Nerve 24 - Language as a Space of Dissent

Language as a Space of Dissent

The current exhibition at Tate Liverpool inspired by Raymond Williams' Keywords led me to thinking about the use, abuse and appropriation of language and how revolutionary movements have often been very effective in challenging the use of language and indeed inventing words, phrases and linguistic concepts to further their cause.

I was always struck during the struggle against British repression in Ireland how inventive and yet entirely apt were the names given to the apparatus of repression: strip-searching, shoot to kill, supergrasses. And that, in naming the enemy, those fighting it gained the upper hand in common parlance (much as the naming of the Bedroom Tax has enraged the current government by calling a spade a spade). In the ultimate desperate reaction by Britain to the spread of republican thought, Gerry Adams was literally silenced in the British media by farcically having his words dubbed by an actor over his talking head. Likewise, when a once innocent name becomes synonymous with repression e.g. Long Kesh, the authorities find it necessary to rename it, hence The Maze. This tactic was then adopted in England, so when the very word Windscale began to conjure up visions of nuclear accidents, it suddenly became Sellafield. As with repressive tactics such as helicopters, teargas and now water cannon, Ireland yesterday becomes England today.

For the feminist movement of the 70s and 80s, language was a site of contention, as the use of masculine-denoting language was challenged. Feminists began by ripping up the use of Mrs and Miss, by which our very identities were defined through our relationship to a man. Ms has now become an accepted form of address, though we have a way to go in establishing it as a universal term equivalent to Mr, rather than a choice denoting one's allegiance to feminism. Likewise, staffing and chairperson have largely replaced their masculine predecessors. But in asserting the relevance of these battles, the ways in which our language defines our social relations, and the necessity of inventing new words and ways of speaking, feminists were derided for focussing on supposedly trivial issues and the ultimate charge of "political correctness", with its intent of silencing progressive dissent, became ubiquitous.

Williams has an interesting take on the use of "equality" when he says: "equality of opportunity...can be glossed as 'equal opportunity to become unequal'". This brings into question the whole idea of "equal opportunities" as a pale imitation of the concepts of oppression and liberation, one which limits and individualises whole movements for change, and results, for example, in the sorry spectacle of schools depoliticising Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks by separating them from the revolutionary movements to which they were integral.

Then let's talk about class, a concept around which there is a deafening silence in the mainstream media, Owen Jones excepted. "Working Class" used to be a definition of pride, collectively identifying oneself with a group in struggle. As social mobility increased, supposedly in the interests of the working class but only in an individualistic sense, those who would define themselves as such became fewer and the term, or the "underclass", became seen as an insult. Now we have the vicious term "hard-working families" repeated daily as a hammer to beat the poor and define them as scroungers, chavs and layabouts. We buy into individual solutions at our peril.

The feminist left's upper-hand around the politics of language in the 70s was well understood by Thatcher who, in her twisted way, made full use of it. In describing the miners as the "enemy within", in her criminalisation of the Irish struggle, in her successful reinvention of "armed struggle" as "terrorism", and in her damning use of the concept of "political correctness" to attack feminism, lesbian & gay rights and black struggles, she was echoing Orwell's insight that to control a population you must first control their thinking. This is best done by putting words into their mouths in order to align their thinking with your own, and taking words out of their mouths to deny them the means to define themselves. It may be done as in 1984, limiting vocabulary in order to limit thought, or it may be a signal to the outside world, as in the Nazis' use of "Arbeit Macht Frei" over the entrance to Auschwitz, but Newspeak is everywhere and as a site of struggle, language is a space where dissent is crucial if we wish to define the way ahead.

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