Supremacy of the White Tongue

And how our need for language convenience contributes to modern slavery

The Linguistic Convenience Industry must be stopped.

He soon after started waiting at a local Lebanese restaurant. My friends and I would dine there and, when it wasn’t busy, would sit and chat with him about everything from politics to sports. Yet over the coming months Adil’s cheeky grin turned into a sober disillusionment.

Naturally, this news was met with our indignation. He should leave them and work at a fast food restaurant instead. There they would at least pay him better.

‘But I can’t speak English…’

The white tongue remains supreme.

Safi Din al-Hilli, a 14th Century Arab poet, opined that ‘every tongue is, in fact, a man.’ The Self and the Tongue are inextricably linked because how we view and derive meaning from the world and how we view ourselves are one and the same. When we value one language over the other we are also valuing one mode of being over the other. I am bilingual however my Arabic is weak compared to my English. When put in situations where I can only speak Arabic, I feel muzzled. It is in this sense of disempowerment that would allow for my exploitation.

There is a direct causal link between our insistence on comprehending every single word and the exploitation of people like Adil. Yet in this consumer-driven world we lose sight of the fact that you and I are the Consumer. We can finally put an end to the Linguistic Convenience Industry by refusing to be complicit in its operations.

We don’t need to understand every word.

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