Response to the Consequences of French in Haiti video (HHA msg 12)

Hi guys.

(sigh)

This is a response to my video "Les
consequences du Francais en Haiti"

which I did it in French talking about the
consequences of French in Haiti.

I published this in April and I have the
link to it up here and down there

in my description box.

I got some really strong reactions to
that post and it seems like I really hit a

nerve for some people so I'm dedicating
this week's message to response and debunk

the prevalent counter arguments I received

Here are the main points I made
in that video:

"French hinders comunication in
self-expression among Haitians

It divides the Haitian population and
fosters an inferiority complex for the

majority of the population.

Haitions sustitute someone's ability to
muster a few words in French for wisdom or

intelligence.Haitions fail to realize that
what they are seeing is more important

than the language they used to say in.

And lastly, Haitians by and large cannot
speak French.

These are fairly common and well-known
issues I presented to support my proposal

of eliminating French as one of the two
official languages of Haiti.

But many didn't want to hear it and here
are some of the responses that I want to

address.

The first one is that the problem of Haiti
is one of education not of language.

Here is my issue with that point.

Everyone knows that the state of education
in Haiti is dire, that has always been the

case in Haiti but have you stopped to
think that language is the basis of

learning and education, so if you are
attempting to teach in a language that is

cumbersome, unnatural and foreign to kids
then you keep them at a disadvantage.

The medium that allows you to communicate
the knowledge you are attempting to pass

on is extremely relevant.

My experience as a student in Haiti was
that many of my teachers were not fluent

in French, far from.

So yes, there is an educational crisis in
Haiti and this isn't breaking news to

anyone. But the fact that we are insisting
on sticking to French as the academic

language is to our own detriment.

It is pedagogically impractical and
frankly at this point pretty irresponsible

The other thing people say that kind of
goes along with the lack of education

argument is that well, we shouldn't just
limit our kids to Creole we should teach

them French, Spanish, German, Italian,
everything.

Ok, well, do I want our kids to learn
multiple languages?

Of course.

I would like every little Haitian out
there to know as many languages as the

human brain can retain and my argument has
never been to eradicate French from

Haitian schools but rather to repeal its
status as an official language of the

republic of Haiti and instead prioritize
Creole which is the language that every

last Haitian speaks.

Luxembourg has 3 official languages.

One of them I'm sure most of people have
never heard of, it's called Luxembourgish

and it is the language that is indigenous
to its people, the language of the heart

for them so to speak.

Even though, not many people outside of
Luxembourg use it, that is the language

that kids are taught in the first year of
primary school before switching to German

and then French.

And proficiency and all three of their
official languages is required for

graduation from secondary school.

Now as you can see they are somehow able
to pull off a

trilingual educational system to go along
with the fact that they have 3 offical

languages meaning their important
legislature, and official national affairs

are recorded and reported steadily in all
3 of these languages,

even the one that we've never heard of.

What's the point of this little sidebar?

Well, it isn't a sidebar at all.

It is to answer to the people who would
rather say: let's just teach our Haitian

kids every language on the planet instead
of focusing on teaching them in their

primary language, Creole.

A language that is said to be official in
our country yet all the important business

political, professional and administrative
dealings are not recorded or reported

in Creole.

Over the years, when nationally elected
officials address the population,

they deliver speeches in French and all
while everyone knows that Creole

is the language.

Creole is constitutionally one of our
official languages but that's only

"a L'oral" like people say, meaning it's
only something we say.

Have we even tried to apply it in that
capacity?

Have we even tried before we start crying
how it is unsustainable as a global means

of communication for our children?

What kills me is that these people
objecting so passionately against the

removal of French are the first to boast
that we defeated French in 1804

and that's the one thing from which they
derive Haitian pride, yet they don't

realize that they are perpetuating
oppression,

holding stubbornly onto the language and
the ways of the French at the expense of

their own culture.

For those of you telling me that back in
the days, you and your friends used to

speak French, that's like me say every
Haitian speaks English because my friends

and I speak it.

That doesn't mean anything.

If you look at the data, education has
always been a privilege reserved for the

very few in Haiti and only the educated
can manage to speak a little French in

Haiti ergo.

Certain people's experiences back in the
day when things were a little bit better

for some doesn't demonstrate that at some
point French worked in Haiti.

It never did and never will.

Now, the other argument I got quite a bit
is that we can't get rid of French

because we need something to keep us
connected to the rest of the world and

people were also saying that having a
Creole take-over

now would set us back because we would
have to start from scratch

since Creole is such an unformulated
language.

Ok, first of all, I hate to break it to
you but the world has left Haiti behind

a long time ago, and it's not just because
our people don't speak French,

it's because we have not invested or
educated our people.

Speaking French is not what's going to get
connected or keep us connected to the

world because we don't need French to
facilitate international exchanges

and to implement French as a language of
the Haitian people would require the same

effort as to implement any other language
outside of Creole.

With Creole we have an advantage,

that's our mother tongue, we already
speak it.

We have to make the distinction:

To teach French is not the same as
educating our people.

Here in the USA, everyone speaks the same
language, yet you will see that an

uneducated person cannot articulate or
express themselves.

The reason why our Creole-speaking masses
sound uneducated oftentimes

is because they are uneducated,not because
they are speaking Creole.

However, French can make a smart and
educated Haitian sound stupid

And a stupid Haitian who can remember
their French vocab and grammar rules is

oftentimes reveal and considered smart,no
matter how dimwitted they might be.

There is something really wrong with this
picture.

I was lucky enough to listen to Maurice
Sixto at a young age and discovered how

he was able to claim such profound,
culturally relevant,poetic and educational

stories in Creole.

He was well spoken and most importantly
Haitians could understand and truly

connect with the deeper meaning of what
he was sharing.

Back then, he wielded the Creole language,
which some attempt to devoid of all

virtues, brilliantly, because he was
educated.

He was able to use his imagination and
talent to enrich the language.

Had there been more of an encouragement
for self-expression in Creole and Haiti

and respect for the language, no doubt, it
would be at a more refined stage today.

That's what happened when something is
yours, when you care about something,

you work at it.

That's your responsibility.

You don't just sit and say it will never
work because the languages that are so

sophisticated today weren't always that
way;

people developed them, people made them
great.

They didn't just sit and say let's adopt
another language that's already developed

to help us assimilate and sound educated.

That being said, I appreciate that fact
that we need to equip our children with

the tools to compete on a global level

and that includes language skills

but that doesn't preclude us from
strengthening and valuing our own language

in our own country and taking advantage of
it to educate our children.

Keeping that in mind, if I had to choose
the second mandatory language for the

education in Haiti, for our kids to know
inside and out, it would definitely not

be French because in today's world,

French is struggling to remain revelant.

That has been the trend for some time now,
you can check out the links to a few

articles I posted to support that
statement in the description box.

Listen my Haitian people, generally
speaking, we don't speak French,

me included, and here are the reasons why.

Speaking a language is not about knowing
some of the grammar or being able to read

and write or understand it.

It's about living the language, hearing it
and feeling it.

I know some kids who were tragically
forbidden by their parents in Haiti to

utter of a word of Creole growing up in
Haiti,

yet they still didn't speak French what
they did was essentially translate Creole

phrases into French like for example

"envoie les yeux pour moi s'il te plait"
(true story)

Now, is it grammatically correct, sure,
is it French?

I'll leave that up to you to decide.

Of course you can interact very well with
a native French speaker but communicating

successfully to another Haitian in French
is much harder.

Short of constantly immersing ourselves in
French in the French culture through up to

date literature, cinema, or other creative
work,

we really cannot keep up with the language

So yeah, we don't speak French and it's ok
it's not the end of the world.

What's not ok is people, my people, not

capable of rationally debating a critical
issues in our Haitian society.

People who will tell me "well why aren't
you speaking Creole?"

meanwhile their kids probably don't speak
a lick of Creole let alone the French that

they are so loudly and mindlessly
defending,

people who are blinded by their bias.

I said it in my other video and I'll
repeat it now.

I love the French language.

My favourite recording artist this season
is actually Belgian.

I am so grateful that I was afforded the
opportunity to learn French.

Many Haitians don't get that opportunity.

And I will pass on as much appreciation
for French to my kids as I can because the

issue is not and has never been the
language; the issue is the many Haitian

people who simply refuse to wake up.

Once again, my name is Marli, I am a Haiti
hope ambassador and Wake up Haitians,

seriously.