People
Translating Public Information: Good or Bad?
by HUGH MUIR
So, I ask my new friend Andy: are you part of the problem or the solution? He is taken aback, as well he might be.
What's he been doing?
Translating stuff into foreign languages.
You should be ashamed of yourself, I say.
He refuses to take the bait.
And yet we live in strange times, so it is true to say what Andy does is frowned upon. Why do we need documents on how to claim benefits in Urdu, goes the complaint from the ideologues and the penny pinchers on the right. Who needs another housing discrimination leaflet in Polish? Or health leaflets in Punjabi? Doesn't this stuff cost a fortune? Doesn't it discourage integration? Why don't the blighters learn English?
Andy says translated information doesn't deter people from integrating. It helps them integrate. No point telling someone to learn English if there isn't a leaflet they can understand pointing them in the right direction. Yes, translations cost money, but so does not having them.
"An eviction costs about £35,000. Isn't it better that people know how to avoid it? How much is wasted on NHS treatments for people who might have presented earlier if they had been aware of symptoms? Isn't it better to help people settle, to work, to pay tax?"
Makes sense. But hardly anyone wants to listen. The very idea of translating material, particularly that produced by the public sector, has been under attack in Britain for some time. An attack spearheaded by Hazel Blears, says Andy - for, as communities secretary, she bought the argument that mass translations were part and parcel of a discredited multiculturalism.
Next stop, greater integration. It hasn't worked out that way, but that's not to say she failed to make an impact. Try sitting in Andy's shoes, with a community translation service in east London called MultiKulti. Celebrated and funded and heavily utilised one minute. Unloved by those who make policy and scratching around for funds the next.
Hard to stop the rot, not least because curbing translations, without thought for the repercussions, carries a deep political symbolism.
Easy to do it.
Raises a cheer.
Doesn't mean it's right.
[Courtesy: The Guardian]
July 29, 2010
