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Finex Ndhlovu
Language, Vernacular Discourse
and Nationalisms
 Finex Ndhlovu

Language,
Vernacular Discourse
and Nationalisms
Uncovering the Myths of
Transnational Worlds
Finex Ndhlovu
Linguistics
University of New England
Armidale, NSW, Australia

ISBN 978-3-319-76134-3 ISBN 978-3-319-76135-0 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76135-0

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 In memory of my father and hero, James Mabhuku Ndhlovu-Mhaso
(1896–1994). Although you did not get the opportunity to receive modern
education, you nevertheless understood its transformative power and the
promises it holds for a better society. All the toil and personal sacrifices you
made to ensure I receive a good education did pay off. You must be smiling
wherever you are right now.
Izinkomo zakho kazihambelanga ize Babamkhulu.
 Preface

The roots of this book lie in three stories about my personal encounter
with how perceived identities of non-desired ‘Others’ are imagined and
constructed in everyday casual conversations. The first story is this. A
few years ago, I visited my aunt, umalumekazi (the wife of my moth-
er’s late brother). She had just lost one of her daughters, so I had gone
there to extend my condolences. My aunt and I then spoke about sev-
eral issues, one of which was about her other children who were not
at home at the time. As I had not met them for a long time, I asked
curiously about the whereabouts of all my cousins, including four boys,
one of whom had been with me in primary school several years back.
She told me about the whereabouts of three of her boys—two were
in South Africa, and the other one was said to be in the local city of
Bulawayo. The only boy she skipped mentioning was the one I went to
school with. So, I reminded my aunt that she had not told me where
my primary school classmate was. She looked at me with a smile and
said in the Ndebele language ‘Ah! Ungatshona ubuza lowo? Angithi lowo
usenguPhiri!’ (Ah! Why would you bother asking about that one? Isn’t
he now a Mr. Phiri!) I could not understand why my aunt called her

vii
viii   Preface

son ‘Phiri’—because this was not his real name. She explained further,
followed by a somewhat sarcastic laughter: ‘Ukhonapha eHarare kodwa
uvele kasalugxobi ekhaya. Yikho nje ngisithi usenguPhiri’ (He is right here
in Harare, but he never sets his foot home anymore. This is why I said
he is now a Mr. Phiri!) We both laughed about it.
The surname ‘Phiri’ is common in Malawi and Zambia, and most
people who migrated to Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) in the 1950s to
take on menial jobs on farms and in mines used this surname. Because
they never had rural homes in Zimbabwe, most such people stayed at
the mine and farm compounds and city townships, even during the fes-
tive holidays, such as Christmas, when locals often travel to their rural
homes to catch up with family and friends. The surname Phiri, then,
became a derogatory label or identity marker, not only for people orig-
inally from Zambia and Malawi, but also for local Zimbabwean people
who, upon gaining employment in the cities, chose to stay there and
lost ties with their rural roots. It was precisely why my aunt called her
son ‘Mr. Phiri’; he had stopped coming home several years ago.
The second story happened sometime in 2011 when I visited
my elder brother’s daughters who live in Harare, the capital city of
Zimbabwe. They are both married—the older sister resides in the sub-
urb of Kuwadzana and the younger in Kambuzuma. They, however,
always have regular contact with each other at community events such
as church services, weddings and funeral vigils. So, on my visit in 2011,
I went to Kuwadzana where efforts were made to call the younger sister
to come over and greet me as I had not met her in a very long time. Her
mobile phone kept on going straight to voicemail, prompting the elder
sister to try and figure out what the problem could have been. Speaking
in the local Ndebele language, she provided the following explanation
for why her younger sister’s mobile phone was not being answered:

USazini ube elele emfeni eKambuzuma. Angabe etshontshelwe ifoni yakhe

ngoba eKambuzuma kugcwele amaNyasarandi.
(Sazini spent last night at a funeral vigil in Kambuzuma. Her mobile
phone might have been stolen while she was there because there are a lot
of maNyasarandi people in Kambuzuma).
 Preface   ix

Like in the first story, the so-called maNyasarandi in question are

descendants of black African migrants from Zambia and Malawi who
came to Zimbabwe in the mid-1900s. The name maNyasarandi is a
local rendition of Nyasaland, the colonial name of the present-day
country of Malawi. All Zimbabweans who trace their roots to either
Malawi or Zambia are derogatorily labelled as maNyasarandi up to this
day. Regardless of whether they were born in Zimbabwe or not and of
whether they are Zimbabwean citizens by naturalisation or by birth,
such people are perceived as foreigners who are associated with all sorts
of negative things such as petty thieving, pick pocketing, being uncul-
tured and having lack of understanding and respect for local traditions
and customs. It was for this reason that Sazini’s failure to answer her
phone was said to have been possibly as a result of the phone being sto-
len by maNyasarandi who were suspected to have been at the funeral
vigil as most of them live in the suburb of Kambuzuma. Three questions
are prompted by this story. Why is it that all Zimbabweans of Malawian
and Zambian origin are perceived as foreigners, outsiders, strangers and
non-desired ‘Others’? How do entire communities of people, some born
and raised in Zimbabwe (and have never set foot in either Malawi or
Zambia) become associated with petty criminal activities? What is the
effect of the languages used in the discursive construction of the iden-
tities and character traits of the descendants of black African migrants
who arrived in colonial Zimbabwe in the mid-1900s?
The third and most recent story happened in Pretoria, South Africa,
where I spent six months as a visiting research professor at the Archie
Mafeje Research Institute, University of South Africa. I arrived in
Pretoria on 30 June 2015 and stayed at Protea Hotel for two weeks
while looking for long-term accommodation. During my stay at
the hotel, I interacted with lots of people I had met for the first time
although I struggled with language as most of them spoke either
Setswana or Sepedi. However, on one lucky day I bumped onto a young
lady who spoke isiXhosa, which is one of the languages that I can speak
very well. At the start of the conversation, I spoke with her in English
thinking that she also spoke either Setswana or Sepedi that I could not
x   Preface

speak very well. As the conversation progressed, it came to light that she
was in a similar situation as me because she couldn’t speak or under-
stand the two local languages. When I asked her whether she could
speak either Setswana or Sepedi, she replied with a rather sarcastic tone
expressing her frustration about being perceived as a foreigner by the
majority of people in Pretoria. This is what she said: ‘No, I don’t speak
any of these languages and I don’t want to speak them because these people
think that we are foreigners when in fact, we are all South Africans.’ The
question here is: How does a black South African person get labelled
as a foreigner by fellow black South Africans? In what ways do the
myths of foreignness, belonging and indigeneity both defy and coincide
with normatively defined nation-state-centric identity imaginings? Is it
still tenable to frame notions of belonging on language-based identity
imaginings inherited from colonial and apartheid social engineering
policies of separate existence and development of each people?
Together, these three stories sowed the seeds that got me thinking
about the ways we talk about each other, and the cultural and politi-
cal discourses we use to describe others. As stories such as these gain
resonance beyond the micro-social settings of local communities and
get expressed and acted upon at national and international levels, their
effects become even more pervasive. I thought of the role of ‘small talk’
in shaping popular thinking about what it means to be an insider or
an outsider in the context of the well-known migration histories across
current national borders. The identity question and the associated
meanings of belonging are even more complex when identity markers
normally reserved for foreigners are sarcastically used to describe locals
who would have transgressed local traditional norms and expectations
about what it means to belong and behave—like an indigene and not
like a foreigner—or those who happen to speak a different language.
Language, Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms extends these three
stories and uses them as an entry point in reading new meanings into
contemporary identity debates and imaginings at a global scale. The
book addresses key issues and cross-cutting themes around the evolu-
tion of discursive practices, identity narratives and vocabularies of race,
culture, ethnicity and belonging that tend to be framed in ways that
 Preface   xi

contradict popular assumptions about the existence of a transnational

world. It brings to the limelight the social construction of national
identity, which is often seen as a product of political processes. The
argument is that the focus on the political has led to the marginalisation
of the social side of national identity construction.

Armidale, Australia Finex Ndhlovu

 Acknowledgements

The genealogy of my academic interest in language and society ­studies

is relatively short, spanning a period of just over two decades. It was
in the early days of my academic career when, as an undergraduate
student in the Department of African Languages and Literature at the
University of Zimbabwe, I got inspired by professors who taught a
unit that was vaguely titled ‘Language in Social Context’. This was an
elective unit that was not very popular with most fellow students in my
class. However, I found the unit quite fascinating as it was markedly
different from what seemed to be a dry, boring, uninspiring and con-
fusing study of theoretical linguistics—phonetics and phonology, X-bar
theory and so on. In this elective unit, I was introduced for the very
first time to the social, cultural and political dimensions of language
that spoke directly to my experiences with the workings of languages in
education and in society writ large. I still remember very well a l­ecture
on language policy and planning by Prof. Herbert Chimhundu that was
to be the genesis of my long-standing interest in sociolinguistics. To
Prof. Chimhundu, I say thank you so much for being such an inspiring
university teacher because the motivation I got from that one lecture
you gave in the Llewellyn Lecture Theatre became the foundation on

xiii
xiv   Acknowledgements

which I have built my academic career. In those early days, I also had
the good fortune of being taught introductory sociolinguistics by Prof.
Juliet Thondhlana. To Juliet, I also say thank you for those passionate
and well-articulated lectures that still linger vividly in my memory.
In the years that followed my completion of Honours and postgrad-
uate studies, I was appointed to the academic position of lecturer in the
Department of African Languages and Culture at the Midlands State
University (MSU). It was at MSU that my budding academic interests
in language and society studies blossomed as I taught sociolinguistics
units in both the B.A. Honours and B.A. General Degree programmes.
To all my former colleagues and students at MSU, I say thank you for
your collegiality and the challenging questions that we debated together.
Starting from 2005 to the present and, being based in Australia, I have
received tremendous support and mentoring from many senior aca-
demic colleagues: first while at Monash University (where I did my
Ph.D.), then at Victoria University (where I was a postdoctoral research
fellow for three years) and presently at the University of New England
(where I now hold a senior academic position). I am exceedingly grate-
ful to all three institutions for their various research grant schemes and
other forms of academic support that have facilitated the flourishing
of my academic work in language and society studies. To Dr. Sophia
Waters and all my past and current Ph.D. students, thank you for
always asking me about my next book even before the one I am work-
ing on is not yet out. I am especially grateful to the following former
Ph.D. students of mine for challenging my thinking around the issues
discussed in this book: Dr. Thoai Ton, Dr. Jesta Masuku, Dr. Sura Alani
and Dr. Arvind Vijaykumar Iyengar.
To Prof. Lewis Bizo, Head of the School of Behavioural, Cognitive
and Social Sciences at the University of New England, and Assoc. Prof.
Debra Dunstan, Deputy Head of the same School, I say thank you
so much for all your support and encouragement. You both very gen-
erously supported my request to spend four months at the Graduate
Center, City University of New York (CUNY), which enabled me to
finalise the manuscript for this book. I also extend my sincere grati-
tude to the Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC) Program at the
CUNY Graduate Center for appointing me to the esteemed position of
 Acknowledgements   xv

Distinguished Visiting Professor. This was an excellent opportunity that

provided a vibrant and collegial intellectual environment that enriched
my research and finalisation of the book manuscript. The office space
with a computer and access to the CUNY intranet and other facili-
ties were invaluable. I would like to thank in particular, Kay Powell
(ARC Fellowship Program Manager), Profs. Don Robothan (Director
of the ARC Fellowship Program), Ofelia García, Tatyna Kleyn, Leketi
Makalela and all other ARC faculty and student fellows for all your sup-
port and the opportunity to network and exchange research ideas.
To my daughter Andiswa, thank you for accompanying me to New
York. It was such a great joy to have you take some time off your main
business of ‘exploring New York City’ and attend seminars with me.
And to the rest of my family—Thembi, Sindiso, Thandi, Zoe and Mylo
(our kelpie who thinks he is human)—I say thank you all for under-
standing that I had to be away from home researching and writing this
book. I hope you will find satisfaction in the pages that follow.
Two of the chapters in this book are greatly revised versions of my
journal articles. I am, therefore, thankful to Taylor and Francis for per-
mission to use the following chapters: Chapter 2 ‘Emergent Political
Languages, Nation Building and Social Cohesion’ (a revised version of
Ndhlovu 2017a) and Chapter 6 ‘Alternative Language of Development
and Economic Empowerment’ (a revised version of Ndhlovu 2017b).
Last but not least, I extend my gratitude to Beth Farrow and the
Production team at Palgrave Macmillan for a job well done.

References
Ndhlovu, F. (2017a). Vernacular Discourse, Emergent Political Languages
and Belonging in Southern Africa. Africa Review, 10(1). [Online version]
https://doi.org/10.1080/09744053.2017.1401783.
Ndhlovu, F. (2017b). Southern Development Discourse for Southern Africa:
Linguistic and Cultural Imperatives. Journal of Multicultural Discourses,
12(2), 89–109.
 Contents

Part I Setting the Scene

1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates 3

2 Emergent Political Languages, Nation Building, Social

Cohesion 41

Part II Language, Vernacular Discourse, Narrow Nationalisms

3 Language Policy, Vernacular Discourse, Empire Building 65

4 Language, Mobility, People 105

Part III Citizenship, Indigeneity, Economic Empowerment

5 Chimurengas, Indigenisation, Black Economic

Empowerment 135

xvii
xviii   Contents

6 Alternative Language of Development and Economic

Empowerment 207

Part IV Migration, Borders, Exclusion

7 Migration, Integration Discourse, Exclusion 243

8 Australia’s Operation Sovereign Borders—A World

Without Others? 291

Part V Conclusion

9 Conclusion—Transnationalism or Resurgent Narrow

Nationalisms? 339

Bibiliography 351

Index 377
 Abbreviations and Acronyms

ABC Australian Broadcasting Services

ACALAN African Academy of Languages
ACCESS Australian Assessment of Communicative English Skills
ACPEA Australian Council on Ethnic and Population Affairs
ALRI African Languages Research Institute
ANC African National Congress
AU African Union
B-BBEE Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment
CDA Critical Discourse Analysis
CLaRA Communal Land Rights Act
COMESA Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa
CPDA Critical Political Discourse Analysis
DACST Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology
DIEA Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs
DRC Democratic Republic of Congo
ELICOS English Language Intensive Course for Overseas Students
ESAP Economic Structural Adjustment Programme
ESB English Speaking Background
ESL English as a Second Language
EU European Union
FET Further Education and Training

xix
xx   Abbreviations and Acronyms

FTLR Fast Track Land Reform Programme

IMF International Monetary Fund
IRA Immigration Restriction Act
KKK Ku Klux Klan
MDC Movement for Democratic Change
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
NCPZ National Cultural Policy of Zimbabwe
NESB Non-English Speaking Background
NLPAP National Language Policy Advisory Panel
OAU Organisation of African Unity
OREs Occupations Requiring English
OSB Operation Sovereign Borders
PF-ZAPU Patriotic Front-Zimbabwe African People’s Union
PRC People’s Republic of China
SADC Southern African Development Community
SAIRR South African Institute of Race Relations
SBS Special Broadcasting Services
SIEVs Suspected Illegal Entry Vessels
STEP Special Test of English Proficiency
TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
TPVs Temporary Protection Visas
UK United Kingdom
UKIP United Kingdom Independence Party
UN United Nations
UNESCO United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
USA United States of America
VCBLs Vehicular Cross-border Languages
WB World Bank
ZANU PF Zimbabwe African Nationalist Union Patriotic Front
ZTV Zimbabwe Television
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 Statistics on education, literacy and employment

in South Africa 44
Table 6.1 Cross-border languages of Southern Africa
(Adapted from Elugbe 1998) 228

xxi
 Part I
Setting the Scene
 1
Introduction—Theories,
Concepts, Debates

The things that we supposedly know so foundationally about national

identities, national borders, citizenship, parameters of belonging and
entitlement to social and economic benefits of the welfare state, trans-
nationalism and associated meta-languages are not as straightforward
as they seem to be. We are told and believe that the world has become
more and more transnational and interconnected than ever before. We
are also told that societies have become superdiverse—that suppos-
edly unprecedented and unpredictable form of diversity that is per-
ceived to be an outflow of contemporary trends in migration where
people are moving from many places, to many places, through many
places (Vertovec 2007). But in the midst of all this are deep-seated sen-
timents—loud and muted, formal and informal—for narrow, paro-
chial, inward-looking, autochthonous and nation-state-centric narratives
and imaginings of identity and belonging. How do we explain the ten-
sions and contradictions that emerge out of this situation? Language,
Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms seeks to address this and many
other related questions. It examines linguistic and discursive elements
of social and economic policies and national political leader statements
as an entry point in reading new meanings into current topical debates
on border protection, national sovereignty, immigration, economic
© The Author(s) 2018 3
F. Ndhlovu, Language, Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76135-0_1
4   F. Ndhlovu

indigenisation, land reform and black economic empowerment. The

book is a critique of resurgent nationalism-speak that mediates social
and economic policy debates in a world that is otherwise considered to
be transnational and interconnected. It tells the story of tensions and
contradictions between formal policy enunciations on transnation-
alism on the one hand and vernacular expressions of the same on the
other, as they are articulated at the level of the nation-state. The book
adopts the novel yet rarely used vernacular discourse approach to con-
tribute new points of method and interpretation that help us see what
we couldn’t—or wouldn’t—see before in scholarly conversations on
nationalisms, transnationalism and other forms of identity imaginings
in a transient world. The framework of vernacular discourse is leveraged
to unpack and understand political communication in the reproduction
of political power, or domination through political discourse, including
the various forms of resistance or counter-power against such forms of
discursive dominance. In particular, the analysis deals with the discur-
sive conditions and consequences of social and political inequality that
result from the strategic use of language by political elites, bureaucrats
and other political actors, both state and non-state. Case studies include
Australia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, with some passing remarks on
other comparable countries around the world.
Since the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 to end the thir-
ty-year war among major European continental states—Holy Roman
Empire, Spain, France, Sweden and the Dutch Republic—the modern
world system has largely been a world of sovereign nation-states. The
nation-state remains as the most enduring instrument of social and
political closure. In the midst of other emerging units of analysis that
are much bigger and broader, such as regionalism, globalisation and
transnationalism, the nation-state appears to have mutated and taken
new forms that are different from what obtained during the golden age
of nationalism (1950s–1960s). During the golden age of nationalism,
recognition of autonomous nation-states was a major rallying point
for anti-colonial nationalist liberation movements in Africa, Asia and
other regions of the Global South. The nationalist movements were
pushing for political independence and self-determination in those ter-
ritories that were still under European colonial occupation. However,
 1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates    
5

while the nation-state could have been rightfully typified as a container

in the 1950s–1960s, its present-day iteration sits rather uneasily within
a world system that is now largely governed by the dictates of greater
social, political, economic and cultural cooperation that are somewhat
transnational in outlook. The nation-state is now under immense pres-
sure both from below and from above. From below, the hegemony of
the nation-state is being challenged by the increasing discontent and
dissention of minority groups while forces of globalisation and trans-
national human population movements constitute a potent threat from
above. It suffices to say notwithstanding these challenges posed by both
local and translocal developments that are tied to forces of transnation-
alism and globalisation, the political significance of the nation-state
seems to still remain relevant—but with its borders reconfigured, taking
at least the following three forms.
First, nation-states retain clearly delineated physical borders that
demarcate parameters of territorial rule, sovereignty, monopoly on the
use of force and ‘collectivisation of social risks by means of a state-­
sponsored welfare system’ (Mau 2012: 7). This iteration of the nation-
state does not depart that much from the foundational characteristic
of the nation as ‘container’. The second mutation of the contemporary
nation-state is one that relies heavily on citizenship as an instrument of
social closure. This is not about whether one resides within or without
the clearly demarcated physical borders of the nation-state. Rather, it
has more to do with what Halfmann (1998, cited in Mau 2012: 8) calls
the ‘civil inclusionary exclusivity’ acquired by the nation-state. This is
about how the nation-state is still able to control the inclusion—and
by extension, the exclusion—of people in various functional systems.
Regardless of their close connection to the geographical space known
as the nation-state, diverse groups of people can be treated differently
according to whether they are citizens or not. In this context ‘special
rules [may] apply to those persons not citizens of the state in which they
live, rules that regulate the length and status of residence as well as the
rights associated with their residence’ (Mau 2012: 8).
Third, the nation-state remains in symbolic and performative terms
that reflect what some scholars have described as ‘vanishing borders’
and ‘borderless’ or ‘seamless’ worlds (French 2000; Krugman and
6   F. Ndhlovu

Venables 1995; Ohmae 1990). In other words, the prime markers of

belonging to a particular nation-state now have less to do with the phys-
ically bounded container territory and more to do with the symbolic—
the national identity documents we carry, the national cuisine that we
believe defines us, the national dress code that we associate with, the
national day(s) we celebrate and so on. This is about nationalisms of the
mind whereby the idea of belonging to a particular nation-state thrives
in the hearts and minds of individuals and groups alike—regardless
of where those groups and individuals reside physically. Their loyalties
and allegiances are to the nation-state inscribed in their minds, and
the way they are treated by the governing authorities of other nation-
states is largely determined by the travel and identity documents they
carry. So, in the era in which ‘more people are now moving from more
places, through more places, to more places’ (Vertovec 2010: 86), the
nation-state has assumed a different kind of a container—one where
temporalities of closure, inclusion and exclusion coexist within highly
mobile individuals. In other words, though we may not necessarily be
physically located in the nation-states of our citizenship or nationality,
those nation-states still play a significant role in how we live our lives
because we carry them wherever we go. Thus, in its decentralised form,
the nation-state ‘crosses nation-state boundaries, penetrates and is real-
ised in the daily activities of people’ (Albrow 1996: 172).
What is of greater significance here is that in all three reconfigu-
rations, nation-states still retain a double process of closure. That is,
nation-states continue to be characterised by closure of the geographic
space through border controls and closure of the social and political
space for membership through the control of nationality, citizenship and
access to social security and other protections by the state. These two
forms of closure are mutually constitutive: on the one hand, controls of
human population movements into and from a nation-state serve as an
external casing that regulates access to territories. On the other hand,
this casing is embedded with the space of social and political member-
ship through which access to welfare services is managed (Mau 2012).
This essentially means the boundaries of the nation-state have not yet
disappeared and are most likely not going to disappear any time soon.
 1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates    
7

Today, the boundaries of the nation-state are ubiquitous, temporal and

continue to be drawn everywhere. They are no longer only physical, but
are also largely symbolic, performative and invisible and yet still remain
real with their impacts and significance felt everywhere, by all of us.
While the physical border as the only imaginary of nation-state’s sphere
of influence has to some extent receded, it still contains several attributes
of its former self. Traditional attributes of the nation-state such as auton-
omy, self-determination, territorial integrity and non-interference from
other nation-states still remain. Thus, though the previously presumed
congruence between nation-state and society is on the wane and increas-
ingly becoming unpopular, nation-states continue to have the decisive
voice about membership of societies bounded by their borders—no
matter how porous and fluid the borders might be. Nation-states are
not necessarily assuming a new role. Rather, their role has been trans-
formed, reconfigured and expanded beyond the traditional architecture
of a bounded container.

Previous Theorisations
Nearly half a century ago, John W. Barton wrote about dominant per-
spectives on the configuration of the world and implications for the
paths we follow in seeking solutions to world problems.

Which is the more representative model of the world–the world of con-

tinents, islands and states or the world of transactions? If we adopt the
nation-state we will use the language of relations between states and their
relevant power, and have one set of solutions to the problems of conflict
and world organisation. If we adopt the transaction one, we will use a
different language to describe the world society, and have a different set of
solutions to world problems. (John W. Burton 1972: 43)

Persistent changes in the phenomenology of the nation-state (that is no

longer only spatial and physical) are somewhat of a response to social,
cultural, economic and political transformations taking place in the
8   F. Ndhlovu

postmodern world system. Key among these developments are several

complex societal challenges associated with the surge in the mobility
of people, goods, services and capital within and across national bor-
ders. Consequently, we have witnessed the burgeoning of conceptual
approaches seeking to clarify previously unseen tendencies towards
ethno-nationalist and autochthonous sentiment even in those coun-
tries that are generally typified as liberal democracies. Scholars across
the humanities and social sciences have tried to capture the nature of
these unpredictable developments using various summary terms that
are now widely used in mainstream academic conversations and social
policy frameworks. Some such theoretical paradigms include notions of
globalisation, denationalisation, deterritorialisation, postnationalisation
and, more recently, transnationalisation. What unites all these explana-
tory paradigms is that they are couched in a language that betrays imag-
inings of contemporary identities as reified, inflexible and tied to the
now increasingly problematic notion of nationality (in singular terms).
In the remaining paragraphs of this section, I explicate the meanings
and applications of each of these terms as they are understood in pre-
vious research reports. I also show their omissions and blind spots in
greater detail. This is followed by a discussion on how the concept of
vernacular discourse advanced in this book departs from these main-
stream traditional theorisations in ways that take the debate into a new
and innovative direction that draws our attention to mundane everyday
small talk of both political elites and ordinary people.

Post Nationalisation

Pioneered by Yasemin Nuhoğlu Soysal, the postnational model of mem-

bership posits that in transnational or regionalised contexts ‘the rights
and the claims of individuals are legitimated by ideologies grounded in
a transnational community, through international codes, conventions
and laws on human rights, independent of their citizenship in a nation-
state’ (Soysal 1994: 142). In postnational membership, Soysal (1994)
challenges the predominant assumption, both scholarly and popular,
 1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates    
9

that the actions and decisions of the nation-state are the ultimate imper-
ative to regional and transnational engagement. Unlike the classical
model of national identity, which is anchored in territorialised notions
of cultural belonging, the postnational model is an open one that
emphasises fluid and deterritorialised modes of identity and belong-
ing. Thus, from the perspective of the postnational model, national
belonging does not mean containment within geographical confines
of the nation-state in question. Instead, it is about a geographical area
being open to multiple possibilities of trade, social networking and eco-
nomic and cultural exchanges with other players at national, regional
and international levels. Under the postnational model of membership,
the intensification and connectedness of national, regional and global
systems do not necessarily signal that nation-states are organisationally
irrelevant or that their formal sovereignty is questioned (Soysal 1994).
Rather, the point is this: nation-states remain as authorised actors that
function concurrently with regional and international structures of
organising membership, participation and rules of social, cultural, eco-
nomic and political engagement.
Overall, the notion of post nationalism constitutes the foundation
for subsequent theorisations about the present world system whereby
the notion of the nation-state as container is challenged. The usefulness
of seeing the nation-state as the unit of social and political analysis is
problematised because, as Anthony Giddens (1990) observed, virtually
no pre-modern societies were clearly bounded as modern nation-states.
The proliferation of transboundary dynamics and formation has meant
that the thesis on the nation as container category is now untenable and
inadequate—both conceptually and methodologically (Taylor 1996;
Sassen 2003). This means the popular habit of seeing the world through
the lenses of the nation-state is flawed due to the coalescence of mul-
tiple structurations of the global and the local inside a space that has
historically been understood as the national. While nation-state as con-
tainers are thick-walled with their societies perceived as relatively homo-
geneous and isolated from each other (Mau 2012: 7), the reality that
obtains in the atoms of society is quite different.
10   F. Ndhlovu

Globalisation

The term globalisation is among the most mundane concepts that

have come to be associated with the twenty-first-century world system.
Though there are numerable competing interpretations and understand-
ings of how far back we should go in tracing the roots of ‘globalisation’,
there is general consensus on the impact it has in the way we live our
lives today. One thing worth noting from the onset is the root of the
word ‘globalisation’, which derives from ‘global’, thus referring to some-
thing ‘concerned with the whole world, something related to, covering
or influencing the world taken as a whole’ (Elden 2005: 9). A generally
accepted understanding of this concept is one provided by Held et al.
(1999: 16) who define globalisation as a:

Process (or set of processes) which embodies a transformation in the spa-

tial organisation of social relations and transactions – assessed in terms of
extensity, intensity, velocity and impact – generating transcontinental or
interregional flows and networks of activity, interaction, and the exercise
of power.

Steffen Mau (2012) simplifies this somewhat loaded definition by relat-

ing the notion of globalisation to the declining significance and influ-
ence of the nation-state as a unit of social and political analysis. He
characterises globalisation as ‘worldwide process of economic, social,
and cultural internationalisation that dilutes the significance of nation-
state borders and [that] leads to an (almost unlimited) expansion of
spaces of action’ (p. 11). Mau cites the work of Albrow (1996) to elab-
orate this definition even further: ‘globalisation is the process whereby
the population of the world is increasingly bound into a single society’
(Mau 2012: 11). For Saskia Sassen (2003), the term globalisation cap-
tures two distinct sets of dynamics. The first involves the formation of
explicitly global institutions and processes—World Trade Organisation,
World Bank, International Monetary Fund, War Crimes Tribunals and
so on. The second is a set of local processes that does not necessarily
scale at the global level as such but still constitutes part of globalisa-
tion. Some such processes include localised national, subnational and
 1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates    
11

regional cross-border social and economic networks and activities ‘with

an explicit or implicit global agenda, as is the case with many human
rights and environmental organisations’ (Sassen 2003: 2). This is essen-
tially about practices that constitute the global and yet are taking place
at a level that is traditionally conceived as the domain of the national
scale.
Amin (1997: 133) interprets globalisation in relational terms as
‘the interdependence and intermingling of global, distant and local
layers, resulting in the greater hybridisation and perforation of social,
economic and political life’. This suggests the rise of what Krükan
and Drori (2009) call a ‘world society’. The notion of ‘world society’
is shorthand for how Western principles and habits of modernity are
exported to the rest of the world through processes that normatively
replicate corresponding standardisations of cultural practices, values,
economic models, institutions and so on. In short, when taken on its
face value, globalisation is about the emergence of a new world order
that is characterised by equality among all—with shared cultural ­values,
dreams, visions and aspirations about how to live life and live it well.
But a critical look at this concept would indicate that this idealistic
notion of globalisation does, in fact, hide a lot more than it reveals.
The rather uncritical and almost cultic embrace of the concept of
‘globalisation’ and its associated metalanguage of ‘global village’ is prob-
lematic and untenable. Some crucial questions remain unanswered: As
every village has a village head, who is the head of the global village?
And, as every village has a language for conducting its affairs, which lan-
guage is the language of the global village? Any person who grew up or
lived in a village for a reasonable amount of time will know that not
all villages—whether big or small—are democratic and inclusive of the
views of all members of the village community. Most village heads are
never democratic as they often rule with an iron fist usually surrounded
by an equally autocratic palaver of mostly male securocrats. This way of
running the affairs of the village is deliberately designed to give a sem-
blance of rule by consensus while simultaneously concealing the author-
itarian nature of the village system (Ndhlovu 2014). Furthermore, while
every local village might have several languages, it is often the case that
the language of the village head and those within the inner circle of the
12   F. Ndhlovu

political establishment is the one that is the medium for conducting

official business of the village. Tariq Ramadan (2011) has weighed in on
the hypocrisy of the village metaphor:

The global world is a village, they say, yet this village currently appears to
be populated by heedless villagers who ignore their own identity as much
as the identity of their neighbours. Instead of a confident celebration of
our riches, such a situation can only lead to timid, fearful, latent conflicts.
(Ramadan 2011: 20)

Ramadan extends his argument further, noting that ‘life in the ‘global
village’, which is increasingly marked by individualism, has even led
us to doubt that there remain any traces of philosophy behind the cal-
culation of our drives for power and of our respective interests’ (ibid.,
p. 21). The significant point here is that the discourses and metaphors
that underpin the notion of globalisation (and other postmodernist the-
oretical frameworks) are fraught with numerous inadequacies. The idea
that the global world is some kind of a village gives the false impres-
sion that villages are populated by fully engaged villagers who actively
participate in the everyday affairs of their village and who do so in the
interests of their fellow villagers. As Ramadan (2011) clearly argues, this
is simply not true; the majority of people in small local villages (and
by extension members of the global village) are passive, disengaged,
non-proactive and above all driven by self-interest in whatever they do.
Both the local and global villages are also spaces dominated and con-
trolled by a few hegemonic elite who propagate and cultivate normative
linguistic and cultural values that are subsequently imposed on every
other member of the village under the guise of universalism and/or
social cohesion. Therefore, by drawing on the metaphor of the village to
describe issues of culture and identity in contemporary society, the con-
cept of globalisation gives a false sense of equality among world cultures
and a misleading impression that all cultures and identities are recog-
nised as integral part of the so-called global village. What the champi-
ons of globalisation fail to reveal is the fact that beneath this thin veneer
of horizontal global cultural and identity comradeship lie simmering
tensions and multiple forms of both spoken and unspoken or symbolic
 1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates    
13

violence, xenophobia, racism, bigotry and all manner of ­discrimination

and exclusion. What is even more telling is that it is in this age of high-­
sounding ideals of ‘globalisation’, ‘postmodernism’, ‘multiculturalism’
and ‘plurality’ that the majority of the world’s citizens seem to be locked
within their specificities and their differences magnified even more than
ever before. Fear, doubt and suspicion seem to have insensibly colonised
the hearts and minds of people from all around the world—‘the “other”
becomes our negative mirror whose difference enables us to define our-
selves, to identify ourselves…’ (Ramadan 2011: 20).
The key contours of globalisation and those of other similar theoret-
ical suppositions do not answer to these tendencies towards divergences
and cultural insularities in a world that is apparently being portrayed as
having more cultural commonalities than differences. In other words,
globalisation is a summary term for the unfinished modernisation pro-
ject. It is an extension or, rather, reincarnation of the modern world sys-
tem with its insatiable quest for cultural normativity, uniformity and
homogenisation—albeit by stealth. As indicated in the preceding para-
graphs, the genealogy of the notion of globalisation reveals it is an ideo-
logical movement that seeks to deceive, mislead and ultimately provide
a false sense of equality among all, in a world that is evidently unequal
and continues to push in that direction, now more than ever before.

Denationalisation

Like all other theorisations that preceded it, the concept of denationalisa-
tion has been variously defined and subjected to multiple interpretations.
The most commonly cited definition is one given by Michael Zürn (1998,
cited in Mau 2012: 13) who conceives denationalisation as being about
the ‘relative increase of intensity and reach of cross-border exchange or
production processes in the areas of economics, the environment, author-
ity, mobility as well as communication and culture’ (translated by Mau
2012: 13). The significant point in this definition is that denationalisa-
tion takes as its starting point changes to the nation-state to account for
changes in global human relations taking place at multiscaler levels that
articulate with discourses of globalisation. Saskia Sassen (2003) provided a
14   F. Ndhlovu

more refined and robust interpretation. For him, denationalisation is when

‘some components of national institutions, even though formally national,
are not national in the sense in which state practice has constructed the
meaning of that term. [It is when] particular institutional components
of the national state begin to function as the institutional home for the
operation of powerful dynamics constitutive of what we could describe as
“global capital” and “global capital markets”’ (Sassen 2003: 8–9).
Evidently, the emphasis in Sassen’s conceptualisation of denationali-
sation is on political-economic imperatives of globalisation. This, how-
ever, does not negate the salient point about how he correctly draws
our attention to how the roles of nation-state institutions have been
broadened: from (exclusively) serving national interests to implementa-
tion and regulation of global agendas. Denationalisation is, thus, about
a partial delinking of exclusive accountability of such institution as
the legislature, courts of law, human rights commissions and even the
executive arms of government from the nation-state. Under the dena-
tionalisation frame of analysis, there is duality of functions of state insti-
tutions whereby they simultaneously serve the national and the global.
This is exemplified by current international conventions and guidelines
such as those of the United Nations—Millennium Development Goals,
Climate Change Protocols and so on—that require or, better still, com-
pel member states to pass legislative measures, regulations and court
decisions that articulate with global systems. Put crudely, the extreme
version of what denationalisation entails can be said to equate national
institution capture by global imperatives.
Denationalisation, therefore, signals what Sassen (2003: 8) calls ‘the
formation of new geographies of power confronting national states’.
It is about power dispersal or deconcentration of authority to regu-
late the roles of state institutions. The monitoring of how national
institutions discharge their mandates no longer solely rests with the
nation-state. Rather, it is a shared responsibility between the nation-
state and global partners—the aim being to satisfy social, economic
and political imperatives at both the local/national and global scales.
One thing that endures is what Michel Foucault (1972) called ‘gov-
ernmentality’—that is, the propensity, the desire and the mentality
to want to manipulate, control and ultimately govern by enlisting the
 1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates    
15

spontaneous consent of those on whom power is to be exercised—

subjects, citizens, nationals, non-nationals and all. The nation-state
continues to function as the articulator of these new social, cultural
and political configurations.

Deterritorialisation

The concept of deterritorialisation is associated with the work of

French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guttari (1987, 1988,
1994). Delueze and Guttari argued that a territory is created through
the dual processes of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation. Thus,
for Deleuze and Guattari, deterritorialisation is about ‘the relation
between thought and territorial placing, between internal and external
exile, and bears relation to notions of nomad thought, hybridity and
diaspora’ (Elden 2005: 9). That is, components of social, political or
physical space are separated, made autonomous and then re-assembled/
re-­constituted to attain new meanings within a new territory. Thus,
‘deterritorialisation epitomises the liberating feeling of disconnection
and represents the lines of flight that simultaneously make the exist-
ence of a territory possible, and destabilize its fixed character’ (Mikula
2008: 48). The premise is that as individuals and groups move across
the globe, they undergo complex social re-articulation whereby they
are simultaneously uprooted from one territory and reterritorialised in
another. This is about the ‘dialectic of territorialisation/deterritorialisa-
tion, a mixture of spatial fixity and unfixity’ (Castree 2003: 427). The
key point here is one about the social process of mapping identity onto
space in ways that challenge homogenising approaches of most main-
stream national identity theories.
Deterritorialisation is, in theory and in practice, an offshoot of the
discourse of globalisation. The point of departure in deterritorialisation
is not necessarily about the effects of the internationalisation of trade,
the homogenisation of culture or the perceived evaporation of the
power of the nation-state. As Stuart Elden (2005: 8) argues, the con-
cern is with ‘how the concept of globalisation has been thought geo-
graphically, that is spatially’. Elden (2005) goes on to point out that
16   F. Ndhlovu

suggestions that we have moved away from territorial understandings

of politics, culture, identity and so on fail to conceptually elaborate the
notion of territory itself. In other words, though the diminishing role of
the nation-state as a unit of social and political analysis is not questiona-
ble anymore, this does not in any way suggest that territory is no longer
inherently tied to the nation-state. Regardless of the scale at which it
is imagined (be it local, national, regional, transnational or global),
the idea of territory remains as one of the underpinning pillars of the
­present world system.
Therefore, the deterritorialisation interpretation of the present world
system posits that territory continues to occupy the foundations of
how we view social, cultural, political and economic arrangements.
Deterritorialisation does not refute the existence of territory. Instead, it
pushes for new and more complicated ways of conceptualising territory—
ways that enable us to decouple previous links between space, identity and
belonging and stability. In the words of Papastergiadis (2000: 117), the
conceptual framework of deterritorialisation situates the notion of com-
munity in multiple locations, splits loyalties and challenges mainstream
theorisations that conceive territory as tied to physical geographical spaces.
The idea of space and territory posited in deterritorialisation is one that
transcends the ‘container’ or geometric view associated with concepts of
Newton and Kant (Taylor 1994). With its critique of spatial understand-
ings of territory, deterritorialisation aligns with Doreen Massey’s concep-
tualisation of space as a site of indeterminacy, a sphere of the possibility of
the coexistence of difference and multiplicity—‘a simultaneity of stories;
that sense of right now’ (Massey 2003: 109).
By way of summary, the concept of deterritorialisation is essentially
about how territory (including the idea of the nation-state) is both
about fixed, impermeable boundaries and the political usage of space/
territory as an emergent concept. Deterritorialisation is about the flu-
idity and temporality that underscore the competence of individuals
to reconfigure their social lives and identities under different space and
time conditions. On the one hand, the framework of deterritorialisation
challenges the simplistic view that mobility necessarily undermines the
significance of places and territories. On the other hand, it underscores
the fact that through individual and collective practices, connections
 1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates    
17

between places and people are established, thus bringing back into iden-
tity narratives the idea of territory (Mau 2012). Deterritorialisation is
a useful concept that helps us think anew the notion of territory and
see how the logic of territoriality is both played out and challenged (in
equal measure) in the present world system (Elden 2005: 10). This is
particularly so when it is conceived in the context of the current height-
ened mobility of people, goods and services and the intensity of inter-
cultural contacts among people from differing backgrounds, from both
the Northern and Southern orbits of the world.

Transnationalisation

The concept of transnationalism is a quite contemporary buzz word

that abounds in much of the relevant social science literature (see, e.g.,
accounts by Mau 2012; Vertovec 2006, 2007; Sassen 2003). The origins
of this concept are tied to the burgeoning body of migration research
interested in how transborder social spaces are largely constituted by
migrants and migrant organisations (Mau 2012). Drawing on the work
of Smith (2001), Steffen Mau (2012: 17) says ‘transnationalism refers
to the relational and horizontal character of the political, economic and
social processes taking place today, and is interested in social actions and
transactions which make the walls of the nation-sate appear porous and
increasingly permeable’. Saskia Sassen (2003: 15) characterises transna-
tionalism as ‘a response to the fact that the nation as container category
is inadequate given the proliferation of transboundary dynamics and for-
mations’. Thus, like other theorisations that preceded it, the concept of
transnationalism draws our attention to the growing significance of new
supra—or inter-governmental forms of social, political and economic
regulation that play out at multiscale over and above the framework of
the nation-state. Pries (2002) dissects the notion of transnationalism
even further by noting in particular its bifurcated form. He identifies a
broader version and a narrower version of the concept as follows. The
broader version of transnationalism refers to all forms of exchange, com-
munication, life practices, solidarity, feelings of affiliation and employ-
ment relations that cross the borders of the nation-state. On the other
hand, the remit of the narrower understanding of the term is limited to
18   F. Ndhlovu

those forms of transboundary social, economic and political relations

and networks that have achieved a certain level of institutionalisation
and permanence (Pries 2002 cited in Mau 2012: 19). The narrower con-
ception of the term underscores formalisation of networks and exchanges
as an important caveat for what constitutes a transnational process or
activity. That is to say, not every border crossing activity or social transac-
tion amounts to transnationalism; it has to be formalised for it to fit into
the label. As I argue in the paragraphs that follow, the concept of trans-
nationalism is limited in several respects, both in its border and narrower
interpretation.
Like all other seemingly novel and progressive, but very deceptive
theoretical frameworks that preceded it, transnationalism is not a sui
generic phenomenon. It is necessarily interested and is inspired by spe-
cific players with vested political interests. The singular most prominent
theme that unites transnationalism with all other theoretical frame-
works reviewed in the preceding paragraphs is one about the errone-
ous assumption that the present scale and intensity of migration-driven
diversity are necessarily a new phenomenon. I submit that there is abso-
lutely nothing new and novel about the perceived complexities being
described by this burgeoning body of theorisations. This is because
migration—which is said to be the main reason behind heightened lev-
els of contact among people from disparate social, cultural, religious and
political backgrounds—is itself not a new phenomenon at all. Many
‘pre-modern’ and pre-colonial African societies, for example, were char-
acterised by high levels of human population movements for all sorts of
reasons including barter trade, adventures, and seasonal pastoral migra-
tions. However, these early forms of African migration have so far not
been recognised as fitting under the rubric of ‘typical’ migration typolo-
gies. Rather, they have been labelled as ‘nomadic’ movements, a derog-
atory term that takes away the value and significance of pre-colonial
forms of African migration (Ndhlovu 2014). Furthermore, the body
of literature on early human civilisations is replete with examples illus-
trating the long history of the social processes of migration and cultural
diversity. Turner and Khondker (2010), for example, recount William
McNeill’s (1986) observation about how cities in the Middle Ages were
home to people from different nationalities and races because they were
the loci of business and trade.
 1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates    
19

Two of the oldest mosques were built in China—one in the port city
of Guanzhou in the south and the other in Xian for the benefit of the
Arab Muslim traders in the first millennium […]. Dhaka, the capital city
of Bangladesh, was home to various nationalities in the eighteenth cen-
tury. Foreign and Indian merchants, traders and bankers—Europeans,
Armenians, Pathans, Turanis, Marwaris, and other up-country Hindus—
came to Dhaka to do business. (Turner and Khondker 2010: 176)

This clearly shows that what is currently being described as previously

unseen developments in human population mobility does not nec-
essarily typify a new phenomenon. These developments have always
been there even in pre-modern times. The incipient increase in the
number of new theories particularly coming from the Global North is
symptomatic of the Western world playing catch-up game. Since the
Enlightenment period and the onset of the modern world system, most
Western societies had always been used to outward migration. European
travellers, adventurers, missionaries, merchants, fortune seekers, coloni-
alists and all traversed the world and occupied territories they invaded,
by force and by stealth. For this reason, unlike their colonisers, people
in colonised regions of the world got used to living with the culturally
different Other. What is happening now is a situation where more and
more people from the Global South are migrating to the Global North.
This comes across as a new phenomenon that is a source of angst in
Western societies because they are not used to living with people other
than those who look like themselves and who are largely from their
own orbit of the world. It is in this context that contemporary forms
of migration are misconstrued as new phenomena that call for new
explanatory paradigms and social-theoretic frameworks. But as I have
already indicated above, this is more about Western societies waking up
to the realities of something that has always been part of human society.
The only difference is that we are now witnessing different categories of
migrants moving to those regions of the world where they are labelled as
the non-desired other.
The previous theories of migration reviewed above do not sufficiently
map today’s multiplication of practices, social and political networks and
identities of both groups and individuals at local, national and global
scales. The major limitation of these mainstream theorisations is one about
20   F. Ndhlovu

their persistent focus on the logic of states and the scale of the state at a
time when we see a proliferation of non-state actors, cross-border processes
and associated changes in the scope, exclusivity and competence of state
authority (Sassen 2003: 7). All previous theorisations are also characterised
by their non-critical approach to the supposed existence of a transnational
world. They overlook the lived experiences of individuals and communi-
ties in different parts of the globe that suggest the idea of transnational
worlds is, in fact, a myth. It is shorthand for subtle cultural homogenisa-
tion that sustains marginalisation, exclusion and erasure of identities and
cultural practices of the majority of people in the world. In the midst of
the pomp and fanfare about perceived growth in interconnectedness of
national societies, we continue to see an unprecedented rise in tenden-
cies towards autochthony and parochial forms of inward-looking ultra-­
nationalist sentiments. Examples include the recent resurgence of far-right
nationalist political formations and social movements in the USA (e.g.
neo-Nazi organisations such as Ku Klux Klan (KKK)), Europe (e.g. the
Defend Europe movement) and even in Australia (e.g. United Patriots
Front). All these pseudo-social political movements are driven by racist,
xenophobic, anti-refugee and anti-immigrant agendas. The activities of
these and other similar groups are aimed at creating an image of a ‘world
without others’ (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2017) whereby they systematically
express their disdain and hatred of coexistence and mixing of people from
differing cultural, ethnic, religious, linguistic and political backgrounds.
As I have argued above, previous theorisations around these issues
have exhibited a strong tendency to focus at the macro-structural level
while overlooking the equally important role of actors operating at the
micro-social level of society. Therefore, any new conceptual framework
that claims to look differently at issues around migration and diversity
must seek to make significant theoretical contributions beyond mere
empirical observations of human population movements from one
point to another. In their present iteration, all theoretical approaches
reviewed in this section do not seem to measure up very well when con-
sidered against this premium. They need to be complemented by more
nuanced frameworks that help us see what we couldn’t—or wouldn’t—
see before. In the section that follows, I show how Language, Vernacular
Discourse and Nationalisms is one such attempt at filling these methodo-
logical and conceptual lacunae in the field of mobility studies.
 1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates    
21

This Book
Language, Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms joins the quite con-
temporary conversations that centre on the tensions and contradictions
of nation-state-centric identity imaginings in a world that is conceived
as integrated yet simultaneously pluriversal. This book adds to cur-
rent academic debates the novel perspective of vernacular discourse as
a way to read new meanings into what is essentially a vexed topic that
has exercised the minds of several generations of social scientists. The
book contributes new points of method and interpretation that have
so far been overlooked in the previous body of work. Vernacular dis-
courses are conceived here as every day or mundane ‘…texts or forms of
speech and conversations that emerge from discussions between mem-
bers of self-identified smaller communities within the larger civic com-
munity’ (Ono and Sloop 2012: 13). These are discursive practices and
other forms of ‘language’, ‘grammars’ and ‘vocabularies’ that emerge out
of small talk in public spaces whose effect is felt when they are trans-
lated and acted upon to inform popular thinking and perceptions about
identities, being and belonging (Ndhlovu and Siziba 2014). Vernacular
discourses constitute communities, construct social relations and protest
identity and cultural representations circulating in mainstream or domi-
nant culture. Using the notion of vernacular discourses, this book specif-
ically draws our attention to the languages and meta-discursive regimes
that shape and mediate myths of a transnational world against the back-
drop of resurgent inward-looking and autochthonous nationalisms.
The book examines social and economic policy documents as well
as statements made by elected national political leaders and traditional
authorities who speak on behalf of the people they lead and represent
at both national and international forums. Political leader discourses
are, by and large, considered to be national and representative of the
broader sentiment within respective constituencies. While it includes
some passing remarks on other comparable regions of the world, the
book specifically focuses on past and present social and economic pol-
icies in Australia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The overall intention is
to glean insights that illustrate the particular point about how vernac-
ular discourses and various forms of nationalist language undermine
popular assumptions about a transnational world that is supposedly
22   F. Ndhlovu

inclusive and is characterised by horizontal comradeship among all,

regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion and so on. Notions of
vernacular discourse and emergent political languages are used in this
book to probe and challenge these myths of transnationalism that are
buried within social and economic policies of South Africa, Australia
and Zimbabwe. The aim is not to dwell into a grand survey of the fields
of economics, politics, history and cultural studies. Rather, it is to look
at discursive and linguistic issues that betray narrow forms of national-
ism in these selected countries and the extent to which they illustrate
similar issues from elsewhere around the world. Therefore, the p ­ olitical,
economic, historical and cultural issues covered constitute sites and
meta-discursive terrains where questions on language, vernacular dis-
course and narrow nationalisms are playing out in ways that have never
been seen before.
In spite of concerted political attempts at national and international
levels that have projected illusions about the existence of a transnational
world, such a world does not exist in practice. Litany of everyday lived
experiences, mainstream popular discourses as well as vernacular dis-
courses suggest that a transnational world is, in fact, a myth. Various
forms of powerful discursive clichés—defensive, ethno-nationalist,
racial, jingoistic, xenophobic, rebellious, emancipatory, patriarchal,
cultural-nationalistic and chauvinistic—undercut and challenge the
­
credibility of such populist imaginings of a truly transnational world
that is populated by a community of global citizens with shared values,
ideals and aspirations. The discourses of several political leaders in the
world today—from left to right, liberal to conservative, dictatorial to
democratic, Global North to Global South, East to West and developed
to developing—betray the existence of worlds that are imagined in ways
that are inward-looking, autochthonous and ethno-nationalistic. Such
worlds are consistently framed in the language and discourse of narrow
nationalisms that are racist, nativist and exclusionary, and that are often
expressed in terms of binary oppositions: citizens versus aliens; indig-
enous versus non-indigenous; black versus white; nationals versus for-
eigners; and legal immigrants versus illegal immigrants. All these forms
of narrow nationalisms contradict and contest commonly held assump-
tions about transnational and interconnected worlds.
 1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates    
23

More recent leader utterances in Africa, Australia, Europe and the

USA suggest that these tendencies towards narrow nationalisms that are
at odds with pretentions of transnationality are, in fact, an international
phenomenon that persists to this day. Speaking at the Earth Summit
in 2002, then Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe fired off a salvo
at then British Prime Minister Tony Blair saying ‘we have fought for
our land, we have fought for our sovereignty, small as we are we have
won our independence and we are prepared to shed our blood to pro-
tect the nation […]. So Blair, keep your England and let me keep my
Zimbabwe’ (The Telegraph, 2 September 2002). In neighbouring South
Africa, Goodwill Zwelithini, King of the Zulu people, uttered the fol-
lowing statement that was widely interpreted as having re-ignited violent
xenophobic attacks on black African migrants in April 2015: ‘When for-
eigners look at [us] they say let us exploit the nation of idiots. As I speak,
you find their unsightly goods hanging all over our shops; they dirty our
streets. We cannot even recognize which shop is which, there are foreign-
ers everywhere. We ask foreign nationals to pack their belongings and go
back to their countries’ (Mail & Guardian, 7 April 2016).
In Australia, then leader of the Liberal Party, Tony Abbott, ran a
mandate with a military-style ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’, which
subsequently became official policy of the Coalition government follow-
ing their election victory on the 7th of September 2013. This ­policy,
which is essentially aimed at ‘protecting Australia’ against perceived
‘invasion’ by asylum seekers arriving on the country’s shores by boats,
derives from former Australian Liberal Prime Minister John Howard
who once declared: ‘We will decide who comes to this country and the
circumstances in which they come’ (Liberal Party of Australia 2013: 4).
Along the same lines, in February 2011, then French President Nicolas
Sarkozy declared that ‘We have been too concerned about the iden-
tity of the person who was arriving [in France] and not enough about
the identity of the country that was receiving him’ (The Telegraph,
11 February 2011). In a televised interview in which he singled out
Muslim immigrants, Sarkozy went further, saying ‘… we don’t want
a society where communities coexist side by side’ (ibid.), thus sug-
gesting a push for a somewhat seamless, homogeneous and cohesive
French society contrary to the country’s long history of the ‘melting
24   F. Ndhlovu

pot’ socialisation process. Again in 2011, then Prime Minister of the

UK, David Cameron, defended his country’s decision to not join the
European Union single currency zone, arguing that such a move would
hurt Britain’s economic and ‘national interests’. He declared that he
wanted ‘to make sure we get a good deal for Britain [and that] Britain
would never join the euro’ unless there were ‘proper protections for key
British interests’ (Cameron 2011). As we now all know, the UK eventu-
ally withdrew its European Union membership following the June 2016
Brexit referendum. The decision by the majority of the British people
to vote in favour of leaving the European Union (dubbed the Brexit
vote) is a stark reminder about the persuasive power of narrow national-
ist sentiments that thrive on whipping up fear and cultural stereotypes,
which eventually gain currency as they spread through vernacular dis-
courses. During the Brexit campaign, the public domain was awash
with a cacophony of voices—competing and colliding with one another
in a rather shameless race to the bottom that betrayed the vanity and
insincerity of the much-vaunted notion of transnationalism. Brexit
campaign leaders such as Nigel Farage (then leader of UKIP) and Nigel
Johnson (now Foreign Secretary in the Teresa May-led Liberal govern-
ment) declared the outcome of the Brexit referendum was the first step
towards re-asserting sovereignty of the UK. They even went further to
suggest that the 24th of June had to be recognised as their independ-
ence day. But independent from what or who? Britain was never colo-
nised or forcibly occupied by anyone. If anything—as we all know—it
is the British who had the biggest colonial empire on earth and those
imperial tendencies are still ongoing today, albeit by stealth through var-
ious types of proxies. Therefore, the vernacular rhetoric around Britain
regaining its independence and sovereignty (from the European Union)
clearly betrays a strong sentiment against transnationalism and a bor-
derless global world order of interconnectedness that we are constantly
reminded is now an integral part of our universe.
The election of Donald Trump as President of the USA in November
2016 is further evidence of a global movement towards insularity and
inward-looking xenophobic sentiment at a time when we are made to
believe the world has become more interconnected and transnational
than ever before. It is inconceivable that a ‘self-proclaimed racist, a rabid
white supremacist, a neoliberal zealot, and a strong believer in the world
 1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates    
25

of whites without others’ (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2017: 36) would ascend to

the presidency of the USA. This would most unlikely have happened if
indeed the contemporary world was truly transnational. The one sure
thing that made possible the election of an extremely bigoted individual
to the office of President of the USA is that globalisation or transna-
tionalism is a contradictory process that unleashes human movements,
enhances demographic heterogeneity, intensifies cultural encounters
and intersections and shrinks space-time. And yet, the same processes
of globalisation and transnationalism simultaneously magnify the par-
adigm of difference and distinctions, amplify cultural and political
divides, loosen constraints and limitations and license prolific racial
alienation. Donald Trump is now notoriously well known for popu-
larising the expression ‘America for Americans’, itself a plagiarised and
adulterated version of Theodore Roosevelt’s well-intentioned May 1916
speech at St. Louis. When Roosevelt coined this expression, he was call-
ing for unity and inclusivity in his imagining of being and becoming
American—in ways that transcend myth of origin and the racial and
religious divides.
In summarising what he meant by ‘America for Americans’, Roosevelt
said:

I appeal to all our citizens no matter from what land their forefathers came
[…] to shun with scorn and contempt the sinister intriguers and mischief
makers who would seek to divide them along lines of creed, of birthplace,
or of national origin. I ask them to remember that there is but one safe
motto for all Americans, no matter whether they were born here or abroad,
no matter from what land their ancestors came; and that is the simple and
loyal motto, AMERICA FOR AMERICANS. (Roosevelt 1916: 9)

This was, indeed, a fitting clarion call for national pride, national sov-
ereignty and national unity that came in the middle of the First World
War when all nation-states at the time were seized with the onerous
task of rallying their populations towards defending their territories.
Although Roosevelt coined this expression at a time when forces of glo-
balisation and transnational human population movement were not as
pronounced as they have now become, he seems to have been well ahead
of his time as he grasped the need to rise above narrow, parochial and
26   F. Ndhlovu

ethno-nationalist imaginings of national identity and belonging that we

see today. This is in stark contrast to the current American President,
Donald Trump. In spite of having assumed political office at a time when
national identities have become so complex, fluid and unpredictable such
that they eschew any easy generalisation, Donald Trump’s imagining of
American identity is one that is exclusionary; one that betrays a dim view
of the diverse cultural, linguistic, religious and political backgrounds of
non-desired members of the American society. For him, the expression
‘America for Americans’ is about the desire to exclude, discriminate, vil-
ify and banish people along the lines of perceived country of origin, reli-
gion, race and so on. This is attested by his controversial executive order
soon after assuming office in January 2017 in which people from some
six Muslim nations were prohibited from entering the USA.
What all the above examples of leader utterances suggest is this: nar-
row state-centric and inward-looking nationalism seems to be influenc-
ing the language of current political and identity debates in a manner
that is anachronistic to pretentions about the existence of a transnational
world that is supposedly characterised by horizontal comradeship at
both local and translocal levels. The ideology of nationalism and various
forms of ethno-nationalist sentiment continue to underpin contempo-
rary global structural arrangements as well as bilateral relations among
states and territories. Language, Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms
examines the complex overlay of multiple nationalist linguistic and
discursive practices that shape and mediate these political debates and
conversations about social and economic policies around the world. It
provides a fresh and critical look at the language and other discursive
tropes that are couched in terms that tend to reinforce inward-looking
nation-state-centric identity imaginings in a world that is perceived to
be more transnational than ever before. The cross-cutting argument is
that while the nationalist ideology does, in several ways, provide states
with a sense of community, it has, at the same time, assumed vari-
ous forms that implicate competing demands for substate autonomy,
ethno-nationalist sentiment, nation-state legitimacy and the unprec-
­
edented rise of forces of regionalism and globalisation. The specific
focus is on the contradictions, continuities and disjunctures that punc-
tuate social, economic and political policy frameworks globally and,
 1 Introduction—Theories, Concepts, Debates    
27

specifically, in neo-colonial societies. In this vein, Language, Vernacular

Discourse and Nationalisms is a timely intervention that addresses current
topical issues that have dominated platforms of various national and
international political players since the dawn of the twenty-first century.
At the heart of the discussion in the book are the following theoretical
and empirical questions that have so far not been adequately addressed
in previous research scholarship:

• Why has the ideology of nationalism been so potent and long-lasting

in contradiction to the expectations of other competing social theo-
ries of recent times?
• Is the contemporary postmodern world really transnational as we
suppose it to be?
• How do the language of nationalism and associated metadiscursive
regimes compete with and contradict popular myths and beliefs
about the existence of a transnational and interconnected world?
• How do political discourses that inform mainstream conversations
and policy frameworks on economic empowerment, social transfor-
mation, land reform, nationalisation of natural resources and regula-
tion of migration negate the ideals of comity, inclusivity, intercultural
understanding, social cohesion and promotion of pluriversality in the
so-called transnational era?
• Whose interests are served and whose interests are undermined by
nationalist language and vernacular discourse?

Though I do not intend to be doctrinaire about my responses, I would

argue that these questions cannot be answered in the abstract and that
to get plausible answers, we need to search in the right places. The com-
mon practice among many social scientists and commentators is to ana-
lyse policies and other formal documents that enunciate official political
positions on matters of identity and belonging—and just leave it at
that. Language, Vernacular Discourse and Nationalisms argues that while
these are, undoubtedly, valuable sources of such information that forms
part of the data set for this book, it is imperative for us to also look
elsewhere. The book, therefore, draws the reader’s attention to casual,
informal statements and utterances made outside of or on the sidelines
28   F. Ndhlovu

of formal government and political party platforms. It is in places such

as these that we get to hear the personal opinions of the politician, the
bureaucrat and the layperson—way out of the gaze of the official insti-
tutional apparatus. For this reason, the framework of analysis for this
book is built around the vernacular discourse approach, which allows
us to answer big questions of mundane micro-social phenomena. Case
studies include the language of land reform, nationalisation and indige-
nisation of the economy in Zimbabwe; language policy making and cit-
izenship in Zimbabwe; the language of black economic empowerment,
land reform, social transformation and concomitant discourses of xeno-
phobia and anti-immigrant sentiment in South Africa; and the language
of migrant integration and border protection policies in Australia.
Zimbabwe, South Africa and Australia have a Victorian British link,
and this common element partly informs their nationalist language.
Furthermore, nationalist linguistic and discursive practices are directly
attributed to racism, exclusion and other forms of discrimination that
have punctuated the past and present histories of all three countries.
Therefore, although Australia went on to be a predominantly Anglo-
Saxon country while Zimbabwe and South Africa became Africanised
pseudo-British ideologues with some doses of communist-nationalist
rhetoric, the logics of their social policy frameworks on belonging, cit-
izenship, migration and entitlement are fundamentally the same. The
book interrogates some of the conventional wisdom and commonly
accepted tropes surrounding various taxonomies of nationalist discourse
across the three countries. In doing so, it sheds light on the underlying
meaning of the language used to talk about black economic empower-
ment, national interest, national sovereignty, national border protection,
territorial integrity and so on. The book also adds a new angle to the
debate on transnationalism and globalisation by pushing forward a
more applied agenda to establish a clear and empirically based illustra-
tion of the continuities and contradictions that underpin current social,
political and economic policy frameworks around the world and the
debates they invite. The three case studies drawn from two different
regions of the world provide this book with the much needed global res-
onance, thus setting it apart from previous studies on this topic.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Majatalo
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Majatalo

Author: Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

Translator: Alexander Halonen

Release date: September 25, 2023 [eBook #71721]

Language: Finnish

Original publication: Turku: Sosialistin Kirjapaino-Osakeyhtiö, 1912

Credits: Tuula Temonen

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAJATALO

***
MAJATALO

Kirj.

I. S. Turgenjeff

Suomentanut

Alexander Halonen

Turussa, Sosialistin Kirjapaino-Osuuskunta, 1912.

Majatalo.

Suuren B…n tien varrella, milt'ei yhtäkaukana kahdesta

piirikaupungista, joitten kautta tie kulki, vielä äskettäin seisoi avara
majatalo, hyvin tunnettu kolmivaljakkoajureille, rahtimiehille,
kauppamatkustajille, porvareille ja yleensä kaikille monilukuisille ja -
laatuisille matkalaisille, jotka kaikkina vuoden aikoina liukuvat
meidän teillämme. Olipa aika, jolloin kaikki poikkesivat tuohon
taloon; ellei ehkä jonkunlainen tilanhaltijan umpivaunu, jota veti kuusi
kotona kasvatettua hevosta, pysähtymättä ajanut ohitse, joka seikka
ei kuitenkaan estänyt ajuria ja palvelijaa vaunun takaistuimella
eräänkaltaisin omituisin tuntein ja hartauksin katsahtamasta heille
liiankin tuttuihin portaisiin; tahi jonkunlainen miesraukka huonoine
rattaineen ja kolmine viiskopekkaisine povitaskussa, saavuttuaan
rikkaan talon kohdalle, nykäissyt ohjista väsynyttä hevoskaakkiaan,
kiirehtien yölevolle suuren asutuksen takalistolle sijaitsevaan
rahvaan yömajaan, talonpoikaisen isännän tykö, jolta heinien ja
leivän ohella et mitään muuta voinut löytää, etkä siitäkään
ylimääräistä kopekkaa tarvinnut maksaa. Sopivan asemansa ohella,
majatalo, josta alotimme kertomuksen, ylpeili paljolla: erinomaisella
vedellä kahdessa syvässä kaivossa kitisevine pyörineen ja rautaisine
sankoineen vitjoissa; tilavalla pihamaalla lautaisine, tiiviine
katoksineen; suurella varastolla hyviä kauroja kellarissa; lämpöisellä
tuvalla, minkä mahtavan venäläisen kiukaan kupeelta ulkoni kaksi
pitkää lavitsaa, ja, lopuksi, kahdella kyllin puhtaalla kamarilla,
punaliljaisine, alhaalta hieman revittyine seinäpapereineen,
maalattuine puusohvineen ja samanlaisine tuoleineen ja
geraniumikukkineen akkunalla, joita, sivumennen sanoen, ei
milloinkaan oltu pesty, ja jotka siis kukoistivat monivuotisessa
tomussa. Muitakin mukavuuksia vielä tarjosi tämä majatalo: — paja
siitä oli likellä, siinä myöskin melkein sijaitsi mylly; lopuksi, syödäkin
siinä oli hyvä, sillä vanha keittäjätär ruoan laittoi maukkaan ja
rasvasen, eikä säälinyt aineita; lähimpään kapakkaan laskettiin
matkaa kaikkiaan puoli virstaa; isäntä piti kaupan nuuskaa, joskin
tuhkalla sekoitettua, kuitenkin hyviin väkevää ja nenään mukavasti
vaikuttavaa — sanalla sanoen, paljon oli syitä minkä tähden tästä
talosta eivät matkustavaiset muihin muuttaneet. Isäntä miellytti
matkalaisia — sehän on pääasia; ilman sitä, tietysti, ei mikään yritys
menesty; hän miellytti sitäkin enemmän sentähden, kuten naapurit
tiesivät kertoa, että hän oli hyvin onnellinen ja kaikissa
edesottamisissan menestyi loistavasti, vaikka vähän hän oli
ansainnut menestystään; mutta nähtävästi, ketä onnestaa, piin sitä
onnestaa.

Isäntä tämä oli porvari, nimeltään Naum Ivanovitsh. Vartaloltaan

hän oli keskimittainen, paksu, kymäräinen ja harteikas; pään hän
omisti suuren, pyöreän, tuuheat hiukset, jotka jo olivat harmaat,
vaikkei hänellä, päältä katsoen, saattanut olla yli neljänkymmenen
ikää; poskensa olivat täyteläiset ja tuoreet, otsa matala, mutta
valkonen ja tasanen, ja pienet, kirkkaat, siniset silmät, joilla hän
hyvin merkillisesti katseli: — karsaasti ja samalla kertaa röyhkeästi,
joka varsin harvoin tapahtuu. Päänsä hän aina piti kumarassa ja
vaivaloisesti sitä käänteli, ehkä siitä syystä, kun kaula hänellä oli
kovin lyhyt; hän käveli kiivaasti mutta jäykästi ja heilutteli tasaisessa
tahdissa käsiään. Kun hän hymyili, ja hän hymyili varsin usein,
äänettömästi, ikäänkuin itsekseen, hänen paksut huulensa
epämiellyttävästi vetäytyivät syrjään ja paljastivat rivin lujia ja
loistavia hampaita. Hän puhui katkonaisesti, ja jonkunlaisella
ynseällä äänensoinnulla. Partansa hän leikkasi, mutta ei silti käynyt
näöltään saksalaiseksi. Hänen pukunsa käsitti pitkän, kauttaaltaan
käytetyn viitan, leveät housut ja kengät paljaissa jaloissa. Hän usein
poistui kotoaan asioilleen, joita hänellä olikin paljon — hän keinotteli
hevosilla, välitti maata, vuokrasi kasvitarhoja, osti puistoja ja yleensä
harjoitti monenlaisia kauppatoimia — mutta hänen poissaolonsa
eivät milloinkaan venyneet pitkiksi; niinkuin myyrä, jota hän erittäin
omituisten silmiensä vuoksi muistutti, palasi hän takaisin omaan
pesäänsä. Hän osasi pitää tämän pesän järjestyksessä; kaikkialle
hän ennätti, kaikki kuunteli ja määräili, antoi, päästi ja tilitti itse, eikä
kenellekään kopeikkaakaan alentanut, samalla ei myöskään liikaa
ottanut.
 Matkustavaiset eivät hänen kerallaan lörpötelleet, eikä hän itse
liioin haaskannut turhanpäiten sanoja. »Minulle teidän rahanne ovat
tarpeen, mutta teille tarjoilu», jutteli hän, hitaasti esittäen joka sanan:
»emmehän lapsia ole kastamassa kerallanne; matkustaja söit, syötit,
älä istuskele! Mutta jos olet väsynyt, niin makaa, älä lörpöttele».
Työläiset piti hän suurikasvuiset ja terveet, mutta säyseät ja
toimeliaat he häntä kovin pelkäsivät. Itse hän ei ottanut
suuhunsakaan miestä väkevämpää, mutta heille jakoi suurina juhlina
kymmenkopekkaisen mieheen viinaa varten; muina päivinä he eivät
tohtineet juoda. Naumin kaltaiset ihmiset pian rikastuvat… mutta
siihen loistoon varallisuuteen, minkä hän omisti, — hänen laskettiin
omistavan nelisen- eli viitisenkymmentätuhatta — Naum Ivanovitsh
ei vaeltanut suoraa tietä…

Vuotta kaksikymmentä ennen sitä aikaa, johon me

kertomuksemme alun sijoitimme, jo toimi samalla paikalla majatalo.
Totta kyllä, sitä ei kattanut tummanpunanen lautakatto, joka antoi
Naum Ivanovitshin talolle ylhäisen leiman; ja rakennukseltaankin se
oli köyhempi, pihan ympäri oli olkikatos, hirsiseinien asemasta —
säleaitaus; eikä se upeillut kolmikulmaisella kreikkalaisella otsikolla;
mutta sittekin se oli majatalo ihan tyydyttävä — tilava, vankka ja
lämmin — joten matkalaiset sitä mielellään käyttivät. Isäntänä siihen
aikaan ei ohut Naum Ivanovitsh, vaan eräs Akim Semenovitsh,
naapuristossa asuvan tilanomistajattaren Lisaveta Prohorovna
Kuntzen, erään esikuntaupseerin lesken, talonpoika. Tuo Akim oli
nerokas ja kauppakykyinen mies, joka jo varsin nuorella ijällään,
lähdettyään matkalle kahdella kurjalla hevosella, palasi vuoden
kuluttua kolmella kunnollisella, siitä lähtien melkein läpi koko
elämänsä vaelteli valtamaanteillä, kävi Kasanissa, Odessassa,
Orenburissa ja Varsovassa jopa ulkomaillakin Leipzigissä, ja viho
viimein hän matkusteli kahdella uljaalla ja voimakkaalla
kolmivaljakolla ja mahtavilla, täydessä lastissa olevilla rattailla.
Kyllästyttikö häntä ehkä koditon kulkurin elämä, haluttiko häntä ehkä
perustaa perhe (häntä oli kohdannut sellainen onnettomuus, että
vaimo kuoli; lapset, joita heille syntyi, olivat myös nuorina kuolleet),
mutta olipa miten oli, loppujen lopuksi hän päätti hyljätä vanhan
ammattinsa ja perustaa majatalon. Tilanhaltijattaren luvalla asettui
hän tähän valtatien varteen, osti hänen nimiinsä puoli desjatinaa
maata ja rakensi sille majatalon. Yritys menestyi hyvin. Rahoja
hänellä laitokseen oli yllin kyllin; kokemus, jonka hän oli saavuttanut
pitkäaikaisella vaelluksellaan Venäjän kaikissa äärissä, oli hänelle
suureksi hyödyksi hän tiesi millä tavalla parhaiten tyydyttää
matkustajia, varsinkin entisiä ammattiveljiään, kolmivaljakkoajureja,
joista monen keralla hän oli persoonallisesti tuttava ja joista
pääasiallisesti majatalon menestys riippui: niin paljon he tarvitsivat
tavaroita itselleen ja voimakkaille hevosilleen. Akimin talo tuli
tunnetuksi sadan virstan piirissä… Hänen tykönsä poikettiin
halukkaammin kuin hänen seuraajansa, Naumin luo, vaikkei hän,
lähestulkoonkaan, piisannut Naumille isännöitsemistaidossa. Akimilla
oli kaikki enemmän vanhan ajan malliin, lämmintä, mutta ei ihan
puhdasta; ja kaurakin saattoi olla köykästä tahi kasteltua, ruoka
myöskin kiehui synnin keralla sekaisin, kuten sanotaan; hänellä
joskus sellaistakin sotkua tuotiin pöytään, että parasta olisi ollut
jättää se kokonaan uuniin, eikä siihen ollut syynä kitsastelu ruoka-
aineissa, mutta — keittäjätär ei ollut pitänyt huolta. Sensijaan oli hän
valmis alentamaan hinnasta, eikä velaksikaan, ehkä, kieltäytynyt
luottamasta, — sanalla sanoen — hyvä oli miehekseen, ja kohtelias
isäntä. Keskusteluihin ja vierasvaraisuuteen hän myös oli taipuisa;
teekeittiön ääressä joskus tunnin niin torisi, että korvat hörössä
kuuntelit, varsinkin kun rupesi kertomaan Pietarista, kirgiisien arosta
tahi ehkäpä meren rannikosta; myöskin ryypiskely, tietysti, hän
hyvän ihmisen keralla saattoi, mutta ei milloinkaan järjettömästi vaan
enemmän niinkuin seuran vuoksi — niin kertoilivat hänestä
matkalaiset. Sangen usein hänen luokseen poikkesivat kauppiaat ja
yleensä ihmiset, joita nimitetään vanhanaikaisiksi, sellaiset ihmiset,
jotka eivät itseään vyöttämättä matkalle lähde eivätkä kamariin astu
tekemättä ristinmerkkiä, eivätkä puhuttele ihmistä ensin
tervehtimättä. Yksin Akimin persoonallisuus jo oli miellyttävä: hän oli
rotevakasvuinen, vaikkakin hieman laiha, niin kuitenkin
sopusuhtainen ja suora, vieläpä vanhoilla päivilläänkin; hänen
kasvonsa olivat jalot ja rehelliset, korkea ja avonainen otsa, nenä
suora ja ohut, huulet pienet. Hänen ruskeat, ulkonevat silmänsä
loistivat vakavan avomielisestä, tuuhea ja pehmyt tukka muodosti
kehyksen hänen niskansa ympärille; otsalla ei sitä paljon ollut.
Akimin äänen sointu oli hyvin miellyttävä, vaikkakin heikko;
nuoruudessaan melkoisen hyvin lauloi, mutta ainaiset matkat
kylmässä ilmassa, talvella, pilasivat hänen rintansa. Sensijaan hän
puhui hyvin sointuvasti ja sattuvasti. Milloin hän nauroi, muodostui
hänen silmiensä ympärille kauniit kurtut, hyvin miellyttävät näöltään:
— ainoastaan hyvillä ihmisillä voi huomata sellaiset kurtut. Akimin
liikkeet olivat suureksi osaksi verkallisia, niiltä ei puuttunut
jonkunlaista varmuutta ja arvokkuutta, kuten ainakin paljon
kokeneella ja eläneellä ihmisellä.

Kaikin puolin hyvä olisi ollut Akim, tahi kuten häntä kutsuttiin
herrastalossa, jossa hän usein käväsi ja varsinkin sunnuntaisin
puolipäivämessun jälkeen, Akim Semenovitsh, — kaikinpuolin olisi
hän ollut hyvä, ellei häntä olisi seurannut eräs heikkous, joka jo
monen ihmisen on maailmassa perikatoon saattanut ja loppujen
lopuksi tuhosi hänenkin elämänsä — nimittäin, heikkous
naissukupuoleen nähden. Akimin rakkaus meni äärimmäisyyksiin,
hänen sydämensä ei mitenkään voinut vastustaa naisen katsetta;
hän suli siitä, niinkuin ensimäinen syksylumi auringonpaisteesta… ja
tavallisesti hän joutui maksamaan ylimääräisen tunteellisuutensa
tähden.

Ensimmäisen vuoden kuluessa sitte valtatien varteen

asettumisensa jälkeen Akim oli niin kiintynyt talon rakennuspuuhiin,
talouden järjestämiseen ja kaikkiin asioihin, jotka rasittavat jokaista
uudisasukasta, ettei hänelle jäänyt aikaa ajatella naisia; mutta jos
sattumalta tulivatkin hänen mieleensä jonkunlaiset syntiset ajatukset,
niin hän ne heti karkoitti lueskelemalla kaikenlaisia hurskaita kirjoja,
joita hän suuresti kunnioitti (lukutaidon hän oli oppinut jo
ensimmäisellä matkallaan), laulamalla psalmeja puoliääneen tahi
muilla sellaisilla jumalallisilla toimenpiteillä. — Sitäpaitsi hänellä oli
menemässä jo 46:s ikävuosi — niissä vuosissa kaikenlaiset
intohimot huomaamatta vaimenevat ja kuoleutuvat; myös
naimisiinkin menon aika oli niinkuin ohikulunut, kuten Akim itse
rupesi ajattelemaan… mutta, nähtävästi, kohtaloasi et voi välttää.

Entinen Akimin herratar, Lisaveta Prohorovna Kunze,

staapiupseerin rouva, joka jäi leskeksi saksalaissyntyisestä
miehestään, oli itse Mitrovin kaupungin lapsia, jossa hän oli viettänyt
ensimäiset lapsuudenaikansa ja mihin heitä isän kuoleman jälkeen
jäi sangen suuri ja köyhä perhe, josta hän, sivumennen sanoen,
hyvin vähän huolehti, varsinkin senjälkeen, kun yksi hänen
veljistään, armeijan jalkaväkiupseeri, sattumalta saapui hänen
luokseen ja jo toisena päivänä riehamastui siinä määrin, että oli
vähällä ettei lyönyt itseään emäntää, nimittäen häntä sen lisäksi:
»du, Lumpenmamsell!» huolimatta siitä että edellisenä päivänä oli
ylistellyt häntä »sisarkullaksi ja hyväntekijättäreksi». Lisaveta
Prohorovna eleli paikallaan ja hiljaisesti miesvainajansa
jälkeenjättämällä omaisuudella, jota hän itse hoiti, ja varsin
älykkäästi hoitikin. Lisaveta Prohorovna ei luopunut
pienimmästäkään etuoikeudestaan, kaikesta valvoi tuloja itselleen;
tuossa kaikessa ja vielä lisäksi siinä, että hän osasi pennin sijasta
tuhlata kopeekan, osottautui hänen saksalainen syntyperänsä;
muissa kaikissa suhteissa hän venäläistyi. Hänen taloutensa oli
laaja, varsinkin piti hän suuren lauman härkiä, jotka eivät turhaan
syöneet ruokaansa: aamusta iltaan niitten vahvat jäntereet olivat
työssä. Hän mielellään ajeli umpivaunuissa, livrepukuiset palvelijat
takaistuimella; hän piti siitä, että hänelle juoruiltiin ja itsekin oli hän
varsin etevä siinä ammatissa, hän tahtoi, että häneltä nöyrästi
anottiin suosiota, jota hän joskus antoi, mutta millä hetkellä tahansa
saattoi hän sen peruuttaa, — sanalla saneen, Lisaveta Prohorovna
käyttäytyi niinkuin herratar ainakin. — Akimista hän piti — vuokran
maksoi tämä aina säntillensä — armollisesti häntä puhutteli, jopa,
leikillä, pyyteli häntä vieraisille luokseen… Mutta siitä huolimatta:
juuri tästä herrastalosta uhkasi Akimia onnettomuus.

Lisaveta Prohorovnan kamaripalvelijattarien joukossa oli eräs

tyttö, noin kahdenkymmenen ikäinen, orpo, nimeltään Dunjasha.
Eikä hän ollut hullumpikaan; kookas ja sukkela; hänen piirteensä,
vaikkakaan eivät sopusuhtaiset, saattoivat miellyttää: tuore ihon väri,
tuuheat, vaaleat hiukset, elävät harmaat silmät, pieni pyöreä nenä,
punaset huulet ja varsinkin huoleton, puolileikillinen ja puolitotinen
kasvojen ilme — kaikki tuo omalla tavallaan vaikutti varsin
herttaisesti. Kaiken lisäksi hän, huolimatta orpoudestaan, käyttäytyi
ankarasti, melkein ynseästi: hän oli syntyisin aatelispalvelijoista;
hänen isävainajansa. Arefij, vuotta kolmekymmentä oli ollut
isännöitsijänä, mutta isoisä, Stepan, palveli kamaripalvelijana eräällä
jo ammoin sitten kuolleella herralla, kaartin kersantilla ja kreivillä.
Hän pukeutui moitteettomasti ja kiemaili käsillänsä, jotka,
kieltämättä, olivat erinomaisen kauniit. Dunjasha osotti suurta
ylenkatsetta kaikkia ihailijoitaan kohtaan, itsetyytyväisesti hymyillen
kuunteli hän heidän rakkaudentunnustuksiaan ja jos hän jotain heille
vastasikin, niin tapahtui se jotakin lyhyesti huudahtaen, kuten: »niin!
kas, sitä! jokos minä rupeisin! vielä mitä!…» Näinä huudahdukset
tietysti usein tulivat kieleltä eikä sydämestä. Dunjasha oli viettänyt
kolmen vuoden paikkeilla Moskovassa opissa ja siellä hän sai nuo
omituiset tavat ja kujeet, jotka huomaa suurkaupungeissa
oleskelleissa kamaripalvelijattarissa. Hän luulotteli suuria itsestään;
mutta, vaikka hän rakentelikin pilvilinnoja, kuten sanotaan, ei hän
milloinkaan luottautunut niitten varaan ja pudonnut alas. Eikä hän
tyhmemmin elänytkään, mutta siitä huolimatta ei Lisaveta
Prohorovna häntä liiaksi suosinut, kiitos vanhimman
kamaripalveljattaren, Kirilovnan, naisen, joka ei enää ollut eilisen
teeren poika, vaan varsin etevä juonittelija ja valehtelija. Kirilovna
käytti edukseen saavuttamaansa vaikutusta emäntäänsä ja osasi
hyvin nerokkaasti vahingoittaa kilpailijoitansa.

Tähän Dunjashaan juuri rakastui Akim! Vieläpä ihan erilailla kuin

ennen. Alussa hän kohtasi tytön kirkossa: hän oli juuri vastikään
palannut Moskovasta… sittemmin kohtasi häntä jonkun kerran
herraskartanossa; vihdoin vietti hänen kanssaan koko illan kartanon
kirjurin luona, mihin häntä, toisten parempien ihmisten keralla, oli
kutsuttu teetä juomaan. Kartanon väki ei häntä ylönkatsonut,
vaikkakaan hän ei kuulunut samaan piiriin ja käytti partaa; olihan hän
valistunut mies, lukutaitoinen, ja, mikä pääasia, rikas; sitäpaitsi ei
hän pukeutunut moukkamaisesti, käytti pitkää mustasta verasta
tehtyä viittaa, mustia saappaita Ja kaulahuivia. Totta kyllä, kartanon
palvelijat keskenään joskus juttelivat etteihän se Akim ole
heikäläisiä, mutta edessäpäin he häntä mairittelivat. Sinä iltana,
kirjurin luona, Dunjasha lopullisesti valloitti Akimin rakastavaisen
sydämen, vaikka hän järkähtämättömästi vaikeni koko illan, eikä
sanaakaan vastannut Akimin viittaileviin ja merkitseviin jaarituksiin,
jopa joskus katsahti häneen, tuollalailla, kuin, syrjäsilmäyksellä,
ikäänkuin ihmetellen minkätähden tuo talonpoika on täällä. Kaikki tuo
vaan lisäsi öljyä tuleen. Akim meni yksinään kotiin, ajatteli, ajatteli ja
vihdoin päätti pyytää hänen kättään… Niin Dunjasha hänet itseensä
»kietoi». Mutta miten voidaankaan kuvailla sitä suuttumusta ja
hämmästystä, joka valtasi Dunjashan, kun noin päivän viiden
perästä, Kirilovna, lempeästi kutsuttuaan hänet luoksensa, ilmoitti
hänelle, että Akim (nähtävästi hän tiesi, miten asiaan on ryhdyttävä),
että tuo partasuu ja talonpoikainen Akim, jonka rinnalla istumisenkin
hän katsoi loukkaukseksi, tavottelee häntä!

Dunjasha aluksi suuttui silmittömästi, sitten purskahti raikuvaan

nauruun ja sitten ratkesi itkemään; mutta Kirilovna niin nerokkaasti
johti hyökkäystä, niin selvästi saattoi hänet käsittämään asemansa
epätoivoisuuden kartanossa, niin sopivasti huomautti Akimin
ulkonäöstä, rikkaudesta ja vakavuudesta, sekä, loppujen lopuksi, niin
painavasti ilmoitti itse herrattarenkln siihen suuntaan käyvästä
toivomuksesta, että Dunjasha jo poistuessaan ajatteli asiaa
vakavalta kannalta, ja, kohdatessaan sittemmin Akimin, katsoi
häneen vakavasti vaan ei kääntynyt pois. Sanomattoman runsaat
rakastavan Akimin lahjat, haihduttivat viimeisetkin epäilykset…
Lisaveta Prohorovna, jolle Akim vei lahjaksi hopeatarjottimella sata
persikkaa, suostui hänen liittoonsa Dunjashan kanssa ja liitto
vahvistettiin. Akim ei säälinyt menoja. Morsian, joka hääpäivän
aattona istui morsiustyttöjen parissa kuin kuollut ja vielä hääpäivän
aamuna itki, kunnes hänet Kirilovna talutti vihkituolille, pian
rauhoittui… Rouva antoi hänelle kirkossa käytettäväksi oman
shaalinsa — mutta Akim heti samana päivänä lahjoitti hänelle
samanlaisen, jopa vielä paremman.
 Ja niin Akim joutui naimisiin; toi oman nuorikkonsa uuteen
taloonsa… Rupesivat he elämään. Dunjasha osottautui heti
huonoksi emännäksi, heikoksi miehensä tueksi. Hän ei juuri
mihinkään ryhtynyt, tuskaili, murehti, paitsi milloin joku
matkustavainen upseeri herätti hänen huomionsa ja liehakoitsi häntä
suuren teekeittiön ääressä istuttaessa; usein tapahtui, että
kaupunkiin ostoksille tahi herraskartanoon, jonne majatalosta oli
nelisen virstaa, vieraisille riensi. Ei koti oikein näyttänyt viihdyttävän.
Herraskartanossa hän lepäili; siellä hän tunsi olevansa omiensa
joukossa; toiset tytöt kadehtivat hänen onneaan; Kirilovna kestitsi
teellä; itse Lisaveta Prohorovna hänen kerallaan keskusteli… Mutta
nämäkään vierailut eivät tapahtuneet tuottamatta katkeruutta
Dunjashalle… Hänen, esimerkiksi, ei sopinut nyt, kuten ennen
kartanon palvelijattarena, käyttää hattua, vaan hänen oli pakko sitoa
huivi päähänsä… ikäänkuin jonkun kauppiaan muijan, kuten hänelle
sukkela suinen Kirilovna sanoi… ikäänkuin jonkunlaisen
porvarittaren, ajatteli Dunjasha itseksensä.

Monasti juolahtivat nyt Akimin mieleen hänen ainokaisen

sukulaisensa, setävanhuksen, perheettömän vanhanpojan kantturan
sanat: »No veli, Akimiseni, sanoi hän hänelle, kohdatessaan kerran
kadulla: minä olen kuullut, että sinä aiot naimisiin?…»

— Niin, kyllä; mitä sitten?

— Ah, Akim, Akim! Sinä et meille talonpoikaisille ole enään

vertainen, kuten sanotaan — eikä morsiamesikaan ole sinun
vertaisesi…

— Missä suhteessa hän ei ole minun vertaiseni?

 — Vaikkapa kaikissa, vastasi ukko ja samalla osotti Akimin partaa,
jota hän, morsiantaan miellyttääkseen oli ruvennut leikkaamaan,
kokonaan ei hän sitä hävittämään suostunut… Akim painoi
katseensa maahan; mutta ukko käännähti ympäri ja vaelsi tiehensä
heiluttaen päätänsä.

Niin, monasti hän noita sanoja muisti, ähki Ja huokaili…

Sentähden ei kuitenkaan hänen rakkautensa hyvään vaimoonsa
vähentynyt; hän ylpeili vaimostaan — varsinkin kun vertaili häntä,
sattumaisin tietysti, toisiin vaimoihin tahi edelliseen vaimoonsa,
johon hänet naittivat kuudentoistavuotiaana. Hänen pieninkin
hyväilynsä oli hänelle suuri nautinto… Niinpä niin, ajatteli hän,
tottuupahan ja taipuupahan aikaa myöten… Sitäpaitsi Dunjasha
käytti itsensä erittäin hyvin, eikä kukaan voinut sanoa hänestä pahaa
sanaa.

Sillä tavalla meni jokunen vuosi. Dunjasha, silminnähtävästi

vihdoinkin tottui osaansa. Mitä enemmän Akim vanheni, sitä
enemmän häneen kiintyi ja luotti häneen. Dunjashan toverittaret,
jotka menivät miehelään, kärsivät hätää ja puutetta tahi joutuivat
huonon kohtelun alaisiksi… Mutta Akim rikastui, aina vaan rikastui.
Kaikessa hän menestyi, onni häntä seurasi; yksi suru ainoastaan
häntä painosti: lapsia hänelle ei Jumala antanut. Dunjashalle jo
karttui ikää, kaksikymmentäviisi vuotta; kaikki rupesivat häntä jo
kunnioittamaan Audotja Arefjevnan nimellä. Täydelliseksi emännäksi
hän ei kuitenkaan kehittynyt, mutta kotiaan hän rakasti, huolehti sen
tarpeista ja piti silmällä palkollisia… Tosin hän kaiken tuon teki miten
sattui, ei kiintynyt, kuten olisi pitänyt, puhtauteen ja järjestykseen;
sensijaan majatalon parhaassa huoneessa, Akimin valokuvan
vieressä, riippui hänen kuvansa, jonka hänen tilauksestaan oli
maalannut oman paikkakunnan maalari, piirikunnan diakonin poika,
öljyväreillä. — Hän oli siihen kuvattu päällään Valkonen puku,
keltanen shaali, kuudet suurhelmiset käädyt kaulalla, pitkät
korvarenkaat korvissa ja sormus kaikissa sormissa. — Tuntea hänet
siitä kyllä voi, vaikkakin maalari oli liiotellen käyttänyt loistavia koruja
ja punamaalla ja silmätkin maalasi harmaitten sijasta mustat ja
vieläpä hieman kierot… Akimin kuva ei häneltä ensinkään
onnistunut: se muodostui jotenkin synkäksi — à la Rembrand — niin,
että, joskus matkalainen menee luokse, katsoo ja poistuu hiljaa
mumisten, yhtä viisaana kuin alussakin. Pukeutumaan rupesi
Audotja hieman huolimattomasti; heitti jonkun ison huivin hartioilleen,
mutta hame sen alla sai miten kuten letkottaa: laiskuus hänet oli
vallannut, kaikki masentava, veltto ja unelias laiskuus, johonka
venäläinen ihminen yleensä on taipuvainen, varsinkin kun hänen
olemassaolonsa on turvattu…

Tuosta kaikesta huolimatta, Akimin ja hänen vaimonsa asiat

luistivat kerrassaan hyvin, he elelivät hiljaisesti ja kävivät
mallikelpoisesta avioparista. Mutta niin kuin orava, joka puhdistaa
naamaansa samalla hetkellä kun metsästäjä häntä tähtää, ei
ihminenkään aavista tulevaa kohtaloaan — vaan yhtäkkiä vajoaa
siihen, niinkuin heikkoon jäähän.

Eräänä syksyinä iltana Akimin majataloon pysähtyi sekalaisen

tavaran kauppias. Useita sivuteitä hän matkusteli kahdella
kuormavaljakolla, Moskovasta Harkovaan; hän oli yksi niitä välittäjiä,
joita paikkakuntalaiset ja varsinkin heidän vaimonsa ja tyttärensä
joskus odottavat suuresti kärsimättöminä. Tämän jo hieman
elähtäneen kauppiaan seurassa oli kaksi kumppalia tahi, paremmin
sanoen, kaksi palvelijaa — toinen laiha, kalpea ja kyttyräselkä,
toinen nuori, hyvännäköinen kaunis nuorukainen tuossa
kahdenkymmenen ijässä. He pyysivät itselleen illallista, sen jälkeen
istahtivat teelle; kauppias pyysi isäntäväenkin kerallaan nauttimaan
kupposen — isäntäväki ei kieltäytynyt. Kahden ukon (Akimin ikä
läheni jo viittäkymmentä kuutta vuotta) välillä syntyi pian vilkas
keskustelu; kauppias uteli paikallisasioita — eikä kukaan Akimia
paremmin olisi niitä voinut valaista; kyttyräselkänen palvelija
tuontuostakin käväsi katsomassa rattaita ja vihdoin paneutui
makaamaan. Audotja näin muodoin joutui seurustelemaan toisen
palvelijan kanssa… Hän istui tämän vieressä vaiteliaana,
pääasiallisesti kuunnellen, mitä hän puhui; nähtävästi hänen juttunsa
häntä miellyttivät: hänen kasvonsa tulivat eloisammiksi, puna leikitteli
poskilla ja nauroikin hän usein ja kernaasti. Nuori mies istui melkein
liikkumattomana; kiharainen päänsä käden varaan kumarrettuna,
hän puhui hiljaa, korottamatta ääntään ja kiirehtimättä; sensijaan
hänen silmänsä, ei tosin suuret, mutta sensijaan terävän kirkkaat ja
siniset, ihan imeytyivät Audotjaan; tämä ensin väisti niitten katsetta,
mutta sittemmin itse rupesi katsomaan nuorta miestä kasvoihin.
Nuoren miehen kasvot olivat tuoreet Ja tasaiset, niinkuin Krimin
omenan; hän usein hymyili ja leikitteli valkoisitta sormillaan
untuvaisten viiksenaluillaan. Hän esiintyi kauppiasmaisesti, mutta
hyvin vapaasti ja ilmaisten jonkunlaista itseluottamusta — ja aina
katsoi häneen herkeämättömästi, ujostelematta… Yht'äkkiä nuori
mies siirtyi hieman lähemmäksi Audotjaa ja muuttamatta vähääkään
kasvojensa ilmettä, sanoi hänelle: »Audotja Arefjevna, teitä
armaampaa ei maailmassa ole ketään olemassa; olisin valmis
kuolemaan teidän tähtenne!»

Audotja hyrskähti raikuvaan nauruun.

— Mille sinä? — uteli häneltä Akim.

 — Niin kun — he niin huvittavaa kertoivat, — vastasi Audotja
ilman suurempia vaikeuksia.

Vanha kauppias sekaantui puheeseen.

— Kyllähän se niin on; tuo Naum on aikamoinen lavertelija. Älkää

te häntä kuunnelko.

— Vielä mitä! käskisipä tässä heitä kuunnella, — vastasi Audotja

ja heilautti päätään.

— Niinpä niin, tietysti, — huomautti vanhus. — Mutta, kuitenkin, —

lisäsi hän laulavalla äänellä, — anteeksi pyydämme, kovin olemme
tyytyväiset, vaan onpa aika jo levolle… — Ja hän nousi.

— Hyvin tyytyväisiä olemme mekin, — virkkoi Akim ja myöskin

nousi, — teidän vierasvaraisuuteenne; siispä, hyvää yötä teille
toivotamme. Audotjuska nouseppas!

Audotja nousi, nähtävästi vastenmielisesti; hänen perässään nousi

myös
Naum… ja kaikki erkanivat omille yöteloilleen.

Isäntäväki vetäytyi erikoiseen kammioon. Joka teki heille

makuuhuoneen virkaa. Heti vuoteelle käytyään, Akim vaipui uneen.
Audotja sensijaan ei saanut unta… Ensin hän lojui hiljaa,
seinäänpäin kääntyneenä, sitten rupesi heittelehtimään kuumalla
höyhenpatjalla, väliin heittäen pois, väliin vetäen ylleen peittoa…
sitten vaipui keveään horrokseen. Yhtäkkiä kajahti pihalta sointuva
miehen ääni: mies lauloi jotain venyvää, mutta ei surullista laulua,
jonka sanoja ei voinut erottaa. Audotja avasi silmänsä, kohosi
kyynärpäillensä ja kuunteli… Laulu yhä vaan jatkui… Sointuvasti
kajahteli se syksyisessä ilmassa.

Akim myöskin kohotti päätään.

— Kuka siellä laulaa? — kysyi hän.

— En tiedä, — vastasi Audotja.

— Hyvin laulaa, — lisäsi Akim oltuaan hetkisen ääneti. — Hyvin.

Kuulehan, millainen voimakas ääni! Kyllä minäkin, aikoinani, lauloin,
— jatkoi hän, — ja hyvin lauloinkin, mutta sitte pilaantui ääneni.
Mutta tuolla on hyvä. Tiettävästi, nuorukainen laulaa. Naumiksi, eli
kuinka, häntä nimittävät, — Ja hän käännähti toiselle kylelle —
huoahti ja nukkui jälleen.

Pitkään aikaan ei vielä vaiennut ääni… Audotja yhä vaan kuunteli

ja kuunteli; vihdoin ääni yhtäkkiä omituisesti särkyi, sitten vielä
kerran soinnahti pitkään ja senjälkeen hiljaa häipyi. Audotja risti
itsensä ja painoi päänsä päänaluselle… Kului puoli tuntia… Hän
kohosi ylös ja rupesi hiljalleen nousemaan vuoteelta…

Mihin sinä vaimo? tiedusteli häneltä unenpöpperössä Akim,

Audotja pysähtyi.

— Pyhimyksen lamppua korjaamaan, — tokasi hän, — ei saa

unta, mikähän lienee…

— Rukoile sinä, — sopersi Akim, uudelleen nukahtaen.

Audotja meni pyhimyskuvan luokse ja ryhtyi korjaamaan lamppua,

jolloin sen vahingossa ihan kokonaan sammutti, palasi takaisin
vuoteelle ja heittäytyi makuulle. Kaikki hiljeni.