Change a name to change the game

The primary filter through which people understand new ideas and concepts is in the vernacular of their first language, their mother tongue. It is important, therefore, for changemakers to unpack complex theories and translate abstract, bureaucratic terms into simple, everyday language, so people can more easily identify, discuss, and confront unjust and oppressive systems.

For example, in Uganda, the term corruption does not have an equivalent term in any of the country’s ethnic languages. The word itself is quite broad and figurative, as its Latin root means simply to break down. When you strip down the political meaning of corruption to its simplest form, you realize it simply means theft.

When you strip down the political meaning of corruption to its simplest form, you realize it simply means theft.

In a 2012 campaign against widespread misuse of public resources in Uganda, civil society organizations decided to address corruption as theft and corrupt officials as thieves. If corruption is robbery, then the corrupt are thieves — and every local language in Uganda has a word for thieves.

The impact of this small change in the language of the campaign was phenomenal. People could suddenly understand what corruption really meant: Someone was stealing resources from everyone else, particularly from those who most needed these resources. It is easy to miss the impact of corruption when one gets lost in all the legal terms that surround this form of injustice. By calling corruption robbery, the campaign exposed the actual impacts of corruption — for example, the 16 mothers who die everyday because they can’t access maternal care, the thousands of rural schools that could have been built if resources had not been stolen for private gain, the farmers who could have had access to better equipment, and the poor who could have had better healthcare, if one public official had not funnelled these resources to a personal bank account.

By changing the name of the problem, the campaign empowered everyday people to identify what was wrong and push for solutions. People knew how to deal with thieves in their communities, and now it was easy to see how they should deal with thieves in government, too. Suddenly, they were no longer powerless before an abstract injustice; the problem had local names, faces, and consequences. And once the problem was set in a more meaningful cultural context, people could more easily imagine appropriate remedies.

The response from the thieves themselves was also unprecedented. Given the embarrassment and shame that comes from being associated with an act as despicable as robbery, government officials panicked and tried to disassociate themselves from their crimes. Some guilty officials were prosecuted and had to return stolen funds. An anti-corruption bill was passed in 2013. Furthermore, the media picked up the term and began to refer to corruption as theft. The new language spread to most media outlets, who still use the term to this day.

In 2012 in Uganda, savvy campaigners changed a name and it changed the game. That was just one struggle in one country, but the principle applies around the world. What name might you change to change your game? Victory might be just one word away.

Originally published in Beautiful Rising.