Gambia drops English as official language in another symbolic Western rebuff

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Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh took his most recent stance against his country’s colonial heritage this week when he announced that English would no longer be Gambia’s official language. The policy change, announced during the swearing-in of Gambia’s new Chief Justice on Thursday, is the most recent of Jammeh’s political shots against former colonial power Britain.

According to Jammeh, who refers to English as a “colonial relic” despite its status as one of the most widely spoken languages in his country, “We no longer believe that for you to be a government you should speak a foreign language. We are going to speak our own language.” It is, however, unclear which of Gambia’s own languages Jammeh is referring to. The country, which gained independence from Britain in 1965, has several local languages to choose from, including Mandinka, Fula, or Wolof.

Which language Jammeh decides on— and when this change will go into effect— is almost beside the point, however. This seemingly random decision has far less to do with an embrace of local linguistic tradition than it does with delivering Jammeh’s latest broadside against the West. The announcement follows his stunning decision in October 2013 to withdraw Gambia from the Commonwealth, a 54-nation bloc of former British colonies which Jammeh branded “an extension of colonialism.” The leader’s comments at the time may have set the stage somewhat for this most recent move:

What brought the British in the first place to Gambia… was trade in ivory because Gambia had a lot of elephants… They ended up wiping out the elephants and then turned around and started selling Africans. The British instituted slavery… The only thing they left us with is unfortunately the English language.

This sort of hostile rhetoric has grown increasingly common from the Gambian leader in recent years, spurred on, apparently, by a reaction to the cancellation of Western aid to Gambia over human rights concerns. Jammeh, who has been president since seizing power in a 1994 coup, has taken one of the most notably combative postures in response to Western aid sanctions but he is not the only African leader to take this tack. Leveraging the specter of colonialism as a defense against Western criticisms around human rights and governance issues has become a a fairly popular tactic by many strongmen, from Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, to Uhuru Kenyatta, who has framed his trial in the International Criminal Court as a form of neocolonial meddling.

But the rise of LGBT issues as a major sticking point for international aid has added another interesting dimension here. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has taken the neocolonialism attack a step further in his defense of his country’s anti-gay legislation, accusing critical Western states of “social imperialism” and cultural arrogance. And he’s been able to do so with a certain degree of confidence, shrewdly betting that his country’s strategic value in regional peacekeeping efforts will outweigh the drive to penalize it for its anti-gay policies. And even threats to withhold aid, as in the European Union’s recent non-binding resolution to protest Uganda and Nigeria’s anti-gay laws, only bolsters his case to his domestic audience- not to mention his standing in the region, where (for many valid reasons) wariness of European interference in African affairs is significant.

This sort of cynical politicking around human rights issues— largely divorced from the real remaining problems resulting from the legacy of European colonialism— will continue to be a favored go-to strategy for leaders like Museveni and Jammeh. After all, even if they bet wrong and somehow wind up entirely cut off from Western aid donors, there is always still China, which is eagerly expanding its footprint on the African continent— and conveniently avoids asking any pesky questions about human rights.