Here’s a question you probably haven’t considered before: What do Irish rappers Kneecap and Tibetan ex-political prisoner Tashi Wangchuk have in common? The answer is that they’re both advocates for language rights.
Kneecap hail from the British-controlled north of Ireland, and in their music and their recent film (also called Kneecap), they use and promote the Irish language. They’ve been involved in the mass political movement to make Irish a legal language in the north of Ireland, and they recently won a legal case against the UK government, which had previously blocked them from receiving government arts funding on account of their support for a united Ireland.
Like the members of Kneecap, Tashi Wangchuk is fighting for the right to use his language in a context of colonial domination: this time in Chinese-controlled Tibet. He was recently held in detention for 15 days for social media posts. Last year he was assaulted by masked men while carrying out field investigations on the status of the Tibetan language. Before that, he spent five years in prison on charges of ‘inciting separatism’ because he’d campaigned to get Tibetan schooling in his hometown.
Kneecap and Tashi Wangchuk share similar problems and common dreams. They both have language rights systematically denied by colonial oppressors, and both dream of a world where they have the autonomy to use their preferred language where and how they want. And in this, they are not alone. All around the world today, activists are working to defend their language rights in a dizzying array of local contexts.
In my new article in Global Social Challenges Journal, I argue that it’s time for these separate movements to link up into a global force that can promote language rights for everyone, everywhere. I draw on my own experience advocating for language rights, as well as insights from the academic literature on social movements, to make three key arguments about what this movement might look like.
First, I argue that a global language rights movement will make sense to a range of audiences because human rights are so widely acknowledged as a lingua franca of global activism. This means that global civil society, state governments and international institutions will be able to instantly recognise and understand the aims of the movement, thanks to the resonance of a rights-based approach. The concept of language rights also helps foster collaboration across localised movements by breaking out of narrow nationalist frames, and posing the problem as a universally human issue.
Secondly, I argue that a global language rights movement needs to build solidarity within and outside the movement. Using language rights as a common frame of reference allows activists from Tibet to Ireland and beyond to recognise their shared struggles. Meanwhile, rights-based language helps build common cause with other movements that also take a rights-based approach, such as movements focused on women’s rights, workers’ rights, the right to self-determination, economic rights, children’s rights or LGBTQI+ rights. Support from these movements will be essential to strengthening the global language rights movement.
Finally, I also argue that a global language rights movement can be united by shared activist practices, drawing on examples from human rights advocacy. Referred to as ‘naming and shaming’, these practices involve identifying specific people or agencies who are responsible for violating rights, and then publicly shaming them into changing their behaviour. A global movement for language rights would ensure that efforts to shame rights violators echo across the whole world, rather than being covered up in local contexts.
In a world where a global language rights movement existed, Tashi Wanghuck and Kneecap’s struggles would be connected. They would learn from and support each other, and act together to pursue their shared goals, while directing their combined power against the oppressors who violate their language rights. When we consider the distinctive political opportunities that Kneecap and Tashi Wangchuk face, and the different risks they take, we get a glimpse of why this interconnectedness is so important.
We live in troubled times, characterised by climate breakdown, declining democracy and rising geopolitical tensions, all exacerbated by an endlessly adaptive and resilient capitalist system. Pursuing language rights in these conditions will be messy and complex. There will be failures and setbacks, and it will be very difficult to create the radical change we need. But I honestly believe that the only way we can do it is together.
Gerald Roche is an anthropologist, Associate Professor in the Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy at La Trobe University, and a Co-Chair of the Global Coalition of Language Rights.
We need a global language rights movement: confronting the global language crisis with insights from social movement studies by Gerald Roche is available to read open access in the Global Social Challenges Journal on Bristol University Press Digital.
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