Literature

The Price of Words

The choice of words is important to everyone as much as it is to the writer. Written or spoken, words are like eggs, delicate and vulnerable. It is not just about saying what one means or meaning what one says. It is more about being careful about what one says, because once they are uttered, words have a way of assuming meanings of their own, depending on the speaker, the listeners, the environment and the circumstance in which they are expressed. For instance, everyone in Nigeria knows the kind of reaction he would get by merely saying to someone ?your father?, especially when the word ?father? is stressed; whereas the same phrase would appear meaningless to someone from Europe or America, and probably dismissed as a grammatical error.

The controversy often generated by comments ?innocently? made by prominent personalities is a veritable testimony to the fact that the word is a living thing. It is also like milk; once spilled, it is spilled. Instances of such cases abound. The recent statement by the Egyptian Defence Minister, Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, that Egypt was at the brink of collapse is a glaring example. No sooner had he uttered these words than his fellow Egyptians descended on him, calling him all sorts of names. Some even accused him of conspiring against the country, saying his words betrayed his secret plans. He tried to explain what he actually meant, but it was too late. Even the explanation by the Egyptian President, Mohamed Mursi, that he only meant ?if the political struggle continues it will lead to the collapse of the state? made no impact on the spilled milk.

Another recent case is that of an American politician, Richard Mourdock, who had to clarify the comment he made on rape and abortion at a senate debate. He had said during the debate that pregnancies resulting from rape were ?something that God intended to happen?. He was being faithful, believing that nothing happens by chance but by God?s plan. But the ?faithful? statement raised so much dust that Mourdock had to quickly organize a press conference to clarify his point. ?If, because of the lack of clarity in my words, they came away with the impression other than those I said a moment ago, that life is precious, that I abhor violence, and God abhors violence and rape. If they came away with any impression other than that, I truly regret it,? he said.

He, however, refused to apologize, because, according to him, he actually meant the original intent of his comment and not the ?twisted and misunderstood? version. ?I spoke from my heart,? he said. ?For speaking from my heart, for speaking from the deepest level of my faith, I cannot apologize.?

He is a courageous man, but he paid the price, politically.

The price of words could be high indeed. Some people even pay with their lives. A historic example is Malcom X, the American civil rights activist, whose speech on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 brought down the roof. The statement, popularly tagged ?The Chickens Come Home to Roost,? was actually an allusion to the law of karma in relation to the treatment of the blacks in America and the lukewarm attitude of the Kennedy administration towards the injustice. He was not celebrating the president?s death, but drawing the attention of Americans and indeed the entire world to the fact that unchecked injustice is a faceless danger that consumes not just the victims but even the ?innocent? who could stop the iniquity but failed to do so. In other words, it is the violence that Kennedy failed to stop that came back to him.

That was what Malcom X meant, according to his repeated explanations, including this one given in a press interview, which I transcribed from YouTube: ?The statement I made concerning the president of the US which was distorted? I said the same thing that everybody said; his assassination was as a result of the climate of hate. Only I said the chickens have come home to roost, which is the same thing. Climate of hate means that this is the result of something? and when I said chickens coming home to roost, I said the same thing.?

?You did not say you were glad the president was killed?? the reporter asked.

?No, that is what the press said?? he replied.

In another attempt at disentangling himself from the web of his words, Malcolm X gave a full explanation on the matter during a talk at the Harvard University Law School Forum in Cambridge on December 16, 1964; a year after the Kennedy assassination.

In his words: ?I don?t think anybody would deny that when you send chickens out of your barnyard in the morning, at nightfall those chickens are gonna come back home to roost in your barnyard. Chickens that you send out always come back. That?s a law of nature. I was a little farm boy myself. I got in trouble saying this once, but it didn?t stop me from being a farm boy.

?When you send your chickens away, your chickens always come back home. Other people?s chickens don?t come to roost on your doorstep and yours don?t go to roost on theirs. So the chickens that this country is responsible today for sending out ? whether the country likes it or not, and if you?re in any way mature and you look at it like it is ? someday, and someday soon, it?s got to come back home to roost.?

In spite of this elaborate explanation, the American and British media in particular twisted the statement and castigated Malcom X to a point where his spiritual leader, Elijah Muhammad, had to suspend him from the Nation of Islam, for the survival of the brotherhood and, perhaps, his (Muhammad?s) personal safety too. This resulted in Malcom X eventually quitting the organization and forming his own faction. And the bitterness that arose from the split culminated in his assassination 15 months later ? all because of a simple idiomatic expression. A cliché!

Here in Nigeria, instances of controversial statements are uncountable. We are so used to them that they now appear normal. No day would pass without an incident or two of bombshells delivered by especially our political leaders. And President Goodluck Jonathan seems to lead the pack in this regard. Since October 1st 2010, when he hastily denied the claim by the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) that it was responsible for the Independence Day bombings in Abuja, it has been one contentious statement after the other on sensitive national issues. His attribution of the blast to the handiwork of ?a terrorist group? hiding under the movement?s name triggered off such a hullabaloo that it virtually became a tug of war between the North and the South, with Northern politicians like Adamu Ciroma, calling for the president?s resignation. The issue was so politicised that it was no longer about the bombing, the loss of lives or the need to uncover the bombers, but about who said what and why. And the rubbles of the debate nearly buried up the crux of the matter. But thanks to the South African court, the truth was eventually out and Henry Okah, a prominent leader of MEND was found guilty of terrorism.

Jonathan?s image as a president who uses words as they come was displayed on the international arena recently when he granted an interview to CNN. He was combative throughout the interview with Christiane Amanpour and his comments were anything but civil. To every question he hissed the answer at her. On the issue of epileptic electricity supply in the country, for instance, he said even the man on the street would answer that question positively. If Amanpour was hurt by the offhand reply she did not show it. But a few days later she extracted her pound of flesh with a vox pop in the streets of Lagos by a CNN correspondent. It was an uppercut! Smoking generators and complaining voices of the man on the street were the dominant sights and sounds of Nigeria beamed to millions of viewers across the globe by the CNN.

The lesson from all these is that for every word there is a price tag. Words may look free or cheap, but there is always a noose lurking somewhere between the lines! We must, therefore, be careful about how we deploy them to convey our feelings or views. It is even more imperative for those in leadership positions to be cautious as their words are authority and thus subject to political interpretations.

My last word on this is that you should watch your words and leave no room for interpreters if you don?t want to be misinterpreted.

http://blueprintng.com/2013/03/the-price-of-words/

http://blueprintng.com/2013/03/the-price-of-words-2-2/

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Literature