Language as an Instrument of Peace

Moderator:

Annalisa Sacca, Ph.D., Professor of Italian, Department of Languages and Literature, St. John's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. John's University

Languages For Peace

Welcome to our second day on "Language for Peace". Yesterday, we heard Mario Marazziti from the Comunita di Sant'Egidio speaking about languages and the peace process .   Among the things he said, one, I thought, was crucial for promoting world dialogue: "keep it at a close range".    A "culture of closeness" as opposed to "a culture of distance" is needed today.

This is at the heart of this conference: to promote a "culture of closeness". You get close by speaking to the other to discover his or her world.   Each one of us carries a world, a world that wants to be discovered and shared. A "culture of closeness" is a "culture of peace".

"Language" comes from the Latin, lingua or tongue, "the organ with which we speak", but the Latins did not use the word lingua, rather they used the word sermo/sermonis (sermon) from the Indoeuropean "serere" (to put things on line) and also used the term " oratio ", also Indoeuropean, "to pronounce a formula in a ritual".   The first to pronounce a formula in a ritual is God.   God is the first to use language.   For evidence, we quote the beginning of the Bible in the book of Genesis:

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light", and there was light.

Why does God say, "Let there be light"? To whom does he say it?   As far as we know there was nobody around. Does he need to say it?   Wasn't his will enough to create the light? Evidently, the answer is no. It takes the word for the light to happen. God uses language to make things happen. Words do not announce things nor preview them-- they make things happen. To quote Gerald Schroeder , "It is not the word in the universe, but the universe in the word".

Another example from the Bible is the story of the "Tower of Babel", a story of the confusion of languages. The Tower of Babel in the valley of Shin'ar in Mesopotamia grew a pyramid from fathers and sons passing to each other stones and bricks, and their skills as builders. The people of Babel thought that by creating this tower, others would honor them.   The history of man was reduced toa construction project and language, to formulas related to one job, one skill. God intervened and confusion followed, diaspora, and the many languages that brought change. God, Deus, Dios, Dio, Gott, Bog, bu, isten, jumala ,tuhan bokh, theos, el, kami, mungu, Jahve, Allah.   The Tower of Babel fell so that God's children would not put limits to their own search about life, by reducing it to one task alone. The Tower of Babel became one of God's greatest gifts to mankind.    What followed is a new creation, a new life, seeing and relating to God and to the other with many languages.

An ophthalmologist, Ludovic Zamenhof in Poland attempted to create a universal language, Esperanto, in a laboratory at the end of the 19 th century.   It did not work.   The only people who speak Esperanto today are the people who belong to the Esperanto Association. The reason this effort failed is because imbedded in every language is the soul of its people, which we call culture and constructed languages do not carry culture, do not carry a soul.

The way we think, the way we act, the way we believe, the way we hope is all carried in the vehicle we call language. Language is the " house of being " says the philosopher, Heidegger and a basis for peace. In this house, we see two persons-- the speaker and the listener, the giver and the taker, in the same relation as the " I and the thou" .   One person next to the other in a relation that Ludwig Binswanger called Wirheit der liebe (the we- ness of love). We come to an agreement with the other, to a pact and this pact has a name "peace".   The word peace comes from the Indoeuropean root " pace " which means exactly "to come to terms, to come to a pact." We can conclude then, that Languages for Peace means to reestablish the pact by getting to know each other's languages, as they are windows to our being.   Within the House of Being we are neighbors.   Everyone needs a neighbor; everyone is responsible for his neighbor. A culture of closeness is a culture of peace .

Again as Mario Marazziti said:" keep it at a close range". Languages bring people to a close range.    At a close range an enemy becomes a brother, at a close range you can't drop bombs, at a close range the fear of the other becomes the fear for the other. At a close range you talk and not shout, at a close range you can listen, at a close range you don't look, you see.

I contraband closeness in my classroom. From the first day of classes I make my students do the most difficult thing: look at the other's face. They have to sit in a semicircle so when each one talks he or she is the focus of attention, exactly the thing that they want to avoid. But it always works; they all get to know each other.  

Emanuel Levinas wrote, "The epiphany of the face is visitation". Only the one who is able to question himself can accept the radically other. To look at the other's face is to establish a relationship of non-indifference, not a cognitive but an ethical relationship.   Our face, belongs to the other. Not to us. It is our most precious thing and yet we cannot see it. We rely on others to name it. In a culture of closeness we have the courage to present our face as a naked mask to the other. The role of a teacher is to inspire this courage--the courage of dialogue, the courage of respect, the courage of tolerance, the courage of understanding.   As one, it is the courage of learning. And that is what my colleagues will share with you. The process of learning brings about a culture of awareness and relationships that is, a culture of peace.

  See document posted on this site or listen to the podcast at http://libraries.stjohns.edu/podcasts/Marazziti_11_7_2006.mp3

Book of Genesis 1:1-3 , The New American Bible, St. Joseph Edition , 1970

Gerald L. Schroeder is a scientist who writes about the relationship of God and Science.   His books include, The Hidden Face of God: How Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth (2001), The Science of God: The Convergence of scientific and Biblical Wisdom (1997) and Genesis and the Big Ban: The Discovery of Harmony between Science and the Bible (1992).

Genisis 11:1-9, The New American Bible , St. Joseph Edition, 1970.There is some evidence that this story has a basis in reality.   The Babylonians used to build enormous Ziguratts (temples for the god Mardok) with the zodiac signs on the top.

http://www.esperanto.net/info/index_en.html