Mother Tongue as A Cultural and Development Tool

Without any doubt, it has been shown over the years that mother tongue is as important for cultural identity and development for any nation. One of the reasons is that it makes people comfortable, secure, innovative and easily adapt to new theories and knowledge. It makes learning easy and enjoyable as people seek new knowledge in all spheres of life. Perhaps this is the main reason countries such as Japan, China, Korea, Brazil, Israel and India have shown remarkable development in the last few decades. But what happened to Africa? The colonialist knew from the very beginning that the only way to make people subservient was to denigrate their language, culture and religion. They ensured that we had to learn their cultures so as to serve them well and to learn their languages to ensure we lose our capacity to communicate among ourselves without their eavesdropping. It's astonishing how even the greatest patriots and thinkers in Africa became victims of this colonial trickery. The former president of Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, in the name of uniting his country introduced Kiswahili as a compulsory language but forgot that the people were only comfortable in their mother tongues within the confines of their homes but only used Kiswahili so as not to break the law. This can't be sustainable because Kiswahili to the majority of Tanzanians is a second language just as English is to Kenyans and Ghanaians. Some of us think it's cool to speak "Queens" English even in the confines of our homes. What balderdash! The Russians and Chinese who may not have any working knowledge of a foreign language have constructed vessels that have taken them to outer space. That's why we need to ask ourselves the hard questions. Kenyans, started badly with the Lancaster House conference constitution that didn't give a hoot about our culture but thanks to the new constitution crafted and written for us by fellow Kenyans, we can now flaunt our culture without any apologies. For instance, it will soon be possible to challenge the government in courts of law if the current school syllabus that contains Christian and Islamic Religious Education is not amended. The new constitution encourages the development of our culture and this is perhaps the starting point for Kenyan's cultural renaissance and development. It's in order to learn a second and may be a third language but it is suicidal to lose ones first language. Even those of us in mixed marriages should strive to teach our children both first languages before letting them lose. I think that's the best legacy we can pass to our children to set them free from the current cultural slavery that has impended our development.