By Ganiu Bamgbose, PhD
“Each of you possesses the most powerful, dangerous and subversive trait that natural selection has ever devised. It’s a piece of neural audio technology for rewiring other people’s minds. I’m talking about your language, of course, because it allows you to implant a thought from your mind directly into someone else’s mind, and they can attempt to do the same to you, without either of you having to perform surgery” Mark Pagel (TEDGlobal, 2011). The gift of language is the single human trait that marks us all, genetically setting us apart from the rest of life. Language is, like nest building or hive making, the universal and biologically specific activity of human beings. We engage in it communally, compulsively, and automatically. We cannot be human without it; if we were to be separated from it our minds would die as surely as bees lost from the hive (Algeo 1974). This is how important language is and it is at the centre of security.
Security borders on protection. It concerns the protection of an individual, building, organisation or an entire country against threat, abuse, assault or any form of attack. Adebakin (2012) views security as freedom from danger or threats, and the ability of a nation to protect and develop itself, promote and cherish values and legitimate interests and enhance the well-being of its people. Frankly, security is not the absence of threats or security issues, but the ability to rise to the challenges of such threats and challenges through the use of expertise and all forms of human intellectual know-how.
From time immemorial, human societies have always been challenged by different kinds of threat born out of all kinds of human, natural, environmental, military and external factors. The security challenges of many countries have been and can be tackled in different ways, and this piece speaks to how language can result in security challenges and can also be instrumental in curbing same.
Language is highly central to the issue of security in any country. A practical citation of the significance of language in the security of a nation is the story of how an ill-chosen translation of the Japanese word, mokusatsu, resulted in the United States’ decision to drop the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, a city in Japan, in 1945. In July 1945, allied leaders meeting in Potsdam submitted a declaration of surrender terms to Japan and waited anxiously and almost impatiently for their reply. The terms had included a statement to the· effect that any negative answer would invite “prompt and utter destruction”. Truman, Churchill, Stalin, and Chiang Kai-Shek stated that they hoped that Japan would agree to surrender unconditionally and prevent devastation of the Japanese homeland and that they patiently awaited Japan’s answer. Reporters in Tokyo questioned Japanese Premier, Kantaro Suzuki, about his government’s stance to the Potsdam Declaration. Because there had not been any concrete decision on the part of the Japanese government at the time, Suzuki replied that he was withholding comment and that was expressed with the Japanese word; mokusatsu, which sadly could generate two interpretations. The international media gave the interpretation that the declaration of the allied leaders was not worthy of comment; that being the second interpretation of the word, mokusatsu. The rest of the story was the leveling of Hiroshima within ten days. A magazine article once reported this scenario as: “The World’s Most Tragic Translation”. This is one area language is sensitive to the security of any society. Even though some other narratives have debunked this narration as the major cause of the genocide, the story was not unconnected to the genocide.
With the advent of social media, words, in its spoken and written forms, have become missiles. With social media platforms as engines through which words can now travel easily and quickly to a long distance before exploding, it is pertinent for everyone to pick their words carefully to avoid local, national or global unrest. What the world is experiencing at the moment is a game of interests. Interests rule the world. Everyone has an interest. In fact, not having interest is in itself an interest. The actors are pursuing interests. Observers and commentators are joining the discourse from different perspectives that interest them. Even those who choose to be disinterested pose an interesting perspective to the goings-on. All of these shades of interests are being pursued with language. The release of atomic bombs is always preceded by communicative exchanges with unpalatable choices of words.
If this piece reaches you, it is an appeal that we are mindful of our words in the face of what poses as global threat. As you contribute to the discourse, endeavour to choose your words carefully. With emerging security issues, language is also being used to craft ideologies which lure the vulnerable members of the society like the youth into unlawful groupings. Such groupings include terrorist groups, mafias, cults or any other unlawful groups. Moreover, the commercially and politically influenced mass media propagation of polarised ideologies of “Us or Them, Good or Bad” has manipulated the minds of common man. This manipulation has resulted today in bias, discrimination, prejudice, and intolerance replacing empathy, compassion, coexistence, and the critical thinking abilities of the population in all spheres of life.
Let us embrace nonviolent communication. Marshall Rosenberg once said, “while studying the factors that affect our ability to stay compassionate, I was struck by the crucial role of language and our use of words… While we may not consider the way we talk to be violent, words often lead to hurt and pain, whether for others or ourselves”. We certainly are divided along political, ethnic, socioeconomic and religious lines but it is still possible to be at peace notwithstanding these differences if we are mindful of our choice of words.
Save the world; choose your words carefully!
(c) 2026 Ganiu Bamgbose is a social commentator and lecturer in Lagos State University, Lagos, Nigeria.
Ganiu Abisoye Bamgbose, PhD
Department of English,
Lagos State University, Ojo
[email protected]
08093695359, 07084956118
