'Speak Out' Debate 2

10 Bekeken· 24/06/21

Wessex Jamaat
abonnees

In anders

Welcome to the second event in our 3-part debate series!

The motion that will be discussed is:
"The mothertongue has no future"

Tune in for what is sure to be a thrilling debate on a controversial issue for our community.

Disclaimer: speakers did not choose whether to be placed in the 'for' or 'against' team so statements may not necessarily reflect their personal views.

Laat meer zien

Transcript

[0:07]that you're messing on the group and it's all the same people

[0:09]that are right here they can actually just talk you to all

[2:10]our lovely viewers um on behalf of the organizing team and al-mahdi

[2:14]madrassa i am so so delighted to welcome you all to debate

[2:17]number two in our speak out debate series so debate is an

[2:22]art and many of us um within our wessex family have risen

[2:26]up to the challenge the aim of this project is to foster

[2:30]a long-term vision to develop and perfect the art of skillful speech

[2:34]and debate and what better way to build this life skill than

[2:38]to debate the relevant topics in the safe space of almaty madrasa

[2:42]alhamdulillah the previous debate was very well received and the overwhelmingly positive

[2:47]response has really really set the tone for this project so thank

[2:50]you one and all for tuning in and supporting the course and

[2:54]we have much in store for you today the motion of today's

[2:59]debate this house believes that the mother tongue has no future we

[3:02]hope to make this debate an interactive one and we want to

[3:06]hear from you so join the conversation tell us what you think

[3:10]of the motion and vote on it join us on slider.com with

[3:16]the code 379 748 should be on your screens and make sure

[3:19]you put your vote in before we close the poll please refer

[3:23]to the communication that we sent out via the emails on how

[3:26]to use slido we will keep coming back to it so keep

[3:30]it open um there you will notice we have a little tab

[3:32]um we have a q a section there where we'll encourage you

[3:37]to post your questions and comments to the speakers throughout the debate

[3:39]for technical help uh please do not contact the moderators ie myself

[3:45]and sajidabai as we will be unable to respond to you at

[3:48]the time but for the wessex members please contact brother abbas huda

[3:52]or sister aliyanu muhammad and just to reiterate that is for technical

[3:58]help with slido only so before we begin i'd like to invite

[4:01]zachara and zainab karmali two of our mothers students to commence the

[4:10]event with a recitation from the holy quran [Music] lee [Music] [Music]

[5:00]in the name of allah the most beneficial and most merciful have

[5:06]you seen him who denied the final judgment that is the one

[5:11]who treats their orphans harshly and does not urge others to feed

[5:17]the poor so word to the praying ones i'm mindful and bad

[5:30]prayers who do good to be seen and refuse to give even

[5:34]the simplest aid thank you so so much for the sweet recitation

[5:47]zahra and zayn of jazakum we are truly lucky to have such

[5:51]fantastic budding speakers and reciters at almaty mother's side inshallah maybe zahra

[5:56]and zainab will be joining us on the debating panel sometime soon

[6:00]in a few years uh to the audience please can i remind

[6:03]you all to vote for call number one on the motion on

[6:07]slider.com if you haven't already done so uh it will be closing

[6:10]soon so quick enter the code that's three seven nine seven four

[6:14]eight you can also post your questions and comments during the debates

[6:17]uh these will also will try and address these during the pre-parole

[6:23]segment so getting to the fun part now today's debate will be

[6:26]moderated again by sister sadila jafar who needs no introduction i think

[6:30]we all just saw how awesome she was last time um so

[6:33]i'm going to move on to the proposing team the proposing team

[6:37]will commence their argument with sister fatima hamir who was born and

[6:42]raised in tanzania but is a true gem of wessex jamaat fatima

[6:45]vice studied pharmacy in the uk and met her match and only

[6:49]fatimabai can handle the unique personality that is her husband she's a

[6:54]pharmacist by profession but has always loved teaching and education which is

[6:58]very evident in her role as a mother of a teacher and

[7:01]her passion for nurturing the little angels of wessex jamaat including her

[7:06]two beautiful daughters i should warn the other team though uh fatimabai

[7:10]is a warrior for research so look out for her coming in

[7:14]second with the second argument uh is sister zainab al-khadmi for those

[7:19]of you who know zainab uh that name may have become synonymous

[7:23]with the words extroverted and cheeky so while she is iraqi by

[7:28]blood you will find zainab downing a bowl of ash the signature

[7:32]iranian soup at wessex or striking up a conversation with an auntie

[7:36]in gujarati so it's no surprise that zainab said yes to the

[7:41]debate but given the cheekiness of a recently qualified of the recently

[7:45]qualified optometrist the opposers should probably keep an eye out for her

[7:49]and yes that was a pun intended next up from the proposes

[7:56]is brother sajad jaffer who grew up in wessex and moved to

[7:58]london for uni whilst his degree is in material science and engineering

[8:03]sajad ba is passionate about education and also tutors in maths and

[8:09]sciences sajad teaches in london but has not forgotten his roots and

[8:13]regularly returns home to portsmouth speaking of roots his family are convinced

[8:17]that he uses his funky hair to demonstrate the laws of physics

[8:20]or dare i say refute them and i am also sure that

[8:24]sajad baal will be refuting so much more than the laws of

[8:29]physics in this evening's debate and finally the closing speaker of the

[8:32]proposing team is brother muhammad jafar who is a gp working in

[8:38]heaven the secretary of the jamaat and a mother's a teacher so

[8:41]whilst he has never taken pride in any formal debates muhammad vaspar

[8:46]has had some experiences with public speaking having won the rotary club

[8:50]youth speaks competition not once not twice but three times and not

[8:55]to mention regularly delivering the announcement within western is there anything that

[9:00]the old star of wessex cannot do well today we put the

[9:04]rotary club champion to the test let's hear more about the opponents

[9:09]thank you khadeja so let's move on to the opposing team of

[9:15]brother musa banji sister safa brother muhammad taki and sister zahra so

[9:21]brother masathik vamji will give the opposing team's opening opening statement masadek

[9:28]is a community pharmacist by profession indeed a rare species in the

[9:34]koja world he values his position as the first point of contact

[9:37]in the community for health related matters masada grew up being part

[9:42]of the scouts club in dharaslam and took an active role in

[9:47]volunteering and now is a proud member of the wessex volunteers group

[9:50]his loves apart from his beautiful wife include heights food and cricket

[9:55]given the match tonight good thing it's cricket and not football how

[9:59]much of it now um we move on to sister safar waltham

[10:05]sheriffy who will take the baton as speaker too suffer was born

[10:10]in full dorset one of the most picturesque places in the uk

[10:15]she has a bachelor's degree in arabic and persian from sowas university

[10:19]of london and speaks english farsi moroccan and arabic and inshallah soon

[10:25]we'll add gujarati and swahili to your repertoire safa loves all things

[10:31]crafty and has created some amazing resources for our madressa children suffers

[10:38]claim to fame is that she is anti-nilopha's daughter for those of

[10:41]you who don't know auntie nilofer is somewhat a local celebrity here

[10:44]and we are sure suffer that one day you will inshallah be

[10:48]named as the claim to fame by your three lovely children now

[10:54]for the single girls tuning in today we have an eligible bachelor

[10:58]on the panel from gloomy peterborough to the dunes of dubai and

[11:02]now residing in wessex our third speaker brother mohammed takihuda is no

[11:09]stranger to different cultures and backgrounds he recently graduated with a master's

[11:12]degree in biomedical engineering and currently works in a tech startup muhammad

[11:18]taki enjoys volunteering in the community and keeping active through various sports

[11:25]he can now inshallah and debating to his expanding portfolio that's a

[11:31]pretty glowing richter profile and last but definitely not least is sister

[11:36]zapra ismael who will conclude her team's arguments zachara is also a

[11:42]beloved daughter of this chamac zahara has always enjoyed public speaking and

[11:48]spoken word poetry and has taken part in various rotary club youth

[11:52]speaks and other speaking events over the years now zahra i'm not

[11:57]sure if you've come up against your brother at the rotary club

[12:01]events but i'm intrigued by what today will bring as the two

[12:04]of you will go head to head zamhara is also a mother

[12:08]to two under twos her youngest is only two months old and

[12:12]despite her children's tender ages zahra is here tonight i think that

[12:18]is the very definition of a super mom thank you so much

[12:22]for that welcome to all our participants we are thankful to the

[12:27]judges for their encouragement and support from the onset for taking time

[12:30]out of their busy schedules and for the further and zeal with

[12:33]which they have approached this challenge we have uncle shabir walgi auntie

[12:37]and brother amir nasser so we'll learn more about them later in

[12:42]keeping with the format of debate one the judges will make the

[12:47]final decision regarding the winning team as they have a strict points-based

[12:50]criteria to adhere to however we do want to get a feel

[12:55]for the audience's views using the slider poles and the best speaker

[12:58]from both teams will be decided by you the audience and i

[13:05]am just closing the poll now thank you canada so we'll just

[13:18]wait for the results a lot of suspense coming out here my

[13:30]apologies um here you go okay okay so 85 of the audience

[13:43]voted in opposition of the motion so does the mother tongue have

[13:51]a future according to the audience yes it does so with that

[13:58]in mind let's move on to the main event the debate that

[14:00]you've all been anticipating and we'll see if the other team can

[14:04]sway you over to their side so the proposing team are arguing

[14:10]in favor of the motion this house believes that the mother tongue

[14:14]has no future and the opposing team are arguing against the motion

[14:20]as was the same for debate one which was there can be

[14:25]no western muslim identity the moderate the moderators have selected which participants

[14:31]are on the opposing and proposing teams so they do not get

[14:35]a choice in the matter thus it's even more important to stress

[14:39]that the arguments being presented are for the sake of the debate

[14:45]only and do not necessarily represent the views of those raising them

[14:48]the speakers on the proposing and opposing teams will follow the speaker's

[14:52]order and will alternate between the two teams the first speakers beginning

[14:58]with the proposing team will give their opening statements and outline their

[15:04]arguments the second speakers on each team will then come forward expand

[15:07]on their team's arguments and can use the opportunity to refute the

[15:12]other team the third speakers will then have their turns to speak

[15:16]and refute each speaker is allowed five minutes sister khadeja is our

[15:24]timekeeper and she'll announce the time elapsed at four minutes and an

[15:27]alarm will ring at five the teams will be penalized for going

[15:33]for going over the five minutes or not using the allocated time

[15:38]adequately and this will be taken into consideration by the judges after

[15:45]the first three speakers from each team have spoken this is the

[15:49]exciting free for all round where sister kadeja will fire questions at

[15:53]each team with some questions selected from the audience so i hope

[15:58]you've got your slider page open please go to slido.com and use

[16:06]the code 379 748 to post questions for participants and add comments

[16:11]and we will keep referring to slido throughout after the free for

[16:16]all round we'll come back and speaker for from each team will

[16:21]be given five minutes to make the closing arguments for their teams

[16:25]once the debate ends the judges will discuss their findings according to

[16:29]their strict judging criteria which centers on style content and strategy and

[16:36]we have some exciting guest speakers whilst we await the judge's verdict

[16:40]so we're looking forward to some interactive audience participation further down the

[16:48]line once again before i begin or before we begin rather i'd

[16:51]like to stress that the arguments being presented today are for the

[16:55]sake of the debate and do not necessarily represent the views of

[16:59]those raising them and it is the moderators not the participants who

[17:04]have chosen the teams so this house believes that the mother tongue

[17:11]has no future i would like to invite sister fatima hamir to

[17:15]make the opening statement for the proposing team fatima if you're ready

[17:23]your time starts now my dear brothers and sisters respected elders from

[17:27]the proposing side of the house today i'd like to welcome you

[17:31]all by saying salamander it all sounds so pleasant and resonates with

[17:38]each and every one of us but the reality is and the

[17:42]statistics confirm that of the world's estimated 6 000 to seven thousand

[17:48]languages one language dies every 14 days and our mother tongue is

[17:51]no exception to this it is called linguistic imperialism the transfer of

[17:56]a dominant language to other people due to preference and relevance and

[18:02]this is a reality that has to be accepted the mother tongue

[18:06]has no future it sounds harsh i don't deny that but don't

[18:10]write me off just yet before i can convince you all to

[18:14]set aside your emotions and agree objectively that our house is right

[18:20]let us first define some important terms let me ask you a

[18:23]question would the mother tongue of an adopted child be the ethnic

[18:26]language of his biological parent or the language spoken by his adopted

[18:30]parents with the mother tongue of a child to an indian parent

[18:34]in the west be the parents ethnic language or the language of

[18:39]the land so although the most renowned dictionaries all defined mother tongue

[18:43]simply as the language a person has grown up speaking its definition

[18:46]varies between individuals to define the language we speak learn and feel

[18:52]comfortable with the term dominant language is more appropriate to set the

[18:57]grounds for this debate the implicit definition of the mother tongue in

[19:01]this motion is the language that pertains to one's ethnicity culture and

[19:05]lineage this is not to be confused with one's dominant language so

[19:10]now that we have clarified that let's revisit the motion the motion

[19:14]says the mother tongue has no future it doesn't say the mother

[19:19]tongue should have no future what's the difference between has and should

[19:23]you ask should argues the future for the mother tongue based on

[19:27]subjective and personal viewpoints hence the discussion of its value i'd love

[19:32]to be able to converse with my children fluently and catchy for

[19:34]them to be able to speak to their grandparents in gucci but

[19:37]that is not what the motion says the motion eliminates the emotion

[19:42]by the use of the word has which determines the objective trajectory

[19:47]of the mother tongue considering the way we're moving forward the word

[19:52]has argues the future of the mother tongue based purely on empirical

[19:56]and circumstantial observation that allows you to predict its course and finally

[20:01]when we say that it has no future we're not defining future

[20:05]as a set point in time one second 10 years 100 years

[20:09]down the line no we're referring to its sustainability for future generations

[20:14]is the mother tongue a self-sustaining language just compare your dads yours

[20:20]and your child's gujarati and you'll get your answer it's as simple

[20:24]as that i'd like to leave you with a question worth wondering

[20:28]do you identify yourself first as an indian or iraqi or afghani

[20:33]or as a muslim because whilst our culture may be tied to

[20:39]the mother tongue our identity as muslims which by the way should

[20:41]take priority is not in a global village like ours where social

[20:47]media the internet and peers so heavily influenced value transmission we must

[20:51]opt for a superstructure of values that transcend language boundaries which is

[20:56]the essence of our religion shouldn't it be our actions that embody

[21:00]our identity and unify us especially as muslims allah says in the

[21:04]quran we sent not a messenger except with the language of his

[21:11]people at face value this verse may seem to support my opposition

[21:14]which they might use when in fact it actually proves our point

[21:18]that the principles of islam surpass the test of time because it

[21:22]embodies this superstructure of values that wasn't tied to the mother tongue

[21:28]of the prophet of that time which is bound to change the

[21:32]quran says indeed in the messenger of allah you have an excellent

[21:36]example of conduct our prophets were the embodiment of islamic principles it

[21:40]was their actions not their mother tongue that gives us our muslim

[21:46]identity today dear brothers and sisters surely now you agree with us

[21:50]when we say there are other more powerful forces at play here

[21:53]that we must account for in ensuring our beliefs and principles don't

[21:57]fade with time and the mother tongue is not the way to

[22:03]do this because it has no future mathrubasha nukoi youngsters good luck

[22:07]figuring that out thank you thank you sister fatima a lot to

[22:13]take uh in there so in essence not getting mixed up with

[22:17]our emotions but based on empirical evidence the objective reality is that

[22:25]our mother tongue has no future the term is known as linguistic

[22:29]imperialism and what we should aim for is a superstructure of values

[22:37]as muslims first that is not tied to any language because it's

[22:40]the values that transcend time and speak volumes about your identity thank

[22:47]you sister fatima next can i please invite sister zainab al-qaeda me

[22:53]a speaker too to give your thoughts from the opposing team zainab

[22:59]uh when you're ready your time starts now do you guys mean

[23:05]from the opposing team sorry my bad let's do this again what's

[23:20]that your time starts now salaam alaikum my dear brothers and sisters

[23:25]um dear judges and the entire audience today uh thank you all

[23:30]for taking out some time from your busy schedules to be with

[23:33]us today now i'd like to thank my honorable opponent for the

[23:37]opening statement uh my task as the first speaker is to clearly

[23:40]define the motion and look at how i'm saying i need to

[23:43]clearly define the motion because the proposers haven't even defined the the

[23:47]term mother tongue um i'd like to point out to my opponents

[23:52]and to our esteemed audience today as to what the motion isn't

[23:57]today today's motion isn't in any way focused on any particular language

[24:01]like gujarati or kachi or farsi or arabic those are the four

[24:05]that were mentioned quite a lot in the first in the opening

[24:10]argument or any other language for that matter and neither is it

[24:12]focused on any particular place or geographical location there's a lot of

[24:16]mention of our mother tongue the motion doesn't say our mother tongue

[24:20]it says the mother tongue so let me start off and clear

[24:25]a few things up and let's dissect this motion in complete depth

[24:28]according to the oxford dictionary the mother tongue is the language which

[24:31]a person has grown up speaking from early childhood if that's not

[24:35]enough let's look at what the cambridge dictionary defines the mother tongue

[24:41]as the mother tongue is the first language that you learn as

[24:43]a baby rather than a language learned at school or as an

[24:45]adult now the opposition is presenting the mother tongue as if it

[24:51]is a language of our parents or our ancestors and you can

[24:55]understand why the phrase mother tongue is very misleading it's a misnomer

[24:58]just to clarify what i mean by this i'll give you an

[25:01]example of a very common misnomer morning sickness now looking at the

[25:05]words you would assume it is a sickness that happens in the

[25:08]morning however as the many mothers and medics in the audience and

[25:14]the opposition would attest to this is definitely not the case any

[25:18]sickness due to pregnancy regardless of the time of the day is

[25:22]called morning sickness so now how does this relate to our discussion

[25:26]a mother tongue is the first language a child learns irrespective of

[25:31]the language of the mother just like morning sickness is called that

[25:34]irrespective of the timing of the sickness this means for a koja

[25:38]raised on english as their first language english is their mother tongue

[25:43]not gujarati for an iranian raised speaking chinese chinese is their mother

[25:48]tongue not farsi now is the proposition then arguing that languages such

[25:52]as english and chinese have no future doesn't make any sense to

[25:56]me anyways note that the motion states the mother tongue and i

[26:01]emphasize it says the tongue not our mother tongue or the mother

[26:03]tongue of any specific people which means it's talking about the concept

[26:08]of the mother tongue as a whole this also means that we

[26:12]cannot limit this discussion to the value of our ancestral languages to

[26:15]the second and third generation communities living in the west that is

[26:19]not what the motion says the motion is extremely broad now according

[26:24]to ethanol a leading research center in texas today there is a

[26:29]total of 7139 different languages spoken in the world not just one

[26:35]or two seven thousand languages and all of them are someone's mother

[26:38]tongue these languages have existed for generations and they will be around

[26:43]for generations to come so where does this leave us what are

[26:47]we actually debating about today as all languages are someone's mother tongues

[26:50]what the discussion boils down to is the future of language itself

[26:55]language which by many philosophers such as chomsky is considered one of

[27:00]the things which defines us as humans language which is so vital

[27:04]to every part of our life language which governs everything from how

[27:09]we think to how we interact with others to argue that language

[27:11]itself has no future is just absurd but that is what the

[27:17]motion is saying when you look at it carefully that being said

[27:19]there is a case to be made for the value and future

[27:22]of the mother term for those who have one word and then

[27:25]learn a different language for example a child who learns gujarati and

[27:29]then learns english and and inshallah we will explore that however this

[27:34]is one small specific example and we cannot prove this motion based

[27:38]on this so where do we go from here inshallah sister safa

[27:41]will be our second speaker will continue to prove to you that

[27:45]the mother tongue has a future by exploring language through religious and

[27:48]cultural angles and this will be followed by brother muhammad aki who

[27:52]will delve deeper into the topic with a more scientific lens into

[27:56]it finally after the questions are done you will hear from sister

[27:58]zahra who will summarize the debate leaving you with no doubt that

[28:02]the mother tongue indeed does have a future and before i finish

[28:05]i'll just leave you with a single statement we are arguing whether

[28:09]the mother tongue has a future or not the truth of the

[28:12]matter is that there is no future without the mother tongue salam

[28:15]thank you very much thank you brother masadek so defining the emotion

[28:30]what is the mother tongue it's according to the definitions that you've

[28:36]provided the first language you learn as a baby irrespective of the

[28:40]language of the mother i like the example interesting one of uh

[28:44]an iranian child growing up speaking chinese and the way that you

[28:52]put it across is that it's the future of language itself that

[28:57]defines us as humans and there is actually no future without a

[29:03]mother tongue just as a side note i hope you never suffer

[29:08]from morning sickness now um i will now invite sister zainab al-khadami

[29:16]from the proposing team to give us your thoughts cena for reals

[29:23]this time your time starts now assalamu alaikum brothers and sisters i'd

[29:28]like to thank my esteemed opponent damjit for his opening speech and

[29:32]almost proving our point um whilst i like damji's attempt to the

[29:38]definition sister fathom hamir also presented a clear definition using the term

[29:42]the and not our also i think morning sickness usually occurs in

[29:47]the morning our esteemed opposition has raised a proposition that our mother

[29:51]tongue might be fluid changing from generation to generation such that we

[29:56]might consider english as our mother tongue however i'd like each of

[29:59]you to reflect on how you understood the word mother tongue when

[30:02]you first read the motion for today's debate you may have thought

[30:06]of gujarati arabic farsi swahili or any other language but i challenge

[30:10]anyone from a non-english background to say that their first thought was

[30:14]that the mother tongue referred to english one example to illustrate this

[30:18]is when people ask you where you come from you know that

[30:21]the minute you say i'm from portsmouth you're faced with the question

[30:23]where are you really from it's the same thing with the term

[30:27]mother tongue if as an ararati if i was asked what my

[30:31]mother tongue was and i said english it would be considered a

[30:35]holy unsatisfactory response because that's not what we mean when we use

[30:40]the term mother tongue unlike the term dominant language as danju also

[30:45]mentioned mother tongue implies an understanding that is rooted within our heritage

[30:48]common sense therefore dictates that we must adopt what would be considered

[30:53]the lay understanding of this term for the debate but let's say

[30:57]for argument's sake that english was your mother tongue to state that

[31:00]because english has a future all mother tongues have a future would

[31:03]be a logical fallacy the same cannot be said for all mother

[31:07]tongues and therefore this argument fails english does not have a future

[31:12]because it's a mother tongue but there are other aspects that determine

[31:14]the language of our future which i'll discuss shortly as i mentioned

[31:20]earlier the mother tongue is intrinsically linked to the past the word

[31:23]mother tongue by nature is rooted in the past and refers to

[31:26]heritage and the language of our forefathers not the language of the

[31:31]future you see the language is based on demands that are set

[31:33]in place in society there is very little demand of the mother

[31:36]tongue in this asian setting the opposing team may say that the

[31:39]mother tongue is needed to communicate with the older generation including our

[31:43]grandparents and obviously we completely agree with this however the sad and

[31:49]unfortunate reality is that the elders will die out and thus with

[31:51]that the need and the demand to communicate with the elders in

[31:56]the mother tongue will decline even today we're already starting to see

[31:58]a pattern where the youngsters are have trouble communicating with the older

[32:02]generation in their mother tongue and causing language barriers instead we need

[32:07]to look at the demands set in place not only now but

[32:10]in the future which dictates our language these demands include the dominant

[32:14]language and the language of the lay people the language of trade

[32:18]and business and the language used as a medium of education currently

[32:22]most schools and universities all over the world globally not just here

[32:25]but in iraq for example use english as their main language for

[32:28]education with all these examples it's clear to see that there is

[32:33]a higher demand for the english language compared to the mother tongue

[32:36]this is not to say it will always be english with china

[32:39]growing as a superpower it may be that the demand may shift

[32:42]and so will the language this can be seen now where more

[32:46]people are learning mandarin and cantonese it's these demands that determine the

[32:50]language of the future and all this falls under the notion of

[32:54]language imperialism as mentioned before language imperialism is defined as a transfer

[32:58]of the dominant language to other people it's basically a unilateral imposition

[33:02]that occurs due to imperialism now as an arabic speaker myself you

[33:08]may think that i would be totally against this motion how can

[33:10]i be saying that my mother tongue is declining when all the

[33:14]hadith and the quran is in arabic the arabic language will continue

[33:17]as a language of the quran and will hold so much importance

[33:20]for muslims in islam but it must be understood that the reason

[33:23]for preserving it is not due to the mother tongue but it's

[33:26]due to its utility on the other hand the arabic language spoken

[33:31]differs from the religious elements whilst i read and understand arabic text

[33:35]from the quran there are still elements where i need to use

[33:37]the english translation for the understanding this is because the arabic language

[33:41]that is spoken is completely different to the arabic of the quran

[33:44]and that's because the language is evolving even fusha arabi for example

[33:48]is declining and it's abnormal to see someone speak it as part

[33:51]of a natural normal conversation similarly we can look at the english

[33:55]language where it has evolved compare choice to english to the modern

[33:58]day english you aren't going to find someone that speaks towards their

[34:02]english and even if they do you wouldn't understand it let me

[34:07]end with this example from the canterbury tales prologue line one one

[34:12]that april with his shores so the drought of march has said

[34:17]to the ropes i mean i don't understand that do you like

[34:20]the example of the choice to english the mother tongue will always

[34:24]be on a townwood trajectory and therefore we can have no long-term

[34:28]future thank you sister zainab i wasn't expecting to hear any chaucer

[34:39]today but it uh threw in something something a bit different to

[34:43]think about definitely so the argument again is in regards to language

[34:46]imperialism and taking a common sense approach to the motion and really

[34:53]the future of a mother tongue any language that is spoken will

[34:58]depend on the demands for society and things to take into consideration

[35:01]or the dominant language the language spoken in that location learning for

[35:08]education reasons or for business is the language of the future going

[35:14]to be mandarin or cantonese and giving an example that arabic will

[35:18]always prevail as the language of the quran because that is the

[35:24]demand put upon it but it might be a different case with

[35:27]spoken arabic thank you so much zainab i would like now like

[35:31]to invite sister safa walth and sheriffy to give us your team's

[35:39]arguments please and your time starts now to start with with all

[35:44]due respect to my worthy opponent zainab as a mother of three

[35:48]one of those a twin pregnancy i can assure that morning sickness

[35:52]happens at all times of the day and night um my esteemed

[35:55]colleague has defined the mother tongue um explaining that based on the

[35:59]definition the real question is whether language has a future we're not

[36:03]pinpointing any particular language whether that be english arabic chinese or any

[36:09]other language around the globe it wasn't defined in the motion and

[36:14]it's the not a or our or some other language i will

[36:17]attempt to present here some cultural and religious proofs for our argument

[36:21]that really can leave no room for doubt in this debate than

[36:25]the mother tongue does have a future firstly culture and language are

[36:31]intrinsically joined together in a symbiotic relationship each feeding in the other

[36:36]as noam chomsky said a language is not just words it's a

[36:39]culture a tradition a unification of a community a whole history that

[36:45]creates what a community is it's all embodied in a language no

[36:49]matter where one is from their mother tongue irrespective of what that

[36:53]language may be is pivotal for that person's culture and identity it

[36:58]can also be said that culture strengthens language and preserve it one

[37:02]does not need look much further than one's own doorstep for proof

[37:06]of the future of the mother tongue as of 2019 there were

[37:11]149 different languages spoken in southampton schools each of these is someone's

[37:15]mother tongue and there are numerous numerous community language classes run throughout

[37:19]the city for those who wish to maintain a mother tongue along

[37:23]with its culture which is other than english in addition to various

[37:26]cultural organizations and community groups in our own community we have examples

[37:32]of this the al-zahra association while offering bilingual programs is primarily aimed

[37:36]at party speaking members who wish to maintain their cultural and religious

[37:39]practices in pharisee in our own mosque we still have readings and

[37:44]martins in urdu thus these religious and cultural practices are sustaining languages

[37:49]in the community and vice versa and even ayatollah sustani has more

[37:55]than once advised taking great care to ensure the preservation of cultural

[37:58]identity through amongst other things language additionally i'd like to take the

[38:06]country um of morocco and as an example there are three state

[38:10]languages recognized in morocco arabic french and tamazes or berber there are

[38:14]communities in morocco that do not speak arabic or french their mother

[38:18]tongue has been around for millennia and has survived the arrival of

[38:24]arabic with islam the influence of judaism that came from those fleeing

[38:27]the reconquista in spain and finally the french occupation this language is

[38:31]enriched with its own culture including literature art clothing food architecture and

[38:36]much more and it's a great source of pride and only enhances

[38:40]the cultural heritage of morocco this can similarly be applied to arabic

[38:45]and those who have been brought up with all three languages which

[38:48]are many have basically won the jackpot of being able to understand

[38:51]different cultures and societies this is a vivid example of the glowing

[38:55]future of a mother tongue that has connections to the culture while

[39:01]highly relevant the arguments i have thus made pale into insignificance when

[39:05]compared to what allah has revealed to us in the quran the

[39:08]quran has many verses on language to say the mother tongue is

[39:13]to say language and language is the sole domain of human beings

[39:15]its origin is divine and ultimately its use is to praise allah

[39:19]surya rahman verse 1 to 4 states most gracious it is he

[39:25]who taught the quran he has created man he has taught him

[39:27]speech so language is one of allah's signs and a mercy to

[39:31]us and therefore how can we question its strength importance or its

[39:36]future verse 13 states o mankind we created from you from a

[39:41]single pair of a male and a female two minutes i made

[39:44]you into nations and tribes that you may know each other around

[39:46]22 says among his signs is the creation of the heavens and

[39:51]the earth and the variations in your languages and your colours verily

[39:54]and that are signs for that you know and al-hud says in

[39:58]118 if thy lord has so willed he could have made mankind

[40:03]one people this shows that the quran invites people to study and

[40:07]respect diversity allah entreats us to know each other and diverse languages

[40:10]have been given to us in order to do this thus language

[40:14]will always be needed taken together these testify that it is of

[40:18]allah's signs that mankind is made up of many peoples cultures and

[40:23]languages and that indeed it is his will that by virtue of

[40:26]languages we communicate with and get to know one another and thus

[40:28]language will be preserved and so pursuant to the definition of the

[40:32]mother tongue to say that mother tongue has no future is to

[40:36]say that language has no future however allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has

[40:39]vouched safe language for humanity therefore the motion must be a of

[40:44]those mother tongue does have a future thank you very much sister

[40:52]safa so presenting your argument from the uh the interpretation of the

[40:58]motion that language saying the mother tongue has no future is essentially

[41:04]saying that language has no future yet the origin of language is

[41:07]divine and it is a sign and mercy to us from allah

[41:12]therefore it will always be needed and you gave um the example

[41:18]of the country of morocco that has withheld external influences and because

[41:25]of the preservation of the language thomas there if i have said

[41:31]it correctly that actually has enhanced their cultural heritage and in there

[41:36]is an example for everybody so now we are moving on to

[41:43]the third speaker so i would like to invite brother sajad jaffa

[41:47]please to give his teams statements by your time starts now you're

[41:59]muted sorry my mistake uh one second let me reset the timer

[42:06]because you know technical difficulties in the zoom era okay and time

[42:11]starts now my oldest brothers and sisters assalamu alaikum like to thank

[42:16]our esteemed opposition presenting their arguments and they are very very good

[42:18]but a couple of points that have come up are from damji

[42:21]first of all talking about in fact there are 7 000 languages

[42:26]right now but languages die and languages restart over time so the

[42:29]languages from 10 years ago we're not from 100 000 years ago

[42:32]would not be the same as the languages now and from sister

[42:35]suffer trying to or bring in the link between language and culture

[42:38]uh which there is there is evidence for but if that was

[42:41]the case we would all be hindu right now if we were

[42:44]following our hindu origin now for me today or what you've heard

[42:48]from my teammates regarding the loss of the native language also known

[42:51]as language attrition which occurs over time due to the increasing usage

[42:55]of the dominant language with regards to likes of education and business

[42:59]what i will be presenting today is the sustainability of the mother

[43:02]tongue that we see within our community here in westings sister fatima

[43:07]previously mentioned that language becomes extinct every two weeks and linguists have

[43:11]outlined three stages that occur for a language to die first a

[43:16]language is considered vulnerable when children only speak their mother tongue at

[43:22]home or in the company of relatives secondly a language is endangered

[43:25]when children no longer study it and finally a language is considered

[43:28]critically endangered when the youngest people who can speak it are grandparents

[43:32]now i will link these points into my argument by providing a

[43:35]few of my experiences and also the background of our jamaat some

[43:39]of you may know that i'm a receive reciter of english martha

[43:42]martin and nasheeds what you may not know is the reason why

[43:45]i started doing this partly it's because i did not understand the

[43:48]recitations in other languages but also and probably more importantly it was

[43:52]because on observing the youth and some adults in our mosque and

[43:57]in other mosques many would switch off during these non-english recitations they

[43:59]would leave the room and start using their phones and they would

[44:03]then return when the english lectures began this shows the language for

[44:07]many of the youth is past the stage of being vulnerable because

[44:09]the mother tongue is now not understood and there is a chasm

[44:11]of difference that is noted when all people within the space can

[44:15]understand the content being recited and can thereby engage with it this

[44:20]is the crux of the community we have grown up with in

[44:23]wessex the history of ajummat is that we were founded in 1982

[44:25]by a group of shia muslims that were attending the university originally

[44:29]the mosque events were the youth watching video recordings that were in

[44:33]urdu for an appointment of the resident murphy mulla bashir rahim the

[44:37]lecturers were switched to english to enable the youth to participate and

[44:40]engage it was recognized from the off that the future of this

[44:44]community living in the uk was to ensure the message was spread

[44:47]to the youngsters in the language of the land aka their dominant

[44:50]language if we simply relied on our mother tongue our community would

[44:53]have collapsed and a large proportion of our youth would have lost

[44:56]a connection with the religion it is no surprise that when any

[45:00]event takes place now the quran the recitations are provided with an

[45:04]english translation our madrasas teach us about religion using the language of

[45:09]the land our lessons on history and our heart are all delivered

[45:12]to us in english we do not hold lessons in on gujarati

[45:14]urdu or pharisee in the center which comes back to the point

[45:17]that language becomes endangered when the children no longer study it use

[45:21]the dominant language has also enabled the multicultural element of our community

[45:26]and the bringing together of a variety of different cultures in this

[45:30]debate today we have people whose mother's tongues all differ but are

[45:33]brought together by their dominant language it is not sustainable to hold

[45:37]this debate today in a mother tongue due to the fact that

[45:39]all these languages differ a multicultural community in turn also needs to

[45:44]people from different cultures so marriages of people from different cultures with

[45:49]different mother tongues when it comes to teaching their children which mother

[45:52]tongue is prioritized what is generally found is an amalgamation of the

[45:55]different languages that it passed down leading to the loss of the

[45:59]mother tongue in its purity but what is always prioritized instead is

[46:02]a focus on the future with the dominant language as this keeps

[46:05]happening the languages in themselves become critically endangered as eventually over time

[46:11]the only people that speak the mother tongue are the grandparents we

[46:14]have already specified that when we when we refer to the future

[46:17]of the mother tongue we are not referring to an arbitrary point

[46:22]in time but a general trend and the trajectory that each language

[46:26]follows in conclusion west extremates may be a small community but represents

[46:30]a microcosm of the communities around not only the uk but also

[46:33]worldwide as each generation comes through and the rise in multiculturalism takes

[46:37]place we can see the rise of the dominant language is continuously

[46:41]reinforced whereas the sustainability of the mother tongue will collapse as it

[46:45]eventually moves from vulnerable to endangerment to extinction thank you for listening

[46:55]thank you brother sajad so to look at the general trend and

[47:02]trajectory that the mother lung sorry the mother tongue is taking um

[47:06]and referring to the mother tongue by the definition you guys had

[47:13]set out and um not the dominant language so um regarding linguistic

[47:20]imperialism there are three stages to a language dying out number one

[47:28]it's classed as vulnerable when the language is only spoken at home

[47:31]number two it's endangered when it's no longer studied by children and

[47:38]number three is on the verge of extinction when the youngest people

[47:43]speaking it are grandparents you made the references to azadari being in

[47:49]english to ensure that the message of islam is not lost and

[47:53]also a reference to wessex jamaat a microcosm of different communities and

[47:59]people from different backgrounds that are actually brought together by the dominant

[48:05]language to also sustain those bonds of brothership but to sustain the

[48:11]faith thank you sajad and finally brother muhammad turkey please provide us

[48:17]with the final arguments representing the opposing team's position and your time

[48:26]starts now following the points that my respective opposition speaker mentioned i'd

[48:33]like to clarify a few things firstly you said if we simply

[48:36]rely on our mother tongue again that's not the motion of this

[48:39]debate the motion of this debate is the mother tongue and if

[48:43]it has a future again you said if you if you said

[48:47]you said languages come and go however each language will be the

[48:52]mother tongue of a group of people and the seven thousand languages

[48:57]uh that are currently in the world today that's that is actually

[49:02]a recent find um within the past few years also regarding our

[49:07]origins i haven't heard or found us ever being hindus before we

[49:11]actually converted to shia internationals so now i'd like to start by

[49:15]going through the main reasons why the motherton has a future factored

[49:17]by scientific research so firstly what is language language itself is a

[49:22]medium of spoken manual or written communication by which humans can express

[49:28]themselves to one another it is also a requirement for communication between

[49:31]our families friends and society as a whole the development of the

[49:35]mother tongue is related to the quality of relationships within the family

[49:40]unit it is also important in some areas such as phonological awareness

[49:43]which is basically recognizing the sounds within language as skills acquired in

[49:49]one language support the acquisition of skills in another language there are

[49:53]many studies to show that maintaining the mother tongue can provide a

[49:57]great foundation to learn and get exposure to other languages scientific research

[50:01]has shown that being bilingual improves cognitive and sensory processing allowing better

[50:06]interpretation of information through the brain it increases efficiency of the brain

[50:13]from early childhood to old age throughout childhood findings have demonstrated that

[50:16]the advantages of bilingualism to the executive control of the brain which

[50:21]are the functions that allow us to carry out complex tasks from

[50:25]problem solving to planning multiple multiple activities and focusing our attention on

[50:30]a specific goal in fact bilingual children show significant advantages over monolingual

[50:35]children in terms of their general cognitive level studies have also shown

[50:40]that the brain has great flexibility throughout its lifespan different regions of

[50:44]the brain and growth in both the right and left hemispheres work

[50:47]together to support particular language functions multiple languages can coexist in the

[50:52]brain where one language even activates the other when only one is

[50:59]in use research has also found in both early and current times

[51:01]that the acquisition of the mother tongue and a majority language has

[51:05]brought positive linguistic cognitive and academic outcomes which have positively impacted multilingual

[51:12]children and adults so as we had earlier there are over 7000

[51:16]languages spoken in the world today of those the most widely spoken

[51:21]is english followed by mandarin each being spoken by over a billion

[51:23]people as we are currently in the uk the results from the

[51:27]last census indicate that english is the mother tongue of 92 percent

[51:31]of residents as well as possibly the majority of the panelists on

[51:34]this debate the remaining eight percent who had a different mother tongue

[51:37]could speak english well or very well which then brings about the

[51:43]question as to why learn language well as we live in a

[51:47]globalized world with people from various countries and backgrounds it allows us

[51:50]to communicate and connect with people in their own language from various

[51:53]cultures there are great financial benefits of learning language as it can

[51:59]be an investment in oneself being multilingual can improve employability foster stronger

[52:04]relationships in business and between co-workers if the mother tongue is of

[52:09]a linguistic minority there are significant benefits of learning other language used

[52:13]for international communication providing greater opportunities jobs etc now you might be

[52:20]questioning why i'm stressing on the importance of learning language well it's

[52:23]very clear understanding that language provides many benefits as well as greater

[52:27]socioeconomic benefit however it is only when the mother tongue is maintained

[52:33]can you then reap the benefits of bilingualism or multilingualism by learning

[52:38]other languages and you wouldn't get these benefits by losing the mother

[52:46]tongue therefore it is only by keeping our own by keeping the

[52:49]mother tongue which allows us to better grasp other languages due to

[52:53]the strong foundation that we have in our own mother tongue whatever

[52:56]language that may be which only then proves the point that the

[53:00]mother tongue will always have a future as it is the foundation

[53:03]of any sort of communication within our society thank you very much

[53:09]thank you brother muhammad so our language is the foundation of any

[53:16]communication and language is a medium of communication for expression it enhances

[53:22]the quality of relationships within family units but apart from that you've

[53:27]touched on the advantages of bilingualism or multilingualism and that is you

[53:36]know advantages linguistically cognitively academically and then you've touched on um financial

[53:42]benefits and socio-economic benefits as well but it has to be an

[53:49]investment in oneself and you can only reap those benefits by maintaining

[53:52]the mother tongue thank you brother brother muhammad saki we've almost come

[53:57]to the end of this segment we're approaching the free for all

[54:02]round so i would um request that you do enter any comments

[54:06]or questions especially questions you have for the teams on slido.com using

[54:12]the code 379 748 before we move on brother um sajad jaffar

[54:22]mentioned um you know a great pioneer of our community malabashir rahim

[54:26]and you know for for myself for sajad my other siblings and

[54:35]so many of us he you know he meant so much to

[54:38]us as a role model and really you know a grandfather to

[54:43]us a parent of this community and i would like to request

[54:46]a surah to have for him please and all mahu mean now

[55:09]all of you at home i would like you to join me

[55:12]in a really loud virtual recitation of salawat for the participants i

[55:20]think we've heard some fantastic arguments and looking forward to what's coming

[55:25]up next um and with that ladies and gentlemen no no i

[55:36]was just going to pass the baton on to you sister it

[55:39]looks like i already snatched it okay so with that ladies and

[55:44]gentlemen um we're we have now arrived at the for all segments

[55:48]so please keep your questions and comments coming we'd love to hear

[55:50]from you i would like to begin by a point that was

[55:57]raised uh by zainab in the proposing team then i've talked about

[56:01]um you know arabic why is it being maintained or why will

[56:05]it be maintained because of its utility they have also talked about

[56:09]how chinese is potentially might become you know the dominant language because

[56:13]of the financial um growth that's taking place so here's the question

[56:16]and i'm posing this first the proposes are we promoting power over

[56:26]identity and should we ignore the rich culture that the mother tongue

[56:29]presents anyone at all from the proposing team please let me know

[56:33]at any point if you'd like me to reiterate the question fatima

[56:38]bye sound welcome everybody um first of all assistant thank you for

[56:44]using the word dominant language which is what we're trying to bring

[56:47]across as opposed to the implied meaning of mother tongue um to

[56:51]actually answer your question with relation to you know the dominance of

[56:56]culture you know and whether we're giving you know we're letting the

[57:00]culture slide with language let me give you an example from actually

[57:02]personal experience that will you know uh allow you to understand this

[57:08]better um i was speaking to my dad the other day and

[57:09]he was on the table and i was virtually on the phone

[57:14]and we were discussing this topic actually and he looks at the

[57:17]table and there is a ram for and sata for i don't

[57:19]know if you know these fruits but they are in tanzania and

[57:22]he tells me you know look at how rich our language is

[57:27]you know it's named after the goddess and ram for after the

[57:31]lord rama you know look at how much we have got from

[57:33]our from our uh ethnic language and i told him you know

[57:37]i really don't see the point because just just by saying this

[57:41]you have brought these hindu deities onto the table wouldn't i rather

[57:45]propagate the islamic culture to my children which by the way is

[57:48]not tied to the mother tongue yeah so are we giving precedence

[57:53]then to our identity as muslims or are we then tied you

[57:55]know in an attempt to hang on to our ethnic mother tongue

[57:59]we are actually hanging on to cultures which sometime take over the

[58:01]islamic um reference so that would be my my answer to that

[58:08]um question thank you father bye i do have another question following

[58:11]up from that but i would like to give the floor to

[58:12]zahar from the against team thank you um sister fatima i'm sure

[58:19]we will all agree that we would be the first ones to

[58:21]say drop the parts of the culture that oppose oppose religion and

[58:25]no one's denying that however the holy prophet himself was a testament

[58:30]to the fact that the parts of culture which were good the

[58:34]parts of culture which aligned with islamic values he held on to

[58:38]for instance the the keeping of the sacred months where there were

[58:44]no war just as an example right the all of there was

[58:47]so many elements of of the culture of his time which were

[58:50]not brought down with the quran but he enshrined and he kept

[58:55]as a result of the value that was inherent within that culture

[59:01]so to dismiss all of culture just like that and say that

[59:03]we just need to be thinking about religion is a huge disservice

[59:07]to the value that culture has and is not an islamic principle

[59:12]to do as demonstrated by the holy prophet thank you zahara that

[59:15]brings another question to mind given that you're saying we should not

[59:20]just um you know discredit everything um what do you guys think

[59:26]of um say someone who has been brought up in the uk

[59:28]um and they've learned all about their for example let's say indian

[59:32]or iranian heritage now we all know that our cultures can have

[59:38]some amazing things to it but also some baggage so if i

[59:41]said what if we just forgot about that baggage we have in

[59:45]our culture took what we have in the western world and put

[59:48]in some islamic values what do you make of that what does

[59:53]the future look like um muhammad please thank you sisterhood it's a

[59:57]really great question and i think the value of culture is you

[60:01]know i certainly wouldn't argue against the value of culture um but

[60:05]when we look at culture what is culture made up of culture

[60:08]yes language can be considered part of culture but really cultures culture

[60:13]is much much more vast than simply a language and i think

[60:17]us conflating these terms is you know doing a culture of great

[60:23]disservice really i mean even if we think about language itself and

[60:25]how we use it as a means of communication we know that

[60:31]the spoken word only constitutes about seven percent of the meaning of

[60:36]what we are conveying through communication and actually we will see for

[60:40]example 38 would be the tone 55 would be the body language

[60:45]so so the actual spoken word itself um is relative it is

[60:50]a part of it but we can't confront this with the whole

[60:54]of the whole of understanding all very much in the hall of

[60:57]culture now this discussion that we are having today is specifically on

[61:02]on the language and the part of language that we're looking at

[61:05]is specifically mother tongue so again these terms are not the same

[61:09]language in mother tongue we're looking at the mother tongue and speaking

[61:14]of language generally um my dear my dear opposition mentioned about the

[61:20]idea of retaining parts of our culture that are valuable again so

[61:27]we know that language and culture aren't one and the same but

[61:30]leaving that aside let's look at language itself does language does the

[61:37]mother tongue intrinsically in itself contain islamic values or is it a

[61:41]means through which we can exhibit our islamic values i would argue

[61:46]that islam can be delivered through any language and therefore there is

[61:52]no intrinsic need to maintain the mother tongue in order to propagate

[61:54]our values thank you thank you very much uh safa or zahara

[62:01]sorry yes zahra would you like to go for muted apology it's

[62:11]possible to convey all of islamic values in any language um however

[62:16]what is optimal and how do we decide what is optimal um

[62:19]one um way we can look is to our great scholars italiani

[62:23]as was flagged by um by sister suffer has um been put

[62:29]great emphasis on on in on mother tongue languages um and so

[62:33]that's one way we can look at this but again coming back

[62:36]to the way in which um the holy prophet did and um

[62:40]we look at what um sorry we look at what language itself

[62:44]contains as you said it's not all of the way we communicate

[62:47]but it is a huge chunk so just to dismiss it as

[62:50]um just a small portion is i think not very accurate to

[62:57]do thank you thank you very much and loving the rebuttal between

[63:02]the siblings side of the vine yeah um so i would like

[63:08]to ask a question to the opposing team um so regarding values

[63:16]from the culture that is linked to your heritage or your mother

[63:21]tongue what values from that culture do you feel um are aligned

[63:25]and enhance your islamic values um being half british and the half

[63:35]iranian i can draw on two different cultures and having actually been

[63:41]equally exposed to both languages um they're both uh important to me

[63:46]um so iranian culture is a great example of something that has

[63:51]got rid of things that were contrary to islam and islamist things

[63:55]that could be um if you just look at our noro celebrations

[63:58]where they may have had wine on the of the half scene

[64:03]we have now um honey and vinegar and things like this where

[64:05]they may have read poetry we read the quran um but there

[64:08]are other other elements that are pivots that are pivotal parts of

[64:12]islam like hospitality i will give you a simple example i went

[64:16]to pick something up from a couple british couple that i've never

[64:19]met we mentioned the iranian and they said that iranian people are

[64:24]the most hospitable people that they have ever met and this is

[64:28]something that you will hear again and again and again and again

[64:30]congratulations to iran um so that is just an example of something

[64:33]that is very positive that is perfectly in line with um with

[64:39]our faith and which is something that is quite um you don't

[64:42]find to that extent in um other cultures and i just like

[64:47]to remind that um persian culture is one of the most ancient

[64:52]cultures um in the world and our language which in iran is

[64:56]their mother tongue doesn't matter like we said irrespective of geographic geographical

[65:01]location so we're not talking about uh farsi because i'm here is

[65:05]my mother tongue no farsi in iran is also their mother tongue

[65:06]and it's still here it's still surviving um it's still flourishing and

[65:11]iran is a very very artistic cultural um country thank you very

[65:19]much um i don't think the um the proposing team of the

[65:26]publishing team does have something to say zaina um well firstly i

[65:29]like the point that was made by sapphire we do i do

[65:32]no rules as well and i'm not iranian and my farsi aren't

[65:36]very good at all but i don't think language has to be

[65:40]a part of the culture element like your culture and the way

[65:44]you are is part of your identity and i get i get

[65:46]that language has a part to play but it shouldn't be such

[65:50]a big thing to do with the culture and the language element

[65:55]and i think the debate itself focuses on language more than culture

[65:57]and i think that's what we need to focus on more than

[66:00]culture itself because we can all keep parts of our culture and

[66:03]traditions and we adopt culture from other ethnicities but it doesn't like

[66:08]our language doesn't have any involvement in it that's what i have

[66:13]to say thank you zainab so interesting without the language is our

[66:18]culture still our culture or without our culture is our language really

[66:23]you know is it born from a culture uh zahra your hand

[66:29]was up um go for it uh you're muted you know we've

[66:37]been doing this for a year you know we think we'd learn

[66:40]how to unmute suffer now it's working i was meeting by somebody

[66:47]else okay um to say that um language culture isn't just language

[66:53]is true but language carries so much with it um for example

[66:57]respect is enshrined in language um how you talk in iran how

[67:03]you talk probably in your in languages from um tanzania or from

[67:09]india probably has much more element of respect in it than for

[67:13]example how people talk in the uk now you cannot minimize the

[67:17]role of language in a culture whether it's um youth culture here

[67:22]and the role that the youth kind of dialect has and slang

[67:26]has or whether it's you know backing iran and how you know

[67:28]persian language and persian culture iranian culture you cannot minimize it so

[67:32]much i'm just quickly going back to what mohammed abbas said about

[67:34]language spoken language being a small portion that may be correct there's

[67:39]so much in your body language but body language will be different

[67:41]depending on what language you speak the way you move your hands

[67:45]the international people your voice varies depending on what language you speak

[67:49]so they are intertwined you cannot remove one from the other thank

[67:53]you uh i'll give the floor to sajad uh i mean so

[68:05]in terms of what someone's saying about the fact that language uh

[68:08]affects kind of the um um your manners okay it's your mannerism

[68:14]etc etc now i work in a school and believe me there

[68:17]are a number of kids from ethnic backgrounds which speak these other

[68:21]languages that have probably worse of heart than you know some children

[68:24]from white backgrounds and generally this is associated with class rather than

[68:28]culture i mean the amount of times that i've heard in a

[68:30]playground now to keep this you know saying theory ma as a

[68:34]as a joke between people as a sort of an offensive uh

[68:38]phrase from i was going for the white kids that comes from

[68:41]the the asian kids and from their background and that is a

[68:44]separation of the fact that it's not that the lack of uh

[68:47]your your background or your understanding is linked to language in that

[68:52]sense yes there are some kids that have um that have uh

[68:56]sort of better mannerisms and stuff but that's as i mentioned more

[69:01]associates uh with class and the other things we're kind of talking

[69:04]about is the fact that we talk about uh the islamic element

[69:06]associated to this is that you can transfer your you'll transfer your

[69:11]islamic um what's the word islamic values from child or from parent

[69:16]to child not through language but through mannerisms and through your through

[69:20]i guess your actions and your heart more so than your language

[69:24]thank you um then i wonder why italia puts such an um

[69:28]importance on the mother tongue but going to sister yeah i just

[69:34]wanted to refer back to what brother said about working in a

[69:36]school i've worked at primary school as well um i think you

[69:40]have to be careful mixing how children and young people talk between

[69:44]themselves and how they will talk to their elders and in the

[69:46]community i know from experience and i have seen children how they

[69:51]you know speak amongst themselves needs maybe from iranian background or arabic

[69:54]now asparty background and then between themselves they can be horrendous and

[69:57]really really disrespectful but woe behind them speak to anybody amongst our

[70:01]community like that so once they're in the community that culture still

[70:04]pervades and comes through um and it's important to mention that because

[70:08]i think in any culture a lot of the times young people

[70:13]use all kind of language between themselves and that's not something i

[70:15]think particularly to anywhere um i think as when you need it

[70:19]um that language informs how you how you speak you even have

[70:24]different um you have like the royal we in arabic and french

[70:26]and things like that so that when you speak to elder you

[70:28]don't just say you and i say the same thing you don't

[70:31]say you you have to say for example so i think you

[70:36]can't just narrow it down to just you know things like examples

[70:39]like that thank you for that uh i think one of the

[70:41]last part has something to refute thank you i just wanted to

[70:45]firstly actually agree with them my worthy opponents are saying one of

[70:50]the points you mentioned i think you you may well be right

[70:53]iranians are quite possibly the most hospitable people and that's i think

[71:04]you mentioned about body language also being linked to the language that

[71:09]you speak i have to say i've spoken to many iranians italians

[71:13]people of various different cultures speaking in english but with the same

[71:18]zeal and enthusiasm and body language as they would in their own

[71:23]in their own time and but the actual point that i really

[71:27]wanted to come on to you was that we seem to have

[71:32]been drawn into a bit of a discussion here about about culture

[71:35]and quite understandably we are all becoming uh we're we're defending our

[71:42]culture and defending the preservation of our culture because naturally we consider

[71:45]that to be quite a an integral integral part of our identity

[71:49]with language being a part of that and and i think the

[71:54]points that are being made here are incredibly valid but i just

[71:56]want to bring us back to what the motion states here the

[72:00]motion is saying that the mother tongue has no future so i

[72:05]think you know whilst this is a very interesting discussion we have

[72:09]to take the the value judgment out of it here we're not

[72:12]talking about the value of language how important it is as culture

[72:15]how important it is as our identity of course has made this

[72:21]statement this is you know not for people like us to refute

[72:23]there is clear value in the mother tongue but though that may

[72:29]be the beside an unfortunate reality is we have to look at

[72:32]the empirical trajectory of the mother tongue and you know it's clear

[72:36]this is going in only one direction you know if i asked

[72:40]if i asked the elders of our community how comfortable they were

[72:44]speaking their mother tongue they would say you know perhaps many of

[72:47]them say that they were entirely comfortable speaking them by the time

[72:50]if i ask let's say my generation you know perhaps it might

[72:54]be a bit more 50 50.

[72:54]if i were to ask the children of our community how comfortable

[72:58]are you with your mother tongue if i just stated that question

[73:00]as it was how comfortable are you with your mother tongue then

[73:05]we would see definitively the trajectory of the mother tongue it's only

[73:10]going in one direction sad that though that may be the mother

[73:13]tongue sadly has no future um i would like to cut this

[73:19]question here i'm really sorry masada um there is a question that's

[73:23]coming from the judges what makes the mother tongue indispensable um opposes

[73:28]would you like to take this question first zahra i'll ask you

[73:36]to meet her on me yourself again thank you sorry again um

[73:39]we can take this from two different angles so first of all

[73:42]and it ties in from um to what uh muhammad is that

[73:47]we do need to go back to the motion right and we

[73:50]do need to understand uh what we mean by the mother tongue

[73:52]even in this question so from one angle the mother tongue being

[73:56]indispensable is telling us that the the fact that we have a

[74:01]language that we are taught when we are young any language though

[74:04]that may be is what is so foundational in the way it

[74:10]governs our thoughts our emotions our cognitive abilities as we develop that

[74:15]is completely indispensable and whichever language that may be that you are

[74:18]taught first that is hugely important um because i feel again as

[74:25]mohammed said we are getting a bit lost in some of this

[74:27]discussion we do need to remember that that is what the mother

[74:31]tongue is but we can also take it from another angle in

[74:33]terms of you know specific mother tongues that we might want to

[74:35]discuss things like um kachin gujarati farsi um swahili even um and

[74:41]and i think as sister sasha mentioned there are so many different

[74:46]um elements of respect so many different um different concepts which come

[74:51]out in language which are not um available or accessible to us

[74:55]in in english though i have to we go back to it

[74:59]for some people english is their mother tongue so this is just

[75:02]a specific part of the discussion not the discussion as a whole

[75:05]because if we go back to the discussion of the whole all

[75:08]of these languages from other tongues but um just as an example

[75:12]um this this may seem a bit uh random um but in

[75:17]in lots of different cultures and lots of different um languages they

[75:21]have specific terms for things due to um specific specific terms which

[75:26]if you lose the language you would lose that ability to discern

[75:30]between them um just as an example um the himba tribe i

[75:36]believe it is has um different terms for shades of green that

[75:41]we would find indiscernible but they it jumps out of the difference

[75:43]to them because they have different terms for them likewise distinctions that

[75:48]are made within our within these cultural languages such as gujarati or

[75:55]shuma in farsi um do we draw where we draw distinctions where

[75:57]they do not exist in other languages it enshrines those distinctions for

[76:02]us and in this case this is a distinction of respect and

[76:05]that is something that is hugely indispensable thank you so much i

[76:10]think you brought up some very good points there i would like

[76:14]to change the discussions uh directions slightly um these are comments we're

[76:19]receiving from the audience i'm going to try and integrate a couple

[76:21]which will take us to the end of this free-for-all round so

[76:24]the mother tongue has no bearing to how institutions decide to conduct

[76:28]their programs rather it's how the smallest of institutions i.e our home

[76:35]our family communicates so the mother tongue only has a future if

[76:40]the current generation were to immerse in its heritage perhaps through family

[76:44]for example listening to a majalis once a week does it really

[76:49]make a difference to your language so for those people the mother

[76:52]tongue is an identity does that mean we need to redefine our

[76:56]identity so my question is isn't the future built on the past

[77:02]in light of what goes on in mosque in light of what

[77:04]goes on in our homes in terms of um language is there

[77:10]anyone who'd like to take this question from either teens is the

[77:16]muhammad go for it okay um you know i think the uh

[77:20]whoever's proposed those comments and questions have made some you know some

[77:24]really good points um yes our you know our identity is uh

[77:30]is perhaps quite linked to our mother tongue but let's let's look

[77:35]at what we mean when we say identity and um culture and

[77:39]these kinds of things by their very nature and in fact language

[77:41]itself i must act by its very nature it is something that

[77:45]changes over time the the language of the past the culture of

[77:50]the past our identity the identity of our ancestors will be very

[77:54]different to the identity that we have today the way that i

[78:01]identify myself um as a shia as a muslim as a as

[78:04]a brit as as someone living in this country as a someone

[78:07]for whom the dominant language is english as a doctor these kinds

[78:12]of things these aspects of identity will evolve over time and so

[78:18]i think whilst identity is you know it's central it's it's it's

[78:22]how we define ourselves it's who we are we must not be

[78:28]uh i suppose timid or scared to lose our identity because it's

[78:31]going to change but rather we should embrace the fact that our

[78:36]identity and our language will change moving forward and that we must

[78:40]do so uh in in the way that will allow us to

[78:44]become the best the best that we can be in charlotte there

[78:47]was also a second point about um the mother tongue being a

[78:52]forum within the homes and i think yes again whoever's raised that

[78:56]point is a very good point but what i say to uh

[78:59]this respective viewer is why don't you why don't you do apologies

[79:04]to math and see which languages are being spoken in the homes

[79:06]and and then i think again once again we'll find out how

[79:11]many homes actually retain the mother tongue thank you uh sister safa

[79:15]i'd like to go to you and then maybe one more person

[79:19]if you have time but then we'll have to cut it there

[79:21]i think we need to get back to this whole issue of

[79:26]the mother tongue um my mother tongue as i said i'll be

[79:29]it'll be difficult for you to decide maybe slightly english has an

[79:34]edge over farsi you ask my daughters what their mother tongue is

[79:36]it's definitely english they wouldn't even waver about it being any other

[79:41]language you ask their cousins you live in morocco it's going to

[79:45]be arabic so saying that the mother tongue has no future is

[79:50]i mean it's like saying language has no futures which we've said

[79:53]the thing is like uh brother mohammed abbas said with the changes

[79:59]in um how language evolves and how people change yes i completely

[80:04]agree with you that identities will be will change that doesn't have

[80:07]any bearing on how the motion is defined and um what we're

[80:11]saying we can completely agree with you and that doesn't that doesn't

[80:16]at all diminish our argument because my daughter's mother tongue is english

[80:19]and it definitely has a future in morocco arabic still has a

[80:24]future for god knows how much time to come you can't we're

[80:27]not specifying any particular language um if a person comes here and

[80:33]my mother she spoke to me in forestry because she wanted me

[80:36]to learn pharisee but that might be my mother tongue and that's

[80:39]great my daughter's mother tongue is is english somebody else's mother tongue

[80:43]is french and with that does come change his identity and you

[80:46]have to embrace that you shouldn't be afraid and all through history

[80:50]that's what happened we are nothing like the muslims that were uh

[80:53]at the time of the prophet and the imma we're very different

[80:55]our cultures have changed how we use language has changed that's the

[81:00]whole point of argument i am very very sorry um i'm i

[81:05]feel horrible putting down the hands but please forgive me for cutting

[81:08]it here thank you so so much to both the teams for

[81:12]bringing about these discussions i think there's been a lot that has

[81:15]been discussed that is relevant now and will be relevant for our

[81:18]children and their children and and so on thank you so much

[81:23]for engaging in the free for all round we will now get

[81:26]back to the main debate and of dubai back to you thank

[81:30]you so much as with the debate last time i don't think

[81:34]we wanted that segment to end but uh we really don't want

[81:37]to roll into a three-hour program today so it's time to invite

[81:42]the team's final speakers to conclude the arguments before i invite them

[81:46]up here i just want to stress again that the arguments being

[81:53]presented do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of the participants and that

[81:57]they are for the sake of the debate only so brother mohammed

[82:06]abbas from the proposing team please would you summarize why your team

[82:11]is in favor of the motion and your time starts now a

[82:20]language dies every two weeks with the utmost respect to our worthy

[82:27]opposition even if we adopted the slightly absurd interpretation of the motion

[82:31]referring to the future of any language we would still find in

[82:34]let's say a hundred years that language will not resemble the language

[82:38]that we see today and therefore the language of today has no

[82:42]long-term future mother tongue and language are clearly not interchangeable terms we're

[82:48]here today to discuss the lay understanding of the mother tongue adopting

[82:52]a common sense approach over the course of the debate my team

[82:56]members have presented to you a number of arguments that prove that

[83:00]the mother tongue has no future we have not argued that the

[83:04]mother tongue has no value nor that we should abandon it we

[83:06]have simply proven that no matter which culture you belong to the

[83:10]downward trajectory of the mother tongue proves that the mother tongue can

[83:15]have no long-term sustainable future whether we like this or not that

[83:20]which determines the future of our language is not our ancestry or

[83:24]heritage but rather its present day demand and utility it has been

[83:29]made quite clear that the utility of the mother tongue is quickly

[83:32]being replaced with an increasing demand to excel in our dominance language

[83:36]or other languages of the future based on our need for education

[83:41]business communication across cultures the result is that the mother tongue is

[83:45]fading at a rapid rate a well-researched concept known as language attrition

[83:51]we looked at the example of wessex jamaat as a reflection of

[83:55]wider society to further demonstrate this shift towards a new dominant language

[84:00]at the expense of the mother tongue we may choose to mourn

[84:04]this we may choose to fight this which many may consider noble

[84:07]but the reality is that the fate of the mother tongue has

[84:12]been well and truly sealed our esteemed opposition have argued with admirable

[84:17]grace and eloquence that the mother tongue forms a strong part of

[84:21]our culture that brings with it many values though this is a

[84:24]valid statement independently it does not sufficiently oppose the motion in other

[84:28]words just because there is some value in the mother tongue this

[84:31]will not alter the course of its inevitable decline and extinction but

[84:36]rather than choosing to mourn the loss of the mother tongue i

[84:40]suggest instead we choose to celebrate an aspect of our culture that

[84:44]is even more central to who we are and holds a greater

[84:49]level of value the ability to embrace change and evolve for the

[84:55]social physical and spiritual betterment of our community what do i mean

[84:59]by this some of you may have come across the recent co-ed

[85:03]kojo heritage festival which was a fantastic initiative those of you who

[85:08]tuned in or have an understanding of our heritage will know that

[85:12]our korja ancestors were hindus and sukbuns similarly the iranians amongst the

[85:17]community will know that their ancestors were zoroastrian it was because they

[85:21]were able to embrace change that we were guided to the part

[85:26]of affluent and for this we will be forever grateful to them

[85:30]our culture language and in fact our very identity evolve over time

[85:35]our duty is to evolve in a way that takes us closer

[85:39]towards our islamic values values which clearly transcend language the holy quran

[85:47]states everything on the earth will perish and only the face of

[85:57]allah will remain there is an apparent meaning to this that everything

[86:01]will perish except allah but at another level we can take from

[86:05]this that our languages may also fade but that which gives our

[86:11]community longevity is the extent to which we are able to align

[86:16]ourselves with allah subhanahu ta'alah so my question to you dear viewers

[86:20]my respected judges and my esteemed opposition is will we continue to

[86:26]hold on to the language of our hindu or zoroastrian heritage and

[86:30]impede our integration with society or will we continue the noble legacy

[86:35]of our ancestors in evolving as a community in accordance with the

[86:40]teachings of islam to allow us to become major players on the

[86:44]local national and global scenes as a unified multicultural shia international the

[86:51]mother tongue has no future but our community our culture and our

[86:57]legacy guided by islamic values will continue to thrive insha'allah thank you

[87:08]brother muhammad so while our mother tongue may have no future our

[87:13]community culture and legacy will continue to thrive is the fate of

[87:18]the mother tongue sealed when we look at statistics saying that one

[87:23]language is lost and perishes every two weeks is this um is

[87:34]this is our fate sealed here is what will remain the face

[87:37]of allah while everything else perishes and actually what we want to

[87:44]remain is that which leads us and has led us to the

[87:51]path of the afl bay and rather than looking at the culture

[87:54]and language of our ancestors we look at the changes that they

[87:58]embrace to get to where we are today thank you so much

[88:04]brother muhammad abbas i would now like to invite sister zachara ismail

[88:09]to summarize her team's arguments sisters are her please and your time

[88:15]starts now thank you very much um a few things to to

[88:21]draw on from what you said um hum of the past the

[88:24]the concept you kept referring to is that we've um changed the

[88:30]definition somewhat in the motion that the way in which we've looked

[88:33]at um language being the the motion discussing language as a whole

[88:40]is absurd but my my question to you is what basis have

[88:43]you for the definition your your team has proposed we have shown

[88:47]you why the mother tongue um what the mother tongue means from

[88:51]the oxford language dictionary and the cambridge dictionary we have shown that

[88:55]the mother tongue can be any language and is not limited to

[88:59]languages as a bar and ancestors but yet i've yet to hear

[89:05]from your team any um source for the definition which you have

[89:09]proposed so i would challenge that our definition here is absurd um

[89:14]another thing that you mentioned is about languages evolving and changing and

[89:20]how we have to embrace this change and you're absolutely right no

[89:24]one's denying that evolution is not the same as language is disappearing

[89:29]as well just to remember that languages evolve even zayn had mentioned

[89:36]earlier about chaucer and chaucer's english but english has still remained it

[89:39]has evolved that language is the same language gone through evolutions and

[89:44]that actually the the nature of that means that evolution allows a

[89:47]language to continue but still you are right some languages do die

[89:52]that is absolutely true but um that is why it's so critical

[89:56]that we go back to the definition the what will remain is

[90:01]still somebody's mother tongue what remains is always going to be a

[90:04]mother tongue because that is essential to who we are we learn

[90:09]languages as children a mother tongue is the first language of a

[90:14]child it's just unfortunately common sense that we cannot understand this motion

[90:18]in a different way a few other things that i want to

[90:20]challenge um you made a lot of reference to our community let's

[90:24]ask the question to our youth let's do a poll of our

[90:29]jamaat but i don't see our jamaat in the motion as well

[90:31]we've limited this debate dramatically even zainab made the point earlier about

[90:35]how you expected us to bring the argument about communicating with the

[90:38]elderly note that we didn't no one's denying that there is that

[90:43]trajectory in our community that the elders of our community will pass

[90:47]and we will not have that need to communicate them with them

[90:51]in the same way however we still have to acknowledge that the

[90:56]mother tongues that even the mother tongues of our community gujarati and

[90:59]such have a huge prevalence in the world we still have a

[91:04]global community and the ability to travel to go different places to

[91:08]see india to see iran and we will still need to be

[91:12]able to communicate that the the way in which you've limited the

[91:16]discussion to our jamaat and your understanding of the mother tongue have

[91:19]you been imposing throughout the discussion different um different terms into the

[91:24]debate which which are not which are not there and another point

[91:28]that was raised um which i would like to tackle from from

[91:32]zainab was the mode of education being english in a lot of

[91:36]countries and you're absolutely right that is the case but what you

[91:40]see what you neglected to mention is that this is changing there

[91:43]are countless numbers of studies which have shown that actually the mode

[91:48]of education is best in the mother tongue and just to name

[91:52]a few i can tell you that there's a paper by senator

[91:55]jennesse 98 ocampo ital 2006.

[91:56]i can tell you that unesco um it has has suggested that

[92:02]the best mode of education is the mother tongue i can tell

[92:05]you that the intercultural development research association has maintained um that sorry

[92:10]declared that maintaining a mother tongue language actually enhances academic development in

[92:16]the second language i can tell you that mother-based mother tongue-based um

[92:20]approaches to education in countless number of countries have shown better results

[92:26]the philippines nepal the revival of cantonese in hong kong just to

[92:30]name a few and it's really easy to understand why because the

[92:34]all different languages have a shared proficiency are lying underneath them and

[92:41]through establishing firmly our mother tongue whatever that may be that we're

[92:44]able to develop a second language much better so just to draw

[92:48]everything together we've heard from our team with the correct way of

[92:52]understanding the motion we have heard from our team the different links

[92:57]with language culture cognitive development so unless we plan to leave our

[93:03]um leave our religion leave our culture leave our brains behind when

[93:06]we go to the future i'm afraid the mother tongues are coming

[93:09]with us as well um finally um nelson mandela has said that

[93:13]if you speak to a person in their mother tongue um in

[93:16]in their in a language they understand it goes to bread but

[93:20]to your um but uh if you speak in my mother tongue

[93:23]it goes to your heart thank you very much thank you sister

[93:31]zahra so i didn't quite catch the last bit i was looking

[93:34]at the timer but i believe that the quote you gave is

[93:38]that if you speak to a person in a language they understand

[93:42]the message goes to their head whereas if you speak to them

[93:47]in their mother tongue it goes to their heart did i get

[93:49]that correct okay thank you very much i don't particularly want to

[93:52]quote nelson mandela wrongly so going back to the um arguments that

[93:59]your team has presented or rather refuted that evolution is not the

[94:05]same as a language being lost in fact it is evolution which

[94:11]allows language to continue with the example of chaucer that you've given

[94:15]and that there are various studies one in particular is with unesco

[94:22]but you quoted quite a few that actually show that um education

[94:27]is more valuable when presented in the mother tongue and that really

[94:32]the mother tongue in essence definitely has a future right so that

[94:42]is the debate segment uh concluded i wish we could have continued

[94:46]but maybe we can have a chat later when when we're offline

[94:51]can i please request a loud salawat for all the participants from

[94:58]your homes allah [Music] and i just want to acknowledge the especially

[95:08]challenging task that uh sister khaleeja had during the free-for-all picking and

[95:14]choosing questions and trying to balance them um making sure that you

[95:20]know everybody who wanted to speak was able to have a turn

[95:22]so thank you so much sister kenaja i'm glad that you're in

[95:27]that role and not me now the judges are going to go

[95:33]and confer um and they will be called back in around 15

[95:35]to 20 minutes and we've got some surprise guests lined up so

[95:41]please settle in with your cup of chai for an interesting segment

[95:45]inshallah okay so it's that time again we would like you to

[95:52]vote for the second time on the basis of what you have

[95:54]observed during the debate have the speakers convinced you have they persuaded

[95:58]you have they changed your opinion after listening to the arguments presented

[96:03]has your opinion swayed join the conversation slider.com 379 748 let us

[96:11]know the poll is now open keep your votes coming they will

[96:15]be um the poll will be open for a little bit longer

[96:17]and then inshallah will close so the motion this house believes the

[96:21]mother tongue has no future what do you think following the debate

[96:27]during the holy month of ramadan the the leader class launched the

[96:31]help the hungry online food drive it was no surprise that all

[96:35]of our friends and family both wessex wessexand international donated so generously

[96:40]and i'm pleased to announce that the total raised was a whopping

[96:45]910 pounds mashaallah it's a huge thank you for everyone to everyone

[96:49]for giving and giving generously the the funds will be split for

[96:54]the local uh food banks across portsmouth and pharaoh and a special

[96:58]shout out to two of our students of belial uh mana jaffar

[97:02]and karim huda who are the student reps of the project and

[97:05]they did a fantastic job of rising to the challenge and working

[97:08]incredibly hard to make this project a successful one so for them

[97:15]and for the awesome outcome of this project allah i am now

[97:29]going to introduce you to our surprise guest speaker we are immensely

[97:35]honored to be joined by dr hassan waljee today born in moshi

[97:40]tanzania now residing in houston texas dr hassen is a researcher speaker

[97:44]and a writer involved in developing professional training and in the field

[97:50]of nutrition and integrative health care he's the author of 26 books

[97:53]that's right you heard me 26 books all written from a naturopathic

[97:58]perspective and have been translated into several languages if i were to

[98:03]list them it'd be quite long dr hassnay's institutional work for the

[98:07]muslim community spans across decades of dedication since 1976 he has served

[98:14]the the world federation of ksimc as a secretary general vice president

[98:19]and then as president he is also a founding director of the

[98:24]mullahatker memorial library and resource center here in toronto dr hasan is

[98:28]the director and producer of the documentary the kojas a journey of

[98:33]faith and dr hasnan is a traveler of the world having lectured

[98:36]and recited majalis in english urdu gujarati all over the world so

[98:42]i imagine his plane tickets have probably accumulated quite a few points

[98:46]despite other commitments dr hasanen has very kindly agreed to join us

[98:51]and share with us some words of wisdom all about the kojo

[98:55]heritage we will aim to have a quick q a inshallah so

[98:59]please send us your questions via slido dr hasn't thank you so

[99:02]much for joining us today welcomes you to this stage everyone virtually

[99:09][Music] muhammad is thank you so much pleasure for the kind introduction

[99:32]and the kind words indeed it's very revealing and insightful for me

[99:40]hearing our young people talking so passionately uh in terms of where

[99:47]you know the future of the mothertongue or the inherited language or

[99:53]the vernacular or the second language however you term it the judges

[99:59]will tell us you know what the what the results are but

[100:03]i know one thing that the future of our community is in

[100:09]great hands with the passion with which i heard the arguments being

[100:13]put for and against the emotion but it's always for the evolution

[100:21]in the betterment of our community so with that said and it

[100:26]has been an impassioned debate serious debate so i think some levity

[100:32]is in order i lived in the uk for many years and

[100:36]i had an opportunity to to visit the houses of parliament one

[100:40]year where i heard this joke from the speaker of the department

[100:43]and i'd like to relate that because it's related somehow to the

[100:50]subject it was he said at that time that the westminster borough

[100:54]in london was the most cosmopolitan borough of any in london at

[100:58]that time it probably still is i don't know and in westminster

[101:05]every language was spoken in that particular borough in every culture was

[101:11]represented in that borough of the city of westminster now there was

[101:16]a cat with four kittens who lived in the city of westminster

[101:24]too and when this cat was taking the kittens around showing them

[101:28]the various dust bins outside the homes saying here is a thai

[101:32]family and if you like thai food this is where you get

[101:37]your leftovers and so on and so forth and he related the

[101:41]pakistani the persian the lebanese and all those i don't have time

[101:45]to go into every language in every culture that the speaker was

[101:50]talking about the bottom line was that as the cat was showing

[101:54]the various dustbins saying this is the best food depending on what

[101:59]your taste is a ferocious dog approaches the cat family and the

[102:07]dog barked and you know and mothers are on this panel that

[102:12]a mother will do anything to protect you know its offspring in

[102:18]her desperation the cat actually barked back now when the cat barked

[102:25]back at the dog the dog has never seen or heard a

[102:29]cat bark it was totally flummoxed and ran away now the mother

[102:36]turns to the kittens and says see how important a second language

[102:42]is that's the bottom line that language is much more than a

[102:49]device for communication we use language to communicate with others to establish

[102:55]as we heard relationships in a sense of self to express who

[103:00]we are and it's an integral part as was said of us

[103:04]being human the language holds an irrepressible cultural significance our ancestral memories

[103:13]our heritage our unique knowledge and traditions and these assets are lost

[103:18]the moment a language disappears i'm neither for nor against the motion

[103:24]all i am saying is what will be lost when a language

[103:28]disappears so let me share a lament of many 30 year olds

[103:33]that i meet traveling jamaica north america and in europe in particular

[103:37]that for some it's a loss of a potential i quote i

[103:41]could have been bilingual wish i had kept up my gujarati for

[103:45]some it's a loss of history now that my parents have passed

[103:49]no anyone in our family can speak kachina and for some it's

[103:55]a loss of identity when i hear them say that when i

[103:58]go to gujarat i feel like a foreigner so no matter what

[104:03]the reasons they all feel that they have missed out and they're

[104:06]missing out on something critical to their sense of self and identity

[104:10]now as parents i know that we make the best choices we

[104:15]can for our children and i hope that you know we made

[104:19]the right choices in case of heritage of family or language it

[104:23]can seem too hard to keep using them with reluctant children and

[104:28]too much effort for no good reason to try and maintain the

[104:33]vernacular so faced with this resistance even the most dedicated parents can

[104:38]lose their way and eventually shift to the majority language as we

[104:43]heard yes statistically by the third generation at least here in america

[104:51]we lose the language that people came to the country with their

[104:56]grandparents the first generation immigrants tend to arrive with limited english so

[104:59]they continue to speak with their children in their own language whether

[105:03]it's as i said mother tongue heritage language whatever it may be

[105:06]the second generation grows up bilingual in their parents language and in

[105:10]english but they raise their own children in the third generation continue

[105:14]to be in most cases or in america as english monolinguals our

[105:21]community is no exception whether it's english or other european languages or

[105:25]even for that matter we'll do in pakistan which is a place

[105:28]which replaces the vernacular so question is is it really what to

[105:33]keep using a language that your child doesn't really need or may

[105:37]never use well from the voices of the now adult children yes

[105:42]i say to my young friends it is certainly worth it you

[105:47]can never predict where our children may want to go in their

[105:51]lives those of us raising children with complex cultural identities cannot know

[105:55]where our children will eventually end up which side or the facet

[106:01]of their self they'll want to live with or living and the

[106:05]nomadic gene of the causes make it all the more possible most

[106:11]of us have traversed four continents in four generations so now i

[106:16]don't have time to go deeper into all the aspects i'll just

[106:19]focus on one in a 2011 study of the chinese and the

[106:22]korean immigrant families to see how relationships between ninth grade adolescents and

[106:28]their parents were impacted by native language laws found amongst many other

[106:33]things that there was a direct correlation between respect for parents and

[106:38]the native language fluencies i picked this point because the the study

[106:43]said that the honorific titles which is a central component of respect

[106:47]unique to the chinese and korean culture have no english alternative they

[106:52]sum up the research to say not only is language integral to

[106:56]maintaining parental respect but to also cultural identity i know some arguments

[107:01]have been put forth in against that i don't have time to

[107:05]rebut some of those but let me say this gujarati is no

[107:12]different the word sort of change depending who you're addressing instead of

[107:16]the single you in the english language those of you who understand

[107:22]and hopefully you know no gujarati we have two and tame there's

[107:25]a level of respect we have saying best sit down and vessel

[107:30]you know it's that level of nuance instead of saying kia you

[107:36]don't tell your elder to kian i think these are the nuances

[107:42]now i'm not sure about the chinese or the koreans but let

[107:46]me end this reflection on the paucity of english in the richness

[107:50]of gujarati when we talk about family connections which is all about

[107:56]community you know there's a koja pension for finding relatives you know

[107:59]the first thing is when we get together as as friends said

[108:04]you know the whole idea of that pension in fact we had

[108:11]a trainer maria patterson who used to do our ldp and she

[108:15]said i find this totally unique about you coaches this is an

[108:18]outside looking in that within five minutes that you have met you've

[108:22]already established that somehow you are related so establishing that kinship like

[108:27]you hear and i'll say this in gujarati and then try and

[108:33]translate and see how difficult it is imagine trying to say that

[108:41]in english that your father sisters husband sister's daughter is my brother's

[108:47]daughter-in-law when you look at those nuances that gujarati would just says

[108:55]the idea it's just one nuance but you know when you look

[109:00]at gujarati as a language you know in english you just have

[109:04]grandmother but you have nani and daddy there is a significance in

[109:08]terms of the relation the father's brother is not just uncle he's

[109:12]either kaka or or you know it is they're not just anka

[109:20]but your brothers your mother's brother is mama for example or your

[109:25]father's sister is your foe and so on and so forth so

[109:29]the whole idea for example the great grandfather is pardada in parnan

[109:34]or when you look at the grandchildren you have a different definition

[109:40]between who is a potro and pottery in deutero and doitri it

[109:45]gives a relationship and there is a deeper meaning to these relationships

[109:52]something that one would miss you know from the vernacular whatever they

[109:59]may be so to conclude the familiar implication reveal that a native

[110:05]language allows for a more meaningful communication that can facilitate respect for

[110:12]these relationships as well as heritage and culture so why study gujarati

[110:17]or any other vernacular or any other world language for that matter

[110:21]to reclaim a missing part of your family's history to understand family

[110:26]in community events past and present the possibilities my young friends are

[110:31]endless be it mother tongue or heritage language whatever it may be

[110:36]a second language is always powerful because words have power i recently

[110:43]spoke to an engineer friend of mine and said what are you

[110:47]working on these days and he responds that i am working on

[110:52]aqua thermal treatment of ceramics aluminum and steel under a constrained environment

[110:59]how do you translate that in gujarati i dare somebody translate that

[111:04]well i'll tell you because of the culture and the context it

[111:08]simply meant meaning that i was washing dishes with hot water under

[111:19]my wife's supervision that's what that meant so i leave you with

[111:25]that thought words have power language of influence and be it the

[111:29]vernacular or be it any other language let us try not be

[111:36]monolingual and attempt to be not just bilingual but as our former

[111:41]eye that have shown that they were literally multilingual so with that

[111:45]i say thank you for the opportunity and i'm glad that khadeja

[111:50]did not show me the four-minute board there maybe she was being

[111:56]respectful because i know i must have gone over my time so

[112:01]thank you for your patience and your respect for the ending and

[112:07]by the way just before i end i would like to say

[112:12]particular salams to all my friends at wessex jamaat i've known you

[112:15]jamaat for many many years i visited you and it's always been

[112:20]a great memory to have known you thank you hi uh dr

[112:24]hassan thank you so much i don't think i could have showed

[112:28]you my four-minute cut even if i wanted to i was really

[112:31]roped in there um welcome back to west texas lovely to have

[112:34]you in inshallah we hope we can have you in person at

[112:37]almaty center soon um there's a couple of questions that i want

[112:40]to ask you on behalf of the audience but before i go

[112:44]into that i can relate to the whole deuterium in puerto rico

[112:48]chocolate no business and i don't get it and it just goes

[112:50]over my head so i know i definitely need to work on

[112:54]that um doctor you touched on the importance of language being retained

[112:59]not just to go with the dominant language because that might happen

[113:03]but for us to retain our mother tongue so in your opinion

[113:07]what is the input required from parents in order to preserve our

[113:14]language and preserve our culture as such if i were to answer

[113:19]that in one word it's persistence it's hard i have grandchildren and

[113:27]it's hard to get them to revert to gujarati for example simply

[113:33]you know very very hard but it's persistence where yes sometimes our

[113:40]children may you know sort of not want and some are in

[113:43]that mood for someone in a shorter mode of of there i

[113:47]use the word rebellion in that respect or in a longer mode

[113:51]the idea is number one persistence and number two really it's trying

[113:56]to find you know innovative ways to be able to articulate that

[114:00]each time there is an idiom uh that comes across in english

[114:06]it'd be nice to say that we also mean the same thing

[114:11]in gujarati and this is how it is said so it really

[114:15]is being creative and being very informal rather than imposing on our

[114:20]young to be able to do that so that's number two being

[114:24]persistent being creative and number three last but not the least have

[114:31]some of these cultural elements you know within your home read a

[114:35]painting meet a calligraphy whatever it may be let there be a

[114:40]reflection of your culture be it in the architecture if you can

[114:45]afford it be it in your how the room is decorated if

[114:49]you bring that whole ambiance take them to museums take them to

[114:53]those places and the best place that i can and i have

[114:57]a vested interest in saying this is join us for the next

[115:01]koja heritage tour whenever that may be we have had three phenomenal

[115:05]tools that people have truly enjoyed so come by and visit the

[115:10]lands of your ancestors walk the footsteps where they walked and imagine

[115:16]the sacrifices that they made for us to come to the school

[115:23]of muslim at the same time as a meander because i keep

[115:26]saying and and i heard some arguments both ways you know for

[115:30]the short time i was there that culture and faith are not

[115:34]mutually exclusive what the coaches have done and many others have that

[115:39]we have actually poured our our faith the essence of the school

[115:45]of albeit into the vessel of culture but it has been the

[115:50]vessel of culture of jamaat our federations our structures which have helped

[115:54]us maintain that essence of our faith without that receptacle perhaps the

[115:59]essence of the faith may have poured out but then culture without

[116:05]faith is obviously a void because it has no meaning therefore faith

[116:09]and culture are two wings with which any community can fly in

[116:16]solitude thank you so much dr hussein i think that was a

[116:20]beautiful analogy of um us soaring through the future with culture and

[116:23]our language and religion inshallah um i can i i definitely feel

[116:29]that we can turn this conversation into a three-day workshop for parents

[116:34]on how to bring their children um and retain the culture and

[116:37]language um my next question is something that you've already touched on

[116:40]so i won't ask it to you as a question but i

[116:42]would like to read this quote for your um information and for

[116:46]the viewers for tuning in so this is a quote from the

[116:50]late algon iii sultan muhammad shah who said within 10 20 or

[116:58]30 years the internationally will be worn out after a hundred years

[117:03]of the italian after 100 years the international religion will not exist

[117:07]at all it will not exist in iran either so that's quite

[117:13]a long thing that's been said this was back in uh 1899

[117:16]that's a long long time ago so my question would have been

[117:21]what has helped us prevail these twenty 30 hundred years not only

[117:24]have we existed we have survived we existed and now alhamdulillah we're

[117:30]thriving um but thank you so so much dr hussein for uh

[117:33]answering those questions i think you already touched on that um finally

[117:36]just to wrap up i would like to say uh inshallah um

[117:50]and for the non-catchy speakers um i just said that may allah

[117:55]give us the strength um to give our children this sort of

[117:58]upbringing where they're not missing out on anything i may have added

[118:02]two or three words in english there but dr snane thank you

[118:06]so much for joining us uh this evening inshallah we get to

[118:10]see you soon thank you very much thank you for the opportunity

[118:19]right so um poll 2 is now closed and the results will

[118:26]be given towards the end of the program and now we're moving

[118:29]on to the final poll where you the audience will decide who

[118:33]the two best speakers of each team are so please go back

[118:38]to slideauto.com and enter the code 379 748 now poll 3 is

[118:46]multi-select and based on what you've witnessed today please vote for the

[118:50]best speaker in each team one speaker from the proposing team which

[118:54]has four in brackets and one from the opposing team which has

[118:57]against in brackets now the best speaker um is really the one

[119:03]that you feel has had the most impact whose argument was most

[119:09]valuable to the motion and who held that good archery command so

[119:12]just using that speaker doesn't do the term justice and you will

[119:16]be voting from two speakers sorry you'll be voting for two speakers

[119:20]please make sure they are on different teams and the two winners

[119:24]will be announced by sheikh pozler at the end so we have

[119:28]a very special guest lined up um who is very qualified to

[119:36]talk about his experience of bridging the gap between the iranian and

[119:39]koja cultures so uncle hamid please come and join us um language

[120:10]is chinese to finance the hair gel i used to use i

[120:24]used to work as an interpreter and a couple of things happened

[120:28]um which i would like to mention if i know um about

[120:34]uh language barrier once i was called by the police in southampton

[120:38]to go to the police station uh because they said there is

[120:43]an authority that is in the um in the cell and we

[120:45]want you to interpret now for those of you who don't know

[120:49]uh in afghanistan there are those who speak diary which is a

[120:53]dilemma farsi mostly shears and then there are those sunnis who speak

[121:00]um now question is a completely different language and i don't understand

[121:02]the word of it so when i got there i realized that

[121:06]the afghani that they have there was a question and i uh

[121:09]obviously couldn't speak the word of krishna but i didn't want to

[121:14]embarrass the police officer for his lack of knowledge of languages so

[121:16]i thought i'd play along with it so the police officer asked

[121:21]me to ask him why he hit that person so i turned

[121:24]to the guy and i said why did you hit him and

[121:28]um and then he said me hit him first and then i

[121:33]said i think the other guy hit him first so um this

[121:35]went along and um and eventually i um they asked me to

[121:39]thank him and i said thank you um and that was it

[121:43]one of the time i was called to go to a uh

[121:46]doctor surgery because there was a an afternoon but this time he

[121:51]was a diary speaker but with daddy speakers the further they go

[121:55]from iran the stronger their dialect and the harder it is to

[122:00]understand so the doctor asked me to ask him what was wrong

[122:02]with him and and i asked him and um and he explained

[122:06]something in two minutes and i really didn't understand the word he

[122:10]was saying so i didn't want to lose face so i said

[122:12]to the doctor i think he's got a headache so uh the

[122:16]doctor i think gave him some aspie the debate was amazing so

[122:30]um i just want to end by asking if i have a

[122:34]disagreement with auntie can i appoint one of you to represent me

[122:38]if i can please can you email me and i can arrange

[122:41]it thank you so much thank you uncle hamid uh well what

[122:47]do we get out of it um so uncle hamid um we

[122:55]you know we've seen this segment from the debate and you know

[122:59]i think we've learned that if we don't maintain our language it's

[123:03]really up to us the parents as well as the community then

[123:07]we will lose so much and you look at what auntie nilofer's

[123:11]been doing um you know with the iranian community and the perseverance

[123:16]as dr hussman mentioned you know she has had that perseverance um

[123:23]so one thing i want to ask is looking at the makeup

[123:26]of wessex and assuming that if we are on the current trajectory

[123:30]is farsi going to be the dominant language of the future i

[123:37]wish i wish unfortunately i have been with the community for 33

[123:41]years and the only words that they taught me in these 33

[123:47]years was cancel the challenges and the only thing that my wife

[123:52]and i have been able to teach the fudges in these 33

[123:56]years is uh uh one or two have started learning about which

[123:59]i'm not encouraging but it's harder to make so um i don't

[124:04]think there's gonna be a time when uh iranian is going to

[124:09]be the dominant language i i i quite like uh i quite

[124:13]like the um uh languages so um yeah the united states was

[124:18]one of the languages um so i could say some things uh

[124:23]so people don't understand you know i could talk about them without

[124:25]them understanding but i don't think that's coming soon that's uncle hamid

[124:30]you raised the uh point of chela kebabs so we've been uh

[124:35]playing with with a question and we can't get to the bottom

[124:39]of the answer so we want to pose that question to you

[124:43]what's your verdict or samosa um chips i think thank you so

[124:55]much uncle hamid before we um uh uh welcome the judges back

[125:04]when myself kadeja and you know we're discussing this debate one thing

[125:10]that really struck all of us and we've referred to it throughout

[125:14]is the diverse and unique nature of our jamaat here in wessex

[125:22]i think there's a lot that we can learn from one another's

[125:28]cultures and i think you know we have actually formed over the

[125:31]last 33 years as you said a blended culture and remained unified

[125:36]and we have our own blended traditions that you know when you

[125:40]come to essex there are things that you see that is so

[125:44]unique and very beautiful and kurdish i think you had an example

[125:48]that you wanted to touch on quickly um i love how on

[125:56]ashira day specifically um the signature dish um is dar josog but

[126:00]i when i moved to essex i realized there was something else

[126:04]there's also the signature dish and that's the ash the very first

[126:06]time i had it i was like i've never seen this dish

[126:08]before this is very odd and i was almost reluctant to have

[126:12]it but then one of my friends was like no just try

[126:14]just try it um and i did and since then i love

[126:18]us so much it's now become part of our wessex culture hasn't

[126:23]it yes yeah thank you for saying that yes ash is it's

[126:27]amazing to have it but in response to your uh statement uh

[126:33]um when i joined the uh west 6th jump 33 years ago

[126:38]i was in awe of the um the welcome and and i

[126:45]really have been for the community has been like a family to

[126:49]me and i have grown up with many i have seen their

[126:53]children grow up and it's just like it's amazing welcoming community and

[126:59]i hope it stays like that to keep our identity so do

[127:05]we on mohammed so do we we all know how lucky we

[127:10]are to be a part of this jamaat then you know as

[127:14]we've touched on our strength really is in our diversity and we

[127:18]have managed to stay united and i pray that we continue to

[127:22]do so and bring our own traditions that inshallah will pass on

[127:25]to the children of wessex jamaat so thank you so much uncle

[127:30]hamid for joining us today i hope you'll be able to continue

[127:33]watching on youtube we've got the judges coming up very shortly so

[127:38]we hope that um the audience you enjoyed that discussion thank you

[127:44]for sending in your questions and comments now uh just to let

[127:51]you know poll three is now closed some of you may recall

[127:55]from debate one that this is a three-part series so the winning

[127:59]team from today will go head-to-head against the winning team from the

[128:02]first debate in a suspenseful grand finale on saturday the 26th of

[128:12]june inshallah the planned time is 6 30 pm but please look

[128:16]out for communication and do make a note of the date in

[128:19]your diaries and the segment that we've all been waiting for we'd

[128:23]like to welcome back the judges judges if you could please turn

[128:28]your cameras on and participants as well please just wait for everybody

[128:37]to come up on screen okay so returning back from debate one

[128:58]is uncle shabir wild and whilst we introduced uncle shabir last time

[129:03]there is so much more to say uncle's unique qualities include his

[129:11]extraordinary foresight and passion for empowering family and community and wessex is

[129:18]of course both back in 2013 with the inception of the current

[129:23]center shelby uncle and the other exec members had proposed portfolios to

[129:28]ensure every aspect of this community would be nurtured and every member

[129:33]of this jamaat would have an opportunity to be a part of

[129:37]something special and one of the proposed portfolios was actually a debating

[129:44]society which shall be uncle and sheikh fazlabas unwavering support and encouragement

[129:48]this is inshallah finally coming to fruition di salvaradori is to put

[129:55]in her own words a jill of all trades and i can

[130:01]attest that this is a very apt way to describe her she

[130:02]has had a successful career spanning 20 years as a chartered electronic

[130:09]engineer specializing in interference technology wow that's a mouthful already after that

[130:13]sovereignty has spent 20 years juggling hats of funeral director cara educationalist

[130:18]is there anything that sobriety can't put her hand to of course

[130:23]not her dedication as a member of both the burial team and

[130:26]mother's a teacher are a testament to her nurturing nature she seeks

[130:31]to serve those both in the early and last stages of their

[130:36]lives so sabaranti what does the next 20 years bring perhaps a

[130:39]successful career as an author reflecting on your amazing life experiences inshallah

[130:43]hopefully i can get your autograph and you can be like oh

[130:46]i know kadeja she used to be my student amir nasser and

[130:51]mr nasser is a former resident and long-standing av officer of westerman

[130:56]in fact his grandparents set roots uh in portsmouth back in the

[131:01]70s so growing up here came naturally to him he is now

[131:05]based in london and runs his own consultancy in cyber security and

[131:11]telecommunications amir has a very analytical mind which comes in handy as

[131:15]a senior consultant working with some of the top companies in the

[131:19]world wait until you hear the list he is an avid debater

[131:21]and a public speaker as he started giving speeches from just the

[131:26]a from the age of just seven years old at stanmore jamaat

[131:29]he was then a member and later the chair of the student

[131:32]school council at cairns hill high school in farham for five years

[131:37]as well as the pupil president in his final year in his

[131:42]very limited time he enjoys photography and volunteering and if amir were

[131:48]to star in a movie i'd take a wild guess and say

[131:52]it would have to be the matrix after all today he has

[131:56]to decide between the red pill or the blue pill over to

[132:00]you judges thank you kalaija for those really kind words um i

[132:07]also wanted to thank the organizers who have made today possible um

[132:11]in consultation with the other judges we have decided to break down

[132:16]the next 15 minutes as follows i will be providing feedback to

[132:20]the proposing team and cyberante will be providing feedback to the opposing

[132:23]team whilst shibuya uncle will be providing feedback for the free for

[132:30]all and announce the winner of debate 2.

[132:31]um upon reflection i found the proposing team had a brilliant line

[132:37]of argument with robust rebuttals it was very clear that you were

[132:42]well researched and versed in your arguments i specifically liked that you

[132:45]were worked as a cohesive team pulling from the same methodol methodological

[132:51]approach to the central argument and arguing the line together um so

[132:56]to start with looking at the participants individually i would like to

[133:01]start with the first speaker first speaker being fatima um i found

[133:07]your i really liked how you came in quite heavy and strong

[133:11]with um relevant evidence and you took your point all the way

[133:16]through from a top holistic view and then broke it down and

[133:19]broke it down further into at a micro level so we could

[133:22]explore it in more detail whilst also taking us through the emotions

[133:26]of your point you took us on a journey which was amazing

[133:29]so thank you um i also like how you integrated evidence into

[133:33]your opening statement and added those rhetorical flourishes to your remarks however

[133:38]something i wish could be worked on in the future is as

[133:42]you're the first speaker you have to have you need to i

[133:46]think you would help if you want clearly laid out your roadmap

[133:48]so you can sign posts and lead us down the route that

[133:55]your teammates will be following um following on to the second speaker

[134:00]which was zaynab academy you started with a rebuttal which was great

[134:06]and i liked how you integrated your remarks through from the rebuttals

[134:09]all the way through your statements all the judges commented and liked

[134:13]your oratory style which was brilliant i found your remarks a little

[134:18]too broad based on the motion and i wish your points followed

[134:25]a slightly more logical process moving on to sajad jaffer who was

[134:29]speaker three um we all really liked your approach and unfortunately i

[134:36]couldn't mark you down on much your you came in with heavy

[134:41]rebuttals and directly refuted the opponent's line um lines of inquiry which

[134:47]was brilliant and you did that in quick succession i like how

[134:51]you demonstrated the life cycle of a language and how you incorporated

[134:57]personal experience which everyone can relate to however i wish you supplied

[135:01]some more evidence beyond your personal experience which are broadening the reach

[135:05]of your argument um moving on to muhammad abbas who was speaker

[135:12]for your orientation skills mohammed are something else you told your tone

[135:16]control and the way you delivered your remarks was phenomenal um i

[135:21]found your address also very inspirational however the role of the thought

[135:27]speaker is is primarily to summarize the role which you did very

[135:31]well but it's also to refute and rebut the opposing side's arguments

[135:33]in your closing statement um i wish you had spent a bit

[135:38]more time refuting the opposing side just so it would have made

[135:43]your overall arguments a lot more well-rounded um i think all the

[135:47]speakers today though have performed very extremely well and during the debate

[135:55]i have been truly engaged and entertained by every speaker so thank

[135:59]you it has been a pleasure and honor to be a part

[136:03]of this debate thank you we would now like to hear uh

[136:10]from one of the judges um from the other team i can't

[136:20]quite hear you nope nothing is that the same for everyone else

[136:28]so is this just me apologies i can't hear cyber at either

[136:33]okay uh maybe sovereignty try unplugging the headset is that better can

[136:42]you hit me now thank you a bit of technology i can

[136:45]handle it so assalamu alaikum everyone and thank you very much for

[136:52]being here for giving us your views for sharing your views with

[136:56]our audience thank you audience for being here i'm going to be

[137:01]necessarily brief unfortunately because time is marching on and although normally for

[137:05]amazon we would like the days to be shorter this is one

[137:07]occasion where we would like the day to extend but not our

[137:13]choices so everyone spoke well everyone spoke passionately everyone feels for the

[137:19]slow fading and extinction as as as the team for the motion

[137:26]explained but the against team came up with a swift strong passionate

[137:32]i would say even argument and i will dive straight into the

[137:39]first speaker masadek damji i was so impressed with the classical research

[137:44]that you had done for a very broad audience so you were

[137:48]not speaking to people who already have a knowledge of two languages

[137:54]and i think that theme continued through to the other speakers as

[138:00]well so it was a good team um cohesive approach in in

[138:03]that sense um and also i liked that you had signposted the

[138:08]the flow for for the rest of the team members as well

[138:13]and that held for me at least um as a wish um

[138:18]um there was there was a lot of passion from all all

[138:23]the um against team and um i was a bit concerned that

[138:29]that might take away from the clarity of the um the the

[138:34]the actual oratory um so what i would like is for you

[138:38]to engage with clarity um more sort of objectively like your research

[138:45]was very objective and broad it you know it just could come

[138:52]across um more objectively um suffer moving on to suffer you engaged

[138:57]passionately and you spoke um especially at the free-for-all and you have

[139:03]a wealth of experience with different languages and as we see different

[139:09]cultures and we made the distinction throughout the debate between the two

[139:14]but also how they tied up the you had researched exceedingly well

[139:20]the quran uh those ayats were coming out as a you know

[139:26]a stream it wasn't just a stream it was a welling a

[139:29]river of ayats um so the breath was there but perhaps i

[139:36]would have um enjoyed the depth of each i had more or

[139:38]perhaps fewer ayats but with more depth um so that the arguments

[139:43]could be tied together better uh rather than sort of as the

[139:48]i have also found this other literature so to tie it in

[139:53]with the argument um muhammad taki um is that right muhammad turkey

[140:02]oh can somebody plug me in please um you made good eye

[140:07]contact your rebuttal was uh direct um i can't read my writing

[140:17]now uh oh yes it was directly linked to the central argument

[140:19]so that was excellent work um and your your animation was uh

[140:27]excellent um but i felt maybe the you could develop your confidence

[140:34]in uh approaching a broader uh having a broader outlook so talking

[140:38]to a broader audience so being more aware of who your audience

[140:43]is and not limiting it to for example you know this this

[140:47]youtube might be seen by other other people who don't come from

[140:50]the same cultural background so i think that um would help you

[140:57]generally in life as well zahra we all agreed that you were

[141:04]passionate you were very clear secretly we thought you beat muhammad abbas

[141:11]but for the sake of this debate we shall say that you

[141:17]had very good rebuttal separate supported by excellent research and plentiful of

[141:22]it you focused well on the definitions of mother tongue which throughout

[141:27]the debate were changing from uh for and against speakers and even

[141:32]within the against team um no within the four team the against

[141:37]team held fast to what the signposting that musadik had done so

[141:41]basically you did a good summing up of both teams views and

[141:45]both sets of points raised and yeah that was excellent it was

[141:52]an excellent person to end the the fantastic debate with and it

[141:59]was a really really lovely enjoyable um after uh evening so thank

[142:04]you all very much you all did exceedingly well bless you all

[142:08]and i'll hand over i think now to show your uncle please

[142:13][Music] my dear speakers and the audience and the moderators and my

[142:28]court judges masha allah it's been an amazing it's amazing how the

[142:32]fast time flies when you are actually listening to very passionate and

[142:38]articulated um arguments uh in this um sensational um debate that we

[142:49]have all enjoyed this afternoon um i without much ado um will

[142:53]first announce the results um and masha allah masha allah the motion

[143:02]that said that mother the mother thing has no future has won

[143:12]with 314 points scored as uh opposed to the motion against um

[143:24]the score was 288 so the winning team um had 26 exceeded

[143:34]by 26 points um and um i congratulate you all and that

[143:40]the mother tongue has no future okay so this uh this proves

[143:47]that possibly it has no future and and much more debate uh

[143:54]more debates and need to be held in different uh aspects because

[143:59]you couldn't you we cannot do justice in one evening uh on

[144:02]such an important topic um which has a considerable profundity uh and

[144:11]it does need uh to be discussed more um in in depth

[144:19]because the the language the means of communicating the means of salvation

[144:25]the means of um one's life or the influence that if each

[144:32]one of you tried to convince us it really begins in the

[144:38]mother's womb i heard a lot about the mother's sickness the morning

[144:42]sickness sorry bigger bottom but no one talked about the thought process

[144:46]which uh commences as soon as the embryo is formed in in

[144:52]in in the mother's mother's womb and i don't know which language

[145:00]would you be talking to a child at that stage in the

[145:05]development of the embryo however i i would suggest that we stop

[145:11]at that and i would recite three salawats for all the speakers

[145:16]really they were amazing i must say they were amazing it was

[145:20]hard but the results and we did spend a lot of time

[145:27]and we we never conferred in the sense never influenced each other

[145:29]and and and the impartiality was amazing okay so so that's that's

[145:36]where we are so threesome somewhats please for the winning team and

[145:39]all the speakers [Music] i'm truly honored thank you so much and

[145:53]masha'allah and such that you've done an amazing amazing job in organizing

[146:02]this debate and it takes a lot to reach at this point

[146:04]may i may i wish you all the very best in the

[146:09]future inshallah thank you so much thank you very much uncle shabir

[146:14]sabha auntie and amir um i know it wasn't an easy task

[146:17]and i want to just reiterate what shabiran of course said that

[146:22]you know a huge congratulations not only to the winning team but

[146:26]you know both teams for your hard work um now we have

[146:30]the results from paul two and uh and they say that having

[146:43]tuned into the debate do you think the mother tongue has a

[146:48]future so initially poll one showed that 85 of our audience or

[146:53]the mother tongue did have a future uh or does have a

[146:56]future and that has now shifted slightly to 70 percent so i

[147:03]think that is the work of the proposers um but really congratulations

[147:09]to both teams for a truly show-stopping performance a couple of people

[147:14]i would like to mention before we hand over um to sheikh

[147:22]fazlabas so um i'm pretty sure kadeta touched me earlier but our

[147:27]amazing tech support team the participants and brother muhammad hassan banji who

[147:32]wasn't with us today but has you know been an organizer with

[147:35]myself and today also a judge and coached the judges um so

[147:41]you know we really missed him here today but uh we're hoping

[147:46]he can catch the debate on youtube also uh when we spoke

[147:50]about samurai anti being on the um you know burial committee i

[147:56]i you know would also like to reiterate or actually sorry i

[148:02]i never brought it up but we can't mention that without mentioning

[148:05]the other our other partner in crime which of course is uncle

[148:12]hamid who we saw earlier and really he served the people of

[148:16]this jamaat both during their life and during their death and i

[148:18]wonder if that's what gives him his unique sense of humor and

[148:22]i would now like to pass on to sheikh fazlabas to say

[148:26]a few words and share the results of the best speaker today

[148:40]the temperature was being forecast to be 17 degrees by the port

[148:47]smart weather forecasters but as they have been sitting in my office

[148:52]over here and following the debate i just noticed that the temperature

[148:58]has really shot high the mercury has gone high and then i

[149:03]try to understand what is it that is happening is none other

[149:06]than the present both from the proposing side and the opposing side

[149:11]who have really raised the temperature so mini i must say that

[149:19]this afternoon you have indeed given us a very high standard of

[149:24]presentation the points which you put both for the motion and against

[149:27]the motion who are really indeed thought provoking to such an extent

[149:31]that we can see and relate them to our own personal lives

[149:35]and bringing it down to the needs of our secured community as

[149:41]such so for all these which you have put in your time

[149:43]to be able to prepare and be able to present this in

[149:47]the community over here i would like to express heart failure heartiest

[149:52]appreciation and commendation for very diligently being able to put up this

[149:57]wonderful presentation and raising up the temperature what i ask you now

[150:03]is do not lower this temperature please try your best to continue

[150:09]increasing this temperature of conversation within the community why do i say

[150:16]that i say that bearing in mind that u.s participants had no

[150:19]choice as to which part of the house they are going to

[150:24]support the motion as such the views which you presented were basically

[150:27]your own way of being able to see that you achieve or

[150:32]score the highest points as such but however the reflection points which

[150:36]are given especially by murabi hashtag and together with the very nice

[150:44]subtle messages given by brother hamid sami are points which we need

[150:50]to take forward for maintaining the temperature for discussion for we as

[150:58]a research chamat we have young community for our demographic shows us

[151:03]that we have parents who are young in that age as such

[151:07]and many a times in our intention of getting the best for

[151:10]our children we perhaps might not be looking at the blind spots

[151:15]in getting the best for our children as such so within this

[151:19]time with the true reflection given by asia stand by walgy over

[151:25]the period of generations over three generations with evidence for those young

[151:31]parents in the other side of the pond wishing that they would

[151:34]have been able to communicate is a message for us to reflect

[151:38]so i would urge you please keep on the temperature for conversation

[151:42]and discussion and the other point is for us to think about

[151:45]it that the way has standby said that with the language comes

[151:49]with it its own values of the hazeeb and ag and bear

[151:55]in mind it's not specific with gujarati but i can personally tell

[151:58]you that being a speaker of arabic being a speaker of farsi

[152:03]and being a speaker also of ki swahili and gujarati and kachi

[152:07]i can tell you that which these other languages are able to

[152:10]bring give to us can never ever be able to be brought

[152:14]about into the language of our communication in our interaction with english

[152:23]language today as such so inshallah having given these few points for

[152:26]reflection i would now like to also acknowledge appreciation to the three

[152:31]judges led by shabir bhai iwaji sabira by nancy and my dear

[152:38]young brother amir nasser thank you very much i mentioned last time

[152:47]also i do not envy the position in which you are being

[152:52]there thank you very much please accept this a deep message of

[152:55]gratitude from the depth of my hearts with the way you have

[152:59]really focused in being able to educate in this debate and at

[153:05]the same time in being able to give them that wonderful feedback

[153:08]on the lighter note amir you really spoke well about muhammad abbas

[153:15]jafar giving him that feedback especially regarding oratory but i can tell

[153:20]you he is more than what you saw him today it's just

[153:23]that iman and he burns by nothing much analytics was this i

[153:31]was mentioning to you get somebody to translate this in in english

[153:37]or okay for you what i mentioned was that muhammad was definitely

[153:44]is more turbocharged than what you saw him today the only reason

[153:47]he did not show you his real performance is because out of

[153:52]respect for his siblings are on the opposite team as such so

[153:55]that's just a lie to note to try and practice my gujarati

[153:58]for today so thank you very much the judges my rewards you

[154:05]for having taken this very challenging task insha allah with increased barakah

[154:11]and with a lot of success in your various endeavors insha allah

[154:15]to all the participants on both sides of the house for you

[154:22]and your families insha allah may allah and please do continue keeping

[154:29]up the heat for this conversation within our community at resection allah

[154:34]congratulations for the team which has won today's debate and that is

[154:40]the one which was supporting the motion as to this house believes

[154:46]that the mother tongue has no future so please get in some

[154:53]more of the koraki the more of the food and prepare yourselves

[154:57]for the knockout in the final round in sha allah wishing you

[155:01]all the best and success over there now it gives me great

[155:04]pleasure to be able to now announce the results of the best

[155:10]speaker according to the poll over here and then sabirah assad by

[155:13]mention that the best speaker to be able to get a better

[155:18]meaning was for you or the audience to fall as the speaker

[155:21]who was most impactful in that team with regards to the motion

[155:28]as such so it gives me great pleasure to announce that uh

[155:33]on the proposing team with the best speaker that has been pulled

[155:41]is fatima by hamir and on the opposing team the audience have

[155:47]polled in majority to propose the name of the best speaker on

[155:52]the opposing team to be zahrabai jaffar ismail congratulations to fatima hameer

[156:00]and zahraba jaffar ismail wonderful capital and finally last but not least

[156:07]sajida sajidabai muhammadasan banji and khudeja tamiya sarukam kari rayacho bo wajimenas

[156:14]karirayacho you indeed are doing a wonderful job you are putting in

[156:20]a lot of efforts into and truly this is an indication of

[156:32]the amount of devotion and loyalty which you have towards the community

[156:38]this for you is very good [Music] and i am advising you

[156:52]continue putting in efforts towards service for the community for this is

[156:56]what is preparing for the ummah of imam of our time sahiba

[157:04]zaman s we have about four minutes until salat i'm three and

[157:21]a half so if you want to stay on just for two

[157:24]minutes to uh greet one another please do and then stellar time

[157:30]is at 9 15 p.m in ports in there are we offline

[157:42]i like

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