Right to speak: linguistic and political dimension in Guinea-Bissau

Abstract

In this paper, I seek to reflect on the right to speak by questioning some Guineans about the period of the 1998/1999 political-military armed conflict in Guinea Bissau. I seek to understand how they remember their past, how their experiences are perceived and narrated in the present day. It is known that wars imply important reconfigurations in society, in this case, on the African continent, one of the goals of the fights for liberation was also the so-called intellectual and psychological liberation; it was necessary to free African people from concepts, behaviors and values ​​imposed by the colonial system. According to one of the interlocutors, the right to speak was one of the most important achievements of the civil war. On the one hand, this right encompasses a sociological and identity dimension, addressed from a linguistic and cultural perspective, on the other hand, it encompasses a political dimension in the sense of citizen participation in decisions that involve their lives, assuming the risks and consequences of this right. The official language of this former Portuguese colony is Portuguese; however, only a minority of the population speaks it. In general, in the streets and in everyday life, the so-called “Creole” is used, a post-colonization language that mixes Portuguese words and ethnic expressions. Following contemporary debates in cultural and postcolonial studies and oral history, I dialogue with authors such as Frantz Fanon, Stuart Hall, Homi Bhabha, Achille Mbembe and Spivak, among others.