The Chronikler

Language is a great liberator. It enables us not only to walk the walk, but also to talk the talk. However, as much as it empowers us to articulate our thoughts, it can also shape the way we think or even confine us within the boundaries, however broad they may be, of its vocabulary, syntax and grammar, according to the latest research.

To illustrate: some languages lack a clear distinction between nouns and verbs. Others count differently – they may have a plural form meaning "of unexpected number" or a dual form. Other languages possess no past tense. Certain languages capture in a single word what others can only do in a longer phrase. Examples include "bling" in English or the bizarre "rawa-dawa" in Mundari, which apparently means "the sensation of suddenly realising you can do something reprehensible and no one is there to witness it" – now put that into a sentence!

It is said that a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, but what if it had no name? Well, we would still be able to see and smell it but may not be able to say it. After all, the absence of a word or grammatical form is not necessarily evidence of absence. For instance, a non-Mundari waiter may feel “rawa-dawa” at, say, spitting in an annoying customer’s salad, but would have no handy way of expressing it. 

One implication of this emerging line of research is that each language offers a unique window on the world and, so, each time a language dies – as is occurring increasingly frequently – a unique perspective perishes with it. That goes some way to explaining why so many societies exert efforts to preserve their languages against the onslaught of globalisation, and why language itself can be an issue for conflict, as demonstrated in places such as Belgium and Canada.

Another implication is that learning more than one language provides you with different ways of seeing or interacting with the world, a benefit that is often overlooked in monolingual societies such as the UK. For example, the multilingualism of Britain's new deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg – in addition to his multicultural background – may partly explain his greater openness to Europe and the outside world. Of course, this has also been used as a stick with which to beat him by those who feel threatened by anything vaguely foreign.

In my own experience, I notice a number of both obvious and subtle ways in which language colours my outlook. Take humour. In English, the ambiguity and multiple meanings of the ubiquitous phrasal verb – the bane of foreign learners of the language – make it an ideal tool for making jokes and suggestive innuendo. In Arabic, which does not really have phrasal verbs, humour often hinges on the language's dependence on the three-letter roots from which most words can be derived, paving the way for clever wordplays.

More importantly, by reflecting the cultures in which they evolved, languages are the key to gaining first-hand access to a society's people, way of thought, literature, ideas, values, history and traditions – although more understanding does not always imply greater sympathy or communication. On a personal level, I feel that my English-Arabic bilingualism has enabled me to gain a bicultural or even multicultural perspective that would have been difficult to acquire otherwise.

For me, Arabic and English were largely fortunate accidents of upbringing. Moving to Belgium has rammed home to me the increased difficulty of acquiring a language with age. Although my Dutch has reached a high level of competence, I still make mistakes and my accent will never sound native. And I'm not alone. One of the masters of English writing, Joseph Conrad, never lost his thick Polish accent.

Although my bilingualism was eye-catching in Egypt and the UK, here, in Belgium, speaking three and a bit languages hardly raises an eyebrow. I am in constant awe at polyglots such as my wife who can communicate effortlessly in half a dozen languages and even understand related languages they don't know.

Naturally, we want to pass on the gift of language to our son, not only to enable him to deal with both sides of his family and integrate into his native cultures, but also to help him become a global citizen who is at home in the world.

Given that childhood acquisition is far easier and more effective than adult learning, we've decided to start early. Although our six-month-old hasn't learnt to speak yet, we are already working on raising him trilingually by exposing him to his mother tongue (Dutch), his father tongue (Arabic) and his family tongue (English).

This may sound horrifying, but is it any more difficult than learning just one? Acquiring a language for a baby, as I am learning, is a task of mind-boggling proportions: the infant must learn to distinguish meaningful sounds from superfluous noise, identify syllables and then words, crack the code of meaning, and gradually acquire the skill to combine words into sentences and longer texts.

But children have an innate ability to do this – and learning two or three languages is almost as much child's play as learning one, most linguists agree, as long as the child is exposed to the languages constantly and consistently and in a natural fashion. There is also mounting evidence that bi- or multilingualism helps boost a child's cognitive abilities, academic performance and career prospects in later life.

Naturally, not everyone is fortunate enough to be immersed in another language from an early age so as to reach or approach native speaker levels. But even imperfect knowledge of a language acquired in adulthood is useful and interesting.

As Friedrich Nietzsche once put it: "One who speaks a foreign language just a little takes more pleasure in it than one who speaks it well. Enjoyment belongs to those who know things halfway."

Poll: Do you speak foreign? Do you think that learning other languages is important? Vote here

This is the extended version of a column which appeared in The Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free section on 4 June 2010. Read the related discussion.

Belgium is on the verge of becoming the first country in the world to pass a law which would punish people who, in public, partially or fully cover their faces in such a way that they are no longer recognisable. Despite the broadness of the law, it has been dubbed the "burqa ban" because anyone caught wearing a burqa, which covers the entire body from head to toe, or a niqab, a face veil which leaves the eyes exposed, could face up to seven days imprisonment.

As a Flemish woman of Algerian origin, I can only welcome this bill. How can any western Muslim woman bring herself to wear the burqa, the internationally recognised symbol of exclusion in Afghanistan, and say that this has nothing to do with the oppression and the undervaluing of women?

In my parents' homeland, Algeria, the burqa is not welcome and people don't appreciate the typical black niqab imported from Saudi Arabia. Whereas women in a burqa or niqab are stared at in Brussels, in Algeria, they are tormented. A few years ago, a woman in a black niqab and her bearded husband boarded a bus in Algiers and, a few minutes later, they were hounded off by their fellow passengers.

I think Algerians see the face veil as a symbol of the fear and terror they experienced in the 1990s at the hands of the religious fundamentalist that swept the country at that time. They know well the religio-political message hiding behind this veil.

I am bewildered that various human rights organisations are against this ban. According to Amnesty International, a general ban on veils is a human rights infringement that contravenes people's freedom of religion and their freedom of expression.

Is Amnesty not aware that, mainly prior to the 11 September attacks, religious fanatics gained political asylum in the west, under the banner of freedom of religion and expression, and from here carried on their struggle to create theocracies in their homelands? Sometimes, I suspect that human rights groups are more occupied with theory and ideology than the reality on the ground.

Human Rights Watch is against the ban because society is obliged to protect women's freedom of choice. According to HRW, an individual approach is necessary when dealing with these issues. Does that mean that the government needs to assess the wardrobe choice of every woman and ask her whether or not she was forced to wear the burqa or niqab?

Baas Over Eigen Hoofd (BOEH!), a broad-based platform of Belgian Muslim and non-Muslim women's organisations whose name means literally "Boss of my Own Head", believes that no specific law is necessary because this issue only affects a handful of women. The notion that we should ignore this problem because it is so insignificant has something of the politics of the ostrich about it. The situation in other European countries indicates that the problem in Belgium is likely to get worse.

Muslim groups are also against the ban. The state-appointed Muslim Executive, which a few years ago declared that the burqa was not a religious symbol and that it was contrary to Islam, now calls this proposed ban "discriminatory". They, too, are labelling this a freedom of religion issue.

I once thought that the struggle waged by various Muslim organisations was one for acceptance, the acceptance of Muslim citizens as fellow citizens. I did not realise it was about the burqa or the niqab. Now, I'm beginning to doubt the noble intentions of some of these groups. Take, for example, the extremist group Sharia4Belgium which recently publicised its wish to turn Belgium into an Islamic state.

This article first appeared in the Guardian newspaper's Comment is Free section on 23 April 2010. Read the full discussion here. Republished here with the author's consent.

Preparations are under way in the Democratic Republic of Congo for celebrations to mark 50 years of independence in June. The Congolese government has reportedly set aside $2 million for the festivities. Guests of honour will include a high-level Belgian delegation, headed by King Albert II, who will be on his first official visit to the former colony.

With these festivities in the air, how has the first half-century of independence been for the Democratic Republic of the Congo?

While it’s difficult to sum up the past 50 years, one thing that can be said with some confidence is that they have been troubled – from the western-backed murder of independence leader Patrice Lumumba, through the long and repressive Mobutu dictatorship, to the Second Congo War, known as Africa’s World War, not only because of its being the deadliest conflict since the second world war but also because it involved seven foreign countries.

Today, a stability of sorts has descended upon the country with its elected dictator, Joseph Kabila, although fighting continues in a number of provinces of this vast country, particularly in the east.

Despite its enormous mineral wealth, the DRC is one of the poorest countries in the world, largely due to the uncontrolled plundering of its resources. With a per-capita GDP of around $100 per year, it comes close to the bottom of the well-being league, though its human development index is constantly rising.

In fact, Congo is a classic example of the fragile African state. So, what lies behind this fragility?

A key factor is a failure of leadership on a monumental scale. Political corruption, coupled with weak state institutions, has ensured that the main function of Congolese politics, like in many other African countries, is to serve the private ends of the ruling elite.

"The political class in Congo is shit," Joseph Nzau, a 55-year-old Congolese professional based in Brussels, told me in no uncertain terms. "Politicians don't have the common good in mind. They want to enrich themselves first and their clans second."

Whereas political corruption may skim some of the cream off the top of the pie in countries with effective governance, in places like the DRC, it gobbles up the lion's share of the cake, as attested to by the vast fortunes Mobutu and his cronies accumulated or squandered.

But should Congo's political class cop the entire blame? Well, there are certainly other factors at play. The DRC is about the size of western Europe, but the country has a population that is smaller than Germany's and yet is divided into some 250 ethnic groups speaking an equivalent number of languages. Governing such a huge and diverse land mass, with a relatively low population density, not to mention poor infrastructure and a state that is weaker than probably even the smallest European states, is no easy matter.

Much as apologists for Europe's colonial legacy and those afflicted with selective amnesia would like to believe, the reality is that Congo's colonial experience, as in so many other post-colonial states, has caused deep and lasting scars, and very much handicaps the modern state. "The situation of Congo today is a consequence of Belgian colonisation," Nzau says, expressing a common Congolese perception.

But this link between European colonialism and the current turmoil in much of sub-Saharan Africa is not just a case of Africans looking for someone else to blame, as is so often claimed. In fact, the same link was explicitly made in last year's European Report on Development. "The scramble for Africa ... is a natural candidate for the historical origin of the fragility plaguing many sub-Saharan African countries," the report stated.

But why should such a relatively short sojourn have such a profound impact? In the case of Congo, part of the reason is that there was a centuries'-long prelude. Prior to direct rule, most of central Africa was depopulated as a consequence of the European slave trade to the west and, to a lesser extent, the Arab slave trade to the east. This, for example, helped accelerate the eventual collapse of the once-powerful indigenous kingdom of Kongo (which had different borders to the contemporary DRC).

The ruler, Nzinga Mbemba Affonso, an early convert to Christianity, wrote regularly to the king of Portugal to complain about the effects of the slave trade on his subjects:

Each day the traders are kidnapping our people – children of this country, sons of our nobles and vassals, even people of our own family. This corruption and depravity are so widespread that our land is entirely depopulated. We need in this kingdom only priests and schoolteachers, and no merchandise, unless it is wine and flour for mass.

Undoubtedly, the worst chapter in Congo's history was when the country became the personal property of King Leopold II, who wanted a domain to match his ego. The king infamously described Belgium as "petit pays, petits gens" ("small country, small people") due to his subjects' lack of appetite for empire – unsurprising given that they had been ruled for centuries by foreign powers, including the Spanish, the Habsburgs, the French and the Dutch.

Jealous that he did not preside over an empire like his cousin, Queen Victoria, across the Channel, Leopold spent years in search of a land that he could transform into his personal fiefdom. With the help of the dodgy Welsh-born American explorer and journalist Henry Stanley (born John Rowlands), Leopold set his sights on a part of Africa unclaimed by the other European powers which he eventually gave the name Congo Free State. During his private rule, an estimated 2-15 million Congolese died through forced labour and other forms of exploitation.

International outrage and one of the first major human rights campaigns in modern history led to the Belgian government taking Congo off Leopold's hands and annexing it. Although the worst human rights abuses ended, the main priority of the Belgian Congo, despite Belgium's earlier reluctance to enter the colonial game, remained the exploitation of the country's mineral wealth for the benefit of the Belgian economy.

During the period of direct rule, the European institutions and structures that were brought in took little account of local culture and conditions. After independence, rather than reform the state, local leaders simply took it over, alienating themselves from the population.

The 50th anniversary of independence should give Belgians and Congolese pause for thought. In the coming half-century, the Congolese need to overcome the legacy of the past and take command of their future. For their part, Belgians need to recognise that their colonial legacy is not just an issue for historians but that it helped create the current mess.

This is the extended version of an article which appeared in the Guardian newspaper's Comment is Free section on 21 April 2010. Read the full discussion here.

I'm beginning to suspect that Filip Dewinter, one of the faltering far-right Vlaams Belang's leading lights, sees Antwerp, where he has long been the mayor-in-waiting, as some kind of comic strip Gotham City, casting himself as its very own Batman.

The Joker in this Caped Crusader's pack is the cunningly villainous Mo and his evil army of bearded minions, with their hijabbed parodies of Catwoman whom Dewinter is battling to unmask. Not only is he on a crusade to foil their evil designs to make his beloved Flanders and the rest of Europe part of a global caliphate, he is also single-handedly keeping the streets safe for decent (white) citizens by fighting (brown) crime. To that end, he is one of the brains behind his party's controversial anti-crime website which critics fear will fuel vigilantism.

One of Dewinter's latest stunts was to post CCTV footage of an apparent attempted break-in – carried out unsuccessfully with comical incompetence by a young man who appeared to be an immigrant – on his website.

According to Belgium's privacy commission, this falls foul of privacy laws and only the police and the ministry of justice have the right to release video footage and images of alleged criminals and their crimes. The commission is now investigating whether to take legal action, especially as Dewinter enjoys parliamentary immunity.

Dewinter reacted in predictable fashion, saying that "criminals are clearly better protected than the victims of crime". And judging by online reactions, many ordinary Belgians seem to approve of Dewinter's actions. "Now criminals enjoy a sort of parliamentary immunity, too," commented one enraged reader. So, is this a case of "privacy gone mad", or are there valid reasons for such legal protections, especially in our increasingly surveillance-oriented societies?

Well, in short, by releasing this video into the public domain, Filip Dewinter is effectively taking the law into his own hands. If Dewinter truly believes in the rule of law, as he claims, and wishes to make society safer for law-abiding citizens, then the responsible thing to have done, rather than this grandstanding, would've been to report the incident to the police, who can then decide whether to go public or not. Any information made public about the identity of an alleged criminal should be weighed up carefully against the severity of the crime, the chances of it leading to an arrest, and the risk posed to the public.

In the case of a gruesome murder, rape or an armed robbery, for instance, there is a strong imperative for the authorities to release information about the identity of the perpetrators. Also, when massive abuses of power, corruption or miscarriages of justice occur, the media can play a role in bringing them to light, as long as there is sufficient evidence. However, a young lad apparently trying and failing to jemmy open the window of a travel agent is not the same. Moreover, the release of such footage can do the young man in question – who may never have done anything illegal before – harm that is not proportional to the crime he has allegedly committed by stigmatising him in public.

Besides, when they deem it necessary, the authorities routinely release footage or photofits of criminals and make public appeals for information, and so these amateurish efforts are, at best, pointless, at worst, harmful and even dangerous.

If some citizens start usurping the role of the police, how much longer will it be before others appoint themselves judge, jury and executioner? What if a furious citizen takes the next logical step and decides to execute some summary justice by, say, attacking alleged criminals?

More fundamentally, even criminals have rights. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty by a competent authority, and no one should be allowed to prejudice the course of the legal process. But even convicted criminals – who have, in effect, paid their dues to society – have, and should enjoy, a right to have their privacy protected and respected, unless this puts others at great risk.

This article appeared in the Guardian newspaper's Comment is Free section on 13 April 2010. Read the full discussion here.

At less than 100 days old, our son, Iskander, embarked on the greatest adventure of his short life when we visited family and friends in Egypt – his first trip to his other homeland. This great voyage into the unknown appealed to the embryonic intrepid explorer inside him whose innate inquisitiveness helped Iskander to traverse his fear of the wild roar of honking horns and the stampede of passing traffic to discover a new species of experience in the concrete jungle.

The visit brought out a whole new aspect in our sociable, cheerful, yet sensitive son. It also caused us to view my homeland through new eyes – those of a young baby. Though he tried valiantly, he found it hard to adjust to the sudden change in tempo and temperature.

Our sojourn in Egypt also got us thinking about where would be best to raise our son in the various stages of his life, and how our choice of location could affect the person he turns out be. It will influence not only his personality, but his sense of national, cultural and religious identity.

In Egypt, certain advantages and disadvantages became quickly apparent. Cairo is one of the world's great metropolises and possesses many of the benefits of a mega city. Even though Iskander has revealed to us a new level of warmth among normally-reserved Belgians, the culture in Egypt is more tolerant of babies and children in public spaces . Moreover, in the early years of his life, we'd be able to afford more childcare services.

Living in Egypt would enable Iskander to become closer to the Egyptian side of his family but, on the flip side, it would put greater distance between him and his Belgian relatives. It would also enhance his command of Arabic and awareness of Egyptian and Middle Eastern culture. But, again, on the flip side, it would have a negative impact on his Dutch and his knowledge of Belgian and European culture.

The major drawbacks of living in Cairo are the pollution and overcrowding, the massive socio-economic chasm separating those who make loads of bread and those who eat little but bread. That's not to mention Egypt's ongoing privatisation of all spheres of life, from education and healthcare, down even to open green spaces, the embankment of the Nile, which has become one endless string of private restaurants and clubs, to Egypt’s plentiful coastline, which has been conquered and occupied by endless ribbons of chalets, villas and hotels.

In fact, the white sands of the country's north coast have become a kind of luxury Club-Cairo-Med, the setting for a dystopic colony of the wealthy who have abandoned the poor (known as el-aghyar or "The Others") to their own devices, except when they need them for menial work or as game to hunt, as in Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq's futuristic novel, Utopia.

If we moved to Egypt and wished to live by our egalitarian principles and send Iskander to state schools and treat him on the public health system, we would be condemning our son to an extremely disadvantaged future. Providing him with a decent level of education and healthcare is not only relatively costly but would expose him to the kind of social elitism which, if it were to rub off on to him, we would find hard to square with our principles.

Even apparently straightforward things like finding space for him to play outdoors or take up a sport are a real challenge in a city which has planted concrete in pretty much all its green spaces, and most of what remains belong to exclusive private combined social and sporting clubs.

In contrast, Belgium – with one of the world's highest standards of living and also one of its highest taxation levels – possesses an abundant supply of high-quality state-run education and healthcare facilities. In addition, sports and other recreational activities are not solely the preserve of the well-off.

Although disparities do exist between the haves and the have-nots, most Belgians occupy the middle ground. In addition, the rule of law and principles of equality are more deeply established – which would enable Iskander to grow up in a context which is more egalitarian.

A major challenge in both societies is cultural and religious pigeon-holing. As I spelled out in an earlier article, my wife and I will raise Iskander a-religiously and it will be up to the adult him to choose his faith or lack thereof.

In Egypt, this labelling is even institutionalised. For example, a person's religion appears on their identity card and birth certificate, and both the bureaucracy and society at large assume that children belong to the same religious group as their fathers.

Although it is now technically possible to leave the religion field blank, this is generally not done, except when it comes to Egypt's small Baha'i minority, and I expect that "helpful" bureaucrats will resist our attempts not to burden our son with a faith when we come to register him in Egypt.

Ironically, Iskander's name, though most people we know love it, may label him as belonging to the minority faith in both countries. We chose the name – which means Alexander – partly because it predates both Christianity and Islam and belongs to a man who, despite being a ruthless military commander, allowed religious and cultural tolerance in his vast empire.

Nevertheless, in Egypt, unlike other Middle Eastern countries, Iskander is a rare name and is mostly used by the country's Christian minority. In the current climate of religious tension, this could cause people to discriminate against him.

In contrast, his name's exotic ring to European ears will lead many Belgians to assume that its owner is a Muslim. And although the country's institutional architecture does not force people to make professions of faith and everyone, in principle, is equal before the law and should receive equal opportunity, in reality, prejudices do exist.

This was driven home to me by the promotional posters of Vlaams Belang which ask passers-by rhetorically why they should vote for the far-right party by using the Arabic word for why, lematha. The demonisation of Muslims is not just limited to the far right, but extends to mainstream conservatives and even quite a few liberals and leftists.

Even if he is not labelled as belonging to a minority faith, he runs the risk of being viewed as a "foreigner" in both his homelands. This is probably more problematic in Belgium, where immigrants are treated by some with suspicion and hostility, whereas in Egypt, a hybrid European khawaga will be viewed with a mix of curiosity and awe.

Rather than lead him to become a victim of prejudice, I hope that Iskander's multicultural heritage will help him to lead a diverse, rich and fulfilling life, and will enable him to get the best out of his multiple heritage, while taking those who do not appreciate this in his stride.

This is an extended version of an article which appeared in the Guardian newspaper's Comment is Free section on 31 March 2010. Read the full discussion here.