From: mukasa@panix.com (Michael K Mukasa)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: Re: soc.culture.african.french
Date: 11 Dec 92 21:58:29 GMT
Organization: Panix, NYC

In <1ga8k4INNrmp@sbusol.rz.uni-sb.de> olinga@sol.cs.uni-sb.de (Guy Francois Olinga) writes:

>Hi,

>	This is a call for discussion on the creation of a new newsgroup
>soc.culture.african.french. I think that many people from Africa don't
>speak English well enough to send articles in this "international" 
>language. Remember that our continent has not only anglophone but 
>also francophone countries (among others). I didn' t write this 
>article myself since my English is not very good. Therefore I have 
>never taken position in any discussion in our newsgroup. 
>Let's have a newsgroup where the Africans who only speak French can
>express their oppinion about all subjects concerning Africa.

>        The proposed newsgroup would be similar in form to
>soc.culture.african with all articles wroten in French. If anyone has 
>any ideas concerning the creation of the group or would like to help 
>out, please post here or leave me an e-mail.


>Thanks.

>Salut,

>       Cet article a pour but de vous inviter `a une discussion en vue


  [stuff deleted]


>Merci.
>----

>Guy F. Olinga   Technische Fakultaet
>		Fachbereich Informatik
>		Universitaet des Saarlandes-FRG.

>		email: olinga@sol.cs.uni-sb.de
>		       olinga@minisun.cs.uni-sb.de


I think this a very important problem that we have to tackle. 
Personally I believe creating another group for Africans is divicive.  I
would very much like to hear the views of African on this net.  ALL
Africans.  I have friends fron francophone africa and although we
sometimes have communication problems but we have great times and get along
well.
 How does Cameroon deal with this dichotomy.
Maybe someone from Cameroon should suggest an alternative, because I
believe there is always an alternative.  If this group was predominantly
francophone African and someone suggested to form another group for
anglophone Africans, I would still feel it was divisive.

How about francophone Africans posting here in french then some good
samaritan translating articles for people like me whose french is pathetic
at best.

A suggestion could be made to post in swahili or hausa, and although i
would support this (i.e Swahili.  Unfortunately my grasp of Hausa would
make my butchering of french look like linguistic mastery) I think it
would be more divisive than the present situation.

The splitting of Africans into various factions should be discouraged in
all forms.  We should start looking into ways to overcome problems and
divisions imposed on us, instead of choosing the easy way out and ignoring
them  By creating another group for Africans we will just be ignoring the
problem at hand and reducing the pool Africans who could ultimately solve
or at least find viable solutions to some of the problems we have.
Locking ourselves away in little rooms is not the solution.
I do not have the solution but I will think deeply about it over the
weeked and see if I come up with an angle.

I mean to flame no one and hope my article is not taken as such.  I am
glad the brother came forward with this problem and we should ALL post our
feelings on this issue (even in french and portugese if nned be) so that a
solution can arise.

My two cents,
Et voici ma vi!  :-) :-)

Kiggundu.