From the mouths of babes

“My daughter will learn Czech, right from the start, because we live a few metres from the border, because it is natural and logical, because to grow up bilingual represents a richness”. The experience of a life on the border between Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic: adopting bilingualism as an education policy and an antidote to prejudice and non-communication

To reach Ostriz from the north, a few hundred metres from both Poland and the Czech Republic, you pass through Kunnerwitz, Hagenwerded, Schönau-Berzdorf an der Eigen and other anonymous and apparently uninhabited villages, where the pretty houses in a rural German style, are mixed with a touch of more functional Socialist post-war aesthetics.

Neisse-Nisa-Nysa
Neisse-Nisa-Nysa

Here you find huge council housing ‘barracks’ in the open countryside. But not only that. You can come upon a disused nuclear power plant flanked by the ordered blades of a wind farm – a sign of changing times.

Further on, miles from anywhere, stands an inert monster as high as a ten-storey house, an industrial digger – that seems to belong in Fritz Lang’s film ‘Metropolis’ – that, during the happy days of the DDR, excavated coal from underground. Or perhaps encounter an old Volkswagen van passing slowly through the village. Equipped with loudspeakers, to a melancholy musical accompaniment, blares out propaganda for the German National Party (NPD) – none other than the neo-Nazi party.

This corner of Germany is surreal for one who has not grown up here. It is a poor corner, one of the poorest of the poor former East Germany, a victim of the end of the coal era, like other regions in Europe such as the regions of Charleroi and Mons-Borinage in Belgium. As sometimes happens, the decay in the economic and socio-cultural fabric, along with its proximity to the border have encouraged the development of nationalistic, often extremist and sometimes racist sentiments. With 40% unemployment and two borders, the party of extreme right, the German heir to the concentration camps, this is not a hard area to make converts. “Germany for the Germans!” caws the old-timer in the van to the apparently empty houses and Soviet-style blocks.

Landscapes change and borders do too, but the situation which one meets puts forward themes that are already familiar. Borders and national identity, a history of national and regional conflicts, World War II and cultural stereotypes; a history of misunderstandings and an ignorance of one another, together with a history of barriers such as language, the main agent in the construction and maintenance of identity, diversity and prejudice.

I went to speak about this with Dr. Gellrich, in the heart of Ostriz, in a graceful Samaritan nunnery, less than ten metres from the river that separates Germany and Poland. Her name is Regina and she grew up, studied and worked in this border region of eastern Saxony behind the Iron Curtain, when in school she learned Russian and only Russian. She was not taught Czech or Polish. Regina tells me she loves the Czech Republic. “Why?” I ask. Her answer is simple and spontaneous: “Because I went there on holiday with my parents there – it being the only one, or one of the few states where you could go abroad without a third degree grilling by an officer of STASI!” This insight comes from personal experience, it’s direct.

We are back in the ‘80s and Regina attends the school in Zittau, her town. In interactions with the Czechoslovakian neighbours, even just going to buy meat or get petrol, Regina feels uncomfortable, unable to speak a word of Czech. Yet everyone on the other side speaks German, at least a little, for business you understand. But that’s not the point, she says. Language is not just communication: “a kilo of meat, a tankful of petrol.” Language mediates and reflects stereotypes and prejudices that underlie an asymmetrical relationship: “It’s you (either Polish or Czechoslovakian) the poor neighbours (or worse)”, “you that you must learn German.” Hence the decision to attend an evening course in the Czech language learning with difficulty, but enough to allow, even knowing only a little, to “open a new world: people have begun to interact with me in a different way, to open doors, to be more friendly”, she says. One discovers the value of language as an instrument for interaction and cooperation.

Shortly before the fall of the Wall in 1988, Regina gave birth to Susanna and thinks: “my daughter will learn

Nuclear Plant
Nuclear Plant

Czech, right from the start, because we live a few metres from the border, because it is natural and logical, because to grow up bilingual represents a richness”. It introduces a second important element: diversity and bilingualism as richness. At this time Czech is not taught in the schools or kindergartens, and it is a problem to learn it. But the solution can be found nearby, a few kilometres away. This is Regina’s idea, to put Susanna in a Czechoslovakian kindergarten. She makes contacts, takes on the bureaucracy, clashes with the prejudices of those who blurt out a shocked “But WHY?” or those who tell her “you don’t want to send your little one to THEM, do you?”. Even the teachers are against it.
But obviously the twenty years of holidays that have gone before are stronger than the nay-sayers. Susanna ends up attending the nursery school across the borders at Hradek nad Nisou in Czechoslovakia where all three borders meet and close to her home in Zittau in Germany. The experience proves positive, and the little girl adapts quickly and is happy at the nursery. Thus was born the idea of a formal cooperation between the border regions, so that other children can repeat Susanna’s experience.

At that time Regina has just finished a doctorate in mathematics with a thesis on ‘Mathematical models of fluids dynamics’ at Kennewitz and returns to Zittau, where they had promised her a permanent position. The Berlin Wall falls, however and Germany reunites, and many things change. Amongst the changes is the structure of the University of Zittau: there is now no place for Dr. Gellrich. Regina finds herself with a temporary job and her child at a nursery school that they want to close. She successfully leads the Parents’ Association in the fight to keep it open. Enriched with this experience, she manages to get a job as administrator in a German non-governmental organisation called Children Care, which among its many projects, promotes cross-border cooperation. She is the contact with the authorities. Her daughter at that time is already attending the nursery across the border and Regina then decides to proceed with a model of cooperation based on her personal experience.

She moves from Children Care to Pontes, an agency that works to develop cross-border cooperation between the Czech Republic, Saxony and Poland in the field of education. It is interesting to note that the association – and the ideas – have arisen in a spontaneous, bottom-up fashion from the needs of individuals or small groups of individuals, a model that has subsequently found support and form in institutions and the Euroregion Neisse-Nisa-Nysa.

Regina’s idea is to develop a transnational network of education in the triangle between Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, starting from a model based on her own experience. It was decided to start with the kindergartens. “On the one hand we want to offer people the opportunity to enroll their children in kindergartens across the border and on the other to ensure that in the German kindergartens in the region there are two teachers present, one a German native speaker, the other speaking Czech (or Polish)” she says. They are also producing books and games for bilingual kindergartens, helping to organise meetings and language courses for parents, children’s parties, holidays, and various other activities, where parents can get to meet ‘the other half’. The project has developed so rapidly that Regina’s second daughter, Juliane born in 1994, has been able to take advantage of new educational system.

Susanna is growing and about to start primary school, but there are no schools that can offer bilingual education. Thus was born then the idea of creating a more structured cooperation, not only limited to kindergartens but that would cover a child’s entire education. They therefore organise schools where Czech and German (or Polish and German) children can attend together, and where the teaching and the lessons take place in both languages and the educational programmes are developed through mutual agreement. Some schools are equipped with dormitories, where the children stay during the week, returning home to their families at the weekend. Juliane now attends one of these schools and I wanted to talk to her and to hear about her experience. Juliane is now a young girl and is full of enthusiasm for her magnificent school, her magnificent classmates, the magnificent Czech Republic and the wonderful language she is learning. Speaking with her you begin to realise that she is not simply learning a language other than her own, but is growing up in a multicultural environment, where she is learning to confront the differences. “Some of my friends who do not attend the ‘mixed’ school think that the Czechs are dangerous, bad, and a bunch of thieves; and the Czechs think that the Germans are closed and unable to come into contact with them. I don’t like prejudice and I know that it’s not like that.” Juliane is now almost perfectly bilingual and it seems quite natural to her to live or work in the Czech Republic, if life should ever offer her the chance. This is not just some little thing in a region where unemployment is among the highest in Germany and she and her schoolmates will enjoy better job opportunities as a result of their training, born of this long-lasting transnational cooperation of which Regina is one of the architects.

This highlights the last aspect of cooperation in the field of language and education, the socio-economic one. I ask Regina what she would like to achieve in the future, and of her dreams. “That this cultural cooperation project can sweep away cultural stereotypes that still imprison much of the population divided by the three borders”. For example there is a very interesting project involving the Universities of Zittau, Liberec and Wrozlaw. It seeks to allow young Germans in the region to choose to live and work in the Czech Republic – “So close and so similar in spirit to the former East Germany”, rather than in faraway – and foreign – West Germany. Dreams of an administrator of the NGO Pontes, but also those of a mother who lived on the other side of the Iron Curtain and who spent her holidays in Czechoslovakia. x

Fabrizio Pizzioli is a researcher at the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. He has spent 8 years working on language and cognition. He is currently studying the neural basis of language in adults, the learning of language in children and diseases of language.

He is also concerned with cross-linguistic differences and learning in bilingual children.

Presentations (and party) of Euregio#3

This week there will be two presentations of the issue #3 of Euregio. Both will be organised in Triest. Here are the details:

  • Thursday, h. 18. At Caffè San Marco, the journalist Edoardo Kanzian organises a debate focussed on the presentation of Euregio. Talks will be given by: Enrico Maria Milič (managing director of Euregio), Julius Franzot (writer and translator), Rosalba Trevisani (UNESCO Centre, Triest), Roberto Ambrosi (researcher in Pedagogy at the University of Triest), Stefano Amadeo (researcher in International Law at the University of Triest).
  • Saturday, h. 20.30. At the ‘Gardens of Via San Michele’, a short presentation given by Enrico Maria Milič will be followed by a concert by the band ‘Arnoux’.

At both events, copies and stickers of Euregio#3 will be distributed freely.

“I’m Slovene…no, really. I’m!”

The story of Inacio Binchende, an ‘afro-slovene’ who divides his time between his businesses and appearing on TV as an African in national costume.

Inacio Bianchende
Inacio Bianchende

Inacio Binchende was born in Mansôa, Guinea-Bissau. He came to Slovenia in 1986. Having become a Bachelor of Forest Science, he obtained an MA in Economics. He runs his own import business and has opened an affiliate in his homeland in order to facilitate economic co-operation with Guinea-Bissau. He gives presentations on his mother country in the African Centre in Slovenia. Inacio’s anonimity came to an end when he started acting in Boris Kobal’s comedy ‘Africa or On Our Own Land’, which mocks a typical Slovene family. By accepting the role of Janez Belina (‘John White’) in Kobal’s comedy series ‘Poper’ (‘Pepper’) produced by Televizija Koper-Capodistria, he has become famous right across Slovenia. He lives with a Slovene and has a 13-year-old son.

Q What has brought you to Slovenia?
A My studies. In 1986, I won a Guinea-Bissau scholarship awarded within the programme of international co-operation with Yugoslavia. I graduated in forest science, and then obtained an MA in economics.
Q What did you know about Slovenia before your arrival?
A Nothing. I knew only a few things about Yugoslavia, mostly general data and some stuff about Tito. I started to get interested in it after I had received the scholarship.
Q What about the language?
A My Slovene lessons started in Ljubljana. For half a year, the foreign students were learning only the language.
Q What did you find most unusual, maybe even shocking, upon your arrival?
A My first stop was Belgrade where we were assigned to our universities. I came to Slovenia by train and was very surprised to see that everyone was wearing the same thing: jeans. That was not the case at home. When it was snowing, I didn’t go to classes. When I saw piles of snow outside, I went back to sleep, being totally sure that people stayed at home in such weather.
Q When getting used to our lifestyle, what did you find most interesting and easy, and what most difficult?
A I had no trouble adapting myself. With my fellow countrymen living here, I didn’t find it difficult to integrate myself into the society. It was unusual, though, that people would stare at me in the street. Until I got used to it, I often asked them what was wrong.
Q Has it ever happened to you that you witnessed intolerance because you were different?
A I can’t remember any direct act of intolerance during the times of the ex Yugoslavia. Most probably the authorities didn’t allow them, I can’t say for sure. Some nasty things, however, did happen after Slovenia gained independence. I was physically attacked by a group of skinheads. Slovenia has been much more open lately, and so maybe it’s getting less intolerant.
Q What about Slovenes? What do they know about others? Does it often happen that they don’t know where Guinea-Bissau is located or which language is spoken there?
A People are different. And so they also differ in their knowledge of other countries. They don’t really know a lot about them. When I mention my homeland, they perceive it as anything but a real African country. It’s a small country, indeed, slightly larger than Slovenia, and yet its population is smaller. Interestingly, we speak as many as 25 languages.
Q What do multilingualism and multiculturalism look like there?
A There are 23 ethnic groups in Guinea-Bissau, each possessing its own characteristics. The majority of them are of Bantu origin, yet they are very different. The situation is really diverse. Our languages are so different from one another that we don’t understand each other. Our lingua franca are Creole and Portuguese.
Q Why did you decide to stay in Slovenia?
A I intended to go back after graduation. But then I got the opportunity to continue my studies at Master’s level. Then arrived my son and so I stayed.
Q Guinea-Bissau is far from here. How often do you visit your relatives and homeland?
A At first, it was only rarely that I went home, now I go more and more often. My father and sister and brothers live there.
Q What do they think about your life in Europe?
A My sister has studied in Italy, so Europe is nothing special to her. My brothers have been keeping track of my life here and they know it’s very different. Back at home, communication between people is much more direct. Here it’s much more difficult to establish contacts. People are individualists. Africa is home to the collective spirit.
Q What habits have you kept?
A I haven’t given up any good habit, I just practice them at home. Elsewhere I adapt myself to the Slovene environment. I’ve integrated myself well into the society, but I haven’t become completely assimilated.
Q Does food count as a habit?
A It does, indeed. At home, I like to boil rice and fish, our national dish.
Q You have a son. What do you teach him?
A I often tell him about life in Guinea-Bissau, its people. I teach him to be aware of ‘being different’ and warn him that he will meet all kinds of people, some of whom might react to him differently. I’d like that certain remarks wouldn’t hurt him. He has to think that his roots are not only in Slovenia but also in Africa.
Q Have you already taken him to your homeland?
A We are going there this year.
Q A few years ago, we could watch you on stage and TV. How did you make it there?
A I played an African in Boris Kobal’s comedy. Nobody wanted to perform on stage, so Kobal offered the role to me. I found it interesting, so I accepted it. And then I kept working with him for his TV series.
Q What do you think about the name you were given – Janez Belina (John White)?
A I found it a good parody of an African dressed in traditional Slovene costume. And the idea behind this character was interesting. People are not used to an African in Slovene garb. Just think of my son. People ask him what he is, and he says he’s a Slovene. And they tell him: “C’mon, stop joking!”
Q If you were asked about your identity, what would you say?
A I always say that I’m from Guinea-Bissau. I cannot lose or change the things I got from my childhood. Slovenia is my second homeland, I’ve been here for a long time. I feel well in both countries and see this as an advantage. x