Recently in my Modern African Poetry & Drama class, the topics of the problem of language and post-colonialism in Africa came up. After colonialism ended, African poets and writers were given the option to return to their indigenous language instead of writing in the "new language", or the English language of their oppressors. When one Nigerian writer was asked why he chose to continue writing in English instead of his indigenous language, he responded that he had mastered English, and with his skills he would "replenish, energize, and revitalize the new language with (his) skills."
I was reminded of this concept when I read Ramage's CH 3. Much like his Jack Benny example of the blurry line between coercion and persuasion, African writers were once forced by their oppressors to use the English language. The blurry line comes into view when that author uses rhetoric to flip the coercion into persuasion after the dissolve of colonialism. Ramage's idea of rhetoric as relativistic reminded me of this idea, too. Ramage says, "Relativism holds that it is impossible to "converse" across belief systems...that it's futile to try." I equated relativism with coercion, the force of it being much like the quote "Definition begins conformity." The choice, much like rhetoric, of this writer to continue writing in the language which was forced upon him acted as the "achieve(ment) of identification across differences of class, race, gender, nationality...(etc) or any other way we have devised to divide ourselves up categorically." Using something formerly suppressive and violent, viewed as a loss of identity, he transformed the coercion into a part of his identity and acted as a means of bringing his art to an international audience.