Dr Tariq Rahman
ABSTRACT
Language, Violence and Power
Language is connected in several indirect ways with power. Those who have more power, as corporate entities or individuals, can increase their gratification both in tangible and intangible ways. The decrease, or restriction, in obtaining gratifications is violence.
As language creates discourses and makes it possible to control nature and society, it makes it possible for the human species to dominate and colonize the earth thus creating a very real danger of the world coming to an end through poisoning or environmental disaster. Language also helps human elites to create myths which justify their rule and power. At the micro-level, language encodes ways of honoring and insulting people; gender and class discrimination and so on.
In short, it is only the possession of language which makes human beings a violent species which has, above all, to justify its violence.
1. Introduction
There is a connection between language and violence. At the most obvious level all of us have experienced it when someone has scolded us, shouted at us or used ego-shattering invectives. But this is not where verbal violence begins and ends. Indeed, there are so many connections, albeit indirect and subtle ones, that it is difficult to catalogue and analyze all of them. This paper attempts to analyze some of them though, of course, this would only be a crude beginning.
2. Definition of Terms
For the purpose of this paper, language refers to ‘sounds coming out of the human mouth which ordinarily can, and generally do, convey meaning’. Violence is ‘that activity which diminishes pleasure or increases pain or both’. Since I have used the hedonistic calculus of pleasure and pain while defining power in my book Language and Politics in Pakistan (1996), let me refer to it so as to clarify the meaning of violence further. My previous definition of power is as follows:
Power is that which enables one to impose one’s will directly or indirectly over others or resist the imposition of other people’s will. The consequence of the exercise of power would be to increase the tangible or intangible means of gratification of its possessor (Rahman 1996 : 8).
Later, while teasing out the implications of the concept, I said : ‘it is a capability, a quality analogous to potential energy in physics, it cannot exist without a system to support it’ (Rahman 2002 : 39).
This system, even in primitive societies, is dependent upon ideas which cannot be transmitted, except in some very simple cases, without words. That is where language comes in --- but first let us look at the uses of language.
3. Language and Its Uses
First, language conveys meaning. This creates systems of ideas, the way one interprets the world, and determines what power-relations are considered legal and legitimate and what are not. Secondly, language conveys attitudes and emotions such as love, hatred, contempt, reverence etc. Thirdly, language is an attribute of identity. In this role it conveys social class, educational status, ethnic identity, religious identity, gender identifications and so on. These are the broad category of the uses. Let us see how they relate to power and, because of it, to violence.
4. The Networks of Meaning and Violence
We create our social reality. This means that our social worlds do not exist as fixed and given facts. They are facts because we believe they are facts. When a human child is born he or she is told to believe in familial relationships. Thus, while the real feelings for siblings may be those of competition and rivalry, the child is made to convert them into love and solidarity. Then the child is told about the extended kinship system, the tribe, the ethnic group, the nation, the religious community and so on. All these are constructed or imagined communities and language, as Benedict Anderson argues in the case of the nation (Anderson 1983), is used in different ways to imagine them.
Part of our social reality is the hierarchical order i.e. who is greater or more valuable or better then the other. This hierarchical order is violent towards most of us because only a few can be at the top but we legitimize it and reinforce it by accepting its validity. All this is done through language. If we did not have language, the basis of power would have been physical force which would have created individual violence but not systems of power creating and sustaining violence. Perhaps men would still have dominated women because the latter are physically weaker than men. However, philosophies of patriarchy would not have existed. We would have had fights as animals do but not wars. So, domination would have existed as it does among animals but not as a legalized system. As we know, animal studies suggest that this domination seldom results in actual murder or brutalization. Indeed, argues Conrad Lorenz, aggression ‘is really an essential part of the life-preserving organization of instincts’ (Lorenz 1963 : 39). Other well-known forms of domination, such as that of kings over their subjects; feudal lords over serfs; factory owners over labourers one group of people over another; human over nature and animal species --- these could not have been possible. All these forms of domination, which are violent in their nature towards those who are dominated, are products of ideologies: the theory of the rights of kings; the theory of aristocrats being naturally fitted to rule over others; racism; social-Darwinism; patriarchy; nationalism etc. These ideologies justify domination and the resulting violence both to those who dominate and those who are dominated. But for language such ideologies could not have been constructed, let alone preserved, disseminated through the educational apparatus and justified by the clergy, the educationists, the intellectuals and the bureaucracy.
Violence is done to those who are
made to believe they are inferior. This restricts their possibilities of
obtaining gratification i.e. they possess less power. The more readily and
fully they believe in their lowly status the better it is for those who
dominate them. This is how Plato justifies the creations of such an ideology in
The Republic.
Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale, you are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power to command, and in the composition of these he has mingled gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honour; others he has made of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen he has composed of brass and iron; and species will generally be preserved in the children (Plato. Circa 3.7 B.C: 269-270).
It is only through language that ideologies of this kind make it possible to perpetuate violence over slaves, the working classes (who are taught to know their place), over women (who are taught to accept patriarchy) and over the peoples of Africa and Asia (racism, Orientalism, Social Darwinism etc).
Moreover, it is only because of language that an extension of memory is possible. This is essential for creating science and management --- indeed, all forms of knowledge. However, one singles out science because it makes the human species much more powerful than any other species known in history. Because of science we have grown in numbers till we threaten to crowd out many other species. Because of it we have changed the face of the earth threatening the ecosystem itself. And, of course, because of it we have the capacity to blow up a large part of humanity, poison an even larger part and bring about climatic changes which may threaten life as we know. That is why Ashis Nandy and others like him call science intrinsically ‘violent’ (Nandy 1988).
5. Domains of Power and Language
Ideas expressed through language make it possible for us to have a society at all. All our institutions---the religious order, the coercive apparatus, the justice apparatus, administration, commerce, education etc --- function because we have languages. Indeed, as society got more complex it got more organized and the Weberian bureaucracy, legalistic and rational, was created. This bureaucracy relied increasingly on documentation and paperwork and had a role in developing the standardized, print languages we have today (Fisher 1986). The result is that the modern state makes the print language the major source of power. One cannot enter the white collar market without being able to manipulate the written word. In Pakistan, as I have argued elsewhere, the language of prestige and power is English. After it comes Urdu and in Sindh some jobs are available to those who know only Sindhi (though everybody does study Urdu in school even there). The other languages are not used in the domains of power in Pakistan and, hence, are not language of power (Rahman 2000).
Violence consists in making language the device for closing the ranks of the elite i.e. ‘elite closure’ as Carol Scotton-Myers calls it (1993). The ruling elites of South Asia have always practiced this kind of violence. First, Sanskrit was an elite preserve denied to the masses. In this society, the masses were not only denied prestige and lucrative jobs open to the Brahmins, the preservers of Sanskrit, but could even be punished for trying to partake of the treasure of Sanskrit. The Mughals rationed out Persian, again necessary for jobs as well as honour, to a small, mostly Muslim, elite. Then the British rationed out English to the Indian elite denying it to the masses because it would have been too costly to teach everyone quality English (Rahman 1996). This is what is done in Pakistan today. The state’s declared policy is that the vernacular languages of the country should be the media of instruction in schools i.e. public funds should only be spent on implementing and adhering to a single policy uniformly for all citizens (teaching them through Urdu and Sindhi). However, the real policy is to support English-medium schooling through funding cadet colleges and schools run by the armed forces, bureaucratic organizations (railways, customs etc) and welfare foundations of the forces (Fauji Foundation, Shaheen Foundation, Bahria Foundation)
6. Verbal
Violence and languages
Our emotions and attitudes are also connected with power and one expresses them through language. Such attitudes are expressed through tone, pitch, vocabulary etc which is much more often used than any other weapon. Arab tribal wars, it is said, used to begin with poets reciting poems bragging about the military virtues of their tribes and threatening the adversaries. This, indeed is the ritual of a street fight in which words precede blows. Family quarrels use tone and pitch even before words of an offensive nature and may not proceed to physical violence at all. What is interesting is that the words of offence refer to shortcomings in the adversary (stupidity, cowardice, greed, stinginess, servility, mendacity and so on); supposed stigma of belonging to an inferior group identity (black, slave, coloured etc); and, above all, sexual availability and threats of sexual aggression.
In Pakistan verbal violence, the aim of which is to crush the opponent’s ego and cause pain, is related to lack of power, stigma and sex. Not surprisingly the sexual invectives are semantically connected with ‘taking away’ (lena) and beating (marna). Moreover, the most sacred non-sexual relationships between brother and sister, son and mother are rendered sexual as part of the insult and, of course, the aggressor states intentions of wanting to violate the females of the adversary (mother, sister, wife etc).
The language of insult, then, is the language of power. It points out the weaknesses of the adversary (stupid, slave etc); it threatens to commit violence upon him or her (kicking, breaking teeth, limbs, beating etc); and it threatens to sexually violate his females (sisters, mothers etc). In all such cases the abuser pretends to be more powerful while the adversary is made out to be weaker.
7. Language, Identity and Violence
We have multiple identities and these can change, especially in times of great social mobility and transformation. Our socio-economic class is expressed through a number of attributes --- clothes, where one lives, the vehicle one drives, one’s friends --- and language is one of them. In English, for instance, the educated middle classes and the upper classes speak a standardized variety of English called RP (Received Pronunciation) or Oxbridge. In Pakistan English is spoken by the urban, professional upper classes; Urdu by the urban middle classes; and the indigenous languages by the rural and urban lower classes. Thus, not knowing a posh accent or language (such as English in South Asia) gives one a stigmatized identity. The system which allows this to happen is violent in nature though, of course, individuals are not responsible for the violence in question.
Social roles and the hierarchical nature of society is also reflected by forms of address, use of honorifics (titles etc) and the pronouns of power of solidarity (tu and vu form as Brown and Gilman 1960 explain in their seminal article). Pakistani society is overtly hierarchical so non-reciprocal forms of address and use of pronouns is observed. For instance, the more powerful (employers, feudal superiors, grown-ups) say tu (toon, tum, ta etc) to the less powerful (servants, serfs, soldiers, clerks, children) and receive the vu form (tusi, aap, taso etc). Superiors can use the name of their inferiors without honorifics (sahib, sahiba, janab etc) while the latter cannot. Such usage’s are violent because they openly proclaim the inferiority or lack of power and commensurate status of the inferiors. What would appear to be just and non-violent would be reciprocal usage of forms of address, honorific and pronouns (Rahman 1999).
However, some highly Westernized people in Pakistan have begun to violate our indigenous norms of politeness by adopting Western norm of linguistic usage. Thus, they do not use the mutual name + honorific (e.g. Doctor Sahib, Benazir Sahiba ect) but insist on using only the first name of a person without his or her consent. This position comes from power because those who use the first name without any sensitivity to the feelings of the addressee belong to positions of authority and are generally from the Westernized elite which is the pioneer of fashionable usage in the upper and upper-middle class. This kind of pseudo-egalitarian usage of linguistic forms is as violent as the non-reciprocal usage which generally prevails in Pakistani society.
Moreover, while the use of all titles is violent in so far as they are indicators of inequality, the retention of some titles while discarding others is equally violent. At the moment academic titles (Dr. Professor), which are earned, are discarded. However, royal titles, aristocratic titles, ecclesiastical titles, military titles and even bureaucratic titles are retained. One could argue that, if society is to retain any role models at all, then maybe academic excellence should determine which these models should be As such, academic titles should be the last to be discarded and not the first as they are in Western culture and, increasingly, in our own.
Language is especially useful as a symbol of ethnic identity. Indeed, in Pakistan Bengali ethnicity was expressed initially (1948 and 1952) through Bengali. Sindhi is the major symbol of the Sindhi identity and Urdu-speakers, who regard Urdu as the symbol of their identity, clashed with Sindhi in 1970 and 1972 over the status of Sindhi and, in reality, over the power which each community would enjoy in Sindh. In the N.W.F.P the Pashtun ethnic groups have regarded Pashto as a symbol of their identity while in Balochistan Balochi, Brahvi and Pashto are the symbols of the group identities of these three groups. Language based ethnic identities are constructed, even when the languages themselves might have existed for a long time, in modern conditions when the state distributes goods and services and groups must consolidate their power in order to obtain their just share of them (Rahman 1996).
The usual pattern is that the dominant group at the centre deprives other groups of power. This pattern of violence is opposed by constructing a group-identity often using language as a symbol. Sometimes the dominated group becomes overtly violent resorting to acts of linguistic, cultural and militant chauvinism. In the end either the pattern of the distribution of power changes --- such as the creation of the Irish Free Republic which used the Gaelic Irish language as a symbol of identity and that of Bangladesh mentioned earlier --- or the challenging group is crushed. In most cases a compromise is reached as in Canada (both French and English are used); Belgium (French and Flemish are official language) reflecting the new power equation. In all cases violence begets violence and a new pattern of perpetuating violence is evolved.
8. Gender Identity and Language
It is through language that patriarchy is expressed. There are many ways
of doing it: absence, marking, feminization. In the mode of “absence” women are
not mentioned or mentioned as honorary men. In our Punjabi etc women are given
honorary masculine pronouns.
(1)
O Jande ne.
Not
(2)
O Jandi e.
In the marked case, the male is the normal, the female is the marked case
as in English doctor, professor, general, mankind etc are assumed to be male
and if they are female then that is either specified or understood to be the
exception or ‘marked’ case. The
Feminist movement’s efforts for eliminating androcentric language is changing
this. However, corresponding changes in social reality lag behind.
The third case is common in the language of poetry, love, beauty and so
on. Women themselves created a Women’s Language (WL) reflecting their
dependence on men’s power and emphasizing their delicacy (nazakat)
and beauty (husn). The language of
the Urdu and Persian ghazal is a
special case in which the pronouns are masculine but appropriated for erotic,
amorous and mystic purposes. The language of Rekhti, Sarapa Sakhan, Hazal, Vasokht and the Masnawi
are feminine in reference to female characters and boys.
9. Literary Texts and Power
Literary texts uphold the system of the distribution of power. Love stories---Heer Ranjha etc--- are about transcending the world. The Punjabi ones do have women as the lover and God as the Beloved. But women are not liberated by these. They are shelved and encapsulated. Society coopted, contained and defanged these texts. Medieval Persian texts taught to Indian Muslims were androcentric and mysterious i.e. They were written from the male’s point of view. In Bahar-i-Danish, Alf Laila val Lail, Gulistan and Bostan etc one sees womens’ sexuality as a threat to society. Love, or erotic love, afflicts both men and women but for men it is a form of abnormality not related to societal norms in as central a way as it is for women. Women have to be controlled. This control is to be exercised by men. Likewise, the working classes too are to be controlled and despised.
Literature is and mysterious in that cause and effect are not connected. The feudal laod cannot be understood. He is arbitrary. Human beings too are subjected to mysterious power, unknowable forces, which cannot be understood. All we can do is to pray for salvation hereafter and safety here. Thus our pre-modem texts---chapbooks on magic, mysterious versions of folk Islam etc—are based on this enchantment. This is changing as modernist values, brought by colonial masters, are rational and sequential. But aspects of colonial modernity too is anti-human and anti-feminist. It too is androcentric as the nation is a power-oriented, militaristic enterprise. Women in Pakistani textbooks are, therefore, absent or only comforters or those who reconcile themselves to the consequences of violence.
10. Conclusion This paper shows that language is connected, directly or indirectly, with the maintenance of ideas, discourse systems and perceptions which create and perpetuate violence. The paper has focussed on different functions of language and linked them with power and, hence, with violence towards these who are denied power or cannot obtain it. This does not mean that there are no other aspects of language and it must be emphasized that pleasure, which language can create, is one of the consequences of power and has, therefore, been dealt with without being specifically mentioned. What have been ignored are the aesthetic, affective and such other aspects of language which relate only indirectly to power and violence. This exclusion is the result of focussing on the theme of this paper --- the relationship between language, power and violence.
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