ENGLISH LANGUAGE AS A YARDSTICK FOR PROGRESS/SUCCESS

By Lex Posimi
A bastard (forgive my language) stepped up the podium some five years ago when I was in my final year in school contesting for the most prestigious post on campus (SUG president)."Igi iwe" as he's popularly known in and around campus bamboozled us with incomprehensible language balderdash but all we did on that ground was to clap thunderously and shout at the top of our lungs moronically despite that we hardly even understood any of the nonsense he was vomiting in the name of a manifesto.
FYI, despite the obvious language prowess, Ekene was the worst, I mean WORST SUG president I experienced in my university days.

Looking back now, I realized that we have placed too much importance on English language so much that we use it to measure progress and success. Even so much that every aspect of our existence as a nation is guilty of that.

People who lack good command of the language are almost always looked down on, mocked taunted, ridiculed and shamed. Matter-of-factly, you lack of good diction (as a guy) can deny you the chance if any with that dream girl of yours.

Majority of the time, we forget the importance of the content and dance away with the beauty of the label forgetting the label is only an accomplice of the content.

My anger is, why do we make some feel inferior and others superior because some speaks good English and others; not so well? We allow the ones with good diction rant on with their literary jargon while we trash the genius in others in the process.

Well, don't get me wrong. I don't hate this language at least that's what I'm writing with at the moment. All I'm saying is that we have attached so much importance to it to the extent that it has now become a yardstick to measure the success/progress of an individual, decide man's importance to his own existence and decide how meaningful his contribution would be. Thereby in the process, allowing the genius and competencies in people who can't speak the language too well die and washed down the drain.

Finally, isn't it funny that an individual will use English language to pass other subjects only to fail English itself? Irony right? I almost said the same thing.
I'm not a hater of this language, I'm just someone who thinks the barrier caused by the language is so much that we already have an imbalanced society.

                                          ©Lex Posimi
                                        2019RandomAnger

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