In a certain English language class, made up of 32 individuals from different cultures, of different ages and professions, the lesson of the day involves a common reading of text. Everyone was to read together. The differences of the participants became quite evident even when it was not necessary: some were reading very slowly, others were a bit faster, and a few wanted their voices to be heard above others.

The teacher, Mrs. Becheme, a slender, beautiful and intelligent Cameroonian, married to a Nigerian, was quite discontent, and so wanted to correct the participants. Her simple task was to appeal to the class to read more harmoniously the next day.

“Friends, last week, I went on a walk in the woods with my family.”

“Everyone was involved, my husband, my in-laws, my kids and my grandchildren too.”

She continues, “while the kids were always either walking faster or running ahead, the old ones were taking the walk a bit slowly.”

“Sometimes we had to call on the youngsters to pull back so that all of us will keep walking closely together.”

She ends with the admonition, “I just want you to keep this in mind, please because that is how life is.”

Mrs. Becheme, an Oxford-trained linguist, now residing with her family in North Vlaanders, has obviously become an epitome of unrivaled civility. She is impeccably urbane! Trust me, many of the participants never got the sense of what she was trying to communicate.

Friends, it is good to be polite, but sometimes we risk not communicating at all in the pretense of being polite. Being polite is about being respectful and considerate, and has nothing to do with being ambiguous in communication. Even in cases of grayness, communication needs to be as clear as possible.

And so, today politeness is confused with the so-called ‘political correctness’ which always sounds sweet but often far removed from reality. In the gibberish that is produced out of this confusion, communication becomes deficient and a lot of values are lost. As a result dialogue at all levels is impaired because it becomes a space for the mutual glorification and appraisal, instead of becoming a place of mutual learning and mutual accountability.

It is thus not surprising that the next day, the participants in Mrs. Becheme’s class repeated the same mistakes. The cacophony continued, so also was Mrs. Becheme’s frustration. Poor pretty lady!

What is lost?

• Discipline– What if Mrs. Becheme had reminded the class that some kind of self-discipline is required for one to work harmoniously with other?
• Sincerity– What if Mrs. Becheme had simply and in a friendly way called out Jekwu whose voice was always the loudest and Yaña who was very slow?
• Clarity in communication– What if Mrs. Becheme had just informed the class that the rushing of the text messes up the entire reading exercise?

Generally, I see a paradox here: We praise people who speak truth to power, yet we hate it when people are straightforward with us when we are at fault.

Of course, this is not a laudatio on cruelty, incivility or impoliteness. Rather, it is to point out that communication and dialogue needs to be clear as much as possible even when it challenges us. After all, there is nothing wrong with the command ‘get out!’, the difference lies only in the manner the command is given.

To reiterate, this is just a reminder that there is often something that is lost in communication when we stretch politeness beyond its real meaning.