The growing influence of Chinese language in Pakistan By: Touqeer Hussain

The growing influence of Chinese language in Pakistan 

By: Touqeer Hussain

The question of introducing Chinese as a subject in KU and in different universities all over Pakistan as a whole poses awfully elicit implications on the cognitive habitat of our youth and generations to come, as a simple illustration of it is anchored in the colonial history of the subcontinent. When Britishers got to the shores of India, they treated people like their subjects and subjected them into the gallows of the so-called categories of subjugation, and subjugation of our language was one of them.

Language is the agency through which expression finds it's way out to the external realm of humans beings like you. For instance, imagine you have formatted language from your mind, would you be able to think something in your mind? The answer is, in this situation, you are not even able to deliver something you are gravely passionate about when language is vacated out of the mind. Urdu was our medium of expression that had got its existence from the most ancient languages of the world likewise English; the Britishers snatched up this very right of expression other than many other means of production and resources.

We, the postcolonial people, have gone through the process of hybridization -impressed by our pre-colonial civilization, culture, and heroes as well as the colonialist masters who colonized us -we r confused where to go. Here, language plays a very crucial role because it is the way of one's own expression, without it, one will lose one's roots on which one used to stand by.

I forcefully agree on the notion that learning about different languages and dialects enhances one's understanding of the world. Of course, everybody wishes to be multilingual because it is the best way of establishing relations. The question here is since Chinese are investing in Pakistan then why r they not up to seek Urdu? Why are they establishing Confucius institutions all over the country and offering scholarships instead of just learning Urdu? The answer to these questions is,  the colonies are removed but still, we are mentally colonized. We want to behave like them, sleep like them, speak like them, eat like them -the masters. They considered their single shelf of books better than our whole achievement in the domain of art and invention and imposed English on us, now China is fostering the same approach/model as initially the Britishers and later on the Americans had applied, and China is very good at it. It is very pertinent to say that China is not even inclined to give you a single penny without any cause.

This is the age of neo-colonialism in which the imperialist states first destroy your culture and means of communication and later on they turn to entangle you in debt traps. Beware! you ( including me ) will lose your identity if you are not taking timely reciprocative actions to this because language is the tool through which culture finds it's outlet to the community; when language is gone, your culture is gone and you are identityless. Now, people can easily play you like football.