consequence, biodiversity11 and climate. Some of the big minorities today also
continue to bear the brunt of all this; and few of them have their formal education
through the medium of their own languages. There are grave human rights violations
and denial of the right to equality when minorities cannot be educated in their own
languages. This is also central to the identity of linguistic minorities - and of the
survival of languages. The condemnation from the rest of the world is now
forthcoming to some small extent, on paper, but as long as implementation is
lacking, even here, it is toothless. Capital and trade trump human rights, as usual.
My recommendation
My ONLY recommendation to the power holders is similar to what Greta Thunberg
says: listen to research! And right she is.
So, IMPLEMENT the good recommendations about mother-tongue-based
multilingual education that come from
researchers, and from Indigenous and minority children, parents, teachers,
and the NGO!s This also includes the recommendations on how to allow
dominant group children to become high-level multilingual through
education12.
As you can hear, I am very pessimistic in my analysis of the state of Linguistic
Human Rights in education today, and I have left out all the positive
examples13. But I am still optimistic in my actions, hoping against today’s
realities. I finish with a short poem by a Māori friend, Vaughan Rapatahana.
Only one word (Original in Māori: Tahi kupu anake14, )
in a world of many mad politicians
in a world of many destitute people
in a world of global warming
hope is the word.
in a world of many wars
in a world of corruption and greed
in a world of the extinction of animals
hope is the word.
hope is the only word
hope is the word
hope.