Our ways may be old, but we all sure speak a new language

A woman checking her Twitter timeline account. Technology has dramatically opened up debate with the development now of a new 'shorthand intellectualism' as people run riot on social media, writes Charles Onyango-Obbo. PHOTO | ANDER GILLENEA |

What you need to know:

  • An interesting language and body of knowledge is developing. Call it “shorthand intellectualism”.
  • A popular word in this shorthand intellectualism is “voice”.
  • Another one is “story” — the “African story” or “our story”.
  • Then there is a very beautiful phrase, “contested spaces”. But first “spaces” on its own.

East, West, North, Central and South Africa, everywhere you look, technology is opening up debate dramatically.

There are blogs galore. All sorts of good and very bad websites. And people are running riot on Twitter and Facebook.

Of course, there are those who worry that not everything is good.

That a lot of falsehoods, animosities, and ugliness are booming, thanks to the anonymity the Internet gives maladjusted cowards to speak without facing the consequences of their utterances.

'SHORTHAND INTELLECTUALISM'

Whatever the case, an interesting language and body of knowledge is developing. Call it “shorthand intellectualism”.

A popular word in this shorthand intellectualism is “voice”.

It means anything from giving a group of people airtime on TV to carrying out far-reaching constitutional reforms.

Whatever it means, you sound very clever when you use it.

Another one is “story” — the “African story” or “our story”.

When you use that, you basically rise to the pan-Africanist level of Kwame Nkrumah.

Right there, you reveal your nationalist and patriotic — even anti-imperialist — credentials, a critic of the Western media’s stereotypical portrayal of Africa and a woman or man who wants to rewrite African history so that the local people are heroes.

I have never really read a considered explanation of what the “African story” is, but then that is the point, isn’t it?

If you cannot feel it, there is no reason explaining it to you.

Related to this is another hot one; “agency”. This is the idea that the small people are not just passive recipients of other people’s action.

That they resist and define reality, often in ways in which the powerful, rich, and donors do not see or understand. But it can mean anything, really.

Then there is a very beautiful phrase, “contested spaces”. But first “spaces” on its own.

It can mean an idea, a physical space (i.e. a piece of public land that a crooked politician is trying to grab) or emotions (the pain that the victims of post-election violence feel).

But when you say “contested spaces” you raise the level; it mostly signifies a philosophical contest.

When Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong had to say the same thing in a few words at the end of the 1950s, the least he could muster was, “Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend”.

And if you are serious, you are not done until you have “deconstructed” something. Basically it means taking a hard look at something.

There are still people who use the old fashioned expression for that. They say “questioning conventional wisdom”.

In journalism, we have a crude way of putting it. We say “if your mother tells you she loves you, check it out”.

That is, do not believe anything at face value. No wonder people do not like us much.

'SEXUALITIES'

There is a very simply deceptive one. Just “sexualities”. My friend, that is heavy stuff.

We are talking here about the right to choose who to have sex with, how to have it (gay, bisexual, transgender, the whole works).

This one is a stroke of genius. A priest can use it during Sunday Mass and not ruffle the feathers of the conservative guardians of the faith sitting in the front pew.

Up there, possibly among the top three, is “narratives”.

When someone says “dominant narratives” they probably mean a widely accepted idea of the day that is wrong or oppressive.

In the former case, for example, that giving farmers fertiliser subsidies will lead to increased yields.

In the latter, that the best environment to raise a child in a home headed by a male authority figure.

When you are making a grand statement on the future, but you really have little data for your forecast, you give it weight by using “trajectory”.

“On the current trajectory, the East African coast will be the continent’s industrial hub by 2035,” you declare.

If that does not get you an invitation to speak at a Rotary Club lunch, I do not know what will.

There are a dozen more, but we shall end with “patriarchy”.

In your political science class you were taught that patriarchy is “a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it”.

That is so yesterday. Understand it to include all the injustices men have committed against women (and they are many) since Genesis.

The author is editor of Africa data visualiser Africapedia.com and explainer site Roguechiefs.com. Twitter@cobbo3