a little more advanced compared to that of Zimbabwe, it still remains
couched in the language and discourse of apartheid insofar as it bol-
sters the power of local chiefs to oversee land use and land ownership.
In short, we see here a sharp historical irony whereby patterns of land
ownership that were originally justified by colonial and apartheid ideol-
ogies are being reproduced. As Blank and Hart (2017) recently pointed
out, the transfer of power to determine land tenure from the state to
traditional authorities is reminiscent of the colonial strategy of ruling
by proxy. The ruling party (ANC) is said to be ‘leveraging the clout of
the chiefs to secure rural constituency support during elections’ (Blank
and Hart 2017: 2). Several other scholars have reported that this well-
known and established colonial practice of abusing traditional leaders
as political commissars of the ruling party is also rife in Zimbabwe (see,
e.g., Meredith 2007; Godwin 2010; Onslow 2011; Matondi 2010;
Makumbe 2010).
What all of the above shows is that the key concepts of ‘restitution,
redistribution, tenure reform, and willing buyer willing seller’ are all
slippery and require careful analysis. While the South African govern-
ment is clearly caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to
land reform, there is also a sense that the state is abdicating its respon-
sibility by hiding behind slippery clauses and concepts, including those
about transfer of responsibility for land tenure from the state to tradi-
tional authorities in communal areas. What is required is a seamless and
inclusive approach to land reform—in ways that sidestep the bifurcated
language of apartheid and colonial land ownership policies that empha-
sised race over equality of opportunity in land use. Furthermore, the
preponderance of a discourse that favours the market economy over all
other imperatives has seen the ideals of redress and fair compensation
for land claimants becoming more tokenistic and less empowering. In
all of this, I would argue that the language of constitutionalism with
its numerous escape clauses has turned out to be an albatross and a
190
F. Ndhlovu
stumbling block, rather than an enabler of restitution, equity and social

justice. Consequently, I see the discourse and praxis of land reform in
South Africa (and, indeed, in Zimbabwe) as being couched in terms of
what some scholars call ‘raciolinguistics’ (Flores and Rosa 2015; Alim
2016; Rosa 2016). That is, the rhetoric on ‘land restitution’, ‘land redis-
tribution’ and ‘land tenure reform’ is, in fact, part of the technology
of colonial and apartheid racial ideologies that are being reproduced
and perpetuated by current governing authorities—albeit by stealth.
Raciolinguistics analysis, which has been used elsewhere in investigating
subtle forms of racism, is a fitting explanatory paradigm for the sorts of
issues that I have discussed in relation to the conundrums of land and
agrarian reform in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment

The near-equivalent of Zimbabwe’s Indigenisation and Economic
Empowerment Act in the South African context is the B-BBE Act No
53 of 2003 (as amended in 2013). B-BBEE is essentially a legislative
framework for the promotion of the economic empowerment of the
black people of South Africa (broadly defined as will be shown below).
In the preamble, four key pillars that underpin the motivation for
B-BBEE policy are highlighted. First is reiteration of how race was used
to control access to productive resources and access to skills under the
apartheid political system. Second is the acknowledgement of the fact
that South Africa’s economy still excludes the vast majority of its peo-
ple from ownership of productive access and the possession of advanced
skills (see also Chapter 3 for more on this point). The third background
point is about how South Africa’s economy performs below its potential
owing to the low level of income earned and generated by the major-
ity of people. The fourth and final statement of motivation for B-BBEE
draws attention to the potential danger of future social and political
instability in South Africa if further steps are not taken to increase the
effective economic participation of the majority of the population.
Following on the above background statements, two generic purposes
of the B-BBEE policy are spelt out as follows:
191
• Promote the achievement of the constitutional right to equality,

increase broad-based and effective participation of black people in
the economy and promote higher growth rate, increased employment
and more equitable income distribution; and
• Establish a national policy on broad-based black economic empower-
ment so as to promote the economic unity of the nation, protect the
common market and promote equal opportunity and equal access to
government services.
Both of these points are couched in a human rights-inspired language

that accords with the neoliberal foundational principles of post-apart-
heid South African society. This is evidenced by the abundant use of
keywords such as ‘constitutional right to equality’, ‘promote higher
growth rate’, ‘equitable income distribution’, ‘promote economic unity
of the nation’, ‘protect the common market’, promote equal opportu-
nity’ and ‘equal access to government services’. All these phrases are con-
sistent with the language and discourses of neoliberal ideals that abound
in the majority of present-day democratic societies. In this vein, the lan-
guage of B-BBEE is deliberately tailored to articulate with the grandiose
aspirational goals of a transnational world that is perceived to be char-
acterised by existence of seamless horizontal equality among all people.
This desire for horizontal comradeship (Anderson 1991) in South Africa
also originates from the anti-apartheid struggle that was essentially a
fight for civil liberties—the cardinal values of equality among all, regard-
less of race, ethnicity, language, political persuasion or religion. All the
keywords I have identified in the B-BBEE Act that speak to these ideals
are great and quite commendable in theory. But what exactly do they
mean in practice? Do they really speak to tangible practical outcomes
that would translate into meaningful improvement in the economic and
social well-being of ordinary South Africans, especially those who live in
townships and rural communities?
As a way to gauge the empowering prospects and possibilities of
B-BBEE policy frameworks, I turn to definitional issues, with a specific
focus on two key concepts: ‘black people’ and ‘broad-based economic
empowerment’. Section 1 of the B-BBEE policy defines ‘black people’
as follows:
192
F. Ndhlovu
‘Black people’ is a generic term which means Africans, Coloureds and

Indians—
1. Who are citizens of the Republic of South Africa by birth or descent; or

2. Who became citizens of the Republic of South Africa by naturalisation—
(a) Before 27 April 1994; or
(b) On or after 27 April 1994 and who would have been entitled to
acquire citizenship by naturalisation prior to that date (Republic
of South Africa 2004).
What we see here is a supposedly inclusive and broad definition of

‘black people’ that aims to cover the breadth and depth of South’s
complex cultural identities and, in particular, in a way that takes into
account the country’s recent modern history. However, several words
used in this definition are quite vague and open to multiple interpre-
tations that are subject to contestations. The word ‘Africans’ in the first
line of the definition is debatable. While in its broad sense this word
refers to anyone who self-identifies or is officially identified as being
African by birth or descent, the narrow sense of it (which is intended
by the B-BBEE policy) excludes white Africans and, even more curi-
ously, other Africans who may not necessarily identify as ‘Coloured’, or
‘Indian’. South Africa, like most other African countries is well known
to have descendants of immigrants who came from all over the world
and have been in this country for decades if not hundreds of years. For
example, historical records are replete with numerous accounts of the
settlement in South Africa of several cohorts of Asian people (other than
Indians) from as early as the 1600s (Encyclopedia of World History
2001). These include Malaysians and Indonesians (broadly classified as
Cape Malays in apartheid South Africa), Filipinos, Chinese,5 Taiwanese,
5In late 2006, the Chinese Association of South Africa filed suit to have Chinese South Africans
recognised as having been disadvantaged under apartheid, to benefit from Broad-Based Black
Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE). In June 2008, Chinese South Africans were fully recognised
as having been disadvantaged and entered the B-BBEE ethnic groups if they arrived before 1994.
However, this change in the status of Chinese South Africans is not reflected in the B-BBEE defi-
nition of ‘black people’ as it currently stands.
193
Japanese and South Kaoreans.6 The majority of these groups of Asians

came as indentured labourers in the gold mines in Johannesburg and in
sugar plantations in the Colony of Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal). Their
descendants (second, third or even fourth generation) who were born
and bred in South Africa still live in this country as bona fide South
African citizens. They surely identify themselves as ‘African’ as they know
no other home besides Africa. Where do these people sit within the nar-
row and somewhat nativist definition of ‘African’ in the B-BBEE pol-
icy? This is one problem that arises when dealing with definitions that
are supposedly generic and detailed; yet they hide so many things in the
detail. Though detailed definitions are generally good insofar as they try
bringing about more clarity to the concept being defined, they can also
sometimes be used to smuggle, hide and embellish. In this case, the defi-
nition of ‘black people’ hides (in the detail) the fact that the very same
apartheid racial hierarchies that the B-BBEE policy seeks to reverse are
being reproduced and used to exclude people who are otherwise legit-
imate Africans and South African citizens. This exposes the hypoc-
risy of the entire neoliberal discourse built around promoting equality
of opportunity and economic unity of the nation. The post-apartheid
South African nation consists of a diversity of people—those that are
clearly specified in the definition of ‘black people’ as well as those that
the definition is silent about. How then do you achieve national unity
through a policy that excludes and invisibilises other cultural identities
that are historically known to be legitimate part of South African society.
As B-BBEE was conceived to be some kind of an affirmative measure, it
is understandable why most white South Africans (especially Afrikaners
and their descendants) would be excluded. They did benefit quite a lot
from the skewed apartheid policies. For this reason, it is fair that the pol-
icy seeks to push the economic advancements of those sections of society
6For separate political reasons, the apartheid government had classified Taiwanese, Japanese
and South Koreans as honorary white and thus were granted more or less the same privileges
as whites, except that they could note vote.
194
F. Ndhlovu
that were deliberately left behind during the apartheid period of what
I would call race-based corruption.
However, it would be simplistic to assume that every white person
(or even more specifically, Afrikaner person) in South Africa was a bene-
ficiary of the apartheid system. As was the case with colonial Zimbabwe,
there were white South Africans who were on the side of the black
majority and were on the receiving end of the unjust and discriminatory
apartheid policies. I would, therefore, argue that we need more robust,
nuanced and sophisticated policy frameworks that will transcend this
rather lazy and simplistic supposition that all white people were bene-
ficiaries of apartheid corruption. Furthermore, where do South Africans
are not part of the generic categories of ‘African’, ‘Coloured’, ‘Indian’ or
‘White’ sit within all of this? Some of them may have been economi-
cally, socially and politically disadvantaged during the apartheid period
but continue to be left out in what is supposed to be a moment of
redress, social justice and equity. In short, the ‘broad’ in the B-BBEE
Act is not broad enough to capture the entire spectrum of exclusion and
marginalisation that was entrenched through the apartheid system of
governance.
The discourse and language of B-BBEE as well as the entire archi-
tecture of its policy faming need further broadening, I would submit.
Evidently, there is a glaring disconnect between the neoliberal economic
context that frames the argument or rationale for B-BBEE policy inter-
ventions and the language in which the parameters of affirmative action
are articulated. That is to say, while the motivations for enacting social
and economic transformation legislation such as B-BBEE are located
within the international discourses of transnational market economies
and global interconnectedness, the language used in framing the policies
is inward-looking, nativist and overly state-centric. As was the case with
the notion of ‘indigenous’ in the Zimbabwean context, the term ‘black
people’ as used in South Africa’s B-BBEE policy suffers from the limita-
tion of being loaded with racial and discriminatory connotations. Both
terms (indigenous and black people) betray tendencies of falling back
to reverse racism—both intentional and subconscious. The adoption
of the same racial categories that were used by the colonial and apart-
heid regimes amounts to change without a difference (Mignolo 2011)
195
insofar as those rigid social and cultural boundaries are still being
perpetuated.
The second key concept of interest is that of ‘broad-based black eco-
nomic empowerment’. I reproduce below the definition of this con-
cept as it appears in the B-BBEE Act and then proceed to unpack it.
According to Section 1 of the B-BBEE Act.
[B]road-based economic empowerment means the viable economic
empowerment of all black people, in particular women, workers, youth,
people with disabilities and people living in rural areas, through diverse
but integrated socio-economic strategies that include, but are not lim-
ited to—
1. increasing the number of black people that manage, own and control
enterprises and productive assets;
2. facilitating ownership and management of enterprises and produc-
tive assets by communities, workers, cooperatives and other collective
enterprises;
3. human resource and skills development;
4. achieving equitable representation in all occupational categories and
levels in the workforce;
5. preferential procurement from enterprises that are owned or man-
aged by black people;
6. investment in enterprises that are owned or managed by black people
(Republic of South Africa 2004).
Like that of the term ‘black people’ analysed above, this definition is
quite generous with detail but still leaves a lot to be desired on many
fronts. First, consistent with all neo-liberal, top-down nation-state-
centric policy interventions, the government seems to know exactly
what the people want and is determined to set the agenda and do
things for them. Notwithstanding the detail that is presented using
high-sounding catch phrases—‘own and control enterprises’, ‘man-
agement of enterprises and productive assets’, ‘equitable representa-
tion’, ‘preferential procurement’, ‘investment in enterprises’, and so
on—the stated approaches of black economic empowerment are elitist
and far removed from the mundane lived experiences and aspirations
196
F. Ndhlovu
of ordinary people at the micro-social levels of society. For example, in

what ways do strategies of managing, owning and controlling enterprises
relevant to the socio-economic and cultural conditions of South Africa’s
rural communities? While some of these points that form part of the
interpretation of the term ‘broad-based economic empowerment’ might
be relevant in most urban communities, they do not and cannot speak
to the social realities beyond the enclaves of the urban metropoles. The
major problem here is about the use of a language that borders on over-
generalisations in ways that mimic holus bolus the language of Euro-
modernist (Northern) habits or assumptions about development.
Four geopolitical assumptions that underpin the conceptual architec-
ture of Northern development discourse have been suggested. First is
the claim to universality whereby the very idea of mainstream social the-
ory involves talking about universals and generalisations as if the whole
world was a homogenous continuum. The fatalistic assumption of this
claim is that ‘all societies are knowable in the same way and from the
same point of view’ (Connell 2007: 44). The second contour is that of
reading from the centre—that is, Northern development discourse con-
structs a social world read through the eyes of the metropole as if the
rest of the world had no conceptual frameworks for making sense of
their everyday experiences.
The third contour of Northern development discourse is one that
Connell (2007) calls ‘gestures of exclusion’. This is about the total
absence or marginalisation of theorists from the colonised world in met-
ropolitan texts and discourses of development and social progress. In
those exceptional instances where material culture and ideas from the
colonised world are acknowledged, they are rarely considered as part
of the mainstream dialogue of theory. Riding on the back of colonial
ethnography and social anthropological frameworks emphasising the
modern/pre-modern distinction, Northern development discourse ren-
ders the cultures and thought processes from the Global South (non-
Western world) irrelevant and treats them as belonging to a world
that has been surpassed. This leads us to the fourth contour, which
has been termed ‘grand erasure’. The point here is that when empirical
knowledge and theorisation about humanity more generally are seen as
coming solely from metropolitan society, the immediate effect ‘is erasure
197
of the experience[s] of the majority of humankind from the founda-

tions of social thought’ (Connell 2007: 46). For example, as confirmed
by the literature on the colonial history of Australia (Lake 2005; Tavan
2005; Hollinsworth 1998; Sherrington 1980), the concept of terra nul-
lius (‘land belonging to nobody’) was invoked to deny and erase the
existence and the very humanity of indigenous Australians who, until
as recent as 1967, were considered as being part of flora and fauna. The
same logic was applied by colonialists who invaded African territories.
Now, what is the relevance of all of this to the discussion on B-BBEE
in South Africa? There are two crucial points here. First, the conceptual
architecture of B-BBEE exhibits all the hallmarks of Northern theories
of development with its emphasis on the market economy while saying
absolutely nothing about social and cultural imperatives that proceed
from within local South African communities. This is one of the great-
est omissions of B-BBEE empowerment is imagined as something that
is purely economic—in the neoliberal sense—and yet as we know, there
are always cultural and social mediators of any form of economic devel-
opment. Second, the language of broad-based economic empowerment
is conspicuously silent on how communities to be ‘empowered’ are
envisaged to contribute to the agenda of the project. There are no clear
strategies for tapping into and leveraging the wisdoms and prior knowl-
edge systems of local communities in order to ensure greater uptake and
sustainability of the measures being put in place. All these limitations
are not accidental. Rather, they are consistent with the modus operandi
of neoliberal models of economic development that underpin the entire
conceptual and operational architecture of B-BBEE.
Conclusion
The language and political discourses of the Third Chimurenga betray
parochial ethno-nationalist tendencies in ways that question and chal-
lenge the perceived transnational character of the Zimbabwean society.
The passing remarks on the South African case study have confirmed
the same in relation to the land reform programme and the black eco-
nomic empowerment policy. What we see from the discourses and
198
F. Ndhlovu
metalanguages that inform indigenisation, land reform and empower-

ment policies in both Zimbabwe and South Africa are high-sounding
neoliberal promises of redress, equity and social justice. Yet, beneath
this powerful sense of social romanticism lies an illusion of equality in
a highly asymmetrical world. In fact, the neoliberal language of indige-
nisation and economic empowerment joins the litany of other so-called
progressive and liberal frameworks—modernity, emancipation, multi-
culturalism, cosmopolitanism and globalisation—that reinforce social
class and privilege by masking endemic inequalities, narrow forms of
ethno-nationalisms and xenophobia (Ndhlovu 2014). Tariq Ramadan
(2011) could not have put it any better in his critique of neoliberalism
discourses in contemporary societies.
The theoretical magnanimity of human beings, when their daily life or

their prosperity only marginally exposes them to other people’s differ-
ence, is indeed welcome but it tells us nothing about life and it does not
go any way towards solving the difficulties of diversity. Elaborating fine,
high-sounding philosophies of tolerance and pluralism, when our ways of
life have enclosed us within the restricted universe of our [small circles]
of friends similar to ourselves is a highly virtual petition of generosity.
Those are but good intentions. They amount to claiming to be antiracist,
intellectually, while in one’s daily life one hardly ever comes across Blacks,
Arabs, or Whites […]. (Ramadan 2011: 35)
Though Ramadan’s intervention is in the context of global racism, dis-

crimination and hierarchies of power, it does say something significant
that is relevant to the analysis of indigenisation, land reform and eco-
nomic empowerment policies in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Several
pertinent questions proceed from and support the above critique: Are
such rosy and highly esoteric policy pronouncements and leader state-
ments enough to come to terms with the complex realities of diversity
in people’s daily lives? Is observing and knowing that our quests and
hopes are identical in spirit and that we must put up with our prac-
tical differences enough for us to recognise that the agenda for social
and economic empowerment must be driven by judicious consideration
of unique circumstances of individuals and groups at a micro-social
199
level? In their most basic and granular forms, inequality, disadvan-

tage and marginalisation are not necessarily or always best addressed
at the macro-levels of society. Rather, they call for greater attention to
be directed at the micro-social scale—within the atoms of society. In
dealing with the long-standing issues of land reform and economic
empowerment, the governments of both Zimbabwe and South Africa
have found themselves faced with tenuous challenges of how to strike
a balance between the competing interests of the particularistic (at
nation-state level) and the universalistic (the dictates of global transna-
tionalism). However, what we have seen is that in both cases, the imper-
atives of neoliberal economic modelling have trumped everything else.
This has resulted in a situation where land reform, indigenisation and
black economic empowerment policies continue to be couched in an
elitist language and a discourse that overlooks the role of the rich tap-
estry of local cultures, wisdoms and knowledge systems in promoting
sustainable development. I provide a more comprehensive discussion on
these and other related arguments in the next chapter.
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6
Alternative Language of Development
and Economic Empowerment
Introduction
The economies of African nation-states, like those of many other
comparable countries in post-colonial regions of the world, were built
on Euro-modernist or Northern social and political institutions and
economic models. While on the surface this does not seem to be a big
issue at all, what is most worrisome is the fact that the colonial histo-
ries of many African countries left a legacy of over-reliance and depend-
ency on development models exported from colonial metropoles. This
has stifled African endogenous forms of knowledge, creativity, innova-
tion and empowerment as the dependency syndrome reigns supreme.
Consequently, Africa continues to be among the poorest and least
developed regions of the world. Most colonially inherited institutions
and development models are not easily translatable to meet the needs
of local populations, as they are inconsistent with local cultures, world-
views and ways of reading and interpreting the world. The helping hand
or intervention of ‘experts’, ‘consultants’ and ‘policy advisors’ from the
Global North is always required to operationalise Euro-North American
models of development. The rise of economic powerhouses in Asia and

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76135-0_6
208
F. Ndhlovu
Latin America in recent times has been greeted with glee and fanfare in
much of southern Africa. The economic and social development mod-
els of countries such as China, India, Japan and Brazil are perceived
as presenting prospects and opportunities for alternative development
pathways for the southern African region. The recent rise of the BRICS
group of nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) is consid-
ered as signalling new hope in challenging the hegemony of Euro-North
American theories of development that do not appear to be promoting
social progress in most southern African countries.
This chapter is in a sense a rebuttal of theoretical and conceptual
underpinnings of indigenisation and economic empowerment policies
that are at the political platforms of governing authorities in Zimbabwe
and South Africa. The argument is that mainstream understandings of
‘development’ that inform economic empowerment and indigenisation
policies discussed in Chapter 5 are underpinned by Northern develop-
ment discourse. Northern development discourse makes general claims
to universal relevance and, consequently, turns a blind eye to contextual
particularities and the diversity of social actors’ contexts. In this chap-
ter, I propose alternative trajectories of development by introducing the
notion of Southern development discourse, which pays particular atten-
tion to the role of local linguistic and cultural imperatives in mediating
economic development, empowerment and social progress. I argue in
support of the affordances and promises that African linguistic diver-
sity and cultural resources hold for creativity and innovation. I consider
these as key drivers of sustainable economic development and social
progress. But first, let us look at lessons from elsewhere.
Translative Adaptation—Lessons from Japan

Three decades ago, Japanese social scientist, Yukio Miyoshi, wrote the
following about the experiences and perceptions of the Japanese people
with Northern models of economic development:
Western tides dominate our development. Since we are not Westerners,

every time a new wave arrives from the West we feel uneasy like a person
6 Alternative Language of Development …
209
living in someone else’s house. Even before we can grasp the nature of the
previous wave, a new wave arrives. It is as if too many dishes are brought
in and soon removed before we can start to eat. In such circumstances,
people will inevitably become empty, frustrated, and worried. (Miyoshi
1986: 56)
Although this quotation is from a text that was written way back in
the 1980s in the context of Japan’s modernisation and development
challenges, it eloquently captures the development dilemmas and pre-
dicaments of present-day southern African nations. The development
models followed by most southern African countries are now shifting
from Euro-North American to Eastern (Asian) ones with the hope of
finding a different pathway towards economic prosperity. The irony of
shifting from a Western-oriented development trajectory to an Eastern-
oriented one is that some of the major advanced economies in Asia actu-
ally got to where they are by embracing modernisation models hailing
from the West. As the above excerpt from Yukio Miyoshi clearly indi-
cates, the Japanese people felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume and
speed of Western modernisation on their economy, culture, identity
and politics, and yet they simultaneously embraced the same and rose
to be among the world’s largest economies. The question then becomes:
How did the Japanese manage to handle Northern economic develop-
ment models to achieve economic success? The miracle story of Japan’s
economic success lay in embracing translative adaptation in which Japan
took ‘initiative in deciding the terms of integration [with Western indus-
trialisation models], making sure that it retained ownership (national
autonomy), social continuity and national identity’ (Ohno 2006: 5).
The notion of translative adaptation was introduced by Japanese eco-
nomic anthropologist, Keiji Maegawa, to describe strategies that can
be adopted by a country on the periphery when faced with economic
and cultural influences from other parts of the world. In describing how
the translative adaptation model of integration was operationalised in
Japan, Maegawa (1998: 154) says:
The essence of what has been called ‘modernization’ is the adaptive

acceptance of Western civilization under the persistent form of the
210
F. Ndhlovu
existing culture. That is, actors in the existing system have adapted to the
new system by reinterpreting each element of Western culture (i.e. ‘civili-
zation’) in their own value structure, modifying yet maintaining the exist-
ing institutions. I shall call this ‘translative adaptation’.
This is precisely how Japan absorbed successive external shocks (from

Chinese Buddhism through to Christianity and Western modernisa-
tion influences) and used them positively to promote change and new
growth that amounted to genuine economic empowerment of the local
people. Throughout this process, Japan retained its national identity
while simultaneously embracing external influences, a development
that resulted in a Japanese society that ‘exhibits a multi-layered, onion-
like structure, where old and new elements coexist flexibly and differ-
ent characteristics can surface depending on the circumstance’ (Ohno
2006: 4). From a discourse and communication studies perspective,
more recent and quite contemporary scholarship on Asian discourse for
development has emerged (see, for example, Shi-xu 2009, 2014; Wang
2007, 2010; Miike 2006, 2007; Ishii 2009). In sketching the Asian
development discourse paradigm, Shi-xu et al. (2016) discuss it in terms
of the following implications: philosophical assumptions, theoretical
assumptions, methodological assumptions and the research agenda on
Asia’s development. Drawing on these imperatives, Shi-xu et al. (2016:
20) argue that ‘[t]here are special and foundational Asian cultural intel-
lectual resources [… and that] Asian cultures have unique philosophical
insights […] that cannot only underpin the paradigm-constructive work
but also compliment the Western approaches’. Some such philosophi-
cal insights that undergird the key contours of Asian development dis-
course have been summarised as follows:
• An Asian paradigm is designed to enable an Asian intellectual iden-

tity, voice and perspective, while simultaneously incorporating
insights and techniques from other disciplines and traditions.
• An Asian paradigm is a globally minded and culturally dialectic pro-
cess; that is, in order to enrich itself, the Asian discourse paradigm
draws upon useful elements and concepts of other cultures such as
Western, African and Latin American.
211
• Asian development discourse does not assume a reified, fixed and

homogenous Asia. Neither does it embrace a binary view of the
world and social reality in general—the East/West, Developing
world/Developed world divides—as there are internal micro-social
differences and complexities along a range of spectrums such as gen-
der divide, levels of poverty and affluence, rural/urban divide, resi-
dence status and citizenship, among others.
• The discourse and praxis of an Asian development paradigm seek to
counter-balance, pluralise and, in doing so, overcome the universalising
habits of Western-centric discourses and epistemological imaginings
(Shi-xu et al. 2016: 22–28).
These key tenets of Asian discourse systems are consistent with the
underpinning pillars of other emerging social science theorisations from
the Global South, such as decolonial epistemology and Southern theory
as discussed in the next few paragraphs. Therefore, if there is anything
that southern Africa has to learn from Eastern models of development
and social progress, it is the principle of translative adaptation. This is
about taking advantage of external cultures and economic models, and
modifying them to promote change and growth in ways that fit local
needs. Southern African local systems should become the growth engine
in order to promote a new dynamic evolution as opposed to copying
holus bolus Western or Eastern models of development and social pro-
gress. In other words, as attested by the Japanese case study, the mod-
ernisation process of a non-Western country does not necessarily have to
trace the same path as it does in the West (Tominaga 1990).
This chapter, therefore, joins the burgeoning scholarship from the
Global South (Asia, Africa and Latin America) in calling for pluralisa-
tion of toolkits we use to look at development and economic empow-
erment discourse. Most such contemporary theorisations fall under the
banners of Southern theory (Connell 2007; Rehbein 2010; Comaroff
and Comaroff 2011) and decoloniality (Mignolo 2000, 2002, 2011;
Quijano 1998, 2000; Grosfoguel 2005, 2006, 2009; Dussel 1995,
1998). I build on this body of work to suggest pluralisation of the
ways we theorise African economic development and social progress
by drawing our attention to Africa-centred epistemological imperatives
212
F. Ndhlovu
that rest on linguistic and cultural diversity. The argument is that the
hegemony of Euro-American or Northern development discourse,
which has crystallised into some kind of traditional orthodoxy in most
African countries, has produced and sustained the glaring disconnect
between prescribed economic empowerment pathways and the aspira-
tions of the majority of southern African populations. The overwhelm-
ing development discourse emanating from the Western cosmopolitan
centres has prompted new scholarship from other parts of the world
to push for inclusion on the table of ideas ‘unfamiliar, marginalized or
otherwise disadvantaged discourses of the Third World or Global South’
(Shi-xu et al. 2016). Almost every African country has, at some stage,
embraced development and economic empowerment programmes
prescribed by international institutions such as the World Bank (WB)
and the International Monetary (IMF). It is common knowledge that
both IMF and WB are ideologically steeped in Northern development
discourse as they are funded mainly by Euro-North American mem-
ber states. One example of WB and IMF development programmes
imposed on southern Africa is the Economic Structural Adjustment
Programme (ESAP) in Zambia from 1983 to 1995 and in Zimbabwe
from 1991 to 1995. The catastrophic effects of ESAP on the social and
economic well-being of ordinary people in both Zambia and Zimbabwe
are well documented in the literature.1 These include reduction in gov-
ernment expenditure on social services such as health, education and
social welfare, and privatisation of essential services previously provided
by the government and parastatals. Similarly, Eastern models alone
cannot be a viable solution to southern Africa’s development paradox
as they also suffer from similar limitations as those levelled against
Northern theories. Just like Western models, the development path fol-
lowed by Japan and other Eastern nations cannot be applied holistically
to the southern African context without any modifications.
Therefore, what is missing from mainstream debates and conver-
sations on development and economic empowerment policies is the
1See, for example, African Development Bank (1997), Makoni (2000), Mhone (2003) and Saasa
(1996).
213
paradigm of Southern development discourse, which includes insights

of southern theory and decolonial epistemology. I use Southern devel-
opment discourse as a summary term for those formerly marginalised
culturally specific discourses on development and economic empow-
erment, especially from African, Asian and Latin American contexts.
With southern Africa as the case study, I argue for the value and utility
of Southern development discourse paradigm by considering the affor-
dances that linguistic and cultural resources provide for social and eco-
nomic development. I look at how the people of southern Africa can
use the power of their imagination to innovate and to contribute to
their economic development by leveraging diverse linguistic capabilities
and centuries-old cultural and experiential resources. I posit that lan-
guage, culture and local knowledge systems are the medium through
which we express our deepest values and thoughts that allow us to inno-
vate and be creative. It is through language that we form new realities
and destroy old ones—otherwise known as social progress. It is, indeed,
through language that we inform identities and transmit senses of being
in ways that open avenues and opportunities for us to read and interpret
the world and everything around us on our own terms using those cul-
tural and conceptual resources that we understand best.
In the sections that follow, I show why we need to start with our
feet firm on the ground if we are to broaden and consolidate the eco-
nomic fortunes of previously marginalised African communities. We
have seen in Chapters 6 and 7 how neoliberal economic indigenisa-
tion and empowerment policies of both South Africa and Zimbabwe
are failing the very same people they are supposedly meant to benefit.
The failures, I would argue, are largely attributed to a lack of infusion
into empowerment policies local cultural and contextual imperatives of
development—what Keiji Maegawa (1998) called translative adapta-
tion. We need to go back to those foundational questions about what
constitutes social progress and sustainable economic empowerment.
This is an explicit call for us to learn from the wisdom of how economic
development and social progress in pre-modern and most contempo-
rary societies from the Global South have occurred not in spite of but
because of accommodating and tapping into diverse forms of knowl-
edges and epistemologies. More specifically, I am advocating embracing
214
F. Ndhlovu
development epistemologies from the Global South as alternative par-

adigms for re-imagining Africa and its relationship with the rest of the
world. I start off with a critique of Northern development discourse
followed by an exploration of the promises of Southern theory. A sur-
vey of the linguistic and cultural resources of southern Africa and their
potential contributions towards alternative theories of economic devel-
opment and empowerment follows. I then conclude by reiterating the
key points raised about the prospects and possibilities of improving the
economic and social well-being of southern Africa through the integra-
tion of Eastern and Western models into African indigenous knowledge
systems.
Critique of Northern Development Discourse

Development is a highly contested field characterised by more dis-
sonance and less consensus—among scholars, policy makers and
practitioners—over what the concept entails. This is attested by numer-
able theories of development that abound in the literature. Though the
phenomenology of development has potential to embrace a number
of dimensions, most mainstream or dominant theorisations and policy
frameworks are articulated from Euro-North American perspectives
that have usurped and monopolised the power to define what social
and economic empowerment is. The origins of these mainstream devel-
opment discourses are traced back to modernisation theories prop-
agated from the Global North, including in particular the making of
Western hegemony through the spread of colonial modernity and cap-
italism. In the words of Peet (1997) cited in Lie (2008: 119), ‘devel-
opment discourse and practice constitute the last insidious chapter of
the larger history of the expansion of modern, Western reason’. The
content of development discourse is exclusively shaped by Northern
understandings of what constitutes social progress—‘almost restrictedly
economic […] measured and calculated on the basis of Gross Domestic
Product (GDP), Gross National Product (GNP) and per capita indices’
(Shi-Xu et al. 2016: 75).
215
The limitation of the content of development discourse lies in its

universalising tendencies that are regularly imposed on all societies
(including those in the Global South) without due regard to contex-
tual particularities. Their imposition on peoples of the Global South is
often seen as a necessary part of evolution and spreading ‘civilisation’ and
‘progress’. This constitutes what Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2013) calls ‘global
coloniality’, an enduring colonial project that is tied to the spread of
Euro-North American modernity, the international world order and the
contemporary capitalist system. According to Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2013: 6)
‘the concept of global coloniality is useful in teasing out the mythology of
a decolonized world as well as unravelling the rhetoric of modernity’. He
goes on to identify those specific sites where the origins of development
discourse (in the context of global coloniality) are located. They include
such international organisations as North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
(NATO), the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank ‘that
ensure that Africa and other peripheral zones remain under colonial situ-
ation long after the end of direct colonial rule’ (ibid., p. 6).
These historical socio-political conditions shaped the nature of
mainstream conversations on development discourse and economic
empowerment models—and this is still ongoing—although, as already
indicated above, a very strong counter-narrative from the Global South
has emerged over the last decade. The two main strands of development
discourse are alternative development and human development (Escobar
1995, 2007; Sachs 1992; Lie 2008). Nederveen Pieterse (2000: 176)
summarises them as follows: ‘Alternative development focuses on the
lack of popular participation. Human development addresses the need
to invest in people’. While each emerged as a critique of preceding the-
ories, both are united by this: They speak from a Northern perspective
and are wedded to a universalistic philosophy of what development is
all about. They both suffer from an epistemological deficit insofar as
they hide their locality and particularism behind pretensions of uni-
versal relevance to all contexts and societies. In particular, they always
entail looking at other worlds (that are outside the orbit of the Global
North) in terms of the fallacy of absences or what they supposedly lack
216
F. Ndhlovu
(‘illiterate’, ‘poor’, ‘primitive’, ‘uneducated’, and so on), thus obstructing

the wealth of indigenous alternatives (Sachs 1992: 6).
The net effect of this structuring of mainstream development dis-
courses around a series of absences is the legitimation of actions and
interventions in so-called Third World countries (Naz 2006). For this
reason, I have coined the notion of Northern development discourse,
which I use as a summary term to describe these models of develop-
ment that come from a Euro-North American tradition. The point of
greater significance here is that Northern development discourse has to
be seen in terms of what it is—that is, it is a historical construct whose
emergence is located in the context of ‘the larger history of the expan-
sion of modern, Western reason’ (Peet 1997: 75). In other words, as
Nustad (2004: 42) argues, Northern development discourse ‘colonised
the world by ordering it into “us” and “them”, the “developed” and the
“underdeveloped”’.
This chapter builds on the line of argument proffered in post-
development scholarship (Peet 1997; Escobar 2007) and extends into
new directions of linguistic, discourse communication and cultural
imperatives of development. Post-development theory deals with the
dark side of the discourse and content of mainstream development.
It focuses on ‘the problematization of poverty, the portrayal of devel-
opment as Westernisation and the critique of modernism as science’
(Nederveen Pieterse 2000: 176). What sets post-development theory
apart from other theorisations is that it rejects development and brings
to the spotlight the underlying premises and hidden motives of devel-
opment. Citing the views of several other scholars of post-development
theory, Nederveen Pieterse (2000: 175) says development discourse
has been rejected on at least the following four grounds: It is the new
religion of the West; it is the imposition of science as power; it does
not work; and it is cultural Westernisation and homogenisation by
stealth. Most importantly, the economic reductionism that informs
development discourse is questioned for its reifying effect—since not
everything about development in every society is economic. Rather, the
measures of development must be seen as having multiple dimensions
such as cultural, social, linguistic and religious ones. So, overall, post-
development theory:
217
[…] analyses development as a significant discourse of power, focusing on

the way in which discourses of development help shape the reality they
pertain to address, and how alternative conceptions of the problem have
been marked off as irrelevant. (Nustad 2004, cited in Lie 2008: 118)
The discursive approach adopted by post-development scholars clearly

shows how development is ‘a system of knowledge, technologies, prac-
tices and power relationships that serve to order and regulate the objects
of development’ (Lewis et al. 2003: 545). From a discourse communi-
cation perspective, the language that mediates the operationalisation of
development programs is problematic. It is highly esoteric and detached
from the everyday communicative practices and lifeways of local com-
munities, particularly those from the Global South.
Therefore, what we see from the foregoing discussion is that with
its pretensions of universal relevance, Northern development discourse
hides more than it reveals. First, Northern theories of social change,
development and progress purport to be so generalised such that they
cover every episode in the history of the world and yet they hide the
fact that they say almost nothing about certain parts of the world, espe-
cially the Global South. Second, the very generality of Northern devel-
opment discourse and its aspiration to universal relevance implies that
it seeks to hide its intention to erase and marginalise local determina-
tions of development and social progress. Third, Northern development
discourse hides the fact that it does not theorise imperial colonialism
and the fact that the colony is one type of society that never enters its
classifications and analytical frameworks (Connell 2007). Given that the
process of colonisation and struggles for de-colonisation were among
the most dramatic and important changes in the history of the modern
world, attempts to hide them in theory-building constitute an obscenely
serious omission that casts a dark shadow on the credibility of Northern
development discourse. The current state of economic development and
social progress in southern Africa is connected to processes of coloni-
alism. Therefore, in trying to come up with alternative paradigms of
development that empower those who were held back by institution-
alised colonial racism and apartheid, we need to take into account the
historical experiences of colonial exploitation and domination that
218
F. Ndhlovu
stifled the economic and social progress not only of southern Africa
but also of the African continent as a whole. By virtue of its situated-
ness within a grand generalisation of Euro-American experiences and
modern neoliberalism, Northern development discourse is patently
ill-equipped to speak about and on behalf of the rest of the world that
falls outside the orbit of the Global North. Northern development dis-
courses are, in fact, couched in the language of so-called progressive
and liberal conceptual frameworks—modernity, emancipation, multi-
culturalism, cosmopolitanism and globalisation—that reinforce social
class and privilege by masking endemic inequalities across the world
and within national societies (Ndhlovu 2015). What we actually need
is diversity of social–theoretical frameworks that will allow us to situ-
ate development discourse within various historical experiences of the
Global South—including slavery, colonialism, anti-colonial struggles
and neo-colonialism.
The Promises of Southern Development

Discourse
The late Ugandan Professor, Dani Wadada Nabudere (2011: 1),
reminded us that mainstream Euro-American scientific knowledge and
theorisation are unable to explain—on its own—everything about the
world around us because there is ‘great deal of uncertainty in the way
we understand the world, as well as in the way human beings under-
stand each other in different environments and cultural contexts’. For
this reason, an emerging scholarly tradition critical of the hegemony of
Northern development discourse has proposed Southern theory (see,
for example, Connell 2007; Rehbein 2010; Comaroff and Comaroff
2011) and decolonial epistemology (Mignolo 2000, 2002, 2011;
Quijano 1998, 2000; Grosfoguel 2005, 2006, 2009). In this section, I
bring together these two scholarly traditions, which I use as anchors
for alternative trajectories of development—what I call Southern devel-
opment discourse. I first summarise the key contours of both Southern
theory and decolonial epistemology and then flesh out what a Southern
219
discourse of development might look like when seen through the lenses
of these two emerging scholarly traditions. What I mean by Southern
development discourse is an alternative thinking about human social pro-
gress that recognises and seriously considers the fact that there are mul-
tiple ways of reading and interpreting the world; that all peoples in all
regions of the world do have notions of development; and that theories
of development that come from the Global South are as equally impor-
tant as those from the Global North.
Southern theory is about the role of perspectives from the Global
South in a globally connected system of knowledge, politics, culture and
the economy. The premise of Southern theory is that other paths for
theory-building do exist and that we really need to face the difficulty of
doing theory in globally inclusive ways if we are to transcend the per-
vasive effects and fundamentalist claims of Northern development dis-
course (Rehbein 2010; Comaroff and Comaroff 2011). Southern theory
does not seek to supplant Northern theoretical frameworks; neither
does it seek to assert its own theoretical interests as the only legitimate
way of making sense about the world and everything around us. Rather,
it presents a case for a radical rethink of social science theorisation and
its relationships to knowledge, power, democracy, empowerment and
development in a manner that takes into account the experiences of the
majority of the world’s populations. The main argument of Southern
theory is that Southern knowledge systems need to be recognised and
included on the table of ideas about development, social progress and
what it means to live life and live it well. When situated within the
context of academic and social policy conversations on development,
Southern theory posits that development is not the opposite of depend-
ence. Instead, ‘development can occur in a way that maintains depend-
ence; new forms of dependence emerge historically and this process is
still going on’ (Connell 2007: 147). This is exactly what is happening in
southern Africa today, whereby Northern models of development and
social progress have sustained and entrenched dependency on colonially
inherited social systems, political institutions and economic apparatus.
The second strand of Southern development discourse is decolonial
epistemology—otherwise also known as decoloniality. It is a social–
theoretical framework that was pioneered by Latin American and other
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F. Ndhlovu
like-minded thinkers from the Global South cited in the first paragraph
of this section. Like Southern theory, decolonial epistemology questions
the monopoly and universalising tendencies of epistemologies from
the Global North and calls for the recognition and mainstreaming of
other knowledges and ways of engaging with knowledges. Dastile and
Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2013: 107) trace the historical origins of decolonial
epistemology to ‘human political and intellectual struggles against the
dark aspects of modernity such as mercantilism, the slave trade, imperi-
alism, colonialism, apartheid, neo-colonialism, underdevelopment […],
neoliberalism, and globalization’. All these discourses of modernity did,
in one way or another, sow the seeds of hierarchised and racialised iden-
tity categories that underpin dominant understandings of development
in the contemporary world. In this vein, Grosfoguel (2009) posits that
the most powerful fundamentalism today is the Eurocentric one—often
marketed as progress and modernity—because it succeeds in hiding its
very nature by laying claim to the high-sounding but very deceptive
idea of universality. Decolonial scholarship seeks not only a change in
contents of conversation but also a change in the limits and conditions
of conversations (Mignolo 2000). It calls for a completely new way of
thinking—about development, about cultural identities, about regimes
of knowledge and knowledge production, about indigenisation and eco-
nomic empowerment and just about everything else we do.
The key contours of decolonial epistemology described above have
three unique insights that could contribute to advancement of the ways
in which we engage with the discourse and praxis of development. The
first point that also came out clearly in the critique of Northern devel-
opment discourse is this:
There remains a risk of thinking that while there are indeed many sides
to the mountain, only one road actually leads to the top – that which
‘we’ are taking. Accepting the multiplicity of truth hypotheses in the-
ory does not, in practice, prevent the risk of considering one’s certainty
and truth as exclusive; nor does it automatically forestall the casting of
a final judgement on those who happen to have followed another path.
(Ramadan 2011: 28)
221
The metaphor of a mountaintop and the multiple roads leading to it is

an informative one. While Northern epistemologies do acknowledge the
existence of other conceptualisations, they have clearly shied away from
recognising the legitimacy and credibility of alternative paths, especially
those from the Global South. Convinced that they are armed with the
faculty of reason common to all, Northern theories of development
seem to have adopted a fatalistic position—the belief that ‘the values we
discover or elaborate will naturally be those of everyone else’ (Ramadan
2011: 28). It is this fallacy that decolonial epistemology questions and
challenges. Decolonial epistemology posits that all paths that come
from all sides of the mountain can actually lead us to the top. What we
learn from epistemologies such as decoloniality is that we stand a better
chance of coming up with more nuanced understanding and appreci-
ation of the diversity of development trajectories if we approach them
from multipronged angles or paths.
The next important point about decoloniality is that it is ‘an-other
thought’ that seeks to inaugurate ‘an-other logic’, ‘an-other language’
and ‘an-other thinking’ that has the potential to liberate ex-colonised
people’s minds from the clutches of Euro-American epistemologi-
cal hegemonies (Mignolo 2007: 56). Thus, with decoloniality, it is no
longer business as usual. Rather, the framework is a clarion call: an
announcement for radical departure from the often taken-for-granted
Northern development discourse that has constructed images of peo-
ples from the Global South as somewhat reified, inflexible and never-
changing. The decoloniality approach ‘helps in unveiling epistemic
silences, conspiracies, and epistemic violence hidden within Euro-
American epistemology and to affirm the epistemic rights of the African
people that enable them to transcend global imperial designs’ (Dastile
and Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2013: 114). The need to embrace decoloniality
as an alternative epistemology is inspired by its potential to enable us to
overcome racist, invisibilising and paternalistic perspectives on develop-
ment that often go undetected as they are camouflaged by the homog-
enising banners of universalism. Unlike epistemologies from the Global
North, decoloniality is open-minded, outward-looking and concedes
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F. Ndhlovu
space for other epistemologies from different geo-historical sites and

human experiences.
The third point that makes decoloniality a more appealing and viable
alternative is this. Some of the earliest traditions from the Global South
(African, Asian and Middle Eastern) are well known for explicitly or
implicitly recognising the necessity of other ways. They do this either by
stating that there are several ways of leading to the truth or by moving
even further to assert that their own ways of coming to terms with the
world are, in fact, shaped and influenced by other people’s worldviews.
In other words, pluralism and diversity of perspectives are considered
prerequisites for safeguarding oneself against subjectivity that is often
blind to other understandings of the world. One example of a philoso-
phy from the Global South that is acutely alert to this premium is the
African concept of Ubuntu (being human). According to Mbigi and
Maree (1997: 1–2):
Ubuntu is a metaphor that describes the significance of group solidarity

… It is a concept of brotherhood and collective unity for survival. The
cardinal belief of Ubuntu is that a man can only be a man through others
[umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu in Zulu, Xhosa and Ndebele languages]. In
its fundamental sense it stands for personhood and morality.
Mbigi and Maree further note that the solidarity spirit of Ubuntu helps
forge new individual and group identities transcending parochial social
and political cleavages generated by normative frames of Northern
development discourse. The unique benefit of Ubuntu (and other
similar philosophies from the Global South) is that it emphasises the
need to harness the social experiences and innovation capacities of the
African people and align them with successful conceptual frameworks
from the West and the East.2 In other words, Ubuntu does not believe
in itself as the only way. Instead, it is an approach that is motivated
by the desire to establish rapprochement among the multiple ways in
2Please refer to the next section for examples of African models of development that leveraged the
ideals of Ubuntu and which flourished prior to the colonial imposition of Northern discourses of
development.
223
which different societies and civilisations read and interpret the world.
When applied to theorisation of development and economic empow-
erment, these key tenets of Ubuntu teach us that the pathway to be fol-
lowed by southern Africa is one that is made up of complex, dynamic
and continuously evolving combinations of indigenous knowledge
systems and cultural experiences as well as accumulated wisdom from
interactions with both Eastern and Western cultures. None of these
temporal experiences should be seen as more important than others
because they are all germane to the fashioning of present and future-
oriented aspirations, dreams and visions of the people of southern
Africa. As part of Southern development discourse, the concept of
Ubuntu is applicable to development processes of all communities—be
they in rural or inner cities of Western countries or in rural and peri-ur-
ban contexts in any other parts of the world.
Therefore, for all of the above reasons, I suggest that perhaps
Southern development discourse is the answer to the current perils of
neoliberal indigenisation and economic empowerment efforts in South
Africa and Zimbabwe. Or, alternatively, perhaps the answer might
as well lie in a judicious and innovative combination of previous and
emerging theoretical traditions from both the Global North and the
Global South. In the next section, I discuss the potential of linguistic
diversity and culture—as part of Southern development discourse—
to solve some of southern Africa’s social and economic development
challenges.
Language/Culture and Development/
Creativity Matrix3
Creativity and innovation are the hallmarks of development and
empowerment. I consider development to be first of all cultural (which
implies linguistic too) and then economic and political. Wherever there
is development, it has to show immediately in aspects of the people’s
3Some of the material in this section appears in Ndhlovu (2013).

224
F. Ndhlovu
everyday social and cultural life. This is because ‘meaning, like values
is open-ended, changing and full of complexity and inextricably bound
up with the historically and culturally embedded’ (Shi-xu 2012, cited
in Shi-xu et al. 2016: 77). In the context of development discourse,
culture should be seen as ‘a historically evolved set of ways of think-
ing, concepts, representations (e.g. of self and others), norms, rules,
strategies, embodied in the actions and artefacts of a social commu-
nity’ (Shi-xu 2016: 2). This complex and dynamic nature of culture is
the one that forms the basis for creativity and innovation. For south-
ern Africa, the cultural embeddedness of development is evidenced by
the achievements of numerable African states and communities before
the colonial imposition of and disruptions by Northern epistemolo-
gies, patterns of thought and biases. The previous body of literature on
African archaeology and historiography is replete with examples of how
cultural imperatives can mediate development. Nearly half a century
ago, Water Rodney published a book titled How Europe Underdeveloped
Africa (1972), which stands out even to this day as a clarion call for
social scientists and other scholars of African studies to rethink the
supposed universal relevance of Euro-modernist development models
against the backdrop of culturally mediated development initiatives that
worked extremely well pre-colonisation. The book chronicles the ways
in which the underdeveloped position of Africa (relative to Europe and
a few other parts of the world) is largely a consequence of European
exploitation and plunder of African material, cultural and intellectual
resources. Rodney illustrates his argument in four ways. First, he recon-
structs the advanced nature of development in Africa before the com-
ing of Europeans. Second, he reconstructs the nature of development
which took place in Europe before imperial expansion abroad. Third, he
analyses Africa’s contribution to Europe’s present developed state. And
fourth, he analyses Europe’s contribution to Africa’s present ‘underde-
veloped’ state. His overall conclusion is that in the centuries before con-
tact with Europeans, African people observed the peculiarities of their
own environment and tried to find techniques for dealing with it in a
rational manner. This is the hallmark of innovation, creativity and artis-
tic achievement, which are at the heart of development. A clear example
225
from southern Africa is that of the Zimbabwe4 culture from the elev-
enth to the fourteenth century where societies whose most characteristic
feature was the building of large stone palaces flourished. With specific
reference to the Great Zimbabwe monuments, Walter Rodney (1972:
76–77) underscores the centrality of local (material) cultural conditions
as drivers of development initiatives:
One of the principal structures at Great Zimbabwe is some 300 feet long
and 220 feet broad, with the walls being 30 feet high and 20 feet thick.
The technique of laying bricks one on the other without lime to act as
a cement was the same style as [that found at] Engaruka in Northern
Tanzania. It was, in fact, a peculiar aspect of material culture in Africa,
being widely found in Ethiopia and the Sudan. […] Skill, creativity and
artistry went into the construction of the walls, especially with regard to
the decorations, the inner recesses and the doors.
These forms of development in (southern) Africa pre-European contact

were not only limited to the construction of magnificent stone struc-
tures. Several anthropologists, archaeologists and historians of Africa
(including those of European origin) have provided compelling evi-
dence indicating that the people of Zimbabwe had produced hydrol-
ogists, prospectors and geologists through their understanding of the
material environment—prior to European arrival (Fagan 1966; Shinnie
1965; Davidson 1991; Labouret 1962). On the mining side of things
in particular, African peoples of the Zimbabwe plateau had produced
experts who had a clear idea of where to look for gold and copper in the
sub-soil. In addition, there were craftsmen who worked the gold into
ornaments with tremendous skill and lightness of touch (Rodney 1972:
77). As early as the eleventh century, the people of the Zimbabwe pla-
teau were already involved in large-scale external trade with Arab and
Indian traders at the Mozambican channel of Sofala. These techno-
logical and external trade advances were not unique to the Zimbabwe
4I use the term ‘Zimbabwe’ in the same way that Walter Rodney (1972) uses it to designate the
cultures between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers in the few centuries preceding European
arrival.
226
F. Ndhlovu
culture. Several other similar pre-fifteenth-century civilisations across

the African continent are well documented in the relevant body of liter-
ature. They include Egypt, Ethiopia, Nubia, the Maghreb, the Western
Sudan and the Inter-lacustrine Zone where at the turn of the fifteenth
century the levels of development were comparable to those of many
parts of Europe at the time (Davidson 1965; Rodney 1972). These early
African societies achieved high levels of development (relative to their
historical period) by leveraging the diversity of local languages (i.e. lan-
guage as process and not a countable object), cultures, traditions and
worldviews or philosophies of life. This is the route to social progress
and development that was generally followed by most present-day
advanced societies, including those from the Global North.
There has, however, been a tendency to consider the achievements of
pre-colonial African societies with a sense of awe and wonder (as was
done by the first Europeans to arrive in Africa and most probably by
most people around the world today). For example, historians have it
on record that Cecil John Rhodes’ first emissaries to Zimbabwe and,
indeed, other European agents marvelled at the surviving ruins of the
Zimbabwe culture and automatically assumed that the stone walls
had been built by white people (Rodney 1972; Fagan 1966; Labouret
1962). This condescending refusal to acknowledge the innovation and
creative abilities of the African people continues to excite the imag-
inations of many within academic and non-academic communities
alike, particularly in the domain of development discourse. And this
includes elite African national political leaders who purport to cham-
pion the African cause when in fact, their hearts, minds and souls are
sold to everything European; everything white. The economic indige-
nisation and other empowerment policy frameworks pursued by vir-
tually all post-colonial African governments betray this obsession with
external models of development and a dim view of everything local;
everything Africa. Almost all post-colonial African governments that
have pursued an economic empowerment agenda of sorts have over-
looked the potential benefits of integrating successful local genius and
creativity into whatever they do. The important point that needs to be
articulated with greater clarity and in unambiguous terms here is this:
African innovations and development paradigms that were present and
227
that were working before the arrival of white people have to be received
with the calm acceptance that they were and still are ‘a perfectly log-
ical outgrowth of human social development within Africa, as part of
the universal process by which man’s labour opened up new horizons’
(ibid.: 77). This is not something that should be seen as exceptional or
unexpected because it reflects the norm for all human societies around
the world—the ability to develop new ways of dealing with challenges
presented by our immediate environment—otherwise known as social
progress. The long list of credible historical and archaeological evidence
documented in the literature cited above attests to the fact that pre-
colonial Africa had well-established development trajectories5 that were,
unfortunately, stifled, marginalised and ultimately replaced with Euro-
modernist models as part and parcel of the European colonial ‘civilising
mission’. It has to be understood every paradigm of development—
whether Northern or Southern—emerges out of local cultural contexts
and conditions and should, therefore, be seen in this light.
In the words of Prah (2009: 7) ‘culture is the central location for
answers to the challenges of underdevelopment’, and language is ger-
mane in all of this as it is the main feature of culture through which
human social activities are transacted. For this reason, I see language as
an important ingredient of the economic development and empower-
ment matrix. Languages are the very means of organising everyday life
in the community—serving as essential media for getting by, carrying
out economic transactions, social functions and so on. This means the
5There is often a tendency to ask for current examples of how African linguistic diversity and
aspects of cultural development have or can transform economic development. It should be
noted that the advanced state of development in pre-colonial Africa that was mediated by local
linguistic and cultural resources was interrupted and sabotaged by European enslavement of
Africans, colonial violence and the plunder of material culture, resources and creative achieve-
ments. Therefore, I would argue that when seen against the backdrop of these consequences of
the imperial powers’ activities that killed home-grown African innovations, it would be nearly
impossible to find current living examples of something that is well known to have been deliber-
ately stifled and squeezed out of mainstream development discourse and replaced with Northern
development discourse. For this reason, it is my considered view that though they only refer to a
pre-colonial African past, the pre-fifteenth-century examples illustrating the potential of cultural
development as described in this section are sufficient to support the claim I am making about
the need to seriously consider local linguistic and cultural imperatives in our search for alternative
development trajectories for southern Africa.
228
F. Ndhlovu
‘knowledge economy calls for social knowledge and knowledge eco-

nomics based on language as a means of conceptualization and access,
production, acquisition and dissemination’ (ACALAN 2009: 3). In the
context of theorising about continental economic empowerment initi-
atives, the African Union (AU) envisages cross-border languages to be
meeting points and bridges into interstate cooperation. Cross-border
languages are defined as ‘languages that are common to two or more
states and domains straddling various usages’ (ACALAN 2009: 4). The
significance of cross-border languages lies in their ability to create cul-
tural links and linguistic unity that transcend national political bor-
ders, thus serving as mediators for broader synergies among the diverse
African people in their search for sustainable economic empowerment
models.
As indicated in Table 6.1, southern Africa is endowed with several
languages that are spoken across the borders of many countries that fall
within this region. Although they may be known by slightly different
names in each country most, cross-border languages have high degrees
of mutual intelligibility to the extent that speakers of related varieties
can easily understand each other without resorting to interpretation.
The important question is what affordances do these resources provide
Table 6.1 Cross-border languages of southern Africa (adapted from Elugbe

1998)
Cross-border languages Countries where spoken
Afrikaans South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho,
Swaziland
Chewa/Nyanja Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi
Herero Namibia, Botswana, Angola (negligible
in the latter)
Kwanyama Angola–Namibia
Lozi Zambia, Namibia
Nama>Khoekhoegowab Namibia, Botswana, South Africa
Nguni cluster South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho,
Zimbabwe
Sotho-Tswana cluster South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe
Tonga-Tsonga Mozambique, South Africa, Malawi, Zambia,
Zimbabwe
Venda South Africa, Zimbabwe
229
for creativity, innovation and, ultimately, economic development and

social progress?
In its December 2011 Quarterly Newsletter, the African Academy
of Languages (an arm of the AU Social Affairs Commission) indicates
that Vehicular Cross-border Language Commissions have been estab-
lished for selected cross-border languages to be deployed in regional
political and economic integration projects across the entire continent.
The language commissions are charged with the responsibility of spear-
heading and coordinating harmonisation of writing systems for the
selected cross-border languages in order to facilitate economic and social
transactions within the region. As recent trends and developments are
reminding us every day, the twenty-first-century African dream has dra-
matically shifted from the agenda of consolidating the sovereignty and
separate development of individual nation-states to that of cultivating
regional economic, cultural and political integration. African regional
and sub-regional economic and political blocs are being promoted and
propagated as building units for achieving total empowerment of previ-
ously marginalised sections of society. The ever-changing economic and
political environment dictates that regional economic blocs have to har-
ness existing social and cultural ties (including linguistic ones) for pur-
poses of integration and transnational community building. It is in this
context that cross-border languages become crucial in our theorisation
about the discourse and praxis of African development initiatives and
economic empowerment. The question is no longer about whether or
not African languages can mediate economic and cultural development
as there is absolutely no doubt that most, if not all, African languages
have the capacity to serve this purpose—if adequate resources are pro-
vided to enable them absorb and incorporate a wide range of emerg-
ing scientific and technological terminology. Shi-xu et al. (2016) cite
Modern Hebrew, Bahasa and Afrikaans as perfect examples of how lan-
guages that were previously not well regarded rose to be among some of
the languages that mediate science and technology in present-day soci-
ety. With specific reference to Afrikaans, they write:
[…] from the 1920s when it became an official language in parliament

to the end of the twentieth century, it advanced from a language bereft of
230
F. Ndhlovu
modern scientific terminology, to a language capable of unravelling and

teaching the secrets of heart transplantation and helicopter-manufacture
technology. (Shi-xu et al. 2016: 80)
Therefore, what we learn from the example of Afrikaans in South Africa

and on the African continent more generally is the fact that it is very
possible for any (African) language to mediate development. But the
question may still remain: Why a language-based approach to charting
an alternative theory of economic empowerment, and how can this be
achieved? This question is at the core of the discussion in this section
and is addressed by focusing on cross-border languages, which I con-
sider to be the missing link in current regional economic development
discourse in southern Africa. Nearly all African languages are cross-
border speech forms, which means we need to work within a framework
that can maximise inter- and cross-cultural communication among
the African people across different national borders in order to maxim-
ise the potential social and economic benefits of Africa’s linguistic geog-
raphy, especially in the domains of regional economic integration and
cross-border trade (Ndhlovu 2013; Shi-xu et al. 2016). Because regions
are also socially constructed, we have to consider issues of cross-cultural
communication that invoke the significance of multiple cross-border
languages. The economic and political matrices of regional development
are not meaningful in any substantial way outside the context of
cross-border activities and, by implication, cross-border languages. As
Susan Gal (2006: 175) argues in the context of the European Union,
‘there is no necessity for a single common (standard) language in order to
create a public sphere’. An inclusive and broad-based economic empow-
erment model for southern Africa is feasible because of (and not in spite
of ) cross-border languages and cross-border activities. The cross-border
language phenomenon provides a new theoretical perspective for looking
at the prospects for regional development based on the everyday multilin-
gual identities and discursive practices of those involved in cross-border
trade.
A language-based approach to southern African regional development
and economic empowerment is justifiable on three grounds. First, the
231
salience of language (particularly the use of multiple languages) in pro-

moting socio-economic and political development lies in that when one
looks at language, one would see hundreds, perhaps, thousands of years
of experience—people experiencing life on earth where they interacted
among themselves, with outsiders and with the environment. These
forms of interactive engagements with nature allow people to develop
an array of wisdoms, ways of coping with the environment and strate-
gies of survival, all of them being preserved and transmitted through the
medium of language. Therefore, when languages are marginalised and
remain invisible in the economic empowerment matrix, it is the accu-
mulated wisdoms that die—wisdoms about politics, about philosophy,
about ideology, about living on the planet earth and successfully doing
so. Every ethnolinguistic polity and its language(s) are unique and have
different histories from any other. How each African community inter-
acts with the environment makes it a unique people with a unique lan-
guage, a unique wisdom, unique ideas and unique knowledge systems,
which have the capacity to empower communities in more sustainable
ways than is currently the case with neoliberal approaches.
Second, language is important in the sense that it is one of the major
determinants of success and survival particularly in situations of inter-
group competition for access and control of resources and (conquest of )
state power. In typical multilingual contexts such as the ones we find in
most African countries, access to socio-economic and political oppor-
tunities is sometimes contingent upon access to particular language
varieties. This implicates the role and place of language in shaping inter-
group relations as well as in determining people’s educational, economic
and political fortunes. As Brown and Ganguly (2003: 4) write:
In multiethnic countries, language can determine who has access to

schools, who has opportunities for economic advancement, who partic-
ipates in political decisions, who has access to governmental services, and
who gets treated fairly by governmental agencies. Language can deter-
mine who gets ahead and who gets left behind. Language affects the pros-
pects for ethnic success – for ethnic groups and for individuals in these
groups.
232
F. Ndhlovu
The prevailing situation in Africa today is one in which there is layer-

ing and nesting of languages with both symbolic and practical ram-
ifications. Former colonial languages such as English, French and
Portuguese are currently the preferred languages of business, trade and
economics across the borders of southern African nation-states. This is
untenable as most of these languages are not languages of wider com-
munication within local communities. A major problem that stems out
of this scenario is that ‘new scientific and technological inputs bypass
indigenous knowledge systems and […] cannot be married to what the
people already know and what they do in their everyday lives’ (Shi-xu
et al. 2016: 79). This speaks to the pervasive effects of the language
barrier when it comes to technological transfer and the diffusion of
information literacy both of which are crucial in promoting further
social and economic progress in the contemporary postmodern world.
Sociolinguistic justice is, therefore, needed in order to enable the gen-
erality of the populations proficient in multitudes of African languages
to fully participate in mainstream social, political and economic dis-
courses and conversations on development. For instance, when we talk
of freedom of speech and freedom of association, we need not simply
focus on the extent to which individual and collective freedoms are
upheld or recognised. Rather, the issue should also be about the follow-
ing. In which or whose language are the people associating? In which or
whose language are they expressing themselves? In which or whose lan-
guages are they doing business? Do all ethnolinguistic groups involved
in some form of business activity both at national and at transnational
scales have equal access to languages of business, association and wider
communication? If not, what are the implications for the involvement
of these people in policy formulation and decision-making on empow-
erment initiatives that can help to transform their lives and those of the
communities they live in? These questions provoke a paradigm shift in
the way we conceptualise social and economic development. This leads
us to the third significance of cross-border languages.
Third, there already exist functional linkages among African people
from different countries, albeit in less formal ways than what is envis-
aged in ongoing elite discussions around these matters. The peoples
233
of southern Africa, for example, are already networked, cooperating,

communicating with each other and engaged in cultural exchanges
at different levels and for a range of reasons through the medium of
cross-border languages. This is akin to what Haas (1989) calls ‘epis-
temic communities’. Haas (1989: 377) defines epistemic communities
as ‘communities of shared knowledge’ and further posits that “if a group
with a common perspective is able to acquire and sustain control over a
substantive policy domain, the substantive regime will become stronger”
(ibid.: 384). The model of epistemic communities was developed in
the context of how cooperation among ecologists and marine scien-
tists could influence international agenda towards the support of strong
pollution control measures. This model can be extrapolated to pro-
vide more nuanced theorisation of how southern African cross-border
communities and their cross-border language resources constitute
solid basis for a southern African economic empowerment model that
is de-linked from the hegemony of Northern development discourse.
As social and cultural networks are developed organically and quicker
among cross-border communities than in the formal bilateral and mul-
tilateral forms of economic and political relations among nation-states,
it can be surmised that there is greater scope for progress towards a
more sustainable economic empowerment model through the map-
ping of people to people social and cultural relationships that already
exist in the realm of cross-border activities. For example, the regu-
lar cross-border contact between the Venda people of Vhembe district
near the Beitbridge border post of Zimbabwe and their counterparts in
the Limpopo province of South Africa is facilitated by shared histor-
ical, linguistic and cultural ties that date back to the pre-colonial era.
Similarly, cultural, linguistic and ethnic links between southern Angola
and northern Namibia, where the Kwanyama people live on both sides
of the border, are reported to have facilitated the development of strong
cross-border linkages that could become the foundation for viable eco-
nomic and political integration (Grobler 2003: 23). In a seminar paper
on the invention of the Namibia/Angola border and the Kwanyama
identity, Brambilla (n.d.: 5) observes that for the Kwanyama-speaking
people in both countries,
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F. Ndhlovu
The border is seen as being not merely a line on the ground but, above all,
manifestation of social practise and discourse. It is a medium and instru-
ment of social control and the communication and construction of mean-
ings and identities that are produced through it. This way, it becomes part
of collective identities and shared memories, constructing a base for social
interaction.
Therefore, instead of sticking to development trajectories and economic

empowerment models that are exclusively underpinned by Northern
theories, we need to focus on how informal cross-border activities and
cross-border languages of southern Africa can be harnessed towards suc-
cessful regional economic integration. ‘Informal’ activities and processes
such as cross-border migration and trade are perspectives that acknowl-
edge the value of non-institutionalised spaces as imperative to develop-
ment and economic empowerment (Ramutsindela 2005).
Conclusion
In the light of the arguments raised above, I conclude that Southern
development discourse is a fitting analytical framework for more nuanced
understanding of the African economic empowerment paradox. The
combative approaches of both decolonial epistemology and Southern
theory enable us to expose the darkest side of Euro-modernist discourses
of development, economic empowerment and their associated meta-
languages that have denied people from the Global South the opportu-
nity to be innovative, creative and to contribute to their own economic
and social well-being. In addition to learning from others, every soci-
ety finds solutions to its everyday life challenges by leveraging its social
capital and other natural resources it is endowed with. For southern
Africa, the rich linguistic and cultural heritage constitutes one form of
social capital that can be deployed towards the goal of achieving greater
economic development and social progress for all the peoples of this
region. No society has ever made significant and meaningful advances in
development through the use of borrowed robes alone—in the form of
235
exogenous epistemologies, worldviews and other philosophies. Therefore,

while there is no doubt that southern Africa has so much to learn from
Northern and Eastern models of economic development, this region
stands a better chance of making major in-roads in economic develop-
ment not by solely relying on either or both of these. Rather, the panacea
lies in an innovative blending and integration (translative adaptation) of
these development models into home-grown, Africa-centred theories and
philosophies that are rooted in endogenous linguistic and material cul-
tures in order to enhance the unlocking of local creative capabilities for
innovation and sustainable economic empowerment.
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Part IV
Migration, Borders, Exclusion
7
Migration, Integration Discourse,
Exclusion
Introduction1
Australia’s immigration policies have remained an unsettled area subject
to political disputation since the promulgation of the Immigration
Restriction Act 1901 (Cth). Section 3(a) of this Act required that all
prospective immigrants from non-European countries had to pass
a dictation test in any European language selected by the immigra
tion officer. Asian racial groups were the main target of this legislation,
which was embraced as part of the ‘White Australia’ policy. Far from
being an objective assessment of language proficiency skills, the dicta-
tion test was a discursive construct ostensibly designed to be failed and
to exclude people whose political and racial affiliations were consid-
ered undesirable. The period from 1901 to 1957 marked an important
chapter in the history of Australia’s immigration policies because it was
during these early years of federation that successive Australian govern-
ments embraced explicit formal policies on testing language skills of
intending immigrants. Since then, the language question has continued
1Some of the material in this chapter appears in Ndhlovu (2014).

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76135-0_7
244
F. Ndhlovu
to feature prominently in political and public debates on Australia’s

citizenship and immigration laws. The legacy of events that happened
during the formative years of a federated Australia continues to inform
political and legislative decisions on Australian immigration policy.
Consequently, Australian migration policy and other related social
frameworks are still locked in old, tired and reductionist logics of
nationalist multiculturalism—an issue that has escaped the attention
of many scholars and commentators. There are subtle and overt forms
of discrimination that are hidden under the fissures and fault lines of
Australian liberalism discourses such as ‘migrant integration’, ‘social
inclusion’ and a range of other immigration-related measures such as
language and citizenship testing regimes. Another important discus-
sion point is one around the persistence of the nationalist imaginary of
Australia as a country that is perceived as having an own ‘foundational
myth’ into which all new waves of migrants and refugees must ‘inte-
grate’. Problematic concepts such as ‘migrant integration’; ‘Australian
way of life’; and ‘un-Australian’ do not sit well within the multiplicity
of cultures and traditions of people who call Australia home. Whereas
the Australian population of the 1970s was made up of indigenous
Australians, European settlers and Asian immigrants, this picture has
changed drastically with people from virtually all over the world now
living in this country as permanent residents, citizens, skilled migrants,
temporary residents or humanitarian entrants. The profiles of peo-
ple who now call Australia home are far more complex, diverse and
dynamic to be accommodated within the traditional nationalist para-
digm with its narrow focus on the coexistence of many cultures along-
side each other. The Australia of today and, indeed, the entire world is
a lot more different from the Australia of the 1970s due to the prevail-
ing situation in which ‘more people are now moving from more places,
through more places, to more places’ (Vertovec 2010: 86). Since the
breadth and depth of Australian diversity have become much thicker
than ever before, it needs to be seen from the vantage point of alterna-
tive cultural frames that are consistent with the complexities of contem-
porary identities and identity narratives.
7 Migration, Integration Discourse, Exclusion
245
In the sections that follow, I consider the use and abuse of language
testing regimes as technology for racial and political exclusion since the
formation of federal Australia in 1901. The focus is on how language
ideologies were and continue to be used as gate-keeping mechanism
and weapons for normalising diverse racial groups to some imagined
subjective Australian national linguistic and cultural norms. Aspects
of language testing for Australian immigration are interrogated as part
of the discursive construct used to camouflage racist political processes
of excluding ‘unwanted’ prospective immigrants. I identify and discuss
three distinct phases in the history of Australian immigration policies,
namely (i) the period of outright exclusion of unwanted races (1901–
1957); (ii) the period of assimilation (1958–1978); and (iii) the period
of assimilation—tolerance (often misconstrued as integration) (1978 to
the present). The central argument here is that there is a clear pattern in
the history of Australian migration that demonstrates the significance
of language and language testing in determining who is included in or
excluded from Australia.
‘White Australia’ Policy as the Doctrine

of Outright Exclusion: 1901–1957
Following the formation of the Australian federation in 1901, one
of the first pieces of legislation passed by the new parliament was the
Immigration Restriction Act 1901 (Cth). This Act, which received royal
assent on 23 December 1901, was designed to place certain restrictions
on intending immigrants perceived to be a threat to Australian inter-
ests (Tavan 2005). From 1901 up to the late 1950s, Australia’s approach
to immigration was conceived in terms of the ‘White Australia’ policy,
which imposed limited acceptance of immigrants from other parts
of the world and favoured applicants from selected European coun-
tries. Although it was amended 14 times before its abolition in 1958,
the Immigration Restriction Act remained the guiding principle for
Australian immigration policy for the period 1901–1958. Section 3(a)
of the Act prohibited immigration into Australia by any persons who
246
F. Ndhlovu
failed to write out a dictation test of 50 words in any European lan-

guage prescribed by an immigration officer. These measures for imple-
menting the ‘White Australia’ policy were warmly received by both the
general public and the political leadership of the time. For instance,
in 1919, the policy was hailed by Prime Minister, William Morris
Hughes, as the greatest thing that Australia had achieved (Tavan 2005).
Similarly, the federal parliamentary caucus of the Labour Party passed
the following two crucial motions in support of the Immigration
Restriction Act: (i) that the party work for the total exclusion of
coloured people whether British subjects or not and (ii) that the party
approves of the educational test as to coloured British subjects, with
such amendments as may seem necessary; but opposes absolutely the
admission of all coloured aliens (Head 1999).
York (1992, 1993), Tavan (2005), Hollinsworth (1998), and Willard
(1967) detail the history of Australian immigration, tracing the grad-
ual policy transformations initiated by successive governments from the
late eighteenth century to the late twentieth century. When Australia
became a federation, most Australian citizens were still uncertain as to
what made them a nation. However, one thing upon which most of
them agreed was who to exclude from their midst (Sherrington 1980).
This general consensus was premised on the idea of a ‘White Australia’
policy formalised through the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 (Cth).
Under this legislative measure (mainly aimed at restricting the entry of
Chinese, Indians, Japanese and other Asians), non-whites could only
enter Australia on a temporary basis under a permit. The desire to guard
Australian society against the perceived dangers of Asian immigration
was among the key factors that necessitated the promulgation of the
Immigration Restriction Act. Parliamentary members of the federal gov-
ernment ‘hailed the IRA as a legitimate attempt to preserve Australia’s
white racial purity, to shield Australian workers from the vagaries of
cheap Asiatic labour, and to protect national sovereignty against a
potential “Asiatic” invasion’ (Tavan 2005: 8). This fear was well artic-
ulated by Alfred Deakin, Attorney General of the first federal govern-
ment, in the House of Representatives:
247
No motive power operated more universally on this continent … and cer-

tainly no motive power operated more powerfully in dissolving the tech-
nical and arbitrary political divisions which previously separated us than
the desire that we should be one people, and remain one people, without
the admixture of other races. It is only necessary to say that they do not
and cannot blend with us, that we do not, cannot and ought not to blend
with them. (Reproduced in Willard 1967: 119)
The determination of the federal government to pursue racist poli-

cies was backed by legislation such as the Pacific Islanders Labourers
Act 1901 (Cth), which was designed to facilitate the mass deportation
of nearly all Pacific Islanders working mostly as indentured labourers in
the sugar cane plantations of Australia. The Act specifically prohibited
any Pacific Islanders from entering Australia after 31 March 1904 and
required all those entering before then to have a license. It further stip-
ulated that any Pacific Islander found in Australia, who had not been
employed under an indentured labour agreement at any time in the
preceding month, could be deported immediately. Under this Act, it also
became an offence to employ a Pacific Islander in any other way than
through an indentured labour agreement.
Together with these explicitly racist political and economic measures, a
dictation test in any European language chosen by the immigration officer
was adopted to enhance the exclusion of unwanted immigrants. The dic-
tation test sought to ensure Australian immigration was restricted to
selected people from Europe. As insurance against possible circumvention
of the test by non-Europeans, it was agreed by members of parliament
that customs officers would select a language with which the intending
undesired immigrant was unfamiliar (Tavan 2005: 10). It is important to
note that although the dictation test was formally withdrawn in 1958, the
abuse of language tests for political purposes of exclusion and inclusion
has continued to punctuate Australia’s immigration policies.
There is, therefore, no doubt that from 1901, Australia embraced a
purely racist and discriminatory immigration policy. Political positions
articulated at the highest levels of decision-making had a profound
influence on the treatment of immigration applications other than those
248
F. Ndhlovu
from the UK. The position of the conservative Liberal Party was no dif-
ferent to that of the Labour Party as they maintained a ‘White Australia’
policy, extending it to the exclusion of people from southern Europe
(e.g. Italy, Greece and Spain), whose skins were regarded as ‘swarthy’.
The dictation test was actually brought into camouflage the racist polit-
ical goals of the ‘White Australia’ policy. For example, of the 3290 per-
sons refused admission into Australia between 1901 and 1957 under the
Immigration Restriction Act, two-thirds were excluded by the dictation
test (York 1992: 4).
Reasons for the ‘White Australia’ Policy

A variety of interrelated reasons prompted the Australian political lead-
ership to come up with the ‘White Australia’ policy. The preservation
of a British–Australian nationality was the first fundamental motive.
Interpreted through the prism of race, the Australian community of
British descent was imagined as a superior organic community, which
required protection from the possible influx of ‘alien’ races. Permitting
uncontrolled immigration of non-European racial groups ‘would be a
calamity, for it would [lead to the] death of British–Australian nation-
ality’ (Willard 1967: 192). At the time, the Australian community was
conceived as founded upon three components, namely: being racially
white, being of British descent and being Australian. This was basically
about values, ideas, concerns and way of life—issues that are still at the
core of current debates on Australian citizenship and immigration poli-
cies (Hollinsworth 1998; Tavan 2005).
Second, perceptions about the possibility of the emergence of ethnic
enclaves and ghettos turned out to be another sustained argument for
adopting the ‘White Australia’ policy. Non-European immigrants were
to be restricted because they were perceived as unwilling to integrate,
choosing to form their own communities instead (Willard 1967; Tavan
2005). But the question is this: What does integration or amalgama-
tion entail? Integration is a two-way process, whereby both the immi-
grants and the host community have to negotiate and accommodate
249
each other’s cultural identities. However, because the ‘White Australia’

policy was, by definition and design, purely discriminatory legislation,
it had no provision for this ideal view of integration. Tensions and con-
troversies around immigrant integration ‘problems’ still persist in pres-
ent-day Australia with refugees of Sudanese background being the latest
wave of migrants accused of failing to measure up and integrate into
mainstream Australian society. Third, the Immigration Restriction Act
was supported by Australian workers due to fears of losing their jobs to
Asian migrants and concerns over a culture of unfair labour practices
that could ensue. The policy was thus viewed as a justifiable measure
to subvert the type of economic and social problems that could come
with uncontrolled immigration. Australian people believed that ill-paid
labour was inconsistent with a system of national economy in which the
industrial life of the community is systematically regulated to ensure
that workers have a reasonably high standard of living. This was indeed
a prudent concern, but also one inspired by racist thinking based on a
set of perceived negative cultural traits thought to be inherent character-
istic features of Asian immigrants (Hollinsworth 1998: 3).
By way of summary, the reasons that led to the adoption of the
‘White Australia’ policy typify the ambivalences, ambiguities and con-
tradictions of British colonial policy. While immigration restriction was
explicitly aimed at reducing numbers of non-European immigrants, the
same people were needed in building Australia through their services as
migrant labourers in mining and plantation industries. Concerns over
possible international condemnation of Britain’s democratic and human
rights record in its colonial empire created tensions between the doc-
trine of ‘White Australia’ and the ideals of social liberalism. As York
(1992: 8) clearly observes:
A paradox existed: We [the people of Australia] wanted to exclude

coloured races, but not offend our coloured brothers and sisters in the
Empire … We believed that the British Fleet was our ultimate protec-
tion against the Asiatic hordes, the best military defence of our racial
‘purity’, yet we had to go against the wishes of the Imperial Government
if we were to honestly and openly express our desire for a white Australia
through our own immigration laws.
250
F. Ndhlovu
Therefore, while the restriction of non-European immigration was con-

sidered a necessary step towards the preservation of a British–Australian
national identity, it was at the same time clearly antithetical to the ide-
als of a liberal democratic and free capitalist society that Australia was
intended to be. Such were the internal contradictions of British colo-
nial policy that continuously forced the doctrine of ‘White Australia’
to swing unsteadily between the poles of outright racial exclusion and
social liberalism.
Conspiracy of Silence: Language Testing

as Technology of Exclusion
As already indicated in the preceding discussion, language test
ing was one of the key means for implementing the ‘White Australia’
policy and continues to be used in subsequent immigration poli-
cies to unfairly exclude and/or include people wishing to immigrate,
or even enter Australia on a temporary basis. The analysis in this sec-
tion is underpinned by Elana Shohamy’s (2001) pioneering work on
the power of tests. I also draw on insights from social theory including
Pierre Bourdieu’s (1991) discourse on language and symbolic power,
Michel Foucault’s (1979) notions of discipline and punishment and the
power/knowledge nexus as well as James W. Tollefson’s (1991) concep-
tualisation of power as located in the state machinery, in discourse and
in ideology.
The history of testing regimes shows language tests were introduced
in pre-modern times (in 210 BC to be precise) to enable political, social
and educational control, particularly the desire to improve standards
and equity. Prior to the introduction of tests, access to opportunities
was pre-eminently ascribed and not achieved. Shohamy (2001: 26)
explains the distinction between ascribed and achieved societies in the
following terms:
In ascribed societies the roles and functions of the citizens are predeter-
mined, while in achieved societies individuals have rights and opportu-
nities to find their places in the society regardless of their backgrounds
251
and affiliations. Ascribed systems are often based on ‘selection’, thus oper-
ating on the assumptions that societies need to provide opportunities to
those most ‘deserving’ them, which is often based on their backgrounds
and social affiliation. Achieved systems, on the other hand, are based on
democratization and operate on the assumption that everyone is given
opportunities for access.
This means tests were introduced as part of mechanisms to open up,

democratise and monitor social systems in a bid to overcome the
ascribed principles based on connections, class and background. For
the following four reasons, tests are often considered as having a huge
potential of creating a fair go for all members of societies:
• The introduction of tests would grant opportunities to all by ensur-

ing that every person, regardless of background, can be selected as
long as they have passed the test with a predetermined score. Unlike
in the ascribed system in which privileges are a preserve of the elite,
tests are considered as being underpinned by notions of equity and
equal opportunity.
• Tests are seen as objective, which means all test takers are treated
equally with regard to name, background, gender and other factors
known to be potential sources of subjectivity and discrimination.
Because subjective information about the test taker would not be dis-
closed, the examiner or tester would not likely be prejudiced in the
decision-making process.
• In order to ensure objectivity and fairness, tests would be viewed as
scientific. This means concepts such as item analysis, reliability and
validity that are based on statistical methods would guarantee both
the high quality of tests and freedom from natural biases of human
beings. Because the methods of science are generally respected and
trusted by the public, a scientific approach to testing would produce
results that are least susceptible to disputation.
• Tests would use objective type items in order to minimise biases.
Objective items would neutralise the biases known to affect the
judgement of testers and would also reduce the subjectivity associated
with the ratings and raters (Shohamy 2001: 26–27).
252
F. Ndhlovu
However, far from being such a perfect, democratic and flawless system
that they are intended to be, tests have become surrogate instruments
for perpetuating and legitimating unfair discrimination and exclusion in
many societies. Madaus et al. (2002) identify four important elements
of tests that make them susceptible to abuse and manipulation. These
are test domain, sampling from the domain, making inferences from
test results and test validity. Each one of these cornerstones of a test is
flawed in a number of ways.
First is the concept of test domain, which is relevant to evaluations.
Too often people fail to question whether the domain is the correct
one for the uses to which the test will be put. Thus, ‘the question ‘Does
this test cover the domain I am really interested in?’ is central to proper
test use’ (Madaus et al. 2002: 115). Also, the connotative power of the
name given to the domain of a particular test is a major issue. Names of
tests can carry powerful cultural and associative meanings, which can
blur the way people use, interpret and understand test performance. A
test domain’s name may sometimes fail to convey the uncertainty or the
incompleteness of people’s different conceptualisations of the test. Thus,
Naming a test also affects attitudes about test use, sometimes at a pro-
found level. Taking the test’s name too literally may mean that a person’s
performance acquires all the generalized semantic, affective, connotative,
emotional, and metaphorical baggage associated with the name of the
particular domain the test supposedly represents. (ibid., p. 115)
In a nutshell, even when the definition of the test domain is appropri-

ate for a given evaluation purpose, the name of the test may still shape
the way results are interpreted by various evaluation audiences as well as
the test takers themselves. What does it mean, for instance, to be tested
on Australian values and history after 10 or 15 years as an Australian
permanent resident? What are the different cognitive associative links
of Australian citizenship and Australian values, particularly when con-
sidered within the context of a test? How do different people interpret
the notion of being conferred citizenship on the basis of a test whose
domain is narrowly defined, both in terms of the medium (exclu-
sively in English language) and content (limited to a set of perceived
Australian values, whatever they are)?
253
The second major component of a test, which can also be criticised

for its inadequacy, is that of sampling from the test domain. A test is
nothing but a sample of behaviour, products, answers or performance
from a particular domain. A test cannot in way replicate or substitute
real-life situations. Even for the most comparatively simple domain, the
number of possible test questions and answers is staggering, making it
almost impossible to arrive at a flawless decision based on the results of
a test. This implies that although testing was initially motivated by the
desire to bring about equity and democratic practices in societies, it is
nevertheless a problematic construct because a test is just a sample of
items from a specified domain, which is problematic too.
Third, and related to test sample, is the notion of making inferences
from test results. Performance on any particular small sample of ques-
tions that constitute the test is of interest only in so far as it permits
people to make inferences about the whole test. Thus, ‘a test permits
one to make inferences about the domain of interest, and then to use
those inferences in describing, making decisions about, or determin-
ing consequences for the test-taker, the institution and the program’
(Maudaus et al. 2002: 117). A major problem with test results is that
they can lead to inferences that do not refer back to the original test
domain but, instead, to a different domain. Test results on Australian
national values and history, for example, can easily be used to infer on
the test taker’s English language proficiency because the test is written
exclusively in English. It is precisely for this reason that I maintain that
the so-called Australian values and citizenship test is, in fact, a euphe-
mism for an English language proficiency test because there is no way
the test can be passed by someone with a low level of literacy in English.
Again, the inferred language skills can be used to determine other char-
acteristic features of the test taker, which are completely outside the
parameters of the original test domain—such issues as educational back-
ground and ethnic and racial affiliation. Therefore, notwithstanding the
perceived ‘good’ intentions of tests, there exists a propensity for tests to
be manipulated and deployed in processes of subtle cultural and racial
exclusion. Hiding behind numbers and figures generated by different
testing regimes, bureaucrats and other policy people can thus easily
conceal their policies of discrimination that lie beneath the fissures and
fault lines of a seemingly democratic construct.
254
F. Ndhlovu
This leads us to the fourth component of testing, that of test validity.

Validity refers to the appropriateness, correctness or meaningfulness of
the specific inferences, descriptions, decisions or consequences that are
triggered by a test score (Madaus et al. 2002). It is essential to point out
that validity is a widely misused term in the sense that the validity of
test results is a matter of degree and not a simple dichotomy of ‘valid’ or
‘not valid’. As noted in the above paragraph, there is no such thing as a
perfect test because inferences are always problematic. What validation
only does is to ‘offer a reasoned defence for an inference, decision, or
description, not proof ’ (ibid., p. 119).
Madaus et al. (2002) flag two strong arguments clarifying some of
the common misunderstandings surrounding the notion of test validity.
First, there is no such thing as a generally valid test because an inap-
propriate inference could be made from even the most well-constructed
and carefully administered test. Therefore, statements about a test’s
validity must always be qualified in terms of the correctness of a par-
ticular inference and consequent description or decision about particu-
lar populations of test takers. Second, validation has to be considered
an ongoing and never-ending process of accumulating evidence about
issues that were tested. In other words, the fundamental characteristic of
validation must be the search for the meaning behind the test score. An
authentic validation study ‘seeks evidence that not only confirms, but
also evidence that might cast doubt on the ability of the test to measure
what it purports to measure’ (ibid., p. 119). This is called internal or
self-criticism.
The foregoing critique demonstrates that while the principal moti-
vation for the emergence of tests was to introduce selection tools that
would turn ascribed systems into achieved ones, these very tools often
become more of an illusion than a reality. Madaus (1993) has described
the enterprise of testing as a technology, pointing out that:
Testing is generally not widely regarded as a technology, a word that

usually conjures up images of major artifacts like computers, planes,
televisions, and telephones. However, much of present technology is
specialized arcane knowledge, hidden algorithms, and technical art; it
255
is a complex of standardized means of attaining a predetermined end in

social, economic, administrative, and educational institutions. Testing
also fits some very simple definitions of technology – the simplest being
something put together for a purpose, to satisfy a pressing and immediate
need, or to solve a problem.
In the Australian context, tests have become a useful technology for

central authorities to exercise power and control over individuals and
groups of people alike. For the following six reasons, tests have come
to constitute breeding ground for unequal power relations not only in
Australia but also in most multilingual societies as well: tests are admin-
istered by powerful organisations; tests use the language of science; tests
use the language of numbers; tests mainly use written forms of commu-
nication; tests rely on documentation; and also, tests use objective for-
mats. It is these features that have made tests immune to any objection
by those who are subjected to them. Results obtained from tests are gen-
erally viewed as final and absolute and are, therefore, rarely challenged.
According to Shohamy (2001: 24), ‘these features enable tests to be
used in powerful ways, leading to their detrimental effects and their uses
by those in authority as disciplinary tools’. Therefore, politicians have
discovered that a test can be a useful tool for solving complex political
issues that cannot be resolved through regular policy making. A com-
mon use of tests by politicians and bureaucrats is to grant permission
to enter or to exit geographical boundaries of countries. However, while
using tests for such purposes may be clearly justifiable, ‘it is often the case
that tests are not used for the [sole] purpose of measuring knowledge but
rather as a key to some bureaucratic agenda, such as gate-keeping the
very people that the bureaucrats wish to exclude. The test then becomes
the alibi, the legitimate tool for inclusion and exclusion’ (Shohamy 2001:
86). The use of tests by politicians for selection, policy making and
gate-keeping is amply illustrated by Australia’s language-in-migration
policies discussed in the second last section of this chapter.
In Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1979), Michel
Foucault argues that tests have built-in features that allow them to be used
for exercising power and control. In the words of Foucault (1979: 104):
256
F. Ndhlovu
The examination combines the technique of an observing hierarchy and

those of normalizing judgement. It is a normalizing gaze, a surveillance
that makes it possible to quantify, classify and punish. It establishes over
individuals a visibility through which one differentiates and judges them.
That is why, in all the mechanisms of discipline, the examination is highly
ritualized. In it are combined the ceremony of power and the form of the
experiment, the deployment of force and the establishment of truth. At
the heart of the procedures of disciplines, it manifests the subjection of
those who are perceived as objects and the objectification of those who
are subjected.
Because test scores are used to classify people as successful or failures,

they evoke fear, unfairness, powerlessness, injustice, deterrence, bias,
suspicion and antagonism on the part of test takers. At the same time,
tests confer bureaucrats, policy people and institutions with uncon-
tested power and authority. In her summary of the various ways by
which tests impinge on high-stake decisions about the lives of people
subjected to them, Shohamy (2001: 15–16) observes:
The uses of test results have detrimental effects for test takers since such
uses can create winners and losers, success and failures, rejections and
acceptances. Test scores are often the sole indicators for placing people in
class levels … Doing well on a test may mean that a person is given per-
mission to migrate to a new country and start a new life, while doing
poorly may force a person to stay somewhere he or she does not wish to
be… Tests, then, can open or close doors, provide or take away oppor-
tunities, and in general shape the lives of individuals in many different
areas. It is often the performance on a single test, often on one occasion at
a single point in time that can lead to irreversible, far-reaching high-stake
decisions.
Coupled with their own limited power, test takers have blind trust in
the authority of test results to a point where they will not question
anything about them. This constitutes the symbolic power of tests
(Bourdieu 1991), which is derived and enhanced by the fact that a
number of groups (both the dominating and the dominated) cooper-
ate with one another to maintain social order and to perpetuate existing
257
social systems. This unwritten agreement is what Shohamy (2001) calls

the ‘conspiracy of silence’, an unspoken but self-perpetuating alliance
between test takers, institutions and the bureaucrats. Therefore, the
power of those who introduce tests does not always lie in their ability
to impose their will on test takers. Rather, it also lies in some type of
a rational contract between those in power who want to dominate and
those who want to be dominated and grant those in power to do so, for
example by availing themselves to being tested and, indeed, by demand-
ing tests. Thus, as much as those in power want to control and domi-
nate, there is also a strong willingness on the part of the subjects to be
dominated and controlled so as to perpetuate their existing social struc-
ture (Shohamy 2001). Bourdieu (1991: 192) typifies this situation as
epitomising symbolic power, which he explains as follows:
[Symbolic power] is a power which the person submitting to grants to the

person who exercises it, a credit with which he credits him, a fides, an auc-
toritas, with which he entrusts him by placing his trust in him. It is power
which exists because the person who submits to it believes that it exists…
the politician derives his political power from the trust that a group places
on him. He derives his truly magical power over the group from faith in
the representation that he gives to the group and which is a representation
of the group itself and of its relation to other groups. As a representative
linked to those he represents by a sort of rational contract, he is also a
champion, united by a magical relation of identification with those who,
as they saying goes, ‘pin all their hopes on him.’
In short, power is not always coercive but has a big element of consent
captured by Antonio Gramsci’s (1971) theory of hegemony. According
to Gramsci, hegemony is the process of alliance building; it entails the
organisation or mobilisation of the masses through an intricate balanc-
ing of coercion and consent (Ives 2004). Dominant groups in society,
including fundamentally but not exclusively the ruling class, maintain
their dominance by securing the ‘spontaneous consent’ of subordinate
groups through the negotiated construction of a political and ideologi-
cal consensus which incorporates both dominant and dominated groups
(Strinati 1995: 165).
258
F. Ndhlovu
James W. Tollefson (1995) identified three aspects of power, namely

state, discourse and ideological power. He argues that tests represent all
three forms of power in the following respects: state power in terms of
bureaucrats; discourse power as tests are imposed by unequal individ-
uals (the tester and the test taker); and ideological power in terms of
belief in what is right and what is wrong, what is good knowledge and
what is not, what is worthwhile economically and what is not (cited by
Shohamy 2001: 117). The complex nature of power is also captured by
Michel Foucault (1972) in a book on The Archaeology of Knowledge and
the Discourse on Language. For Michel Foucault:
Power is neither given, nor exchanged, nor recovered, but rather exercized
and it only exists in action. The individual is not a pre-given entity which
is seized on by the exercize of power. The individual, with his identity
and characteristics is the product of a relation of power. Power must be
analyzed as something which circulates. It is never localized here or there.
Power is employed and exercized through a net-like organization. Power
is always already there. One is never outside it; there are no margins for
those who break with the system to gamble in. Power is co-extensive with
the social body. Its success is proportional to its ability to hide its own
mechanisms. (Gordon 1980: 31)
From a Foucauldian perspective, power is thus viewed as a fluid and

elusive notion, which manifests itself in various forms. This means that
power is there everywhere and wherever there is power, there are power
differentials. Foucault further contends that power must be understood
as ‘power/knowledge’ (Caputo and Yount 1993: 6), which means that
knowledge is what power relations produce in order to spread and dis-
seminate ‘legions of adapted, ambient individuals’ (ibid., p. 6). This
multiformed and multiplied nature of the notion of power shows that
power relations are not always underpinned by force and violence.
Rather, the exercise of power is embedded in more subtle systems that
lie hidden below the tightly-knit grid of material realities. For Foucault
then, the problematisation of any particular aspect of human life is his-
torically contingent and dependent upon power relations. The power-
ful will always seeks to construct power discourses that entrench their
259
positions and/or sources of power. By virtue of their ability to be used as

instruments for gate-keeping, discrimination, threatening and control,
tests constitute another source of power for politicians and bureaucrats.
In the next sections of this chapter, I deploy the foregoing con-
ceptual framework in teasing new meanings out of four of Australia’s
language-in-migration policies, namely the dictation test, the Australian
assessment of English communicative skills test, the Special test for
English Proficiency and the Australian citizenship test. I demonstrate that
symbolic power, which is imprinted in two major sources of power—
language and tests—has been and continues to be extensively used in the
manufacture of particular types of migrant identities and in the perpetu-
ation of exclusion and valorisation of migrant cultures in Australia since
the early 1900s.
The Dictation Test

The dictation test was used as the means to exclude ‘undesirable’ intend-
ing immigrants, that is, those people whom successive Australian gov-
ernments regarded as politically or morally undesirable (York 1992: 4).
Prospective immigrants were required to pass a language examination in
English or any other European language with which they were not nec-
essarily familiar. Thus, potential immigrants who were ‘undesirable’ by
virtue of their nationality or race, for example, were not directly ousted
on the grounds of their race; officially, it was only because of their lan-
guage skills that they were not permitted entry. This means some people
were linguistically and socially constructed for purposes of exclusion. As
pointed out by McNamara and Roever (2006: 160), care was taken to
ascertain which languages the person in question did know, and then the
test was given in a language that the person did not know. Predictably,
the person would fail the test and then be excluded on that basis.
But the question is: Why would prospective immigrants from Asia
be tested of their proficiency skills in European languages? What is the
point of testing someone’s knowledge of something that you are fully
aware the person is not competent in? Clearly, this does not make any
sense at all because if you want to find out someone’s language skills,
260
F. Ndhlovu
then you should choose a language that the person says he/she under-
stands well. The rigour and effort exerted in establishing the linguistic
identities of prospective immigrants were not motivated by the princi-
ple of fairness aimed at ensuring the person is tested in the language
he/she knows best; rather it was the contrary. This clearly shows the
dictation test was a political tool for advancing the cause of the ‘White
Australia’ policy, which was ostensibly designed to exclude unwanted
people. McNamara and Shohamy (2008: 93) have put forward three
reasons against the use of language testing for immigration purposes.
The first is the right of people to use their languages of choice and the
violation of this right when governments impose language on people.
Second, for many immigrants, it is not possible to acquire a new lan-
guage, especially as adults, and even more so when there is no access
to, or time for, opportunities to learn. Third, immigrants are of course
capable of acquiring aspects of the host language as and when the need
arises, and of using other languages to fulfil all the duties and obliga-
tions of societal participation (voting, expressing opinions, managing
tasks in the workplace, and so on).
In Australia, cases involving the abuse of language tests for politi-
cal purposes are well documented (see Davies 1997; McNamara 2005;
McNamara and Roever 2006). York’s (1992, 1993) detailed analy-
sis of data from annual returns on persons admitted and refused entry
into Australia for the period 1901–1957 shows that the dictation test
was used to exclude both individuals and groups of unwanted people.
Among some of the nationalities from which individuals or groups
were excluded are Chinese (who accounted for more than half of
all those kept out by the dictation test), Filipinos, Syrians, Afghans,
Indians, Armenians, Austrians, Cape Verde Islanders, Chileans, Danes,
Hungarians, Hawaiians, Egyptians, French, Fijians, Germans, Greeks,
Kurds, Indonesians, Papuans, Russians, Portuguese, Romanians,
Seychelle Islanders, Spaniards, Mauritanians, Burmese, Maoris,
Latvians, Poles and Swiss, among others (York 1992: 1).
The largest groups refused entry into Australia in any single year
were Chinese (459 persons excluded in 1902); Maltese (214 persons
excluded in 1916); and Italians (132 persons excluded in 1930) (York
1992: 16, 33, 51). In all these cases, admission was refused on grounds
261
of failing the dictation test. The hidden political and racial agenda of
the dictation test was clearly articulated by the first Prime Minister of
Federal Australia, Edmund Barton:
The moment we begin to define, the moment we begin to say that every-
one of a certain nationality or colour shall be restricted, while other per-
sons are not, then as between civilised powers, amongst whom now must
be counted Japan, we are liable to trouble and objection … I see no other
way except to give a large discretionary power to the authorities in charge
of such a measure [the dictation test]. (Commonwealth Parliamentary
Debates 1901: 3500)
The idea of giving the dictation test in a way that would appease
Australia’s and Britain’s allies, while at the same time achieving the
intended goal of excluding ‘undesirable’ people, received majority sup-
port in federal parliament. From the beginning of 1901, the dicta-
tion test was administered to targeted individuals, particularly those
with political views contrary to the British–Australian values espoused
by the ‘White Australia’ policy. For example, Gerald Griffin, an Irish-
born communist New Zealander, was excluded in 1934 on the basis
of a dictation test, which was used to achieve preconceived political
goals. Because of his communist ideological inclination, Griffin was
not welcome in Australia. Although he was fluent in Irish and English,
the authorities chose to administer the dictation test in Dutch, a lan-
guage that Griffin was not familiar with (McNamara and Roever 2006).
Naturally, he failed the test and was subsequently deported.
Another well-known case in which political exclusion was camou-
flaged by the dictation test is that of Egon Kisch, a Czech Jewish com-
munist writer, refused entry into Australia by the Lyons government
to attend an anti-war congress in 1934. The government first sought
to exclude and deport Kisch on the grounds of his communist politi-
cal beliefs. However, when he jumped ashore from a ship attempting
to avoid deportation, the authorities arrested him and administered
a dictation test. But because Kisch was fluent in many European lan-
guages, including English, the authorities chose to administer the test in
Scottish Gaelic, a language with which he was not familiar. Kisch failed
the test, the reasonableness of which was successfully challenged in the
262
F. Ndhlovu
High Court (McNamara and Roever 2006: 160). However, because the
dictation test was simply a smokescreen and the government was intent
on excluding him, Kisch was eventually refused entry on other grounds.
Egon Kisch’s case marked an important turning point in the use of the
dictation test for immigration purposes in Australia.
From the 1930s to the early 1940s, the dictation test was rarely
used because of the negative publicity received by the Kisch saga.
Consequently, annual returns for the years 1931–1939 recorded some
of the lowest numbers of persons refused admission, with as few as nine
people being excluded in 1938, all of them on other grounds, aside for
one Chinese person who failed the dictation test. Although the yearly
figures of people refused admission rose to 41 in 1940, there was a dra-
matic fall again in 1942, 1943 and 1944 as there were no people refused
admission in the three successive years (York 1992). While the events
of the World War II may play a part, the decline in numbers of people
refused admission can also be attributed to limited use of the dictation
test as a major criterion for vetting prospective immigrants.
The above examples amply demonstrate the extent to which the dic-
tation test was an integral part of the political discourse on racial, ethnic
and political exclusion during the formative years of hegemonic White
Australia. Both cited cases highlight ‘the dishonest nature of the test,
which was a test designed to be failed’ (York 1992: 5). As McNamara
and Roever (2006: 161) clearly state, the dictation test was ‘a ritual
of the exclusion of individuals whose identity was already known and
deemed to be unacceptable on a priori grounds’. With specific reference
to the crucial role of language tests in determining individuals’ access
to rights and privileges that come with citizenship, McNamara and
Shohamy (2008: 89) observe that:
In most societies tests have been constructed as symbols of success,

achievement and mobility, and reinforced by dominant social and educa-
tional institutions as major criteria of worth, quality and value. The grant-
ing of citizenship is thus dependant on passing a language test … This
policy determines continued residence in the state, and access to rights
and benefits such as health, education and welfare.
263
During the heyday of the ‘White Australia’ policy, the political intent
of language tests was often deliberately masked by using what appeared
to be an objective mechanism—a test. An analysis of the Immigration
Restriction Act brings into light the non-transparent political issues that
were a factor in securing the power and hegemony of ‘White Australia’.
These developments also draw our attention to the ‘power imbal-
ances, social inequities, non-democratic practices, and other injustices’
(Fairclough 1992: 154) that lay hidden beneath the fissures and fault
lines of Australia’s earliest immigration policies. Therefore, in addition
to the explicit exclusionary and racist discourses of Australia’s governing
authorities, the period 1901–1957 witnessed the abuse of the language
skills test as a tool of ‘guaranteeing racial exclusion in a non-racial way’
(York 1992: 8).
For all its transparent dishonesty, the dictation test proved to be
highly effective as a way of keeping out undesirable racial groups
because by 1947 the target groups had diminished greatly as a propor-
tion of the total Australian population: ‘Whereas in 1901 every seventy-
seventh person in Australia was “coloured”, by 1947 the ratio was one
“coloured” to every five hundred whites’ (York 1992: 10). The question
then is: Why was the dictation test eventually abolished in 1957 when it
had in fact proven to be such an effective tool for exclusion? I deal with
this question in the next section.
Reasons for Abolition of the Dictation Test

The reasons that necessitated the abolition of the dictation test have
to be understood within the context of gradual policy transforma-
tions that culminated in the demise (at least at the official level) of
the ‘White Australia’ policy. A combination of changing circum-
stances in post-World War II Australia led to the softening of the
‘White Australia’ policy, so that the hard-line approach of the dic-
tation test was no longer tenable. Chief among these were deteriora-
tion of Australia’s military security following the reduction in size of
the British armed forces in Asia and the South Pacific; pressure from
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F. Ndhlovu
newly independent Asian countries; economic and political links with

Asian countries; influence from the liberal-internationalist younger
generation; the emergence of community leaders with a pro-Asian out-
look; and most importantly, the adoption of multiculturalism policies
by the Government of Malcolm Fraser (Anderson 1998). The ‘White
Australia’ policy was, thus, increasingly becoming unfavourable as a
guiding philosophy of Australia’s diplomatic and foreign policy rela-
tions with Asia and the South Pacific. Similarly, because the dictation
test had been primarily adopted for the purpose of excluding people
from the Asian region, the new socio-economic and political dispensa-
tion meant that the test had fallen out of sync with post-war Australian
interests. As Smith (1979: 41) observes, ‘the “White Australia Policy”
became an increasing embarrassment as Australia’s relations with Asia
developed’, an issue that necessitated policy modifications with an eye
to foreign affairs. If the Immigration Restriction Act and the ‘White
Australia’ policy had become such an embarrassment, the dictation test
was even worse. The dictation test had become a continuing source of
ire in Asian countries (Tavan 2005).
Acutely aware of the need for a firm commitment to a good neigh-
bour policy with Asia, Australia took bold measures to revise those fac-
ets of immigration policy that were morally objectionable to Asians.
Thus, in 1947, under Chifley’s Labour Government, it was announced
that ‘non-Europeans admitted temporarily for business reasons and who
had lived in Australia continuously for 15 years could remain without
the need to renew their permits periodically’ (Smith 1979: 40). This
was, in fact, a de facto arrangement for permanent residency without
having to go through the arduous process of a dictation test. Under the
previous policy arrangements:
[A] migrant could happily disembark, find work, buy a house, marry,
have a family and adopt Australia as his homeland, only to find that four
years and eleven months later he could be kicked out of the country as
a prohibited immigrant because he failed a dictation test in a European
language. (York 1992: 5)
265
The initiatives of the Chifley’s Labour Government were to be followed

by more comprehensive reforms under the Menzies Liberal government
from 1949 to 1966. In 1952, Japanese wives of Australian servicemen
were allowed to be admitted, under permits initially valid for five years,
without undertaking the dictation test. Four modifications of rules
regarding non-Europeans were instituted in 1956 as follows: (i) those
allowed to remain without getting periodic extensions of their per-
mits became eligible for citizenship; (ii) distinguished and highly qual-
ified non-Europeans were permitted to come to Australia and remain
indefinitely; (iii) easier conditions applied to the admission of people of
mixed descent; and (iv) certain non-Europeans already in Australia on a
temporary basis, who normally would have been expected to leave, were
allowed to remain for humanitarian reasons (Anderson 1998).
For all the above categories of immigrants, the dictation test was no
longer a prerequisite. In pursuit of the need to promote friendly rela-
tions with Asian countries, the controversial dictation test was finally
abandoned in 1958 following the replacement of the Immigration
Restriction Act with the more moderate Migration Act 1958 (Cth).
The abolition of the dictation test in order to make migration control
more palatable is one issue that was unanimously agreed upon dur-
ing the reading phase of the Migration Bill. Among other things, this
new immigration policy unequivocally removed the dictation test
and replaced it with a permit system and also expanded provisions for
appealing decisions on forced deportations. It is notable here that the
abolition of the dictation test may be seen as symbolic of Australia’s
awareness that the post-war context was very different from one that
prevailed prior to World War II. A central feature of the gradually
emerging domestic and international outlook was ‘the recognition that
Australia could no longer ignore its place in Asia and that our future
was, and is, intricately tied to the future of our region’ (York 1992: 10).
The revamping of Australia’s racist immigration policy and the eventual
abolition of the dictation test was in recognition of the bigger socio-
economic issues at stake in post-war Australia, which could not be easily
sacrificed at the altar of supremacist interests of ‘White Australia’.
266
F. Ndhlovu
It is also important to observe that the long and arduous journey

leading to the demise of the dictation test constitutes a form of dis-
course that was mediated by concerns over Asian appeasement and
Australia’s socio-economic and political interests. Political debates
over the abolition of the dictation test and the ‘White Australia’ pol-
icy were punctuated with discursive practices that gave the impression
of a liberal veneer of seemingly tolerant pronouncements, under which
lay deep-seated anti-Asian sentiments. This sentiment continues today,
largely aimed at Muslim and refugee immigrants. This is evidenced by
the existence of far-right-wing ultra-white nationalist organisations such
as the United Patriots Front and web-based Australian Nationalism
Information Database. The latter was established in the 1990s ‘as an
educational resource to promote Australia’s national identity and cul-
ture, and to offer criticism of mass immigration, multiculturalism, and
Asianisation as major threats to our environment, our people, and our
way of life’ (Australian Nationalism Information Database). In other
words, reviews of migration policies that culminated in the scrapping
of the dictation test from Australia’s statutes were not entirely motivated
by the desire to see an improvement in the treatment of non-European
racial groups. Rather, it was the economic and strategic interests of
Australia that were at the forefront. What we see here is the incessant
distaste and disquiet over multiculturalism policy in its early years.
The 1950s decline in trade and economic relations with the UK
forced Australian business people to look to other foreign markets to
sell their export goods. Owing to its large population, increasing eco-
nomic importance and close proximity, Asia began to look more and
more attractive to Australian business and political interests than ever
before. Therefore, the principles of economic rationalism and political
diplomacy overrode the doctrine of social liberalism and equality in
influencing the abolition of the dictation test and the softening of the
‘White Australia’ policy. It was, indeed, in this context that in 1957 the
immigration of highly skilled and distinguished Asians, who could eas-
ily become permanent residents and citizens after five years, was encour-
aged (Tavan 2005). Preference for highly skilled migrants and business
people continues to be emphasised in Australia’s immigration policies to
267
this day. This certainly has nothing to do with the desire to see a diver-
sified cohort of immigrants, which is something that betrays the dis-
ingenuous nature of multiculturalism as a framework for immigration
policy in Australia.
The Australian Assessment of Communicative

English Skills (ACCESS) Test
The ACCESS test was a form of English as a Second Language (ESL) test-
ing designed to regulate the flow of skilled migrants to Australia. The test
was introduced in 1992 at a time when Australia was in deep economic
recession, hence the mounting pressure for the reduction of immigration
intakes. In her detailed analysis of factors that actuated the introduction
of the ACCESS test, Lesleyanne Hawthorne (1997) notes that a major
motivation for the introduction of the test came from employers and pro-
fessional associations who complained that many skilled migrants were
reaching Australia with minimal competence in English.
Prior to the introduction of the ACCESS test, many highly skilled
professionals from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB) selected
to migrate to Australia did undergo formal rigorous English language
competence testing. This was particularly the case in the late 1980s
when Australia experienced an unprecedented expansion of the skilled
migration programme, dominated by NESB arrivals. According to
Hawthorne (1997: 249):
Their [NESB] arrival was accompanied by mounting concern within key

Australian professions not only at the scale of intakes but at the profes-
sional calibre of those selected – an issue rarely raised in periods domi-
nated by ESB (English speaking background) rather than NESB skilled
migration.
In a purported bid to address the concerns of employers and profes-

sional associations, the Australian federal government introduced formal
mandatory English language testing (the ACCESS test) in July 1992.
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F. Ndhlovu
Under the newly introduced ACCESS test, the following three major
groups of intending immigrants were to be tested pre-arrival:
• Skilled NESB migrants qualified in key professional fields, hence-

forth to be known as ‘occupations requiring English’ (OREs).
• Independent category principal applicants, in order to define the
number of points (from a maximum of 20) which could be earned
for ESL competence under the revamped points system.
• Other Independent and Concessional applicants, including adult
family members of principal applicants, to determine whether they
would be entitled to ESL tuition in Australia (Hawthorne 1997).
In keeping pace with the popular beliefs about tests as democratic con-
structs, it was claimed that in the development process of the ACCESS
test, the aim was to ensure equity, to remove any risk of discrimination
from language screening. ACCESS was perceived to be “a high stakes
test where people’s lives would be contingent upon its results. To that
extent, validity and reliability of test results were of the first importance”
(Hawthorne 1997: 250).
Notwithstanding the above rhetoric on test validity, reliability and
avoidance of discrimination and exclusion, it is worth pointing out that
the ACCESS test was in fact deliberately designed to be a mechanism
of gate-keeping and closing out intending immigrants from non-English
speaking backgrounds. There are three main reasons for arriving at this
conclusion. First, all highly skilled professionals migrating from English
speaking backgrounds were exempt from the ACCESS test, which means
they were automatically entitled to the maximum 20 points under the
ESL points scoring. Given that the introduction of ACCESS was sup-
posedly motivated by concerns over employment issues, it becomes
apparent that there is no correlation between test domain (English
language proficiency) and the purpose for which the results were used
(selection for employment). The ACCESS test became a locus for dis-
advantaging NESB applicants while favouring those from English
speaking backgrounds. In the light of the differential country of origin
patterns of past ESL exposure, the ACCESS test had the potential to
269
clearly skew recruitment/employment selection outcomes by race or eth-

nicity. Therefore, as was the case with the dictation test of the early to the
mid-1900s, the ACCESS test discouraged the intake of intending immi-
grants from non-European countries.
The discourse on ESB versus NESB is problematic too because it
is based on monolingual thinking and homogenising ideologies that
perceive English as a uniform language whose standard is associated
with varieties spoken in the so-called inner circle consisting of Britain,
America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland (Kachru 2005).
Such a view on the nature of English is grossly inadequate and mislead-
ing as it ignores the history of the English language itself as well as the
complexities of linguistic diversity characterising immigrant popula-
tions. The history of the evolution of English shows that English is a
hybrid language that evolved over a long period of time. The origins of
the English language can be traced back to Latin, French, Scandinavian
and Germanic language varieties. It is notable that the global spread
of English appears to be following the early history of Latin. Just like
Latin, which spread through military invasion, English was brought
into many countries in the seventeenth–nineteenth centuries as the
language of a colonial power and imposed as the language of politics,
the economy and administration. Today, English is spoken all over the
world not as a uniform language but in the form of different nativised
varieties reflecting and influenced by local cultures and language ecolo-
gies. For example, indisputable empirical evidence from Southeast Asia
(Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines,
Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) shows local cultures and tradi-
tions have heavily influenced the way in which new forms of English
have emerged in this region. See, for example, the work of Kirkpatrick
(2007) and Kirkpatrick and Deterding (2006).
There are, however, some negative attitudes towards the emergence of
non-native varieties of English. First is the concern for both the prestige
and ‘proper’ use of the English language and perceptions about abuses of
various kinds, individual or collective; that is a particular concern about
perceived distortions/pollutions to the Queen’s language. Second, there
is concern for clarity of usage and the welfare of people who might be
270
F. Ndhlovu
misled or baffled by bureaucratic and other ‘jargon’. The third area of

concern is about preserving the key position of English against inroads of
any kind, for example the organisation US English that sought a consti-
tutional amendment that made English the official language of the USA,
thereby protecting it from a rapid increase in the use of Spanish. And the
fourth concern borders around awareness of the importance of using the
standard language well in terms of both lifestyle and career opportuni-
ties, regardless of past conceptions of class and more in terms of business
values associated with the term ‘globalization’ (McArthur 2003: 271).
It is these concerns about ‘the’ English language that continue to
engender negative perceptions about varieties of English that are emerg-
ing all over the world. Suffice to note that most of these concerns are
spurned by conservative perceptions about language; perceptions that are
not cognisant of the fact that language is an inherently dynamic phenom-
enon and the emergence of varieties of Englishes other than the American
and British Englishes should not be a source of alarm because all natu-
ral languages do change. Therefore, insistence on testing English language
proficiency levels of intending immigrants to Australia is consistent with
hegemonic aspirations of global economic and linguistic imperialism.
Now, back to the ACCESS test, while the official story gave the impres-
sion that this test was aimed at addressing issues to do with English lan-
guage skills; the real story on the ground was totally different. For instance,
the simple fact that the immigration points associated with levels of voca-
tional ESL competence were set by the Department of Immigration rather
than test developers betrays the politics of it all. Instead of becoming a pro-
cess developed and monitored by professional language testing bodies, the
assessment of English skills became a direct and malleable instrument for
the control of skilled immigration intakes; indeed, a tool for gate-keeping
and closing out highly skilled professionals from non-English speaking
backgrounds. The contribution of the ACCESS test towards resolving the
government’s political nightmares of swelling immigration numbers was
evident one year after it came into force:
Prior to the introduction of compulsory language testing, levels of skilled

migrants had been historically high with the majority of these arriving
from NESB source countries. Very high pass levels were specified while
271
Australia was in recession and wished to cut substantially skilled migra-

tion intakes. By 1993-1994 numbers had dramatically reduced, for exam-
ple, from 30,160 (1991-1992) to 9171 (1993-1994) in the Independent
category and from 21,325 (1991-1992) to 8107 (1993-1994) in the
Concessional Family category. (Hawthorne 1997: 251)
Although we cannot completely rule out other countervailing fac-

tors, it is clear that the introduction of the ACCESS test played a big
role in the drastic reduction in migrant intakes from NESB countries.
Therefore, we see here a language test becoming a powerful instrument
deployed in attempts at resolving complex policy issues that did not
have much to do with English language skills. The major policy/polit-
ical issue at stake was that of cutting immigration numbers, something
that could not have been easily achieved through the use of conven-
tional political platforms without raising a huge international outcry.
The other point is that while there is no direct relationship whatso-
ever between recession and language proficiency, the Australian gov-
ernment introduced the ACCESS test as a response to an economic
problem. Why was there a tightening of English language skills dur-
ing this period as if economic recession is a language policy issue? This
can be easily explained by recourse to Elana Shohamy’s (2001) thesis
on ‘the power of tests’. As already noted in preceding sections of this
chapter, tests offer decision makers an attractive and convenient avenue
to circumvent the long and tedious route of policy reforms requiring
bipartisan agreement. Using tests is thus a cost-effective strategy capa-
ble of perpetuating authority and reinforcing control. In the words
of Shohamy (2001: 41) ‘tests offer decision makers the temptation to
redefine knowledge according to set agendas… From a political point
of view, the use of tests grants policy makers evidence of action and vis-
ibility’. In short, because tests are generally considered to be a domain
that only professionals in the field are allowed to enter and to express
their views, their use is rarely protested by the public. At the end of the
day, policy people and bureaucrats have always found tests to be cost-
effective, convenient and efficient devices for implementing controver-
sial political decisions in unmonitored ways and with no examination of
their consequences.
272
F. Ndhlovu
The Special Test of English Proficiency (STEP)

The STEP test was introduced in 1994 to assess language proficiency as
a factor in the determination of asylum seekers’ status in Australia. Like
the dictation test and the ACCESS test that preceded it, the STEP test
was triggered by specific incidents within the broad frame of Australian
migration policy. According to Hawthorne (1997: 253):
The circumstances which gave rise to the development of the STEP

test from 1994 to 1995 are integrally linked to the dramatic expansion
of Australia’s ‘export education’ programme which occurred through-
out the 1980s – in particular, the growth in English Language Intensive
Courses for Overseas Students (the ELICOS sector) towards the end of
the decade.
One of the main challenges confronting the Australian government

during this historical period was the unprecedented surge in numbers
of short-term arrivals stating education to be their primary purpose of
visit. Australian Bureau of Statistics data show that the student arriv-
als constituted 60–70% of total short-term arrivals from 1980 to the
early 1990s. This was a significant surge from the 30–40% recorded in
the 1960s to the 1970s (Australian Bureau of Statistics 1992). A huge
majority of students constituted of the full-fee paying cohort from
Asian countries, mainly the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Malaysia
and Indonesia.
The diplomatic and political challenges facing the Australian gov-
ernment at the time, which ultimately necessitated the introduction
of the STEP test, were further compounded by the fact that most
students, particularly those from the PRC, breached their visa con-
ditions by overstaying. Most students overstayed because they would
have applied for refugee status citing dangers of returning to the PRC,
which was politically volatile at the time. Birrell (1990) reports that of
the 16,500 PRC ELICOS students who arrived in Australia in the late
1980s, only ten percent would ultimately depart. This situation was
exacerbated by the fact that ‘in the years immediately following, 9000
spouses and dependent children would join the total of more than
273
19,000 Chinese nationals already resident in Australia’ (Hawthorne

1997: 254). Therefore, rather than profiting from PRC students’ fees,
as expected, the Australian government found itself in an awkward sit-
uation following their abrupt metamorphosis into a domestic quasi-
refugee movement (ibid.: 254). By 1993, Australia was confronted with
a need to determine the status of close to 50,000 persons who had over-
stayed their student visas and had sought political asylum. The status
of all asylum seekers could be determined by recourse to the United
Nations protocol on definition of a refugee.2 However, adopting this
approach threatened to be a dauntingly long and expensive process.
Although there was precedence in the 1980s in which Australia declared
series of amnesties as a cheaper and speedy way of dealing with illegal
immigrants and asylum seekers, the same could not be a viable option
in this case because of the huge number of persons concerned. Either
of the two available options, deportation or granting an amnesty, was
considered to be politically problematic. The issue of students-turned-
asylum seekers also increasingly became a nightmare for the judicial sys-
tem so much that by 1993 over 50% of the Federal Court’s time was
being taken up by immigration cases, with no sign that the proportion
was declining at all. The then Department of Immigration and Ethnic
Affairs (DIEA) indicated that the cost of processing such applications
was unreasonably too high—amounting to 50.7 million Australian dol-
lars by 1994–1995.
In an attempt to find a solution to the challenges posed by the pres-
ence of a huge number of foreigners who had no specific status, the
Australian government introduced the Special Test for English Language
Proficiency. The STEP test was to be administered in order to decide
who was eligible for Australian permanent residence. The major rea-
son for the adoption of STEP was not to exclude asylum seekers and
permanent residence applicants. Rather, the idea was to include them
2The 1951 Refugee Convention establishing UNHCR spells out that a refugee is someone who
‘owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, mem-
bership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality,
and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that
country’.
274
F. Ndhlovu
in a manner that did not betray the government’s failure to deal with
complex bureaucratic problems. While the government did not want
to be seen as having capitulated to the demands of asylum seekers, it
also wanted to avoid the embarrassment of mass deportations of peo-
ple who were likely to face significant dangers in their home countries.
Hawthorne (1997: 256) summarised what were considered to be the
benefits of administering an English language skills test in the following
terms:
Australia was confronting a substantial queue of comparatively well qual-

ified people waiting for asylum, who had already been resident a number
of years… and in terms of human capital had clear potential to contrib-
ute to Australia’s skill migration programme. The alternative mechanism
of ESL and skills-based assessment could afford individual applicants a
means of circumventing the lengthy and expensive process of determi-
nation of refugee status, while providing them with a far greater chance
of success. From a government perspective, this approach presented a
breath-takingly simple, cheap and compassionate solution.
Consequently, the process of test construct became heavily influenced

by the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, which advised
the consortium of testing agencies ‘to be as generous as possible in the
determination of cut-off levels while maintaining the integrity of the
test’ (Hawthorne 1997: 257). There is absolutely no doubt that these
were trying times for Australian multicultural policy. In a statement
that betrayed the government’s desire to avoid as much as possible the
extreme difficulties associated with repatriating large numbers of failed
asylum seekers, a key DIEA officer is reported to have said ‘if more peo-
ple can pass the happier we are! The ultimate at one end is if 100 per-
cent pass, we would be over the moon!’ (ibid.: 257). It, therefore, did
not come as a surprise that 78% of the candidates passed the test on
their first sitting.
It is apparent from the foregoing that prior to the introduction of the
STEP test; immigration problems faced by Australia were pre-eminently
political, diplomatic, legal and, indeed, financial. The metamorpho-
sis of students into asylum seekers was not in any way a linguistic
275
or language proficiency issue. For, what have refugee status, breaching

visa conditions and the cost of dealing with court cases got to do with
English language proficiency? Why would the Australian government
resort to language proficiency tests as an avenue for resolving issues that
were purely diplomatic, political and administrative? The answer to
these questions lies in Pirre Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic power, Elana
Shohamy’s argument on the power of tests and James W. Tollefson’s
location of power in the state, in ideology and in discourse. STEP was,
by definition and design, a discursive construct adopted as a convenient,
cost-effective and user-pay mechanism for dealing with a complex prob-
lem that threatened to antagonise Australia’s diplomatic relations with
most Asian countries, especially the People’s Republic of China.
For a number of reasons, dealing with the problems discussed above
via the route of a language proficiency test was an attractive option.
First, the STEP test ensured the government retained its authority and
control of a politically and diplomatically sensitive situation. Second,
the Australian judicial system was spared the trouble of dealing with
a large backlog of applications from asylum seekers. Third, the STEP
test made it relatively easy for the Australian labour market to ben
efit from an Australian trained ‘acculturated’ skilled migrant intake. In
short, STEP presents a vivid and graphic illustration of how Australia
has increasingly resorted to language testing in pursuit of political
agendas. As Candlin points out, ‘the very attractiveness of testing
to those in authority as a means of determining policy and action,
and the ready willingness of those most affected to subscribe to such
application and use, evidences the powerful consensual effect of tests’.
Therefore, the power of tests does not only lie in their ability to vali-
date and legitimate regimes of knowledge and knowledge production.
Rather, the power of tests also lies in the fact that they are viewed as
authoritative by both the testers and the test takers. It is precisely for
these reasons that language testing has increasingly become Australia’s
favourable trump card for resolving complex socio-economic and politi-
cal problems. The Australian history and values test introduced in 2007
is the latest such mechanism of dealing with political problems in a
‘smart’ way.
276
F. Ndhlovu
The Australian History and Values Test

The Australian history and values test, otherwise known as the citizen-
ship test, was introduced in 2007. It is a computer-based test consisting
of 20 multiple-choice questions drawn randomly from a large pool of
questions on the Australian way of life, responsibilities and privileges of
Australian citizenship and Australian history and geography. Although
Australia has always had the principle of a citizenship test since 1948,
it was not as formal and as rigorous as the current Australian history
and values test. Prior to the 2007 changes, applicants were required to
attend a compulsory oral interview and establish that they are of good
character. The interviewer, an officer of the Department of Immigration
and Citizenship, would do the following: check the written applica-
tion and personal documents; assess whether the applicant understands
the nature of the application; assess whether the applicant has an ade-
quate knowledge of the responsibilities and privileges of Australian cit-
izenship; and assess whether the applicant has a basic knowledge of the
English language.
Under the new arrangement, Australian citizenship applicants have
to successfully complete a citizenship test before lodging an applica-
tion. In other words, the test is an eligibility criterion to be met, and the
application cannot go ahead unless and until one has passed it. There
are three crucial items of assessment to determine successful completion
of the test: (a) applicants have to demonstrate that they understand the
nature of the application; (b) applicants have to demonstrate that they
possess basic knowledge of English by successfully completing the writ-
ten test in the medium of English; and (c) applicants have to demon-
strate that they have an adequate knowledge of Australia and of the
responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship.
While on the surface there appears to be no major difference between
these items of assessment and what was prevailing prior to the 2007
changes, a close look shows English language proficiency is now the
main decisive factor. The increased emphasis on English language skills
was implicitly underscored by Senator Kate Lundy during the Second
Reading of the Australian Citizenship Amendment Bill in August 2007:
277
Contrary to many assumptions made in the public debate about the cit-
izenship test, there will be no separate English-language test. A person’s
English-language skills will be assessed on their ability to successfully
complete the test in English. (The Age, 28 April 2008)
I see the above statement as betraying the insistence on English profi-

ciency skills as the overriding component in the revised citizenship
testing regime. It is in this regard that the amended citizenship testing
regime constitutes another site of exclusion. English language proficiency
becomes the very first barrier that closes out prospective Australian cit-
izenship applicants competent in languages other than English. The
results of the Australian citizenship tests undertaken since October
2007 indicate that success rate is lowest in the refugee stream. Given
the low levels of English language literacy among most refugee citizen-
ship applicants, it is possible that the language question and not a lack
of understanding of ‘the Australian way of life’ could be a major barrier.
This means Australian citizenship is a preserve and a privilege for only
those who have adequate command of the language of access, which is
English. Because the citizenship test is written exclusively in English, it
would be inconceivable for anyone who is not proficient in the English
language (but nevertheless understands the nature of the application and
Australian way of life in another language) to pass the test.
In spite of the existence of overwhelming evidence suggesting lan-
guage as a major barrier to successful completion of the citizenship test,
monolingual thinking continues to pervade the corridors of highest lev-
els of political decision-making. This was evident in a 2007 statement
by the then Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, regarding the review of
the citizenship test prompted by concerns about its fairness for some
sections of the migrant community. The Immigration Minister out-
lined the major reasons for constituting a seven-member citizenship test
review committee that was to be chaired by former diplomat Richard
Woolcott as follows:
The review will look at making it [the citizenship test] fairer for people
coming to Australia on humanitarian grounds. Those people who have
arrived under the humanitarian scheme have lower [citizenship test]
278
F. Ndhlovu
pass rates … probably because of their backgrounds and perhaps lack of

familiarity with English. However, the test will definitely be retained,
and will continue to be in English [emphasis mine]. (SBS World News
Australia, 29 April 2008)
The minister’s insistence on maintaining the test in English is inform-

ative of popular perceptions regarding the use of English in Australia.
The following four reasons are some of the perceived benefits of having
English language skills in Australia:
• An ability to communicate with neighbours and other members of

the local community.
• An ability to participate in paid employment and unpaid volunteer
roles.
• Increased opportunities to assist children and other family members
with successful settlement.
• The opportunity, over time, to participate in further education and
training (City of South Yarra Citizenship Submission 2006: 10).
Notwithstanding the reasonableness of the said benefits of English pro-

ficiency, I would argue that these are based on erroneous assumptions
about the nature of the Australian society. Although English is the offi-
cial national language of this country, Australia is an undoubtedly cos-
mopolitan migrant society, both linguistically and culturally. Therefore,
to assume that the English language is the only gateway to increased cit-
izenship participation is a dangerous overstatement that is out of sync
with the nature and extent of Australian social diversities. For, it is not
uncommon to find very fine and successful Australian citizens communi-
cating and doing business in multiple languages with no problems at all.
In an article that appeared in The Age newspaper issue of 28 April
2008, Matthew Davies highlighted Australia’s monolingual ideology
as connected to issues of the so-called Australian ‘values’ and ‘national
identity’. With specific reference to the criticism of the Mandarin pro-
ficiency skills of Kevin Rudd (then Australian Prime Minister) by some
sections of the Australian society, Davies argued that it is in Australia’s
best interest to look beyond speaking only English. According to Davies,
279
The state of our foreign language learning suggests many of us have

tunnel vision, if not stunted minds… We should not assume people
lose their identities or loyalties after learning foreign languages. And we
should not demand that such people make extra effort proving their alle-
giance. (The Age, 28 April 2008)
Views such as these expressed through public media forums indicate the
extent to which the language question continues to be a controversial
issue in present-day Australia, to the extent of being used to inform, by
stealth, the nature and complexion of a test whose domain is presumed
to be a civic one. Insistence on an Australian values and history test that
is administered exclusively in English raises a number of questions on
the notion of the so-called Australian values. The statement of Australian
values and principles, which every prospective citizen has to understand,
is said to consist of the following: respect for the equal worth, dignity
and freedom of the individual; freedom of speech; freedom of religion
and secular government; freedom of association; support for parliamen-
tary democracy and the rule of law; equality under the law; equality of
men and women; equality of opportunity; peacefulness; and tolerance,
mutual respect and compassion for those in need (Commonwealth of
Australia 2007: 5). Given that these values and principles are character-
istic of all liberal democracies, one is left wondering as to how uniquely
Australian they are and how they are connected to the English language.
I consider these to be fundamental values of harmonious human exist-
ence, which are not necessarily coded in one specific language. Any
human language is ideally equipped to become a vehicle for the exchange
and communication of these principles of humanity. Therefore, insist-
ence on English as the sole language for the Australian citizenship test
betrays hidden agendas that do not have so much to do with the appli-
cant’s grasp of the so-called Australian values. Dismissing the rigid
emphasis on English as a continuation of Australia’s ugly history of intol-
erance of the ‘non-desired other’, Tony Smith (2008: 31) argues:
There is nothing sacrosanct about English. We would not give precedence

to a person who is fluent in English but who has ignorant attitudes, over
a cultured person of integrity who speaks another language. Nor is it clear
280
F. Ndhlovu
why, if the bar is to be set, it should be at basic competency. Millions

of people around the world speak better English than native born
Australians. The key qualification for citizenship must surely be a matter
of attitude. The desire to be naturalized is more important than the skills
and resources residents bring to citizenship.
Because the Australian citizenship test was introduced in an implicit

context of defence against outside threats such as terrorism and unde-
sirable cultures—two things that are often erroneously conflated and
confused—its good intentions have been subsumed by mindless xeno-
phobia. The citizenship test has come to reflect the history of Australian
attitudes towards non-European immigrants. For instance, public
debates on the citizenship test in media forums have exposed some cit-
izens to ignorant criticisms of the sort ‘why can’t they speak English if
they want to live here?’ Regarding the dangers of embracing and impos-
ing some kind of linguistic uniformity on culturally diverse societies,
Thompson (1991: 5) cautions that a completely homogeneous language
or speech community does not exist in reality: it is an idealisation of
a particular set of linguistic practices which have emerged historically
and have certain social conditions of existence. This idealisation is the
source of what Pirre Bourdieu (1991) calls ‘the illusion of linguistic
communism’. Thompson further points out that by taking a particu-
lar set of linguistic practices as a normative model of correct usage, an
illusion of a common language is produced that ignores the social–
historical conditions, which have established a particular set of linguis-
tic practices as dominant and legitimate. ‘Through a complex historical
process, sometimes involving extensive conflict (especially in colonial
contexts), a particular language or set of linguistic practices has emerged
as the dominant and legitimate language, and other languages or dialects
have been eliminated or subordinated to it. This dominant and legiti-
mate language, this victorious language, is what is commonly taken for
granted’ (Thompson 1991: 5). The idealised language or speech com-
munity is an object which has been pre-constructed by a set of social–
historical conditions endowing it with the status of the sole legitimate
or ‘official’ language of a particular community.
281
2017 Amendment to the Australian History

and Values Test
The Australian history and values test discussed above was amended
in April 2017 with the introduction of tougher English language test-
ing for immigrants (Commonwealth of Australia 2017). Whereas pre-
viously the testing of applicants’ English language skills was integrated
into the Australian history and values test (administered in English),
the two things have been decoupled in the amended test. That is, pro-
spective Australian citizens are now required to sit two separate tests
that gauge (i) their knowledge of Australian history and values and
(ii) their English language proficiency skills. Furthermore, whereas pre-
viously applicants were expected to demonstrate basic knowledge of the
English language, the new regulations require applicants ‘to demon-
strate competent English language listening, speaking, reading and writ-
ing skills before being able to sit the citizenship test’ (Commonwealth
of Australia 2017: 6).
In the introduction to the policy document titled Strengthening the
Test for Australian Citizenship, the rationale for the new changes is spelt
out and tied to concerns around Australian national security.
Recent terrorist attacks around the world have justifiably caused con-
cern in the Australian community. The Government responds to these
threats by continuing to invest in counter-terrorism, strong borders and
strong national security. This helps to ensure that Australia remains an
open, inclusive and free society […] The Australian community expects
that aspiring citizens demonstrate their allegiance to Australia, their com-
mitment to live in accordance with Australian values, and their willing-
ness and ability to integrate and becoming contributing members of the
Australian community. (Commonwealth of Australia 2017: 4–5)
The new requirement for a separate English language test has, therefore,
to be understood within the context of this broad spectrum of con-
cerns around ‘national security’, ‘terrorism-related crime’ and ‘integra-
tion discourse’. In a later section titled ‘English Language Testing’, the
282
F. Ndhlovu
new policy stipulates that ‘[a]spiring citizens will be required to under-

take separate upfront English language testing with an accredited pro-
vider and achieve a minimum level of ‘competent’’ (Commonwealth of
Australia 2017: 9). While there is absolutely no doubt that English is a
useful language in Australia and that people need to have this language
in order to be able to do most everyday social and economic transac-
tions in local communities and society writ large, the requirement for
a ‘competent’ command of English, which is equivalent to the level
required for university entry (IELTS band 6), is a step too far. In addi-
tion, a significant point that has to be clearly underlined here is this:
there is no objective correlation between level of English language skills
and propensity to become a terrorist. If an Australian citizen (whether
by birth or naturalisation) chooses to become a member of a terrorist
organisation in order to harm Australia and its people, this does not
have anything to do with the English language skills. There is abso-
lutely no connection between their lack of loyalty to Australia and their
level of English language skills. I would, therefore, argue that the focus
on strengthening the English language proficiency requirements is an
unnecessary distraction that muddies the debate about the legitimate
question around the national security of Australia and its people. I see
the introduction of a separate tougher English language test for prospec-
tive Australian citizens as a tangential matter that is being unnecessarily
mixed up with the three issues of national values, loyalty to Australia
and national security. The question of English language skills is a sepa-
rate debate that should not be conflated with these three issues.
Consequently, the Australian political environment in which
migrants’ legal status is perennially a prominent issue of national debate
may influence the underlying feelings of mistrust as new migrants
establish their new homes. Every time the Australian citizenship debate
comes up, the issue of English language proficiency skills of prospec-
tive citizens is brought into the mix. All political parties, the media,
political commentators and community groups automatically join the
debate, which is often always around the question of whether the level
of English being insisted upon is reasonable or not. Most language
testing experts, community organisations and opposition political par-
ties say the recent English language requirements are unreasonable and
283
inordinately harsh. But the two significant questions that are rarely
addressed are about the rationale for bringing the issue of English lan-
guage skills into the citizenship debate—in the first instance. What
problem does the decision to raise the bar for English language skills
seek to resolve? Is there any empirical evidence that suggests that peo-
ple who have lived in Australia for decades as permanent residents suf-
fer from a lack of English proficiency skills, thus preventing them from
societal participation?
Tony Bourke, labour opposition party spokesperson for immigration
and citizenship, criticised the new English language requirement and
compared it to the racist White Australia policy of the early 1900s: ‘We
haven’t seen those sorts of double standards in citizenship law since the
years of the White Australia policy, and Labour is certainly not about to
jump to support that sort of change’ (ABC News, 19 October 2017). He
went on to urge a rethink of the clause that requires immigrants from
most countries, except places like the UK and USA, to pass an interna-
tionally recognised English test before they can apply for citizenship.
In their submission to the Australian Government at the time when
the citizenship changes were being proposed, three international experts
in language testing from the University of Melbourne had this to say:
The current insistence on ‘competent’ English changes the requirement

into means of exclusion for many would-be-citizens. The symbolic func-
tion of English underlying the changes is now being exploited politically to
draw a line between ‘us’ English speakers and ‘them’, which is unnecessary
and divisive. The role of language in citizenship requirements is often justi-
fied on practical grounds (‘you need English to function in Australian soci-
ety’). While some knowledge of English can reasonably be expected, the
question is how much. Research has shown that in a multilingual and mul-
ticultural society such as ours, people can function adequately within their
own multilingual networks, and at the same time contribute effectively to
the society with relatively low levels of English. (Knoch et al. 2017: 3)
These reservations to the inordinate English language proficiency

requirement point us to the endemic politicisation of migration and cit-
izenship by successive governments dating back to the early 1900s (see
an analysis of previous citizenship tests in preceding sections). For the
284
F. Ndhlovu
following reasons, I consider the rationale for raising the bar for English
language skills requirements that ties the whole idea to national secu-
rity and counterterrorism as poorly argued. First, it contradicts Peter
Dutton’s November 2016 claims about second- and third-generation
Lebanese-Australians as being over-represented in terrorism-related
crimes (see Chapter 8). If second and third generation descendants of
immigrants are most likely to be involved in terrorism, then strength-
ening English language requirements for would-be citizens is not the
panacea. The second- and third-generation descendants of Lebanese-
Australians in question were born and raised in Australia, which means
their first language, is Australian English and their proficiency skills in
the language are even way above the competence level.
Therefore, if a link does exist between low levels of English language
skills and propensity to commit terrorism-related crimes (as implied
by this new policy), how does the Australian government reconcile the
glaring contradiction between its policy and the Immigration Minister’s
claims about descendants of Lebanese immigrants? I would argue that
linking English language skills to counterterrorism and national secu-
rity efforts is a desperate attempt to justify the unfair targeting of the
non-desired other. There is no objective correlation whatsoever between
knowledge of English and propensity to be involved in criminal
activity—beyond mere bigoted impressionistic claims and assumptions.
The French proverb ‘If you want to kill your dog, accuse him of having
rabies’ is quite informative here.
The decision to administer a tough English language test to would-
be Australian citizens who have lived in the country for many years
as permanent residents boggles the mind. If their level of English is
so bad to warrant the administering of a test, how have these people
been functioning for all the years they have lived in Australia as per-
manent residents? Knoch et al. (2017) drew the government’s attention
to the duplicitous nature of the English language test for citizenship.
They pointed out in particular to the redundancy of the of language
test. Many applicants for Australian citizenship will have previously
applied for permanent residency through various pathways, such as
skilled migration and to meet the requirements for these permanent
migration schemes, applicants would have had to sit and pass a test
285
to prove their English language ability. Knoch et al. (2017: 4) con-

clude their critique by advising that ‘there is no evidence that any of
these people would lose their English language skills while working in
Australia. On the contrary, their skills are more likely to develop over
time as a result of exposure to English and opportunities for English
use in the community’. These are very strong and quite compelling
arguments that lay bare the underlying political and exclusionary inspi-
rations of the English language testing for citizenship, which have abso-
lutely nothing to do with perceived concerns around criminality and
failure to integrate into the community. Rather, it has everything to
do with subjective normative assumptions about being and becoming
Australian. For, what has English language proficiency skills got to do
with loyalty to Australia and abiding by its laws and way of life? There
seems to be an implicit assumption that high English language profi-
ciency skills equate being a good and loyal Australian citizen. But is
this really the case? What does this say to Indigenous Australians whose
threshold of English language skills may be below the ‘competent’ level
being insisted upon? Does this mean Indigenous Australians are not
Australian enough? There is also yet another fallacy here about English,
which is that English is ‘the’ language of Australia and that all other
languages are migrant languages. This is obviously not true because as
we all know; English (in what form, shape or variety) is a migrant lan-
guage in Australia. Until the arrival of the first white settlers in 1788,
there was no English language in Australia. This is a well-known histor-
ical fact that does not even require references to back it up. There were
over 250 indigenous languages in Australia at the time. The majority of
them have succumbed to nearly two and a half centuries of linguistic
imperialism, linguicide and subtle cultural assimilation. But some still
exist and are viable. Therefore, I would argue that if we really do want
to tie language skills to Australian loyalty, why not insist on knowledge
of at least one of the remaining Indigenous languages? This to my esti-
mation would be a more reasonable expectation because all people in
Australia (including those from the hegemonic Anglo-Celtic extraction)
are migrants or descendants of migrants, except the Indigenous people.
What we also learn from all of the above is that in Australia, English
is increasingly being portrayed as a standard language, which should
286
F. Ndhlovu
be spoken and understood uniformly by all citizens, including those

who have migrated from other countries that have their own vari-
eties of English. This perspective on the English language reflected in
the country’s language-in-migration policy is informed by the ideol-
ogy that views migrants as people who come to Australia with wrong
languages or worse still as linguistically blank. Prospective citizens are
thus perceived as blanks in need of being filled with Australian linguis-
tic norms that will enable them to understand and acquire the so-called
Australian values as if the said values are a commodity coded in one par-
ticular language variety. Such a simplistic view on language choice, use
and attitudes in multilingual societies is intrinsically linked to ideologies
of language, language ideologies,3 relations of power, political arrange-
ments and speakers’ identities (Blackledge 2005: 35). In short, insist-
ence on having the citizenship test administered only in the English
language is a form of discourse designed to suppress multiple migrant
identities by superimposing hegemonic Anglo-Australian linguistic
norms.
The triumph of the Australian official national language in migra-
tion issues is about the politics of perpetuating and legitimating une-
qual power relations. Because latent racial or ethnic exclusion is no
longer tolerated in contemporary societies, there has been the inven-
tion and manipulation of tests as a subtle means of closing out individ-
uals and groups of people with ‘questionable’ identities. This, indeed,
is not a language issue but a political matter, which is camouflaged as
language-in-migration policy. Again, I would like to reiterate that lan-
guage tests are used as proxy for the politics of exclusion because of their
authoritative symbolic power, which is rarely challenged.
3The concept ‘language ideologies’ refers to beliefs and ideas about the nature of language, for
example, that language exists in standard monolithic form. ‘Ideologies of language’ on the other
hand refers to beliefs about what things language can do or the instrumental functions of lan-
guage. For instance, that language is there to be used as a tool for political projects of cultural
normalisation.
287
Conclusion
Australia’s language-in-migration policies have consistently posed a
serious threat to the principles of social inclusion, cultural recognition
and equality in a country that prides itself as one of the most cultur-
ally diverse societies in the world. Starting from the early 1900s to the
present, Australian citizenship continues to be simplistically considered
a social values issue, with an uncritical attention being paid to the place
of the language question in the whole matrix. In this chapter, I have
argued that there is a clear pattern in the history of Australian migration
that demonstrates the centrality of language in defining and determin-
ing who is included in or excluded out of Australia. The analysis of the
four types of language-in-migration policies, namely the dictation test,
the ACCESS test, the STEP test and the Australian values test revealed
the various forms of subtle cultural oppression, political exclusion and
discrimination of ‘unwanted’ people that go unchallenged because
of the power and authority of language testing. In the final analysis, I
come to the conclusion that these language testing regimes do not have
as much to do with English proficiency skills as does the political exi-
gencies of exclusion and subtle cultural normalisation.
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8
Australia’s Operation Sovereign
Borders—A World Without Others?
Introduction
Australia’s Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB) policy became the launch
pad for the newly elected Coalition Government in September 2013.
OSB is a military-style border protection policy that brings together
some 15 Australian Federal Government departments and agencies led
by a 3-star army general under the banner of a Joint Agency Taskforce.
OSB policy builds on and extends a suite of previous measures and
policies focusing on addressing the problem of arrival on Australia’s
shores of refugee and asylum seeker boats. Chief among such measures
that preceded OSB are the following: restoration of temporary protec-
tion visas (TPVs); establishment of offshore processing on Nauru and
Manus Island; turning back boats by the Australian Defence Force;
intercepting all identified vessels travelling from Sri Lanka; and invok-
ing section 91W of the Migration Act to deny refugee status for those
believed to have deliberately discarded or destroyed their identity doc-
uments (Liberal Party of Australia 2013). The mission of OSB is to

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76135-0_8
292
F. Ndhlovu
stop suspected illegal entry vessels (SIEVs) into Australian territory.

According to the Coalition, OSB and all other previous measures are
aimed at ensuring that the Australian government ‘takes control of our
borders and restores faith in our immigration system, including our gen-
erous humanitarian intake ’. In addition, OSB is said to be ‘a measure
intended to provide the maximum deterrence to people smugglers by
denying them a product to sell to often vulnerable people ’. The key-
words that I have highlighted and italicised here are part of the much
broader linguistic and discursive elements of OSB that I unpack in
this chapter. I locate the analysis within the broader context of debates
around borders, territoriality, national sovereignty, transnationalism and
myths of worlds without others.
The main argument advanced is that OSB policy is a clear statement
of national sovereignty as it emphasises the need for the country to con-
trol its borders, which are imagined in spatial terms—as constituting
a completed and closed horizontality. Such a view of Australia contra-
dicts the dynamic and open-ended nature of current global cultural and
political identities. It misses the crucial point about present conditions
of unprecedented voluntary and forced movements of human popula-
tions, goods and services, which are aided by the incipient rise in infor-
mation communication technologies. These have meant that national
borders are now social and transient virtual spaces that are constantly
under (re)construction. Unlike what they used to look like when they
were invented in the heyday of nation-state formation, national bound-
aries and their associated cultural and political identities are now always
in the process of being (re)made and (re)negotiated; they are never fin-
ished and are never closed. I conclude that in spite of their supposedly
good intentions, policies such as ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ betray
myths of an own world without others. All of this is motivated by the
nationalist catechisms of safeguarding national interest, national sov-
ereignty and territorial integrity—at all costs—even if it means going
against the common values of humanity that require us to extend a
helping hand to those whose lives are in harm’s way.
8 Australia’s Operation Sovereign Borders …
293
The Spectre of a World Without Others

In one of his most recent books, Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2017) intro-
duces the concept of ‘a world without others’ as a summary term for
describing illusions of an empty world that abound mostly in Western
societies and that proceed from the fantasy of thinking that Europeans
were the only human species; everything else is part of flora and fauna.
The roots of the notion of ‘a world without others’ can be traced to the
coloniser’s mythology of ‘terra nullius’—a reference to perceived empty
spaces or lands outside of Europe. This is about imaginings of a world
that is governed according to asymmetrical power structures and une-
qual social hierarchies of humanity. For Wole Soyinka (2012: 9), the
idea of a world without others is the product of the exclusivist narrow-
ness of vision among peoples all over the world. Soyinka traces the gene-
alogy of the notion of a world without others to the excesses of modern
nationalism, noting that ‘[t]he rise of nationalism, often developing into
outright xenophobia, barely disguised under legislative formalisms that
never name their real goal – exclusion – is a symptom of the increase,
not decrease, of the we-or-they mentality that appears to be sweeping
across the globe’. Ndlovu-Gatsheni extends Soyinka’s line of argument
by positing that what is at play in a world without others is narrow
ego-politics of being alone in the world, symbolised by bigotry, obstruc-
tionism and myopia that underpin the universalising cultural beliefs,
practices and habits of Western-centric discourses. These are ubiquitous
in most present-day Western liberal democracies. What remains hidden
behind the universalising pretentions of the discourse of a world with-
out others is the fact that it is a fundamentalist claim that emerged out
of local Euro-American provincial (and not global) cultural contexts and
conditions. Ndlovu-Gatsheni expresses the various forms and mutations
of the notion of ‘a world without others’ in the following terms:
[…] the notion of a world without others is a fertile discursive terrain

for racism, nativism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-semitism, tribalism,
sexism, patriarchy, and ethnicity. A racist believes in a world where peo-
ple of his or her own race live, without others. A xenophobe believes in
294
F. Ndhlovu
living in a space without others. A tribalist wishes to live in a world dom-

inated by his or her own tribesmen and women. A nativist believes in a
world of natives only. A sexist privileges his or her own sexual orientation
as the norm. An ethno-centricist believes in a world without other ethnic
groups. A religious fundamentalist believes that his or her chosen religion
is the only true religion and justifies eradication of other religious beliefs.
A patriarch believes in the rule of men over women and the exclusion of
women from power. (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2017: 27)
Such are the illusions of a world without others, which are blind to the
fact that the very essence of humanity and human history are pred-
icated on diversity and coexistence of multiple identity narratives and
notions of belonging. There are at least four geopolitical assumptions
that inform the conceptual architecture of the idea of a world with-
out others. First is the claim to universality whereby the very idea of
being human involves talking about universals and generalisations as if
the whole world was a homogenous continuum. The fatalistic assump-
tion of this claim is that ‘all societies are knowable in the same way and
from the same point of view’ (Connell 2007: 44), and those members
of any society that fails to fit within the assumptions of perceived uni-
versal norms belong to a zone of non-being. The second contour of the
discourse of a world without others is that of reading from the centre;
that is, it constructs a social world read through the eyes of the metro-
pole and not through an analysis of the metropole’s action on the rest
of the world. The third contour is one that Connell (2007) calls ‘ges-
tures of exclusion’. This is about the total absence or marginalisation of
non-Western worldviews, philosophies and ways of reading and inter-
preting the world from the table of ideas on human existence, develop-
ment, social progress and so forth. In those exceptional instances where
material culture and ideas from the colonised world are acknowledged,
they are rarely considered as part of the mainstream dialogue around
these issues. In particular, the discourse of a world without others always
entails looking at other worlds (that are outside the orbit of the Global
North) in terms of the fallacy of absences or what they are perceived
to be lacking (‘illiterate’, ‘poor’, ‘primitive’, ‘uneducated’, ‘backward’,
‘underdeveloped’ and so on) (Sachs 1992: 6), thus consigning mem-
bers of such societies to the zone of non-being. Riding on the back of
295
colonial ethnography and social anthropological frameworks emphasis-

ing the modern/pre-modern distinction, the discourse of a world with-
out others renders the cultures and thought processes from the Global
South irrelevant and treats them as belonging to a world that has been
surpassed. This leads us to the fourth contour, which has been termed
‘grand erasure’. The point here is that when empirical knowledge and
theorisation about humanity more generally are seen as coming solely
from metropolitan society, the immediate effect ‘is erasure of the expe-
rience[s] of the majority of human kind from the foundations of social
thought’ (Connell 2007: 46). For example, as confirmed by the liter-
ature on the colonial history of Australia (Lake 2005; Tavan 2005;
Hollinsworth 1998; Sherrington 1980), the concept of terra nullius
(‘land belonging to nobody’) was invoked to deny and erase the exist-
ence and the very humanity of indigenous Australians who, until as
recent as 1967, were considered as being part of flora and fauna.
The discursive trope of a world without others is a fitting explanatory
paradigm for the ways in which Australian immigration policies have
unfolded since the early 1900s. During the UK Brexit referendum in
June 2016, people like then leader of UK Independent Party (UKIP),
Nigel Farrage, former London mayor, Boris Johnson and others who
campaigned in favour of leaving the European Union (EU) constantly
cited Australia’s stringent migration policy as the model of how best to
manage and control national borders. The reason was that although it
is geographically located within the Asian region, Australia has success-
fully managed to distance itself from embracing an Asian identity—
choosing instead to identify with Euro-North American traditions
and cultural values. Pretentions of identifying with Asia are invoked
occasionally when it is in the country’s national economic and politi-
cal interests to forge closer ties with its Asian neighbours. Australia has
always prided itself in having an Anglo-Saxon tradition as the under-
pinning pillar of its national identity—thus tying it to the foundational
myths of British colonial occupation as the genesis of Australian nation-
hood. Notwithstanding Australia’s location in the Asian region, the
country’s closest economic and political alliances are with nations from
the Global North, counting among them the USA, Canada, the UK
and most Western european countries.
296
F. Ndhlovu
The theme on Australia’s world without others is reflected even more

in the discourses and subtleties of the operationalisation of the coun-
try’s migration and border protection policy. Based on this myth of
empty lands, an imagined world without others is invented. Australia’s
OSB policy is one example of the country’s most recent reincarna-
tion of one of the overtly racist immigration laws dubbed the White
Australia policy of 1901. As I will show in subsequent sections of
this chapter, the language of OSB policy is antithetical to the aspira-
tional goals and ideals of multiculturalism, which is often projected as
the hallmark of Australian national identity following the 1970s for-
mal abolition of White Australia policy. But before we move into the
analysis of the language of OSB, it is essential for me to provide an
appraisal of the notion of borders and border protection. This is impor-
tant because borders play a major role as technology for differentiat-
ing outsiders from insiders, nationals from non-nationals, citizens from
aliens/foreigners and those who can access state social security services
from those who cannot.
On Borders and Border Protection—The Myths

We Live By
Migration policies and border regulations are, by definition, exclusionary
and treat human beings unequally. They routinely and openly violate uni-
versal ideas of equality. (Bauder 2017: 38)
The way one sees a border is not a mere mechanical reflection of worldly
circumstances and practices but also the product of our imagination. The
various aspects of the border capture partial truths about it, but each aspect
is also limited in that it disregards other perspectives. (Bauder 2017: 29)
The topic of borders and discourses around the need to protect them has
been the subject of discussion in many recent research reports with vari-
ous definitions put forward. Most of the definitions suggest that borders
seem to be far more complex than perhaps might have always realised.
In one such definition, the border is conceived as referring to a myriad
297
of visible and invisible demarcations that have underpinned the divisions

of human populations into variegated identities: continents, regions,
nations, ethnicities, races, gender, classes and generations. Borders also
demarcate human populations ideologically, culturally, politically, psy-
chologically, linguistically, religiously and epistemologically (Ndlovu-
Gatsheni and Mhlanga 2013). Ira William Zartman (2010: 11) uses the
word ‘boundary’, a well-known synonym of ‘border’, which he defines as
follows:
A boundary is a line indicating where I stop and where you begin, sepa-
rating me from you. Boundaries have to do not only with physical sep-
aration but also with social and psychological separation: that is, with
identity, indicating who we are and who we are not. Since they divide,
they also protect what they have divided, again both physically and
psycho-socially.
Zartman’s conceptualisation of boundaries/borders echoes Raimondo

Strassoldo’s sentiment expressed nearly three decades ago in the context
of border studies in Europe. For Strassoldo (1977), spatial boundaries
have ambiguous features: they divide and unite, bind the interior and
link it with the exterior, are barriers and junctions, walls and doors,
organs of defence and attack and so on. They can be militarised, as bul-
warks against neighbours, or made into areas of peaceful interchange.
Thus, borders are never fixed or stable because they are constantly sub-
ject to change and are contingent upon the ways in which we (re-)read
their past and present uses. If we come down to basics and look at the
architecture of the world system today, we can see that international
borders or boundaries separating one nation-state from another are
the overriding principle for organising the way human beings perceive
their identities and how they relate with fellow human beings—from
both within and without their own ascribed (or chosen) national iden-
tity. The fallacy of all of this though lies in that the organisation of the
world into nation-states that have clearly delineated borders is a product
of human invention—if not imagination. Nation-state borders that are
fervently defended by national political leaders and their citizens with so
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F. Ndhlovu
much zeal and passion are not of a natural kind. One might be excused
for assuming that the borders of island nation-states are an exception as
they have somewhat natural borders marking where the landmass ends
and the ocean begins. However, even with island nation-states, things
are not as simple and as straightforward as they seem. For example,
how do we explain the fact that Indonesia is considered one nation-
state when in fact, it is made up of a collage of more than 7000 islands?
The idea of distinct, clearly identifiable natural borders on its own does
not provide us with a full explanation. We only get to have a complete
answer if we factor in the role of human invention and imagination
along the lines of what Benedict Anderson (1991) called imagined com-
munities. The nation-statehood of Indonesia and other similar nation-
states that are constituted by a collage of several stand-alone islands is a
product of human imagination just like landlocked countries in conti-
nental Europe, Africa, Asia, North America and Latin America.
In a recent book titled Migration Borders Freedom, Harald Bauder
(2017) illustrates how different uses and experiences of borders produce
different meanings. Tying it to the debate on migration, he discusses the
concept of a border in terms of how it is perceived by different play-
ers, with an eye on ‘how different aspects of the border are grounded
in particular worldly circumstances, experiences and practices’. (Bauder
2017: 20). He outlines five ways in which border is conceptualised. The
first is border as line. This is a cartographic view whereby the border is
represented as a line in Cartesian space. The idea of a border as a line is
the most popular and widely used. It informs the way national bounda-
ries are conceived as they appear on maps. For this reason, the Cartesian
border line is the one that is used to control and regulate the movement
of human populations and goods and services. For example, when dur-
ing his candidacy announcement speech in June 2015, Donald Trump
(now President of the USA) first proposed the idea of building a wall
along America’s southern border with Mexico, he was speaking from a
cartographic point of view that pays no regard to the very intimate cul-
tural, economic and other social ties that exist between peoples on both
sides of the border. In what has come to be one of his most quotable
quotes, Donald Trump declared:
299
I will build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than me, believe
me – and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall
on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark
my words.
The point of greater significance that is being missed by Mr. Trump’s

imagining of the border is that the so-called great, great wall repre-
sents only a narrow, partial and incomplete view that does not cap-
ture people’s entire experiences of the border (in this case Mexicans on
both sides of the Cartesian line). Harald Bauder (2017: 23) critiques
and lays bare the limitations of such narrow imagination of the border,
noting that ‘the very geometry of the line dissolves as migration flows
are increasingly monitored remotely at airports or transit hubs before
migrants reach the actual border line, or at work places and in public
spaces after they have crossed that line’. This means the building of a
‘great, great wall’ that is envisaged to hold back Mexican migrants from
entering the USA is essentially a futile exercise because such a wall will
not serve the purpose for which it would have been built. Citing the
work of Etienne Balibar (1998), Bauder observes that ‘borders are no
longer at the border’. Instead, borders are now everywhere and exist in
both physical and symbolic forms; they are both visible and invisible
but their effect as technology of closure remains, regardless of the form
or shape they take.
The second conceptualisation of the border is one where it is seen
as bastion of sovereignty. Here, the border is seen as a marker or an
instrument of the state to exercise legitimate territorial integrity and
self-determination without any interference from other states or peo-
ple who belong to other jurisdictions. In other words, the border is ‘a
legal boundary that grants or denies access to the national community’
(Bauder 2017: 23). This invokes Benedict Anderson’s (1991) thesis of
‘imagined community’ whereby the border is imagined as an instru-
ment used by nation-states to control membership of their community
through the granting or denial of formal citizenship and access to social
welfare benefits and other social security services. However, this second
view on the border also only tells part of the story because experiences
300
F. Ndhlovu
of membership of the national community may vary along any number

of other social variables such as the gender divide, ethnicity, language,
political affiliation, religious belief, sexuality. All of these are layers of
boundary lines that exist within a national community that is otherwise
deemed as having horizontal comradeship when viewed with the lenses
of nation-state sovereignty.
Third, borders are sometimes conceptualised in terms of how they are
used to control or regulate labour. This is essentially about how migrants
and other transnational workers ‘experience the border as a mecha-
nism that controls, disciplines, and in many cases exploits their labour’
(Bauder 2017: 24). This view on the border is also held by governing
authorities especially when they want to appease their national popu-
lations that they are doing everything they can to make sure ‘national
jobs’ are for local nationals and not foreigners. We have heard this kind
of rhetoric over and over again expressed by both governing authorities
and opposition political parties in Australia, the USA and the UK. For
example, Bill Shorten, leader of the Federal Opposition in Australia,
echoed the sentiment of recently elected US President about closing out
foreigners who are perceived to be stealing local jobs. In an Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) 7.30 television interview with Leigh
Sales in November 2016, Bill Shorten expressed a very strong negative
view on migrant workers that is consistent with using the border as a
labour regulator:
We hear constant reports of people coming in from overseas by aeroplane,

coming on temporary guest worker visas and taking Australian jobs,
which could be done by locals… Enough is enough. When we have got
unemployment and over 700,000 Australians recording they can’t find
any work, when we have got over a million of our fellow Australians not
getting enough hours of work, now is not the time to have a visa with
work rights system which essentially is seeing Australians replaced. It is
time to build Australian first, to buy Australian first in our contracts and
to employ Australian first. (ABC, 15 November 2016)
It is informative to note that this kind of language that typifies the

national border as labour regulator hides far more than it reveals. One
thing that lies hidden behind the thin veneer of regulating labour in the
301
name of ‘national interest’ is the fact that such pretentions are at odds
with free market and anti-protectionism policies espoused by the same
political leaders.
Many other humanities and social scholars concur with the foregoing
views and contend that borders have always existed in visible and
non-visible forms (Déry et al. 2012; Massey 2005; Larsen 2002;
Leimgruber 2004). Borders also exist as creations of human imagina-
tion and agency in that they are prone to manipulation and deployment
towards achieving political agendas of exclusion and discrimination.
This is evidenced by national political leaders, particularly those of
wealthy countries from the Global North who are now well-known for
their shrill calls for protecting their national borders that are suppos-
edly under threat from refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants.
The lines of arguments in defence of stronger and tighter border con-
trol regimes are often couched in a language that suggests the respective
nation-states are in danger of being obliterated if they were to open their
borders to immigrants and refugees. In their efforts to convince their
nationals about the perceived danger posed insecure borders, national
political leaders have resorted to whipping up emotions by suggesting
that immigrants will bring their culture, impose it on the host society
thereby destroying ‘our way of life’. Such alarmist language has served no
purpose other than to constitute fertile ground for bigotry and hatred of
the ‘non-desired other’ in the community and society. As will be argued
in this chapter with respect to Australia’s Operation Sovereign Borders pol-
icy, we are, in fact, being sold a dummy through the use of such alarm-
ist language. There are no objective examples from anywhere in the
world where the state and the so-called ‘mainstream’ culture have ever
fallen due to the effect of accepting immigrants. I draw on the example
of Australia’s most recent border protection policy and associated meta-
discursive regimes to illustrate the particular point about how national
political leaders—in their desperate race to the bottom—choose to fol-
low a path that is contrary to the general understanding that in a global
community of humanity, freedom of migration is a basic liberty (Rawls
1971). Phillip Cole (2000: 3) could not have put it any better when he
said ‘there is a serious gap between the legal and the social practices of
immigration and naturalisation in those states that describe themselves
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F. Ndhlovu
as liberal democracies, and the fundamental commitments of a recog-

nisable political theory’. In other words, there is a glaring dissonance
between pretentions of democratic liberalism that we find among many
nation-states in the Global North on the one hand, and their exclusion-
ary border protection policies that treat human beings unequally, on the
other.
The notion of borders has also been analysed in relation to the two
equally vexed concepts of margins and marginality. These concepts
appeared in the scientific community in the first half of the twentieth
century (Déry et al. 2012). Since then, the notions of margins and mar-
ginality have been variously defined and subjected to rigorous analysis
and critique in the humanities and social science literature (Gurung
and Kollmair 2005; Bodwin 2001). Two strands of approaches to these
concepts have emerged: (1) margins and marginality as zones and forms
of exclusion, disadvantage and vulnerability; and (2) margins and mar-
ginality as spheres of possibility, transformation and new beginnings. I
elaborate on these approaches in the paragraphs that follow, paying par-
ticular attention to those elements that separate one perspective from
the other and how they relate to the main concerns of this chapter on
borders and national border protection policies.
The first view on margins and marginality is one that is abundant
in the scholarly literature in geography, economics and development
studies (see, e.g., Anderson and Larsen 1998; Davis 2003; Gurung and
Kollmair 2005; Bodwin 2001). According to Gurung and Kollmair
(2005: 10), the term ‘marginality is generally used to describe and ana-
lyse socio-cultural, political and economic spheres, where disadvantaged
people struggle to gain access to resources, and full participation’. This
definition clearly shows victimhood, oppression and exclusion are the
hallmarks of marginality. Gurung and Kollmair elaborate on this point
by noting that ‘marginalised people might be socially, economically,
politically and legally ignored, excluded or neglected, and are, therefore,
vulnerable to livelihood change’. Along the same vein, the International
Geographical Union (2003: 2) says marginality is ‘the temporary state
of having been put aside of living in relative isolation, at the edge of a
system (cultural, social, political or economic)’. Thus, to be marginal-
ised and to exist on the margins is seen here as generally being ‘at the
periphery, far removed from power or influence, virtually beyond the
303
reaches of power, not quite powerless yet not powerful, definitely not in
the centre, looked down upon, considered unimportant, ignored, negli-
gible, pushed from the centre, to be less than human, to be subhuman’
(Viljoen 1998: 12).
It is clear from these definitions that marginality is conceived in both
societal and spatial terms; it is seen as a space or condition of disadvan-
tage whereby those who occupy the marginal space are forced into it by
a gamut of societal factors such as religion, culture, social structure, pol-
itics, economics and demography. Space here is conceptualised in terms
of physical location and distance from centres of development (Larsen
2002; Leimgruber 2004)—the centre/periphery dichotomy—whereby
marginals are described as people occupying the edge or periphery that
is poorly integrated into the core or mainstream. Therefore, according
to this school of thought being a marginal or occupying the marginal
space is considered as being in limbo and excluded from the cen-
tre. Such a conclusion is certainly logical and expected in this case as
it is indexically connected to the premise upon which the framing of
‘space’ and ‘margin’ is predicated—that is, ‘space’ as physical location.
However, this conceptualisation is limiting and limited in the sense
that it represents space as a ‘completed horizontality’ (Anderson 2008:
228). In a 2005 book titled For Space, Doreen Massey interrogates
how space has been attached to a set of unpromising associations such
as ‘a conceptualisation of space as closed and thus awaiting the enliv-
ening effects of temporality for change or anything new to take place’
(Massey 2005: 30). For Massey, spaces have to be made and remade out
of social, cultural, political and economic relations, which are, by their
very nature, processual. To this effect, Massey advances a set of three
interconnected propositions:
1. Space is the product of interrelations; thus, we must recognise space

as constituted through interactions, from the immensity of the global
to the intimately tiny.
2. Space is the sphere of the possibility of the existence of multiplicity;
that is space as the sphere in which distinct trajectories coexist; as the
sphere therefore of coexisting heterogeneity.
3. Space is always under construction; it is always in the process of
being made. It is never finished; never closed (Massey 2005: 9).
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F. Ndhlovu
Essentially, what Doreen Massey is suggesting here is that space should

be imagined and conceptualised as something that inflects how we
engage, interpret, understand and approach the world (Anderson 2008:
229). Her strong position discloses a range of new and progressive
potential openings enabled by spaces—the gathering together of multi-
ple open-ended, interconnected trajectories to produce ‘that sometimes
happenstance, sometimes not – arrangement-in-relation-to each-other’
(Massey 2005: 111). Space is, thus, another site of indeterminacy, a
sphere of the possibility of the coexistence of difference and multiplic-
ity—‘a simultaneity of stories; that sense of right now’ (Massey 2003:
109). When applied to the study of linguistic cartography, Massey’s
ideas clearly suggest that language spaces should be seen as firmly
located in the mental and social interactional activities of individuals
and groups. We should not look for them in flat, spatial and horizontal
atlases that have clearly defined and demarcated physical boundaries.
Doreen Massey’s reconceptualisation of space is intricately connected
to the second perspective on margins and marginality, which is the next
theme of discussion. The second view sees margins and marginality in
positive light and draws on metaphors of ‘margins of a page in a book’
and ‘margins as transitional or liminal zones’. Using the metaphor of a
book to analyse margins and marginality, Hein Viljoen (1998: 12) says:
The metaphor means that we conceive the world as one big book with in
its margins a few notes – to clarify a point, to raise a question, to sum up,
to indicate the outline of the argument or a topic, to note a disagreement,
to gloss. The margin is a space where the other can make his mark – can
have his voice heard. It is the part where nothing has been written (yet) –
empty, virginal.
The point of greater significance in this metaphor is that the margin

is seen as a privileged place for writing (one’s identity, history, cultural
values, desires and fears)—and not a space of victimhood and exclu-
sion as projected in the first perspective. The metaphor of a page in
a book and its margins questions and challenges two of the strongest
guiding tropes of modernity: the geographical space of the country and
the imaginary space of the nation (Viljoen 1998). Citing the work of
Nedelsky (1990), Viljoen argues that these metaphors of modernity are
305
based on the assumption that it is within the country’s defendable bor-

ders that people can feel safe (protected by constitutional walls of rights
and obligations) and also have an identity. However, the downside of
such boundedness is that it portrays personhood as a clearly demarcated
space and consequently curtails individual creativity, originality and
flourishing of full potential. Contrary to these outcomes of the met-
aphors of modernity, the notion of margins and marginal spaces pos-
its that ‘one is only really fully human outside all walls, in a marginal
and exposed condition. Only then do you really exist. In other words,
marginal man or woman is not subhuman at all, but truly, authenti-
cally human’ (ibid., p. 14). This is such a germane and revealing line of
argument with significant implications for our understanding of African
marginals and their linguistic repertoires. We are talking here about
people who occupy a marginal space within the Australian immigrant
context—their cultures are seen as marginal when compared to the
dominant Anglo-Saxon cultural norms; their languages are considered
to be marginal and less favourable compared to English, which is per-
ceived as the language of access, participation and engaging in all neces-
sary social transactions in everyday life. An application of the metaphor
of a book to the mapping of linguistic repertoires of African marginals
would reveal that these people’s languages exist on the fringes or periph-
ery (the margins of a page) within the broader Australian language map
(the page in a book). However, the location of African marginals and
their languages in this seemingly powerless and negligible space does
not necessarily mean they are unimportant and, therefore, exposed to
the whims of the centre where categories of relevance are laid down,
decreed and enacted. Rather, the margin that they occupy is a zone
where categories and systems of relevance become deconstructed; where
the power to control and dictate meaning becomes irrelevant; where
power is questioned and no longer applies automatically or self-evi-
dently (Viljoen 1998: 16).
Returning to the metaphor of a book, we can see that the margin is
not of less importance than the entire page or the centre of a page. In
fact, the margin is significant as it is the space where important notes
and points are written. The margin is a site for transformation, (re)
creating, brainstorming and charting the way forward. In the words
of Seshadri-Crooks (1969: 59), the margin is a space of agitation,
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F. Ndhlovu
subversion and theoretical innovation—the condition of possibility, the

‘unthought and unsaid that makes a positive knowing possible’. Viljoen
extends further the idea of the margin, noting that it contains the ele-
ments of the good life and is a site of freedom, fecundity and a point
from which the world can be surveyed intellectually. This means the
margin is a privileged position; a space where new ideas are formed, tri-
alled and then disseminated. However, seen in the backdrop of national
border protection policies and associated metadiscursive regimes, the
margin—or more precisely, the border—is an arena for exclusion, dis-
crimination and denial of entry or access to zones of prosperity. Borders
are, indeed, sites where vulnerable people’s hopes and aspirations to live
a good and fulfilling life are shattered. In the subsequent sections of this
chapter, I examine the language of the policy framework, political rhet-
oric and praxis of Australia’s OSB to support the argument that national
borders have become abyssal lines that divide the human from the
subhuman (De Sousa Santos 2007). In the words of De Sousa Santos
(2007: 45), abyssal thinking operates through radical lines that divide
social reality into two realms, the realm of ‘this side of the line’ and the
realm of ‘the other side of the line’. The division is such that ‘the other
side of the line’ vanishes as reality, becomes non-existent and is indeed
produced as non-existent. He goes on to say what most fundamentally
characterises abyssal thinking is the impossibility of the co-presence of
the two sides of the line where the other side of the abyssal line is the
realm of beyond legality and illegality (lawlessness), of beyond truth
and falsehood (incomprehensible beliefs, idolatry, magic). Together,
these forms of radical or dialectical negation result in a radical absence,
the absence of humanity, which amounts to modern sub-humanity.
Therefore, if we apply the logic of abyssal thinking to the discourse and
praxis of border protection policies in contemporary liberal democracies,
we observe that national borders are used to divide the human from the
subhuman in such a way that human principles don’t get compromised
by inhuman practices. The tension between regulation and emancipa-
tion (on this side of the border) continues to coexist with the tension
between appropriation and violence (on the other side of the border) in
such a way that the universality of the first tension is not contradicted
by the existence of the second one (De Sousa Santos 2007).
307
Overall, what the foregoing analysis shows is that national and inter-
national borders are products of vernacular discourse that exemplify
some of the pervasive myths we live by. By tapping into widely circu-
lated myths that affect our interpretation of the world in all sorts of dif-
ferent ways, the discourses on borders and border protection obscure as
much as they purport to reveal. Some such myths that are perpetuated
by border discourse include the fallacy of a world without others, the
beliefs we hold about national identity and belonging, the false belief
that national borders constitute some kind of an impervious wall or
even a Cartesian line capable of stopping the non-desired other from
entering our national territory, and the equally flawed assumption that
members of a national community are a somewhat homogenous group
characterised by horizontal comradeship (even if they don’t know each
other, have never met and will probably never meet in their entire lives).
As they get popularised and celebrated over and over again, these myth-
ical elements of border discourse that sustain the contemporary world
system of nation-states become more and more real. Therefore, when
seen from one or all of the five viewpoints outlined by Bauder (see
preceding analysis)—both national and international borders constitute
the conceptual architecture around which revolve all these myths that we
live by. In her groundbreaking book aptly titled The Myths We Live By,
Mary Midgely (2003: 1) says ‘Myths are no lies. Nor are they detached
stories. They are imaginative patterns, networks of powerful symbols
that suggest particular ways of interpreting the world. They shape its
meaning’. Borders and border discourse have to be analysed and under-
stood in this light—that is, in relation to their larger cultural, ideologi-
cal and mythic context. Adopting such a view on borders is important
insofar as it points us away from over-reliance on parsimonious explana-
tions, and towards critical awareness of the language of border discourse
and greater engagement with how borders impinge upon the mundane
everyday human condition.
In the remaining sections of this chapter, I examine Australia’s con-
troversial OSB policy against this backdrop about the problematic
nature of national borders. I specifically focus on four interrelated
themes: OSB as a policy framework, OSB as political rhetoric, OSB
in practice and OSB as reflected in the far-right wing views of Pauline
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F. Ndhlovu
Hanson. I conclude the discussion with a summative section looking at

the language of OSB that betrays the various ways in which the policy
constitutes another bane for Australian multicultural policy.
OSB: The Policy Framework and Rhetoric

It was Prime Minister John Howard who declared that ‘we will decide
who comes to this country and the circumstance in which they come’.
This was a statement of national sovereignty and the need for Australia to
control our borders. (Liberal Party of Australia 2013)
Immigration must be halted in the short term so that our dole queues
are not added to by, in many cases, unskilled migrants not fluent in the
English language. (Pauline Hanson, maiden speech to Australian Federal
Parliament 1996)
The line has to be drawn somewhere and it has to be at our border. We
need a strong border regime if we are to keep people out of harm’s way.
This government will stand steadfast in protecting our border. (Malcolm
Turnbull, ABC News, 24 February 2016)
The OSB policy framework is anchored on a number of interrelated

political, economic, social and humanitarian themes. The overall goal is
that of deterrence as summarised in the following six points:
• Detecting and intercepting SIEVs and safe transfer of passengers to

an external location.
• Detaining SIEV passengers at third country locations and assessment
of their asylum claims to determine their refugee status.
• Returning SIEV passengers to origin country or for those with valid
asylum claims to a third country or as a last resort to Australia with a
temporary protection visa only.
• Encouraging the development of tougher border controls within
the region to discourage Australia-bound asylum seekers through
improved border security, advance passenger clearance systems, and
data and intelligence sharing by border agencies.
309
• Supporting regional efforts to facilitate safe return to source coun-

tries, including readmission agreements and placement of independ-
ent observers to monitor the safety and treatment of returnees.
• Encouraging the establishment of tougher laws to combat people
smuggling within the Australasian region.
What is clear from the above points is that the notion of closure is at
the centre of OSB policy. That is, policing the border as a way to close
out asylum seekers arriving by boat; maintaining the territorial integ-
rity/sovereignty of Australia by safeguarding it against people who arrive
on SIEVs; and asserting the myth of a world without others by project-
ing the image of Australia as a place that should not be ‘contaminated’
by illegal ‘boat people’. The objectives of OSB policy are presented in
a way that suggests Australia is faced with heavily armed hostile forces
that are bent on invading its territory—and subsequently—swamp the
whole country and overthrow the government. This is the impression
one gets from reading a policy that is built around a language that is
consistent with military-speak. Examples from the OSB policy docu-
ment (pp. 2–12) follow.
• [The] Coalition government will treat the border protection crisis as a

national emergency and tackle it with the focus and energy that an emer-
gency demands.
• A senior military commander of 3-star ranking will lead Operation
Sovereign Borders.
• The scale of this problem requires the discipline and focus of a targeted
military operation, placed under a single operational and ministerial
command and drawing together all necessary resources and deployments
of government agencies.
• The Australian Defence Force will be tasked to lead implementation of
Operation Sovereign Borders and to design, raise, deploy, command
and support the ‘Operation Sovereign Borders Joint Agency Taskforce’.
• The National Security Committee of Cabinet (the NSC) will over-
see Operation Sovereign Borders and hold additional regular sched-
uled meetings to focus solely on this operation, separate to their standing
agenda, attended by the Chief of the Defence Force.
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F. Ndhlovu
The keywords and phrases that I have underlined in the above excerpts
from OSB policy project an image of a country that is under serious
threat, thus calling for a very strong and targeted military action to
repel the attack. On page 12, the document goes further to spell out a
four-point operational strategy that uses very strong military-speak: ‘dis-
ruption’, ‘detection’, ‘interception’, ‘deterrence’, ‘detention’ and so on.
People unfamiliar with the social and political conditions in Australia
at the time the OSB was launched would be excused for assuming that
the country was in a war situation and, if not on the verge of losing
that war to a heavily armed invading foreign force. But as we all know,
this policy that is couched in such heavy language was a response to the
arrival of boats carrying unarmed desperate refugees and asylum seek-
ers (most of them women and children) fleeing war, persecution and
all manner of harm and threat to their lives. This then begs at least the
following two questions: Why is such harsh, war-like language used in
a policy that is supposedly meant to save the lives of vulnerable peo-
ple? Why does the language of OSB that criminalises the very same
people that the policy supposedly seeks to help contradict the dictates
of humanitarianism that are the heart of the Australian way of life? I
address these and similar questions in the next section that deals with
the nuances of the contradictions of the language of OSB policy.
The Language of OSB Policy

In analysing the language of OSB, it is important that we take into
account the social and political context under which this policy was for-
mulated. This will enable us to see those underlying forces that shaped
the conceptual architecture and nature of the discourse around OSB.
Launched in the middle of the 2013 Federal election political cam-
paign period, OSB policy was bound up with election promises and
commitments, including that of stopping the boats. This latter agenda
item was to become the buzzword throughout the election campaign
and eventually became one of the mandates that Tony Abbott and his
Coalition colleagues claimed after winning the election and forming
government in September 2013. For this reason, the language of OSB
311
policy was, from the very start, shaped by exigencies of agenda setting
and establishing political legitimacy post-election. Three main discursive
and political communication strategies that are discernible in both the
rhetoric and stated goals of OSB policy are (a) reliance on dialogism or
double/muti-vocality; (b) widespread use of pronouns of legitimation;
and (c) abundant use of metaphors and figurative language. All three
strategies were carefully crafted and deployed towards achieving two
main goals. The first was that of agenda setting: that is, shifting election
political debate away from social and economic matters affecting the
electorate—rising cost of living, housing problem, soaring power bills,
falling disposable incomes—to perceived threats of being swamped by
‘marauding’ refugees and asylum seekers arriving on the country’s shores
by boats. The second was that of whipping up the real and perceived
fears of terror and terrorism within the community, thus creating a false
sense of alarm and emergency, which would earn the political actors
tacit approval to run a mandate on something that was otherwise an
unjustifiable political agenda item. In the paragraphs that follow, I dis-
cuss the three strategies of communication (a, b and c) with the aid of
illustrations from relevant sections of the OSB policy document.
(a) Dialogism/double-voice/multi-voice
The language of OSB policy is characterised by what Mikhail Bakhtin

(1981) called ‘double-voicing’, ‘multi-voicing’ or ‘dialogism’. This is
about the use in a text of different tones or viewpoints, whose interac-
tion or contradiction is important to the text’s interpretation. Dialogism
refers to a general epistemological framework for understanding com-
municative interactions between or within individuals in situations
and/or within sociocultural practices (Linell 1998). Though Bakhtin
pioneered these concepts in the context of literary studies, their analyt-
ical frames have been extended to the study of text and rhetoric more
broadly (both written and oral). Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism proposes
that all discourse is in dialogue with prior discourse on the same sub-
ject, as well as with discourse yet to come—that is, text as signifying
matters in a broad sense. In reviewing Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism and
meaning, Petrilli (2014: 21) puts forward the following philosophical,
yet significant point about the ambiguous nature of language:
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F. Ndhlovu
There is no such thing as a ‘general language’, a language that is spoken

by a general voice that may be divorced from a specific saying, which is
charged with particular overtones. Language, when it means, is somebody
talking to somebody else, even when that someone else is one’s own inner
addressee.
What this means is that each time we speak, each time we produce a
text, that text or speech is also responding (thus double-voicing or
multi-voicing). The actions accomplished by words and texts at the
level of communicative exchange—or what Pierre Bourdieu (1992) calls
the ‘linguistic market’—have a presupposition of social relations, that
is, communication relations which are not necessarily relations among
words and texts. Thus, whether written or oral, speech does not inher-
ently install communication relations. Rather, it ratifies, maintains,
notifies, declares or exhibits social and communication relations (Linell
1998). This is precisely what Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of dialogism says
about the way language works in everyday life in the community and
society.
These tenets of dialogism abound in the language of Australia’s OSB
policy. In the introduction on page 3, the OSB policy document opens
with the following statements that criminalise asylum seekers who arrive
on boats:
Illegal arrivals by boat to Australia have increased from just two people
per month to more than 3,000 people per month […]. The number of
people in the immigration detention network or on bridging visas in
the community who have arrived illegally by boat has increased from
just four people in 2007 to more than 23,000 today. (Liberal Party of
Australia, 3)
The tone of the language in this excerpt clearly indicates that refugees
and asylum seekers are perceived as a menace and criminal elements
arriving in Australia ‘illegally’ by boats. But the next two sentences slide
into a sympathetic tone about ‘vulnerable people’, ‘more than 1,000
people that have perished at sea’ and ‘more than 6,000 children that
have had their lives put at risk’. The tone of the language continues to
313
change in the next paragraph where empathy and compassion for refu-
gees that are being processed by United Nations agencies are displayed.
Refugees that come via United Nations agencies are described as ‘des-
perate people’ and ‘genuine refugees’:
More than 14,500 desperate people have been denied a place under our
offshore humanitarian programme because those places have been taken
by people who have arrived illegally by boats. These people are genu-
ine refugees, already processed by United Nations agencies, but they are
denied a chance at resettlement by people have money in their pocket to
buy a place via people smugglers. (Liberal Party of Australia 2013: 3)
The implication here is that those asylum seekers who come by boats,
some of who have ‘perished at sea’ and ‘thousands of children whose
lives have been put at risk’ are not desperate people and are not genu-
ine refugees. This is a classic example of speaking with a double-voice.
The overall intention is to justify the harshness of the OSB policy while
at the same time seeking to pacify the Australian community’s feel-
ings by projecting a thin veneer of compassion and empathy towards
those other refugees that come through United Nations agencies. But
at the heart of it all is the deliberate choice of a linguistic and com-
municative strategy that purports to be sympathetic towards refugees
while simultaneously being tougher on the very same people that the
OSB policy seeks to protect. Those refugees and asylum seekers that risk
their lives by travelling on boats and pay all the money they have to
get on this dangerous trip are said not to be desperate. If this is not a
sign of desperation, one would wonder what sorts of risks people can
take to show they have indeed run out of options. The characterisa-
tion of asylum seekers arriving on boats as ‘illegals’ overlooks the fact
that these are people driven by the natural human instinct of fleeing
threats and danger to life. But the Australian government expects them
to have well-organised itineraries. How does someone fleeing war man-
age to get everything organised as if the trip had been pre-planned? At
the foot of page 4, the OSB quotes the words of former Prime Minister
John Howard who once declared that ‘we will decide who comes to
this country and the circumstances in which they come’. Though
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F. Ndhlovu
this sounds like a nice quotable quote on national sovereignty and

self-determination, it misses the significant point that the circumstances
of refugees and asylum seekers are not determined by the receiving
country. How do you decide on the circumstances of people who are
fleeing war and persecution? Refugees are not voluntary migrants; rather
they are forced out of their countries of origin by circumstances that are
beyond anybody’s control. Therefore, this quotation from John Howard
is clearly not a true statement of fact. It is instead a strategy of delib-
erate misinformation that is intended to deceive the Australian public
into thinking that local politicians can control everything, including the
circumstances of refugees and asylum seekers wherever they are. This is
vernacular discourse par excellence.
Another important observation is about lots of numbers that are
thrown into the language of OSB. To my thinking, this is meant to
divert attention from focusing on the real human interest stories of
individual asylum seekers by creating an impression that Australia is on
the verge of being swamped by refugees and asylum seekers. The use of
the language of numbers is not surprising as it is consistent with how
politicians and bureaucrats always seek to justify their policy proposals
and interventions (especially unpopular ones) by relying on big data.
Part of the reason for this in the context of Australia’s OSB policy is the
desire to placate Australians who are overall a compassionate people by
making them feel as if the rates at which asylum seekers are arriving on
their shores are a threat to their very own existence. This is what we get
from an obsession with and over-reliance on big data, which underpins
most government social and economic policies in Australia and else-
where. However, though big data is useful for some ends, for others, it
is unhelpful as it tends to obscure and embellish more than it reveals. In
the case of OSB, the one thing that the data on boat arrivals obscures is
the fact that the passengers on these boats are individuals with complex
and convoluted stories about the persecution, the suffering and the risks
they have taken to try and save their own lives. All of this is lost in the
double-voicing that puts numbers ahead of individual human interest
stories around trials, tribulations and miraculous instances of survival
and resilience.
315
So, overall, consistent with Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism,

we see in the language of OSB policy the coexistence of a multiplicity
of divergent and contending voices whereby text is not an alien entity
but a site for dialogic interaction of multiple modes of discourse. The
polyphonic voice of OSB and its authors subordinates the voices of all
other actors, including those of the generality of the Australian people
and asylum seekers. Bakhtin’s notion of dialogism is equivalent to the
term ‘intertextuality’ (Kristeva 1966; Worton and Still 1990; Clayton
and Rothstein 1991; Alfaro 1996), which postulates that a text (in this
case OSB policy) cannot exist alone as a self-contained, hermetic whole.
The language and discourse of OSB policy have to be read within the
context of the political temperature of the Australian Federal election
in 2013. It has also to be read as an extension of what appears to be
a trendy ideology of reasserting the significance of national borders by
many Western liberal democracies—albeit at a time when discourses
on globalisation and transnationalism are also being overplayed. This is
precisely what accounts for the polyphonic voices that abound in OSB
policy—the language that projects and image of compassion and harsh-
ness at the same time; and the language of closing borders while simul-
taneously preaching the gospel of an interconnected and borderless
world. For all these reasons, OSB is both a political manifesto and a
supplement to Australia’s immigration policy, I would say. The poly-
phonic and dialogic nature of the language of OSB is, in large measure,
a consequence of this duality of purpose.
(b) Metaphors and figurative language
The second strategy of political communication that we find in the OSB

policy document is that of metaphors and figurative language. Previous
political science, sociological and public communication scholarship
has long suggested metaphors and other forms of symbolic language are
effective persuasive devices, yet they are also widely used as manipulative
tools of politicians (Cammaerts 2012; Charteris-Black 2009; Mio 1997;
Edelman 1977). Charteris-Black (2009: 97) says ‘metaphors contribute
to the design of a leadership style through appealing to followers to share
316
F. Ndhlovu
in a particular representation or construal of social reality’. Nearly half

a century ago, Edelman (1971: 67) explained the strategic and selective
use of metaphors in political communication as follows:
Each metaphor intensifies selected perceptions and ignores oth

ers, thereby helping one to concentrate upon desired consequences of
favoured public policies and helping one to ignore their unwanted,
unthinkable, or irrelevant premises and aftermaths. Each metaphor can
be a subtle way of highlighting what one wants to believe and avoiding
what one does not wish to believe.
Edelman’s critique of metaphors followed hard on the heels of Walter

Lippmann’s (1965) writings on the importance of political communica-
tion in which he proposed that ‘politics is too complex and abstract to
be directly experienced’ (cited in Mio 1997: 114). The significant point
here is one about how the political world is created by public communi-
cation (Edelman 1977), which subsequently ‘helps to reduce the world
into simpler models that are easier to manage and manipulate’ (Mio
1997: 114). Several other theorists of political communication concur
with this line of argument in positing that metaphors assist politicians
in communicating more effectively by addressing latent symbolic themes
residing in segments of the public consciousness (see, e.g., Cammaerts
2012; Britton 1999; Schneider 2002). In a study on the strategic use of
metaphors by the media and politicians during the 2007–2011 Belgian
constitutional crisis, Bart Cammaerts (2012) identified several types
of metaphors that fed into six core-frames of ‘expressing immobility,
attributing blame, the need for unity, bargaining and teasing, the end
is nigh and finally lack of direction and leadership’. Cammaerts goes
on to suggest that metaphors were instrumental in strategies to present
the Flemish demands as unquestionable and common sense, while the
counter-demands of the French-speaking parties were positioned as
unreasonable, impossible to accept. He concludes by noting that the
strategic use of metaphors not only served to represent complex political
issues in an accessible language but also shaped and influenced the nego-
tiations through their various mediations and the ideological intentions
embedded within the metaphor (Cammaerts 2012).
317
In the remaining paragraphs of this subsection, I analyse three meta-

phors that feature prominently in the OSB policy document. These are
(i) the metaphor of border protection as a crisis and a national emer-
gency, (ii) the metaphor of asylum seekers as sugar on the table and
(iii) the metaphor of an Australian protection visa as a product being
sold by people smugglers.
The OSB policy document uses the metaphor of a crisis and national
emergency to paint a grim picture of the arrival of asylum seekers by
boats on the shores of Australia. Generally, a national emergency or cri-
sis is a danger or threat of danger to a nation from foreign or domestic
sources and usually declared to be in existence by governmental author-
ity (Britton 1999; Schneider 2002). In the context of this broad under-
standing of what constitutes and emergency, the OSB policy document
presents the arrival of asylum seekers as a danger or threat to the coun-
try’s national security. But given that it is well-known that these asy-
lum seekers are unarmed people, most of who are women and children
seeking refuge and protection, politicians require a particular type of a
language is to justify their heavy-handed response to the problem. The
language that uses the metaphor of a crisis and national emergency was
necessary as a way to justify allocating huge national resources to the
task of border protection. As is evident in the OSB policy document,
this was a whole of government approach that brought together 15 gov-
ernment departments, including the military and other security agen-
cies. The Liberal and National coalition had to convince the Australian
public why it was necessary to expend such a huge amount of resources
(human, material, financial) towards stopping the flow of asylum
seeker boats. Using the metaphor of a crisis and an emergency eventu-
ally became the silver bullet that enabled the coalition to get a buy-in
from the Australian public, which ultimately saw them claim the issue
of border protection as one of their mandates when they formed gov-
ernment. So, overall, the metaphor of a crisis and a national emergency
was an agenda-setting strategy designed to help the medicine go down
all those gullible throats (Gerbner 1978). And this actually did work
because the persuasive power of the metaphor blinded the electorate to
the fact that these asylum seekers were harmless, vulnerable and desper-
ate people looking for safety and protection. Although the military-style
318
F. Ndhlovu
response under the command of a 3-star general was said to be targeting

criminals (people smugglers), the victims of the whole operation turned
out to be the very same people that the operation supposedly sought to
protect. All of this was hidden and embellished in the duplicitous meta-
phor of a crisis and national emergency that never was.
The second recurring metaphor in the OSB policy document is that
of sugar on the table. On page 7, it says ‘any successful […] solution for
Australia must begin with our government demonstrating our resolve at
home and on our borders by “taking the sugar off the table ”’. This is
a very interesting and significant metaphor. Generally, across most cul-
tures around the world, sugar represents sweetness, happiness, sweet
memories, good times, happy news, success and victory. It symbolises a
good life full of joy with very little or no worries at all. Darra Goldstein,
editor of The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets says ‘[a]cross many
cultures, sweetness prevails as a positive symbol, representing joyous
occasions and victories’ (Goldstein 2015). Goldstein further describes
sugar as one of humankind’s greatest sources of pleasure; something that
has brought richness to our language, our art, and, of course, our gas-
tronomy. It is on the backdrop of these qualities of sugar that the meta-
phor ‘taking sugar off the table’ is used in the OSB policy document to
describe asylum seekers and the activities of people smugglers. In this
metaphor, asylum seekers are the sugar that is supposedly a source of
pleasure and joy for people smugglers. In other words, people smugglers
are characterised as being in a lucrative business that is a source of joy
and happiness for them. This metaphor is complemented by another
one that uses the symbol of a product to refer to Australian humani-
tarian visas granted to refugees and asylum seekers. In this metaphor,
the humanitarian visa is the product, which people smugglers ‘sell’ to
asylum seekers keen on being resettled in Australia. Both metaphors
do make sense on face value, the symbolisms used overlook some very
fundamental human interest perspectives. First, the suggestion that asy-
lum seekers are comparable to sugar is in itself denigrating and pays no
regard to the pain and suffering and sacrifice endured by these people.
Second, the characterisation of the people smugglers as a lucrative busi-
ness model is oblivious of the fact that as well as those of their passen-
gers, these actors also put their own lives at risk. So, there is a much
319
bigger and complex human interest story at the point of departure

that needs to be investigated and understood—beyond the simplistic
assumption that both asylum seekers and people smugglers are willing
actors who enter into a ‘transaction’ in the economic sense of the term. I
would argue that the metaphors of ‘sugar on the table’ and a ‘product to
sell’ are used in the OSB policy document to shift the focus away from
the human suffering involved in all of this. The deployment of these
metaphors is, indeed, yet another form of political discourse that helps
the politician persuade the voting Australian public to support a pol-
icy regime that is otherwise disproportionately harsh and insensitive to
the human suffering associated pushing back the boats and forcing asy-
lum seekers onto refugee camps on Manus Island and Nauru. Overall,
these two metaphors give a false impression that both the asylum seek-
ers and people smugglers enjoy embarking on the perilous journeys on
boats and, therefore, do not deserve the compassion and empathy of
the Australian public. Although this is beyond the scope of this book, it
would be interesting to hear the personal stories of these two groups of
people. What do they think about the perception projected in these two
metaphors—that they are participating in some kind of an economic
transaction?
Beer and de Landtsheer (2004: 24) could not have put it any better
when they said metaphors are widely used ‘as tools of persuasive com-
munication, to bridge gaps and build identification between strangers; to
frame issues; to create, maintain, or dissolve political coalitions; to gen-
erate votes and win elections’. This is exactly what we have seen with the
use of metaphors in the OSB policy document. The metaphors discussed
above served the sole purpose of framing the political issue of border
protection as a national emergency in order to not only gain community
approval of the policy but to also win an election. As it turned out, this
strategy actually worked for the Liberal and National party coalition as
they won the 2013 Federal election with a significant majority and went
on to form government. The Coalition managed to whip up people’s
emotions, fears and uncertainties about the perceived threats posed by
asylum seekers and refugees arriving on boats. The strategic deployment
of metaphors was central in all of this.
320
F. Ndhlovu
(c) Pronouns of Legitimation
In Chapter 6, we saw how pronouns of political legitimation were used by

Robert Mugabe, then President of Zimbabwe to legitimate a flawed and
chaotic approach to land reform that was unpopular internationally and
in some quarters among the domestic audience. Pronouns of legitimation
are a common and widely used strategy for political communication. They
constitute specific ways in which language represents an instrument of
control (Hodge and Kress 1993) and manifests symbolic power (Bourdieu
2001) in discourse and society. In political communication, pronouns of
legitimation are part of ‘political-talk’ used by politicians to potentially
legitimate truth claims. That is, they are deployed as rhetorical strategies in
legitimating or de-legitimating specific issues in society. Numerous previ-
ous studies on the language of legitimation (e.g. Reyes 2011; Martín Rojo
and van Dijk 1997; van Dijk 2005; van Leeuwen 1996, 2007, 2008; van
Leeuwen and Wodak 1999) have proposed some key strategies employed
by social actors to justify courses of action. The strategies of legitimisa-
tion can be used individually or in combination with others and justify
social practices through: emotions (particularly fear), a hypothetical future,
rationality, voices of expertise and altruism (Reyes 2011).
In this section, I analyse three pronouns of legitimation that feature
prominently in the OSB policy document. These are ‘we’, ‘our’, ‘us’,
‘they’ and ‘their’. I explain how these strategies are linguistically con-
structed and shaped to validate or invalidate courses of action in the
context of what was a raging asylum seeker and border protection pol-
icy debate in Australia. As I have already indicated, there are two main
functions of these pronouns in political communication: to legitimate
or to de-legitimate. I provide below examples of each and their contexts
of usage in the OSB policy document.
Pronouns that Seek to Legitimate OSB Policy

(‘We’, ‘Our’)
Examples of usage: Our current disjointed institutional arrangements;

securing our borders (p.2); Labour has failed our borders; our off-
shore humanitarian programme (p.3); we will decide who comes to this
321
country (p.4); effectively sells-out our immigration regime to people

smugglers; restore faith in our immigration system; our generous human-
itarian intake (p.5); our regional policy approach (p.6); our regional part-
ners; we also recognise that if we fail to take the initiative (p.7).
On face value, these may seem like ordinary everyday pronominal

usages—but they are not. They all have underlying meanings of includ-
ing (collectivising ‘we’ and ‘our’) as well as excluding (segregating ‘we’
and ‘our’). The collectivising usage brings together the Coalition party
(authors of the OSB policy) and the generality of the Australian people.
The overall intention here is to put across the message that OSB policy
is in the best interest of all Australians and that it is supported by all
Australians minus the Labour Party that subscribes to a different set of
policy prescriptions. So, in essence, though the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘our’
in all these examples are overall inclusive, they are also segregating in
the sense that there is a category of people who sit on the other end of
the spectrum and in this case it is the Labour Party and its supporters.
The tensions and contradictions in all of this are quite glaring in that
whereas OSB policy is said to be aimed at protecting all Australians,
it also simultaneously sends a message that says the Labour Party is
not part of the ‘we’ and ‘our’ in this context. These observations tie in
with Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1981) notion of dialogism and double-voicing
discussed above.
Pronouns that Seek to de-Legitimate Policies

of the Labour Government (‘We’, ‘They’, ‘Their’)
Examples of usage: they have neither resolve nor competence to combat

people smuggling (p.4); as we have learned from Labour’s many failures
(p.9); a key failing has been their inability to implement them (p.10).
Here, we can see how the three pronouns ‘we’, ‘they’ and ‘their’ were
strategically used to de-legitimate the previous efforts by the Australian
Labour Government to deal with asylum seeker and border protec-
tion issues. Again, the collectivising and segregating elements of these
pronouns are apparent. The intention here is to bring together the
322
F. Ndhlovu
Coalition party and all Australians on one side and leave the Labour
Party on the other, hence the use of ‘they’ and ‘their’. In so doing, the
Labour Party’s attempts to be re-elected are de-legitimated; they are por-
trayed as incompetent in both policy formation and implementation of
border protection strategies that would keep Australia safe from being
‘swamped’ by refugees and asylum seekers. Through their use of these
pronouns in ways that exclude and de-legitimate, the authors of OSB
are effectively saying the Labour Party does not deserve another chance
of forming government because their border protection policies have
failed. However, as I have already indicated, the point of greater signif-
icance here is one about the Coalition party’s concerted efforts to win
public trust and support for what was otherwise a controversial policy
proposal that was open to being challenged by various actors. In short,
the context of the debate during an election year clearly betrays the
political imperatives that are at play—the Coalition was determined to
form the next government and did everything they could to achieve this
goal. The deployment of pronouns of legitimation and de-legitimation
was part of the arsenal that led them to this desired goal.
(Re)Enter Pauline Hanson

I call it standing up and fighting for what you believe in […]. So, to all
my peers in this place and those from the past I have two words for you.
I’m back, but not alone. I have been joined in this place by three of my
colleagues elected under Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. Mr President, it
has been 20 years and 4 days since I last delivered my last maiden speech
in this house; a speech that shook a nation and woke up many Australians
and gave hope to those who thought no one was listening. (Pauline
Hanson maiden speech to Australian Federal Parliament 2016)
Ms. Pauline Hanson is the leader of the One Nation political party
and Senator for Queensland in the Australian Federal Parliament. She
has courted a lot of controversy since her entry into the political fray
in 1996 as an independent member for the electorate of Oxley. Pauline
Hanson had a lull in politics after she was expelled from One Nation
323
party in 2002 until she bounced back, rejoined her party in 2013
and took over as leader in 2014. At the 2016 Australian federal election,
Pauline Hanson was elected to the Australian Federal Senate, represent-
ing Queensland, together with three other senators of her party. She
has become well-known for her very strong anti-Asian and anti-Muslim
immigration sentiments as well as her racial prejudices against indige-
nous Australians. Pauline Hanson has been criticised on perceptions of
espousing bigoted and racist political views that are seen as be anach-
ronistic to the Australian values of inclusivity, tolerance, respect and
acceptance of cultural diversity and religious freedoms. These criti-
cisms are based on Pauline Hanson’s well-documented statements, pol-
icy proposals and speeches that capture what she stands for. I provide
below four examples from her 1996 and 2016 maiden speeches to the
Australian Federal Parliament.
From the 1996 maiden speech to the Australian Federal Parliament:
Present governments are encouraging separatism in Australia by providing

opportunities, land, moneys and facilities available only to Aboriginals.
Along with millions of Australians, I am fed up to the back teeth with the
inequalities that are being promoted by the government and paid for by
the taxpayer under the assumption that Aboriginals are the most disad-
vantaged people in Australia. I do not believe that the colour of one’s skin
determines whether you are disadvantaged.
Immigration and multiculturalism are issues that this government is
trying to address, but for far too long ordinary Australians have been kept
out of any debate by the major parties. I and most Australians want our
immigration policy radically reviewed and that of multiculturalism abol-
ished. I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. Between
1984 and 1995, 40 per cent of all migrants coming into this country
were of Asian origin. They have their own culture and religion, form
ghettos and do not assimilate. Of course, I will be called racist but, if I
can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to
have a say in who comes into my country. A truly multicultural country
can never be strong or united. The world is full of failed and tragic exam-
ples, ranging from Ireland to Bosnia to Africa and, closer to home, Papua
New Guinea. America and Great Britain are currently paying the price.
324
F. Ndhlovu
From the 2016 maiden speech to the Australian Federal Parliament:
In my first speech in 1996 I said we were in danger of being swamped by

Asians. This was not said out of disrespect for Asians but was meant as a
slap in the face to both the Liberal and Labour Governments who opened
the floodgates to immigration, targeting cultures purely for the vote, as
expressed by former Labour minister Barry Jones - to such an extent that
society changed too rapidly due to migrants coming in the front door
but also the back door, via New Zealand. Now we are in danger of being
swamped by Muslims, who bear a culture and ideology that is incompati-
ble with our own.
Islam cannot have a significant presence in Australia if we are to live
in an open, secular and cohesive society. Never before in Australia’s his-
tory have we seen civil unrest and terror associated with a so-called reli-
gion, or from followers of that faith. We have seen the destruction that it
is causing around the world. If we do not make changes now, there will
be no hope in the future. Have no doubt that we will be living under
sharia law and treated as second-class citizens with second-class rights if
we keep heading down the path with the attitude, ‘She’ll be right, mate’.
Therefore, I call for stopping further Muslim immigration and banning
the burqa, as they have done in many countries around the world. Burqas
are not a religious requirement. Most Australians find them confronting,
as did two of our former prime ministers. In addition, no more mosques
or schools should be built, and those that already exist should be moni-
tored with regard to what they are teaching until the present crisis is over.
More recently, Pauline Hanson pulled a stunt in which she went to

Parliament wearing a burka as a way to mock and express her disdain
for Muslims, the Islamic faith and all cultural and symbolic values asso-
ciated with it. An emotional George Brandis, Attorney-General and
Leader of Government in the Upper House, was given a standing ova-
tion for his stern rebuke of Pauline Hanson’s decision to wear a burka
into the Senate. Here is some of what George Brandis said:
I would caution and counsel you with respect to be very, very careful of
the offence you may do to the religious sensibilities of other Australians.
We have about 500,000 Australians in this country of the Islamic
faith. And the vast majority of them are law-abiding, good Australians.
325
Senator Hanson, it is absolutely consistent with being a good, law-abid-

ing Australian and being a strict, adherent Muslim. I have had responsi-
bility pre-eminently among the ministers subject to the Prime Minister
for national security policy. And I can tell you, Senator Hanson that it
has been the advice of each director-general of security with whom I
have worked and each commissioner of the Australian Federal Police
with whom I have worked that it is vital for their intelligence and
law-enforcement work that they work cooperatively with the Muslim
community. And to ridicule that community, to drive it into a corner, to
mock its religious garments is an appalling thing to do and I would ask
you to reflect on what you have done. (ABC News Online 2017)
George Brandis was praised by everyone across the political divide

(except those from One Nation) who shared the view that the student
would cause unnecessary disaffection within the Muslim community in
Australia and thus jeopardise ongoing counterterrorism efforts that rely
on the cooperation of adherents of the Islamic faith. These are, indeed,
well-founded concerns about how this stunt by Pauline Hanson and the
tacit support by those who subscribe to her political views could easily
undermine national security and social cohesion within the community
and society at large.
Having said the above, I would argue that it is always easy to
fall into the temptation of dismissing Pauline Hanson’s consistent
anti-immigration sentiment as musings of a fringe disgruntled lone-
voice. The question is: To what extent do Pauline Hanson’s views dif-
fer from those held by other Australian politicians, many of who have
expressed them both loudly and in hushed voices? A closer look at the
language she uses in her 1996 and 2016 maiden speeches in parliament
would reveal that some, if not most, of her views resonate with main-
stream political thinking in Australia. This includes the views previously
expressed by members of major political parties such as the Australian
Liberal/National Party Coalition and the Australian Labour Party, par-
ticularly on matters of immigration, border protection and refugees.
I will cite a few examples here to support the proposition that most
of what Pauline Hanson stands for is consistent with statements made
326
F. Ndhlovu
by other leading and senior Australian politicians—across the political

divide.
Back in 2007, then immigration minister, Kevin Andrews expressed
a bigoted view on African migrants in which he alleged they were to
‘integrate’ into mainstream Australian society. Following the fatal bash-
ing of a Sudanese background youth at the Melbourne suburb of Noble
Park, Kevin Andrews was reported at the time making the following
statement that circulated widely in the media and in the general public
domain:
I have been concerned that some groups don’t seem to be settling and
adjusting into the Australian way of life as quickly as we would hope
and therefore it makes sense to put the extra money into provide extra
resources, but also to slow down the rate of intake from countries such
as Sudan. (The Age, 2 October 2007, my emphasis)
Therefore, as is currently the case with OSB policy, instead of sympa-

thising with African background migrants as victims of street violence
that need community support in their resettlement efforts, Kevin
Andrews was contemplating reducing African refugee intake. In other
words, instead of being assured of more protection by the government
and the community, African diasporas were seen as a problem (Ndhlovu
2014). All this can be explained by recourse to Bonilla-Silva’s (2006)
critique of colour blind racial ideologies that perpetuate and justify the
alienation of racial minorities by blaming the same people who need
support for failing to measure up. Citing the work of Doane (2003),
McAllen cautions that postracial discourse has not necessarily ushered
in racial equity. Rather, the strategic avoidance of race (through nor-
malisation and naturalisation) has been invented as an effective politi-
cal strategy for hiding the persistence of inequality and the mechanisms
of racism while simultaneously blaming the individuals or communities
for allegedly failing ‘to integrate or participate competently in a white
dominated society’ (McAllen 2011: 3).
The second example of Australian political leader statements that res-
onates with Pauline Hanson’s views are those by Corey Bernardi, leader
of the Australian Conservatives party and Federal Senator for South
Australia. Following the June 2017 London Bridge terrorist attack,
327
Senator Bernardi prepared a survey titled ‘We need to talk about Islam’,
which was emailed to his supporters asking for their views on Islam.
In an interview with Fairfax Media, Mr. Bernardi said the survey aims
to ‘begin the national conversation Australia has to have about Islam
in our country’ and asks questions about prayer spaces in public build-
ings, the construction of new mosques, child marriage, banning the
burka and sharia law. It provides multiple-choice answers. The Sydney
Morning Herald issue of 5 June 2017 made the following observation
about the survey: ‘A graphic next to the survey showed the Islamic
“shahada” or proclamation of faith, written in Arabic with a large
cross through it, a move labelled “fiercely extremist” by the Australian
Federation of Islamic Councils, and offensive by Sydney Muslim com-
munity leader Dr. Jamal Rifi’. Prior to this, in February 2017, Senator
Corey Bernardi advocated halving Australia’s migration intake, cit-
ing the example of US President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend
immigration from six predominantly Muslim nations. Here is what he
said about his proposal to halve Australia’s intake of immigrants:
What I have advocated for in the past is a non-discriminatory immigra-

tion policy but one that works to our advantage economically, socially
and culturally. That means we have to look at the economic impact of
migrants and there’s a very strong case that says when you look at it on
a per capita income basis, we could halve our existing migration intake.
That means also we should be discerning about the qualities and char-
acteristics of the individuals we let in. So that means what skills do we
need? Are they going to be bringing capital and innovation to our coun-
try? Are they going to be making our nation stronger? Are they going to
fit in and abide by the rule of law? Anyone who comes here and thinks
they should set up a parallel legal system or they should bring some cul-
ture or historical sort of baggage with them and they want to place that in
Australian society I think is barking up the wrong path and we don’t want
that sort of thing here. You can’t assess how people think or their religious
beliefs, you can’t change that, what you need to do is make sure they’re
coming here for the right reasons and they’re going to do the right thing.
(Corey Bernardi, The Australian, 12 February 2017)
If average Australian people were to be randomly selected and asked to

say who they think this statement is from (with Mr. Bernardi’s identity
328
F. Ndhlovu
hidden), a huge majority would associate it with Pauline Hanson. The

entire statement bears the hallmarks—word for word—of Hanson’s
maiden speeches to the Federal Parliament as well as her several other
statements made at different forums and political platforms. But this
is from Corey Bernardi, thus confirming my argument that if we look
closely at the language of the political statements made by several other
leading Australian political actors, we come to the conclusion that
Pauline Hanson is not a lone-voice after all. The themes of her political
views and the language in which they are couched resonate with those
of some of her peers across the political divide.
The third example of a statement from the mainstream Australian
political fold that echoes Pauline Hanson’s stance on Muslim and
immigration more broadly is from Peter Dutton, the Minister for
Immigration and Border Protection. Speaking during parliament ques-
tion time in November 2016, Mr. Dutton insinuated that descendants
of Lebanese Muslims in Australia were over-represented in terrorism
crime-related statistics and that it was a mistake for the Government of
Malcom Fraser to have accepted Lebanese refugees in the 1970s. Here is
what he said:
The advice I have is that out of the last 33 people who have been charged
with terrorist-related offences in this country, 22 of those people are from
second and third generation Lebanese-Muslim background. The reality is
Malcolm Fraser did make mistakes in bringing some people in the 1970s
and we’re seeing that today. We need to be honest in having that discus-
sion. There was a mistake made. Lessons from past migrant programs
should be learnt for people settling in Australia today. (SBS News, 22
November 2016)
This statement sparked backlash across the country with objections com-
ing from the Federal Labour opposition, the Lebanese community in
Australia as well as other communities right across the country—both
Muslim and non-Muslim alike. All who commented on Mr. Dutton
made it clear that this was an unwarranted racist and bigoted statement
that should not have been made in the first place. The important for me
here though is about how Peter Dutton, from the mainstream side of
329
Australian politics is reading from the same script as Pauline Hanson.

One would have expected him to be rebuked and ridiculed by his party
(which is in Government) as has consistently been the case when Pauline
Hanson makes similar utterances. Instead, Peter Dutton received glow-
ing praises from the Prime Minister, Malcom Turnbull, who defended
his minister and endorsed the comments by saying that ‘Peter Dutton is
a thoughtful and committed and compassionate Immigration Minister.
Peter Dutton is doing an outstanding job as Immigration Minister’.
(Dan Conifer, ABC News, 22 November 2016).
The above sentiments by Peter Dutton mimic almost word-for-word,
most of what Pauline Hanson said in both of her maiden speeches. For
example, in both 1996 and 2016, Pauline Hanson made a clarion call
for halting immigration:
Abolishing the policy of multiculturalism will save billions of dollars and

allow those from ethnic backgrounds to join mainstream Australia, pav-
ing the way to a strong, united country. Immigration must be halted in
the short term […]. Indiscriminate immigration and aggressive multi-
culturalism have caused crime to escalate and trust and social cohesion
to decline. Too many Australians are afraid to walk alone at night in
their neighbourhoods. Too many of us live in fear of terrorism. (Pauline
Hanson 1996, 2016)
There is a very clear resemblance between this statement and what Peter
Dutton said about second- and third-generation Lebanese-Australians
who he characterised as the unintended consequence of previous immi-
gration and multicultural policies that Pauline Hanson is also attack
ing. The language and tone of both statements reveal a consistent theme
about the non-desired other that never changes with generations. Both
politicians are reading from the same hymn book and their message:
there is something wrong in the DNA of different cohorts of refugees
and immigrants that are the subject of ridicule and racial abuse. I would
further argue that it seems there is a Hansonian spirit at play here; but
this spirit only gets rebuked and frowned upon when it manifests itself
through its progenitor, Paul Hanson. When the same spirit expresses
itself through other individuals such as Peter Dutton, Corey Bernardi
330
F. Ndhlovu
and Kevin Andrews, it gets defended and the people who embody it
are praised and rewarded for ‘doing an outstanding job’. What is being
missed here though is the fact that the anti-immigrant Hansonian spirit
looms large across the political divide in Australia as it takes different
forms and mutations; its virulent effects in the community and soci-
ety remain the same—regardless of whether it is manifested through its
progenitor or its surrogates.
The only thin veneer of difference between Pauline Hanson’s nation-
alism-speak/anti-immigrant sentiment and the discourses of major
political parties is that she calls a spade a spade (and not a shovel). She
is direct, forthright and unapologetic about what she believes in while
the others tend to use politically correct language and also hide behind
their official positions as government ministers or members of the rul-
ing party. A vernacular discourse analysis of both Pauline Hanson’s
and mainstream political players’ views on Australian immigration
policy are, in many respects, telling the same story around fear of the
non-desired ‘Other’ and perceptions of a world without others. Pauline
Hanson is taking to the podium what others say in hushed voices, in
politically correct/diplomatic language and behind closed doors. Here is
one quick example. In his response to a Greens political party’s proposal
to boost Australia’s refugee intake to 50,000 per year, Peter Dutton,
Immigration Minister, was reported saying ‘[…] for many [refugee
background] people, they won’t be numerate or literate in their own
language, let alone English. These people will be taking Australian jobs,
there is no question about that’ (Sky News Live, 18 May 2016).
Peter Dutton’s utterances about refugees’ lack of numeracy and liter-
acy skills—which would ironically make them take Australian jobs—
are depersonalised and legitimised by hiding behind a government pol-
icy platform. This enables him to say the very same things that Pauline
Hanson says but avoids the same amount of public backlash (that
Pauline Hanson receives) because he is perceived to be articulating
the official government position and not his personal opinion. This is
called double-voice (Bakhtin 1981)—the type of political-speak that is
disguised under legislative formalisms while simultaneously expressing
the very same crude, extremist and hard line opinions that are ordinar-
ily associated with the likes of Pauline Hanson and others. However,
331
in terms of the real substance of the matter, there is a very thin line
between Pauline Hanson’s views and the government’s official position
that is stated in the OSB policy and enunciated by the minister for
immigration. Pauline Hanson is only doing so from the sidelines of the
formal government policy machinery and from an overtly radical posi-
tion. It can also be argued that there is a significant proportion of the
Australian community that shares and supports Pauline Hanson’s posi-
tion on immigration. Her One Nation outfit has three more Senators in
parliament and these are individuals that were elected by the Australian
people. This is a plain fact about how Pauline Hanson’s stance resonates
with the sentiment of many in the community and should, therefore,
not be overlooked or dismissed as the rumblings of a fringe, radical, far-
right extremist.
Conclusion
Rather than seeking to protect borders and talking about porous bor-
ders as a national emergency, what is required is a re-imagining of the
border. Doing so will ensure that any new policy proposals accord with
the indisputably transient, fluid and flexible form that present-day
borders. It has been argued that the three strategies of political com-
munication that we find in the OSB policy document—us metaphors,
dialogism, pronouns of legitimation—bear the hallmarks of vernacular
discourse. All of them constitute forms of vernacular discourse insofar
as they are about official government policy on immigration and bor-
der protection—and yet, they simultaneously hark into mundane pub-
lic domain rhetoric about the non-desired others; refugees and asylum
seekers arriving on boats. The narrative techniques of dialogism, met-
aphors and language of legitimation accord with commonplace sub-
jective perceptions about asylum seekers that abound in micro-social
public spaces in the atoms of society—in buses, in trains, in shopping
malls, in social clubs and sporting events. These are the typical sites
where vernacular discourses are (re)produced, (re)enacted and picked up
by different actors, including politicians aspiring to win an election. It
is, therefore, not surprising to find that the discursive tropes of OSB
policy are consistent with attributes of vernacular discourse.
332
F. Ndhlovu
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Part V
Conclusion
9
Conclusion—Transnationalism or
Resurgent Narrow Nationalisms?
Nationalism, in its various forms and mutations, has persisted as one

of the most powerful, consequential and over-determined forces in
contemporary world affairs. While its origins and trajectory have long
been disputed, nationalism’s hold on the human imagination is unde-
niable even in this age of utopian transnationalism, with its seemingly
relentless cultural, political and economic homogenisation. In Africa,
various forms of nationalism-speak (ethno-nationalisms, autochthonous
nationalisms, xenophobia and so on) have a long historical genealogy
dating back to the late 1960s. Examples include the 1969 Ghanaian
deportation of thousands of immigrants from West Africa, particularly
Nigeria, Togo and Burkina Faso following the economic depression
experienced in the country, which saw high rates of youth unemploy-
ment; Idi Amin Dada’s 1972 deportation of Indians with British citi-
zenship out of Uganda; and Shehu Shagari and Muhammadu Buhari’s
‘Ghana-must-go’ policies of the early 1980s that led to mass deporta-
tions of migrants originally from Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Ghana and
Niger. All these deportations were justified on grounds of narrow forms
of nationalism expressed in the language of economic nationalism, eco-
nomic indigenisation and nativist definitions and understandings of

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76135-0_9
340
F. Ndhlovu
citizenship, indigeneity and belonging. The notion of ‘nationalisms of

the mind’ is one way to explain some of these contradictions and conti-
nuities that persist to this day, albeit in a world that is supposedly trans-
national and interconnected.
If there is any clearest reminder ever about how a truly transna-
tional world is more idealistic than real, it is the 2016 decision by the
United Kingdom (UK) to leave the European Union (EU). The referen-
dum, dubbed the Brexit vote held on 24 June 2016, demonstrated in
very clear and unequivocal terms that the enduring legacy of narrow
inward-looking nationalisms continues to hold sway even during this
day and age of fluid, transient and porous national borders. Triggered
by concerns over what ‘massive immigration has done to the UK’, the
outcome of the Brexit vote was justified and celebrated as a victory for
the UK’s national interests—as opposed to the interests of the global
transnational community, of which the EU is a part. One of the fer-
vent campaigners for exiting the EU, Nigel Farrage (then leader of the
UK Independent Party), described the outcome of the Brexit vote in
the following terms: ‘This is the first step towards the re-establishment
of a Europe of sovereign states. The EU has failed; the EU is dying’.
He went on to call for the recognition of June 24 as Independence Day
for the UK. Echoing a similar sentiment, French presidential candidate,
Marine Le Pen, typified the 2017 election as a historic opportunity to
choose between ‘savage globalisation that threatens our civilisation,
and borders that protect our jobs, our security and our national iden-
tity’. She promised the French electorate that if elected to the office of
President, she would stop ‘mass immigration and the free movement
of terrorists’. These are clear statements of the assertion of nation-state
sovereignty over the ideals of regional integration, transnationalism
and globalisation. What we see in both Mr. Farrage’s and Ms. Le Pen’s
statement is an appropriation of the language of nationalism that was
prominent from the 1950s to the late 1980s among newly independent
countries that were formerly colonised by European powers. Nationalist
liberation movements throughout Africa, Latin America, the Indian
subcontinent and parts of Asia used the language of national self-
determination, national sovereignty and national autonomy in asserting
9 Conclusion—Transnationalism or Resurgent …
341
their right to be free from colonial rule and domination. This was at the
height of what has come to be known as the golden years of national-
ism. That type of nationalism-speak was appropriate at the time because
the states and territories in those parts of the world were, indeed, under
direct foreign occupation and needed to gain political independence
and self-determination. But in the case of the recent Brexit vote in the
UK, the question is, independent from what/whom?
Such social and political movements as one that resulted in the UK
exiting the EU remind us of unpredictable anti-establishment senti-
ments in contemporary society. Desperate politicians holding divergent
political views—from moderate to far-right-wing extremists—are falling
on each other in a shameless race to the bottom, seeking relevance by
whipping up the emotions of an electorate that has increasingly become
disenchanted with mainstream politics. The modern world system that
has always been evolving continues to do so in rather unprecedented
ways since the turn of the eighteenth century. These recent develop-
ments around the world do clearly indicate that nationalism is poised
to continue to be a major factor in relations within and among states,
as well as in developments at regional, sub-regional, continental and
global scales. This seemingly stubborn and resilient character of nation-
alism that is sustained by several vernacular discourses and metalan-
guages invites the following contending questions of a theoretical and
empirical nature: Is what we are witnessing in the world today a reflec-
tion of a truly transnational comity, equality and social justice for all
or something that reminds us of the resurgence of narrow, autochtho-
nous and parochial nationalisms? Why has nationalism been so potent
and long-lasting in contradiction to the expectations of other competing
social theories of recent times? Under what circumstances is nationalism
a desirable solution to the challenges of transnationalism and interna-
tional migration? Does national self-determination necessarily denote
that transnationalism is an irrelevant utopia? How can evolving notions
of sovereignty be reconciled with the ideals of transnationalism? How
have various forms of nationalism played out on the world stage and to
what effect? What is the nature of nationalism-speak in Australia, South
Africa and Zimbabwe, and how does it compare and compete with
342
F. Ndhlovu
other varieties and forms of nationalisms around the world? What is the
relationship between transnationalism and globalisation and what are
the perceived threats and opportunities of such a relationship to the cur-
rent order of things in the world? What is the future of transnationalism
and by extension the nation and the state?
While the answers to these questions are not always easy and straight-
forward, this book has, in various ways, attempted to offer what I hope
are compelling and well-argued responses to all of them. The book pro-
vided fresh and critical reflections on the language of nationalism and
the discursive tropes that mediate national identity imaginings with a
focus on southern Africa and Australia where national projects of vari-
ous kinds have been created as part of pushing forward the dictates of
national sovereignty and inward-looking identity narratives while simul-
taneously seeking to embrace the economic, social and political ideals
of regional integration, globalisation and transnationalism. In addressing
the above questions, the book sought to join the ever-increasing scholarly
debates and conversations around the resurgent significance of nation-
alism and nation-state-centric identity narratives in twenty-first-century
world politics. Contemporary developments of globalisation, region-
alism and unprecedented patterns of transnational human popula-
tion movement across the world have prompted incipient calls for the
need to revisit and audit the significance of nationalism in all its various
forms. One of the key cross-cutting arguments advanced throughout this
book is that by examining some of the major theoretical and empirical
underpinnings of various discourses and everyday conversations about
national identity and belonging—and transposing them on a series of
past and present societal challenges and opportunities—we can begin
to develop a more nuanced and revised consideration of the enduring
significance of nationalism in the contemporary postmodern world.
Contrary to late twentieth-century pessimistic predictions that
painted a bleak picture of the future of nationalism and nationalist ide-
ology, this book has presented a counter-narrative that suggests national-
ism-speak and all its underpinning beliefs and practices are still as potent
as they were during the golden decades of the 1950s to the 1980s.
343
What we learn from the preceding pages of this book is that the
declining significance of the nation-state due to concomitant forces of
globalisation and transnationalism does not in any way indicate the dis-
appearance of territory as the centre of political power plays. Suggestions
that contemporary societies have somewhat moved away from territo-
rial understandings of the politics of identity and belonging fail to con-
ceptually elaborate the notion of territory itself (Elden 2005: 8). In line
with Stuart Elden’s (2005) proposition, this book has argued that rather
being an erasure of bounded territorial spaces, globalisation and trans-
nationalism are, in fact, a reconfiguration of existing understandings of
the same. The perceived ‘evaporation of the power of the nation-state’
(Elden, p. 8) does not necessarily mean that we have completely moved
beyond the Westphalian model of state politics. The notion of terri-
tory is no longer inherently tied to the nation-state as a container; it has
mutated and assumed ‘a mixture of fixity and unfixity’ (Castree 2003:
427). Overall, the point of greater significance is this: in this era of glo-
balisation and transnationalisation, territoriality—in the geographical or
spatial sense—remains of paramount importance even if it needs to be
understood in new, fresh and arresting ways that are more complicated
than ever before.
Therefore, collectively, all nine chapters in this book demonstrate
that instead of diminishing the appetite for mobilising the nation-state
as rallying point for identity narratives, social cohesion and collective
sensibilities as projected by twentieth-century pessimists, contemporary
forces of globalisation and transnationalism have, in fact, reinvigor
ated the resolve to safeguard nation-state authority, national sovereignty
and national interest. Nation-states are increasingly seeking to square
national autonomy with deep involvement in regional alliances, trading
networks and international organisations—while at the same time doing
so in a manner and language that betrays the centrality of the interests
of individual countries over those of a perceived transnational commu-
nity. All these crystallise around the ideology of nationalism and are
actuated by the nature of national questions and national projects pur-
sued by different nation-states and territories. Therefore, instead of being
perceived as undermining the nationalist ideology and the nation-state,
344
F. Ndhlovu
twenty-first-century developments of globalisation, transnationalism and

regionalism must be seen as giving more impetus to both. The chapters
in this book have, therefore, shown that the question of nationalism or
the national question is indeed an important one and in need of contin-
uous probing and investigation. Drawing from a range of both theoreti-
cal and empirical illustrations, the book has sought to demonstrate that
nationalism is an integral part of the ensemble of conceptual resources
for understanding current identity debates around the world.
Rather than proposing definitive answers or solutions to any of the
problems raised, the book has instead interrogated some of the conven-
tional wisdom and accepted tropes surrounding the ideals of a transna-
tional world and, in the process of doing so, tried to shed light on its
contemporary relevance and meaning. The book took a unique trans-
disciplinary approach straddling the disciplines of political science, his-
torical studies, media and communication studies, development studies,
language and society studies and migration and citizenship studies.
With such an approach, the book hopefully managed to innovatively
build on and extend into new directions the emerging international
scholarly conversations reminding us that though there is widespread
belief about the existence of a transnational world that supposedly
replaces the nation-state as the major unit of social and political analy-
sis, nationalism and the national project are not finished yet. The cross-
cutting theme of the entire book resonates with and echoes similar lines
of argument articulated by other like-minded international scholars of
nationalism. For instance, in what constitutes one of the most recent
and compelling books on the appraisal of nationalism in the t wenty-first
century, Claire Sunderland has written about the resilience of the
nationalist ideology and how it continues to shape and mediate the ter-
rain of global political, economic and identity discourses. Sunderland’s
book argued that the challenges of globalisation and transnationalism
are not fundamentally antagonistic to supposedly beleaguered nation-
states and marginalised nationalists. Rather, she highlighted the actual
interplay of such developments with nationalism and nation-building
and the ways in which nationalist ideologies have attempted to rise to
the cosmopolitan challenge. Using examples from across the world,
from Estonia to Fiji, and India to the USA, Sunderland showed how
345
the nationalist ideology and the nation-state are adapting to the cosmo-
politan challenge. This volume has added important dimensions to this
debate by meticulously drawing on theories of vernacular discourse and
emergent political languages to illuminate new insights into the past and
present genealogies of nationalist ideologies and their implications for
contemporary debates and conversations on migration, citizenship and
belonging.
Taken together, the chapters constituting this book tried to map out
the limitations of current popular assumptions about a transnational
world order that is supposedly premised on the ideals of horizontal
comradeship, equality and social justice for all. Through the case stud-
ies of Australia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, the book identified both
structural and agential factors that combine to compromise the much-
avowed aspirational ideals of a truly transnational world. The key lim-
iting factor was that the societies in question emerged from the belly
of the beast of imperialism at its highest stage, which Nkrumah cor-
rectly termed neo-colonialism. Overall, what this book has sought to
reveal is a complex overlay of multiple factors and processes that have
shaped and continue to mediate the dynamics of mainstream identity
imaginings as we approach the end of the second decade of the twenty-
first century. Very useful warnings and lessons emerged from the book,
including that the twenty-first century requires us to come to terms
with the fact that identities—whether national or transnational—will
always remain elusive and contested and that the analytical frame of
vernacular discourses needs serious consideration in our search for a
better understanding of these issues. Deployment of the vernacular
discourse approach promises to circumvent the pitfalls of mainstream
identity narratives that are largely premised on masculinised and patri-
archal nationalism that reflects the power of the state, political elites and
bureaucrats in determining who belongs and who does not. Vernacular
discourses and other non-mainstream forms of small talk are often not
taken seriously to the extent that their impact in influencing mundane
identity narratives go unnoticed. This book is a one modest attempt to
draw scholarly and social policy attention to the spheres of possibilities
that a vernacular discourse approach holds for better understanding of
the contemporary world.
346
F. Ndhlovu
What emerged poignantly in the preceding chapters is that the best

way forward is to approach both nationalism and transnationalism
with a critical eye on their limits, illusions and potential for abuse—but
being simultaneously cautious not to totally dismiss them. Both nation-
alism and transnationalism matter in the twenty-first century and can
have positive or negative impacts on citizens’ democratic life and wel-
fare depending on how they are imagined and deployed. Nationalism
can be a powerful resource for overcoming polarisation if intended as
national solidarity and common resolve to build the future together.
On the other hand, the different mix between three dimensions of
national identity, namely the ethnic-genealogical, the cultural and
the civic/political, can pose serious setbacks to the utility of national-
ist ideology within the context of the twenty-first-century world that
is characterised by unprecedented contact among people from diverse
linguistic and cultural backgrounds and with differing social, religious
and political persuasions. While the ethno-genealogical dimension has
potential to arouse strong collective sentiments, it is simultaneously a
backward-looking and potentially divisive force. The cultural and civic/
political dimensions suggest more universalistic values and rights, hence
their potential to contribute to a forward-looking, inclusive and tran-
scendental view of identity and belonging. This essentially means both
nationalism and transnationalism can be powerful instruments to coun-
ter social cleavages and tensions associated with multiethnic societies.
In particular, Africa today needs nationalism that is easily convertible
to Pan-Africanism rather than one described by Nyerere as existing in
tension with Pan-Africanism. The future struggle should be about con-
verting nationalism into Pan-Africanism because Nkrumah’s fears have
been confirmed by history that without Pan-African unity Africa is
doomed to remain in a subaltern position failing to resist imperialism
and neo-colonialism successfully. Overall, what this book proposes is
that nationalism should be seen as an ideology that interacts with other
ideologies such as decolonial epistemic thought, negritudism, African
personality, Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance. Therefore, a more
nuanced and robust reading and interpretation of what it means to be
African in the twenty-first century must draw both on the past and
present forms of national and transnational consciousness.
347
In the light of the foregoing, this book has, hopefully, added another
voice based on recent theoretical and empirical evidence in support of
the argument that nationalism continues to provide states with a sense
of community on the one hand and helps fuel sentiments for exclud-
ing and discriminating the non-desired other, on the other. It can,
therefore, be concluded that contemporary postmodern nationalisms
are complex, multidimensional and ever-evolving as they are shaped
and mediated by competing demands for sub-state autonomy, nation-
state legitimacy and the emerging transnational forces of regionalism
and globalisation. However, in spite of these ever-present threats from
below and from above, nationalism is not yet about to disappear as the
focal point of twenty-first-century economic conversations and political
debates. Notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence of cultural, lin-
guistic, religious and political pluralities across the globe, nation-state-
centric forms of cultural and political insularity are still being pursued
and vigorously defended by the governing authorities of individual
countries. As has been argued in this book, this is particularly the case
in Australia and in other comparable countries in Western Europe and
North America that happen to be the preferred destinations for most
migrants and refugees. This is simply because the nationalist ideology
continues to underpin contemporary global structural arrangements,
the terms of multilateral engagements as well as bilateral relations
among states and territories.
The vernacular discourse approach adopted in this book extends the
debate on nationalism and transnationalism by emphasising the role
of informal social forces in shaping the discourse of agents over time.
It seeks to account for non-institutional power by imagining a fluid,
temporal and transient division between the vernacular and the institu-
tional. What we learn from the concept of vernacular discourse and the
ways it has been deployed in this book is that we need to consider the
complex interdependence of the non-institutional and the institutional
in our conversations around issues of identity formation. This means
we have to look at group and individual identities as performative ele-
ments emanating from the dialectical interplay of formal and informal
everyday lived experiences. Vernacular discourses and associated iden-
tity imaginings should be seen as means by which the vernacular (the
348
F. Ndhlovu
marginalised, the subaltern) gains an alternate authority by usurping the

monopoly of the hegemonic system to power—albeit by stealth. In inte-
grating this economy of subordination into its perspective, vernacular
discourse enables us to account for previously unexplored hybrid agen-
cies that both resist and sustain some of the issues around identity con-
testations in the contemporary world.
Overall, by drawing on examples from Zimbabwe, South Africa
and Australia, this book has tried to show that nationalism and trans-
nationalism discourses are characterised by a coalescence of multi-
ple socio-economic and political forces that compete and collide in all
sorts of ways. These forces include demands for equity, social justice
and economic opportunities by local populations (that have prompted
inward-looking nationalisms) and global market economic and politi-
cal imperatives (that have prompted neoliberal transnationalism). Most
of the forces at play (e.g. B-BBEE, Third Chimurenga and land reform
programmes) have both challenged and affirmed the myths of trans-
national worlds—in equal measure. To this end, Language,Vernacular
Discourse and Nationalisms has attempted to uncover those discursive
and linguistic elements that illustrate the existence of narrow forms of
nationalism that are somewhat anachronistic to popular and simplistic
assumptions about transnational worlds. The book adopted a unique
transdisciplinary approach straddling the disciplines of sociolinguistics,
political science, historical studies, development studies and migration
and citizenship studies. This interdisciplinary slant was adopted as way
to innovatively build on and extend into new directions the emerging
international scholarly conversations reminding us of the enduring and
ever-present influence of the language of nationalism in current social,
economic and political debates—albeit in ways that defy and contest
widely held perceptions about the existence of transnational worlds. The
singular most important contribution that the book hopes to have made
to the burgeoning social science scholarship on this topic is one on how
inward-looking nationalist linguistic and discursive practices continue
to mediate social and economic policy frameworks, thus sharply con-
tradicting common-sense assumptions about a world that is said to have
become more transnational and more interconnected than ever before.
349
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Index
A African migrants 42, 109, 153, 326

Abbott, Tony 23, 310 African Union (AU) 228, 229
Aboriginal people 164 Agrarian reform 190
Abuse 145, 166, 167, 175, 245, 247, Agriculture 143, 157, 173
252, 260, 263, 329, 346 Alarmist language 301
Achieved societies 250 Alternative development 208, 215,
Affirmative action 166, 169, 194 227
Africa 4, 23, 42, 43, 49, 50, 52, 59, Amakwerekwere/makwerekwere 31, 41,
65, 72, 75, 86, 89, 109, 114, 46, 49–59
138, 141, 164, 181, 185–188, Andrews, Kevin 326, 330
193, 207, 208, 211–215, 217– Anglo-Saxon 28, 112, 295, 305
219, 223–228, 230, 232–235, Angola 233
298, 323, 339, 340, 342, 346 Anti-colonial 4, 141, 164, 218
Africa-centred development 52 Anti-immigration 325
African Academy of Languages Anti-imperialism 118
(ACALAN) 228 Anti-racist 162
African civilisations 226 Apartheid 34, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 52,
African languages 69, 76, 81, 85, 87, 54–58, 122, 136, 137, 181, 182,
89, 91, 93, 109, 229, 230, 232 184–186, 188–194, 217, 220
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 377

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76135-0
378
Index
Apartheid South Africa 31, 43, 136, Belonging 3, 6, 9, 16, 21, 26–28, 31,
183, 192 33, 42, 43, 45, 50, 52, 54, 55,
Ascribed societies 250 57, 59, 108, 111, 136, 152,
Asia 4, 207, 209–211, 259, 263–266, 155, 196, 197, 294, 295, 307,
269, 295, 298, 340 340, 342, 343, 345, 346
Asian development discourse 210, Bernardi, Corey 326–329
211 Bicultural 66, 93, 100, 168
Assimilation 69, 80, 98, 99, 245, Big data 314
285 Bilingual 93, 168
Asylum seekers 23, 41, 114, 272– Black African migrants 23, 41,
275, 3001, 308–315, 317–319, 49–52, 55–57, 155
322, 331 Black economic empowerment 4, 28,
Asymmetrical power 68, 99, 293 34, 57, 136, 154, 161, 178,
Australia 4, 20–23, 28, 35, 36, 109, 181–183, 190–192, 195, 197,
111–114, 116, 122, 138, 164, 199
197, 243–250, 255, 259–279, Black South Africans 34, 41, 43–45,
281–287, 291, 292, 295, 296, 55, 56, 58, 59, 182, 185
300, 301, 306–310, 312–315, Botswana 31, 42, 50, 51, 53, 96, 164
317, 318, 320, 322–330, 341, Brexit 24, 295, 340, 341
342, 345, 347, 348 British-Australian nationality 248
Australian citizenship 248, 252, 259, British colonial policy 249, 250
276, 277, 279–282, 284, 287 British descent 248
Australian culture 244 Broad-based Black Economic
Australian history 275, 276, 281 Empowerment (B-BBEE) 34,
Australian national values 253 57, 136, 181, 183, 190–195,
Authoritarianism 157, 179 197, 348
Autochthony 20, 43
C
B Cameron, David 24, 113
Bakhtin, Mikhail 311, 312, 315, 321 Capitalist society 250
Banal nationalism 110 Chimurenga 136, 137
Bantu 164 Chitepo, Herbert 138, 139
Bantu Education 44 Citizenship 3, 5, 6, 8, 28, 32, 33,
Bantu Education Act 44 35, 54, 55, 57, 59, 66, 67, 69,
Bantu migration 164 70, 72, 77–82, 84, 86, 92–94,
Bantu people 164 100, 108, 111, 115, 126,
Beitbridge 233 136, 152–157, 192, 211, 244,
Index
379
252, 262, 265, 277, 278, 280, 151, 166, 179, 180, 190, 195,
283–285, 299, 339, 340, 344, 231, 233, 234, 250, 255, 257,
345, 348 259, 265, 270, 271, 275, 292,
Citizenship tests 108, 253, 259, 276, 295, 298–301, 305, 308, 314,
277, 279–281, 283, 286 320
Coercion 67, 71, 98, 151, 257 Counter-hegemony 151
Colonial 4, 18, 24, 27, 30, 31, 33, Creativity 35, 83, 207, 208, 223–
42, 51, 52, 54, 57, 65, 68, 226, 229, 305
78, 81, 88, 91, 97, 98, 101, Critical discourse analysis 140, 175
122, 124, 136, 137, 139, 140, Critical political discourse analysis
142, 144, 147, 153, 156, 157, (CPDA) 145, 146
159–161, 163, 165, 169–171, Cross-border languages 114, 228–
173, 175, 177, 180, 187, 189, 230, 232–234
190, 194, 196, 197, 207, 214, Cultural development 227
215, 217, 222, 224, 226, 227, Cultural diversity 18, 32, 65, 89, 93,
232, 233, 249, 269, 280, 295, 168, 212, 323
341 Cultural policy 66, 84, 86, 87
Colonialism 41, 57, 67, 106, 137, Cultural resources 35, 208, 213, 227
140, 154, 157, 217, 218, 220, Culture 12, 13, 15, 16, 21, 42, 46,
345, 346 48, 68, 70, 80, 82, 84, 89, 91,
Coloured 44, 45, 185, 192, 194, 246, 95–97, 99, 101, 106, 109, 111,
249, 263 126, 157, 163, 166, 170, 209,
Communal Land Rights Act 210, 213, 219, 223–225, 227,
(CLaRA) 186, 188 249, 266, 301, 301, 303, 323,
Communal lands 186, 188 324, 327
Community 8, 11, 16, 21, 22, 26,
42, 46, 47, 49, 52, 55, 56,
D
59, 72, 73, 83, 90, 93, 109,
Decolonial epistemology 211, 213,
114, 118, 119, 146, 156, 161,
218–221, 234
163, 164, 171–173, 178, 182,
Decoloniality 211, 219, 221, 222
224, 227, 229, 231, 248, 249,
Democracy 73, 111, 141, 157, 178,
264, 277, 278, 280–282, 285,
179, 219, 279
299–302, 307, 311–313, 319,
Denationalisation 8, 13, 14
325–328, 330, 331, 340, 343,
De-racialised 145, 157, 158
347
Deterritorialisation 8, 15–17
Conspiracy of silence 70, 250, 257
Development discourse 212, 214–
Control 5, 6, 14, 36, 67, 71, 89, 97,
216, 218, 224, 226, 227, 230
99, 100, 108, 121, 123, 141,
Dialogism 311, 312, 315, 321, 331
380
Index
Diaspora 15, 32, 105–109, 111, 113, Economic progress 232

115, 116, 120, 126 Economic reductionism 216
Dictation test 243, 246–248, Education 43–45, 55, 56, 66, 68, 75,
259–266, 269, 272, 287 76, 80, 82, 84–86, 89–91, 95,
Discourse 4, 15, 22, 29, 34, 37, 46, 99, 115, 117, 118, 122, 138,
49, 66, 67, 69, 77, 80, 84, 162, 212, 262, 272, 278
92–94, 112, 115, 116, 120, Educational background 253
138, 145, 147, 157, 174, 175, Ego-politics 293
177–181, 183, 184, 189, 190, Emergent identities 46
194, 199, 210, 211, 216, 217, Emergent political languages 22, 31,
219, 220, 229, 234, 250, 258, 42, 43, 46, 50–54, 59, 345
262, 266, 269, 275, 281, 286, Empire building 32, 65, 95, 96, 101
293–295, 306, 307, 310, 311, Employment 17, 43, 45, 51, 55, 57,
315, 319, 320, 326, 347 68, 99, 114, 183, 191, 268,
Discourse analysis 145, 156 269, 278
Discrimination 13, 28, 35, 67, 75, Empowerment 28, 34, 98, 145, 160,
98, 99, 111, 112, 137, 138, 165, 170, 180, 181, 197, 198,
155, 160, 169, 198, 244, 207, 208, 213, 214, 219, 223,
251–253, 259, 268, 287, 301, 226, 227, 229, 230, 232–235
306 English 68, 69, 73, 75, 76, 80, 81,
Discursive regimes 21 87, 88, 91–93, 114, 117, 122,
Diversity of language practices 95, 123, 173, 179–181, 232, 252,
120, 124, 126 253, 259, 261, 267–287, 305,
Dominant language 70, 73, 88 308, 330
Domination 4, 48, 67, 69, 71, 93, language 68, 69, 72, 75, 76, 81,
98, 99, 138, 145, 146, 175, 87, 88, 91, 92, 114, 117,
217, 341 122–124, 173, 179, 180, 230,
Double voice 311, 313, 314, 330 252, 253, 259, 261, 267–287,
Dutton, Peter 284, 328–330 305, 308, 330
nativized 269
varieties of 114, 269, 270, 286
E
Entitlement 3, 28, 33, 57, 136, 155
Economic empowerment 27, 33,
Epistemic community 233
34, 136, 139–141, 148, 156,
Equity 43, 45, 118, 139, 140, 145,
159–161, 163, 165–171, 173,
151, 155, 182, 190, 194, 198,
179, 182, 183, 190, 191,
250, 251, 253, 268, 326, 348
195–199, 208, 210–215, 220,
Ethnic affiliation 78
223, 226, 228, 230, 231
Ethnic enclaves 248
Economic marginalisation 169
Index
381
Ethnicity 22, 43, 76–78, 107, 168, Ghettos 248, 323

171, 191, 269, 293, 300 Globalisation 4, 5, 8, 10–15, 25, 26,
Ethnic minorities 67, 79, 84, 107, 28–30, 198, 218, 315, 340,
108, 113 342–344
Euphemism 173, 177, 178, 253 Global North 19, 22, 108, 109, 123,
Euro-modernist 196, 207, 224, 227, 207, 214, 215, 218–221, 223,
234 226, 294, 295, 301, 302
Exclusion 5, 6, 13, 20, 28, 65–67, 69, Global South 4, 19, 22, 123, 196,
72, 76, 78–82, 92, 93, 97, 98, 211–215, 217–223, 234, 295
112, 169, 194, 245–248, 250, Global village 11, 12
252, 253, 255, 259, 261–263, Grand erasure 196, 295
268, 277, 283, 286, 287, 293, Great Zimbabwe 82, 225
294, 301, 302, 304, 306 Gukurahundi 78, 170
political 19, 20, 22, 26, 28, 32,
49, 50, 65, 66, 69, 72, 75,
H
78, 79, 92, 93, 96, 98, 99,
Hanson, Pauline 307, 308, 322–326,
139, 245–248, 255, 261–263,
328–331
285–287, 301, 302, 306
Hegemony 5, 67, 69, 71, 75, 92, 99,
120, 149, 151, 176, 177, 208,
F 212, 214, 218, 233, 257, 263
Fallacy of absences 215, 294 Hidden power 150, 151
Farage, Nigel 24 Horizontal comradeship 22, 26, 170,
Fast Track Land Reform (FTLR) 191, 300, 307, 345
programme 33, 136, 158, 159, Human development 215
173
Figurative language 311, 315
I
First Chimurenga 135, 137
Ideological power 66, 67, 258
Foreigners 22, 23, 54, 59, 183, 273,
Ideology 26, 27, 29, 48, 67, 84,
296, 300
88, 92, 95–97, 99, 109, 123,
Fraser, Malcolm 264, 328
157, 170, 174, 176, 179, 231,
Freedom of association 232, 279
250, 275, 278, 286, 315, 324,
Freedom of speech 232, 279
342–347
Illiteracy 44
G Immigrants 22, 33, 35, 52–54,
Gate-keeping 67, 150, 255, 259, 56–58, 105–110, 112–115,
268, 270 119, 121, 122, 125, 127, 154,
Gestures of exclusion 196, 294 192, 243–245, 247–249, 259,
382
Index
260, 262, 265–270, 273, 281, political 27, 28, 30, 41, 66, 70,
283, 284, 301, 327, 329, 339 95, 96, 98, 99, 115, 116, 229,
Immigration Restriction Act 243, 230, 233, 245, 341, 342
245, 246, 248, 249, 263–265 regional 115, 229, 230, 234, 340,
Inclusion 5, 6, 35, 66, 78, 79, 92, 342
97, 100, 110, 115, 212, 244, Intellectual resources 210, 224
247, 255, 287 Internal colonisation 142
Indigeneity 43, 152, 163–165, 173, Invisible power 150, 151
340 Inward-looking nationalism 26
Indigenisation policy 159, 161, 162
Indigenous 22, 35, 45, 69, 76, 83,
K
85, 87, 88, 91, 114, 138, 139,
Khoi 164
153, 160, 161, 163–165, 167,
Kisch, Egon 261, 262
168, 170, 173, 194, 197, 214,
Knowledge 52, 84, 98, 119, 124,
216, 223, 232, 244, 285, 295,
149, 158, 196, 197, 199, 207,
323
212, 214, 217–220, 223, 228,
Indigenous knowledge system 214,
231–233, 250, 254, 255, 258,
223, 232
259, 271, 275, 276, 281,
Indigenous people 137, 138, 161,
283–285, 295
163, 164, 169, 170, 285
Kwanyama 233
Indigenous Zimbabwean 152, 160,
162, 165, 168
Inequality 4, 43, 45, 88, 99, 110, L
146, 199, 326 Lancaster House Conference
Inferences 252–254 141–143, 147
Influence by association 166 Land 23, 25, 55, 82, 125, 135,
Innovation 35, 207, 208, 222–224, 137–148, 152, 154–156, 158,
226, 229, 235, 306, 327 159, 173, 176–178, 180–190,
Integration 28, 30, 35, 41, 66, 70, 197, 295, 323
95–98, 108, 115, 209, 214, Land Act (1913) 185, 189
229, 230, 233–235, 244, 245, Land question 135, 138–140, 142,
248, 249, 281, 340, 342 147, 148, 151, 155, 181–184
cultural 30, 35, 70, 95–99, 108, Land redistribution 137–140, 158,
109, 209, 213, 214, 229, 230, 182, 188, 190
233, 234, 244, 245, 249 Land reform 4, 27, 28, 34, 135, 136,
economic 28, 30, 41, 96, 99, 140, 141, 144–146, 151, 152,
116, 209, 213, 214, 229, 230, 154–159, 173, 176, 181–187,
233–235, 249, 282, 342 189, 190, 197–199, 320, 348
Index
383
Land reform policy 140, 152, 156, Language testing 245, 250, 260, 270,
184, 188 275, 281–283, 287
Land restitution 136, 186, 187, 190 regimes 245, 275
Land tenure 154, 155, 188, 189 Language tests 247, 250, 260, 262,
Land tenure reform 190 263, 286
Language 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 20–22, Liberal democracies 8, 107, 108, 110,
26–30, 32–36, 42, 49, 52, 53, 279, 293, 302, 306, 315
57, 67–70, 72–77, 79–101, Linguistic diversity 34, 67, 77, 118,
105, 106, 108, 109, 114–127, 208, 223, 227, 269
136, 137, 140, 145–147, 151, Linguistic hegemony 67, 92, 120,
161–163, 165–170, 173, 212
179–183, 186, 188, 189, 191, Linguistic imperialism 68, 69, 92,
194, 196–199, 213, 217, 218, 100, 117, 118, 270, 285
221, 226–233, 243–247, 250, Linguistic minorities 72, 92
252, 253, 255, 258–262, 264, Linguistic resources 35, 208, 213,
267–287, 296, 300, 301, 214
304–312, 314–318, 320, 325, Linguistics affordances 213
328–330, 339, 340, 342–344, Literacy 55, 85, 91, 232, 253, 277,
348 330
Language education 121 Locality 126, 172, 215
Language ideologies 73, 84, 105, Local knowledge systems 213
115, 116, 118, 120, 121, 123,
125, 245, 286
M
Language of legitimation 148, 157,
Mabrantaya 31, 49, 50
320, 331
Machawa 31, 49–51, 54
Language of victimhood 157
Malawi 49, 51, 153
Language planning 85, 94, 95
Mamoskeni 31, 49–51, 54
Language policy(ies) 28, 32, 65–67,
Manipulation 97, 98, 123, 167, 178,
69, 71–75, 79, 80, 83, 85–91,
252, 286, 301
93–98, 100, 101
Manyasarandi 31, 41, 49–51, 54
Language politics 32, 66, 94, 269,
Marginality 302–304
286
Margins 50, 58, 258, 302, 304, 305
Language proficiency 243, 271, 272,
Market economy 187, 189, 197
275, 281, 282
Mashonaland 76, 77, 81, 82, 92, 98,
Language rights 93, 118
99, 167, 170
Language skills 243, 259, 263, 271,
Matabeleland 76, 77, 81, 82, 92, 98,
276, 282–285
99, 138, 168, 170
384
Index
Material culture 196, 225, 227, 294 121, 125, 127, 198, 218, 244,
Meta-language 3, 157, 198 264, 266, 267, 296, 323, 329
Metaphors 12, 94, 117, 118, 304, Multilingualism 32, 33, 73–75, 106,
305, 311, 315–319, 331 114–119, 121–123, 125, 127
Micro-social settings 57 Multiple monolingualism 108, 118
Migrants 17, 19, 35, 36, 41, 54, 56, Multi-voice 311
58, 108, 109, 114, 164, 165, Muslim immigrants 23, 110
244, 249, 266–268, 270, 282, Muslims 324, 328
285, 286, 299–301, 308, 314, Myths 21, 22, 27, 36, 52, 107, 149,
323, 324, 326, 327, 339, 347 153, 169, 292, 295, 296, 307,
Migration 3, 17–20, 27, 28, 32, 105, 348
106, 113, 114, 164, 234, 245,
255, 259, 265–267, 271, 274,
N
283, 284, 286, 287, 291, 296,
Namibia 164, 233
298, 299, 301, 327, 341, 344,
Narrow nationalisms 22, 23, 37
345, 348
National autonomy 209, 340, 343
Migration policy 35, 244, 272, 286,
National borders 3, 8, 36, 114, 230,
295
292, 295, 301, 306, 307, 315,
Minority 5, 32, 58, 65, 68–70, 72,
340
73, 75, 76, 78, 80–84, 87–90,
National boundaries 36, 292, 298
92–94, 97–100, 107, 122, 123,
National interest 28, 33, 36, 174,
169, 186
178, 292, 301, 343
Modernisation 13, 57, 209–211, 214
Nationalism 4, 9, 22, 26, 27, 29,
Modernity 11, 52, 94, 124, 198, 214,
30, 53, 97, 136, 155, 157,
215, 218, 220, 304, 305
170, 171, 176, 178, 266, 293,
Modern world system 4, 13, 19, 341
339–348
Monolingualism 115–117, 119, 125
Nationalism-speak 4, 29, 330, 339,
Monolingual mindset 116, 117, 120,
341, 342
122, 123, 125, 126
Nationalist discourse 28–30, 82
Movement for Democratic Change
Nationalist language 21, 27, 28
(MDC) 33, 51, 78, 153, 174,
Nationality 6, 8, 22, 100, 106, 109,
177
152, 172, 259, 261, 273
Mozambique 50, 51, 153
National language 32, 66, 75, 76,
Mugabe, Robert 23, 51, 135,
81, 85, 87–89, 101, 109, 278,
140–142, 145–149, 151–154,
286
156–158, 166, 180, 320
National liberation movements 4,
Mugabeism 157, 166
137, 340
Multiculturalism 13, 32, 33, 35, 67,
National security 281, 282, 284, 309,
74, 77, 106–115, 118, 119,
317, 325
Index
385
National self-determination 340, 341 Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB)

National sovereignty 3, 25, 28, 36, 246, policy 291, 292, 296, 307–315,
292, 308, 314, 340, 342, 343 317–322, 326, 331
National unity 25, 70, 85, 95, 97, 98, Othering 41, 49
141, 193
Nation-building 31, 54, 65, 78, 79,
P
93, 97, 100, 344
Pacific Islanders 247
Nationhood 66, 79, 95, 112, 113, 295
Paradigm of difference 25, 43
Nation-state 3–10, 13–17, 21, 26,
Parochial nationalism 341
29, 32, 33, 42, 53, 59, 66,
Particularism 215
67, 94, 106, 108, 120, 195,
People smugglers 292, 313, 317–319,
199, 292, 297, 298, 300, 340,
321
342–345, 347
Permanent 35, 114, 153, 163, 244,
Natives Land Act (1936) 185, 189
252, 264, 266, 273, 283, 284
Nativism 155, 157, 293
migration 114, 284
Ndebele 32, 65, 66, 68–72, 76–78,
residency 264, 284
80–82, 84–88, 91–101, 137,
residents 35, 114, 153, 244, 266,
165, 168, 222
283, 284
Neo-liberal discourse 188, 193
Persuasive communication 319
Neo-liberalism 198
PF ZAPU 78
Nesting, of languages 232
Philosophy of language 120, 124, 127
Networks (social, cultural) 233
Political commissars 189
Neutralization 179, 180
Political communication 4, 145, 311,
Nkomo, Joshua 138, 139
315, 316, 320, 331
Non-European immigrants 248,
Political community 171
249, 280
Political hegemony 176
Normative values 12
Political manipulation 158
cultural 11, 12
Political rhetoric 166, 307
national 96
Political-speak 330
Northern development discourse 34,
Politics 16, 22, 29, 30, 32, 37, 58,
196, 208, 212, 214, 216–222,
66, 69, 72, 78, 84, 93–95,
227, 233
97, 108, 116, 140, 150, 152,
Northern theory 197, 219, 221, 234
159, 176, 209, 219, 231, 269,
270, 286, 303, 316, 322, 329,
O 341–343
Official language 69, 76, 88, 229, 270 Popular appeal 173, 178
One Nation party 322 Postcolonial Zimbabwe 32, 66, 68,
Operation Murambatsvina 33, 136, 79, 80, 88, 90, 93, 96, 99, 100,
174, 176–178 153, 181
386
Index
Postnationalisation 8 S
Power 4, 7, 10, 12, 14, 15, 24, 44, Sample/sampling 252, 253
47, 49, 50, 66, 67, 69–71, San 164
73, 74, 78, 79, 84, 89, 90, Sarkozy, Nikolas 23, 110
94–96, 98, 99, 118, 119, Second Chimurenga 135, 139, 148,
142, 145, 147, 149–151, 152, 158
156, 162, 166, 167, 175, Service delivery 184
179, 184, 188, 189, 198, Shona 32, 51, 65, 66, 68–72, 76–78,
213, 214, 216, 217, 219, 80–82, 84–88, 91–101, 114,
231, 247, 248, 252, 255– 137, 148, 165, 168, 169
259, 261, 263, 269, 275, Short, Claire 143, 146, 147
286, 287, 294, 302, 303, Shorten, Bill 300
305, 311, 317, 343, 345, Social cohesion 12, 27, 31, 45, 55, 58,
347, 348 70, 109, 123, 325, 329, 343
conquest of state 231 Social hierarchies 43, 110, 293
Power by association 166, 167 Social justice 118, 126, 137, 139,
Power of tests 250, 256, 271, 275 140, 145, 151, 156, 190, 194,
Progress 100, 182, 186, 215, 217, 198, 341, 345, 348
220, 233 Social liberalism 249, 250, 266
Pronoun of legitimation 156 Social policy 8, 28, 32, 105, 107,
108, 124–126, 182, 219, 345
Social progress 34, 35, 196, 208, 211,
R
213, 214, 217–219, 226, 227,
Racial affiliation 253 229, 234, 294
Racial hierarchies 107, 193 Social transformation 27, 28, 34,
Raciolinguistics 190 136, 181
Racism 13, 28, 35, 41, 53, 54, 57, Sociolinguistic justice 232
75, 111, 112, 137, 162, 190, Sociolinguistics 116, 118, 123, 348
198, 217, 293, 326 Sociological community 171, 172
Redress 140, 144, 145, 151, 154, South Africa 4, 21–23, 28, 31, 34,
157, 159, 183, 184, 186–189, 36, 42–45, 50–58, 122, 136,
194, 198 164, 181–185, 187, 188,
Refugees 35, 36, 41, 107, 114, 244, 190–199, 208, 213, 223, 230,
249, 301, 310–314, 318, 319, 233, 341, 345, 348
322, 325, 328–331, 347 Southern development discourse 34,
Resurgent nationalism 4 208, 213, 218, 219, 223, 234
Reverse racism 156, 161, 163, 194 Southern Europeans 225
Rodney, Walter 225 Southern theory 211, 213, 214,
Rural communities 191, 196 218–220, 234
Index
387
Space 5, 6, 9, 15, 16, 25, 51, 75, 76, Transformation 10, 34, 45, 181, 194,
79, 108, 124, 151, 183, 222, 302, 305
294, 298, 303–306 Translative adaptation 209–211, 213,
Standard ideology 74, 117, 119, 121, 235
126 Transnationalism 3–5, 17, 18, 22, 24,
Standard language 94, 118, 121, 123, 25, 28–30, 108, 199, 292, 315,
124, 270, 285 339–344, 346–348
Standard language ideology 73, 116, Transnational worlds 20, 30, 136,
118, 120, 121, 125 149, 348
Sub-state autonomy 26, 347 Tribalism 77, 293
Superdiversity 3, 34 Tribe 77, 172, 185
Sustainable economic empowerment Trump, Donald 24–26, 298, 327
228 Turnbull, Malcolm 308
Symbolic power 70, 91, 250, 256,
257, 259, 275, 286, 320
U
Ubuntu 222, 223
T Underdevelopment 182, 220, 227
Tambo, Oliver 181 Unequal power relations 67, 69, 84,
Teaching English to speakers of other 88, 255, 286
languages (TESOL) 123 Universalism 12, 74, 119, 121, 221
Technology of exclusion 250
Terminology 176–178, 229, 230
V
scientific 229, 230
Validity 147, 251, 252, 254, 268
technological 229
Vernacular discourse 3, 4, 8, 20–22,
Terra nullius 197, 293, 295
26–32, 42, 43, 46–50, 55, 57,
Terrorism 280, 281, 284, 311, 325,
79, 84, 101, 137, 159, 170,
328, 329
307, 314, 330, 331, 345, 347,
Test domain 252, 253, 268
348
Thatcher, Margaret 144
Vernacular rhetoric 24, 50, 87
Third Chimurenga 33, 34, 135–
Vhembe 233
137, 139, 145, 152, 153, 158,
Vhenda 122
159, 173–178, 180, 181, 197,
Visible power 150
348
Todd, Garfield 162
Townships 44, 50, 51, 56, 57, 153, W
191 Western modernity 120, 121, 126
Traditional leaders 189 White Australia policy 112, 264, 283,
296
388
Index
White South Africans 56, 193, Z

194 Zambia 49, 51, 114, 153, 212
Willing seller willing buyer (WSWB) ZANU PF 33, 78, 152, 155, 156,
141, 146, 182, 187 161, 167, 173–180
Word approval 174 ZANU PF functionaries 158
Word disapproval 173, 175 Zimbabwe 4, 21–23, 28, 31–34,
World system 5, 8–10, 16, 17, 297, 36, 42, 51, 53, 65, 66, 68–71,
307 75–81, 83–101, 114, 135–138,
World without others 20, 36, 140–147, 149, 151–155,
292–296, 307, 309, 330 157–170, 173–176, 178–184,
189, 190, 194, 198, 199, 208,
212, 213, 223, 225, 226, 233,
X
320, 341, 345, 348
Xenophobia 13, 28, 41, 53, 54, 57, Zimbabwe culture 225, 226
75, 198, 280, 293, 339 Zuma, Jacob 181, 188
Xenophobic violence 54 Zwelithini, Goodwill 23

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Finex Ndhlovu

Language, Vernacular Discourse

ISBN 978-3-319-76134-3 ISBN 978-3-319-76135-0 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018934628

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Cover image: © Malchev/Getty Images

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

USazini ube elele emfeni eKambuzuma. Angabe etshontshelwe ifoni yakhe

Like in the first story, the so-called maNyasarandi in question are

contradict popular assumptions about the existence of a transnational

Armidale, Australia Finex Ndhlovu

The genealogy of my academic interest in language and society ­studies

Distinguished Visiting Professor. This was an excellent opportunity that

Part I Setting the Scene

1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates 3

2 Emergent Political Languages, Nation Building, Social

Part II Language, Vernacular Discourse, Narrow Nationalisms

3 Language Policy, Vernacular Discourse, Empire Building 65

4 Language, Mobility, People 105

Part III Citizenship, Indigeneity, Economic Empowerment

5 Chimurengas, Indigenisation, Black Economic

6 Alternative Language of Development and Economic

Part IV Migration, Borders, Exclusion

7 Migration, Integration Discourse, Exclusion 243

8 Australia’s Operation Sovereign Borders—A World

9 Conclusion—Transnationalism or Resurgent Narrow

ABC Australian Broadcasting Services

FTLR Fast Track Land Reform Programme

Table 2.1 Statistics on education, literacy and employment

The things that we supposedly know so foundationally about national

indigenisation, land reform and black economic empowerment. The

while the nation-state could have been rightfully typified as a container

Venables 1995; Ohmae 1990). In other words, the prime markers of

Today, the boundaries of the nation-state are ubiquitous, temporal and

Which is the more representative model of the world–the world of con-

Persistent changes in the phenomenology of the nation-state (that is no

postmodern world system. Key among these developments are several

Pioneered by Yasemin Nuhoğlu Soysal, the postnational model of mem-

The term globalisation is among the most mundane concepts that

Process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spa-

Steffen Mau (2012) simplifies this somewhat loaded definition by relat-

regional cross-border social and economic networks and activities ‘with

political establishment is the one that is the medium for conducting

violence, xenophobia, racism, bigotry and all manner of ­discrimination

more refined and robust interpretation. For him, denationalisation is when

spontaneous consent of those on whom power is to be exercised—

The concept of deterritorialisation is associated with the work of

suggestions that we have moved away from territorial understandings

The concept of transnationalism is a quite contemporary buzz word

those forms of transboundary social, economic and political relations

This clearly shows that what is currently being described as previously

inclusive and is characterised by horizontal comradeship among all,

More recent leader utterances in Africa, Australia, Europe and the

pot’ socialisation process. Again in 2011, then Prime Minister of the

of whites without others’ (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2017: 36) would ascend to

ethno-nationalist imaginings of national identity and belonging that we

specifically, in neo-colonial societies. In this vein, Language, Vernacular

• Why has the ideology of nationalism been so potent and long-lasting

Though I do not intend to be doctrinaire about my responses, I would

of formal government and political party platforms. It is in places such

Although there are several other previous books on nationalism dis-

as it considers the language of nationalisms to be something that inter-

The genealogy of my academic interest in language and society studies

Table 2.1 Statistics on education, literacy and employment

violence, xenophobia, racism, bigotry and all manner of discrimination

Table 2.1 Statistics on education, literacy and employment in South Africa

Vernacular Discourses and Formation

Emergent Political Languages as Vernacular

discourse power as language policies are imposed by unequal individu

Zimbabwean Vernacular Rhetoric on Language

Language Policy as Vernacular Discourse

The National Cultural Policy of Zimbabwe (NCPZ)

The Position Paper on Zimbabwe’s