An argument against a national language

SABBATICAL NOTES. 23 JUNE 2014. MONDAY. N2. 
When nationalizing a language in a diverse country, you de-nationalize the others. 

THE IDEA OF A PHILIPPINE NATION STATE based on pluralism, multiplicity, and diversity is something novel.

But it is urgent as it is just and fair. 

And it is just and fair because it reflects the real condition of the Philippines, whether one likes that name of the country or wants to replace it with something else.

With this as our premise, there is no reason then to institute a 'national' language.

Nationalizing a language is antithetical to the very essence of multiplicity.

The flimsy excuse that we need to have a national language the way Japan and Korea and Germany have their own is just that: a flimsy excuse.

Some talk about the 'practicality' of having many languages in a country.

But we can talk about the 'impracticality' of killing the othered languages because these are not 'de facto' languages.

We have given enough chance for this argument of nationalizing a language to show us the proof that it becomes a vehicle of progress, social justice, and development.

We have forgotten that in the institution of this national language, we have not been able to enter into a regime of real communication with our various peoples what with that 'national' language as a vehicle for all the rationalization, literal and figurative, of the same oligarchic directions of our collective life.

There is no single evidence we can show that we have talked to our various peoples in their own language, that the substance of the social contract has been translated into their own language, and that we have invited them to the table where multiplicity is honored, celebrated, and used as a premise for state crafting and nation building.

Everywhere, there is deprivation of what we are, including our right to our own mother language.

Everywhere is this deception that Rizal said so about this 'pagmamahal sa sariling wika' and we must believe this guy even if in reality he did not say those words, or he did not write them, not at all.

And to think that some teachers are using these words to lie to us.

The only way out now is to pursue what is just and fair: the pursuit of the very essence of diversity.

And there is no short-cut for this, with or without a de facto 'national' language.

FELIPENAS/