On January 21, 2025, a sweeping directive from the White House transformed the American federal government overnight. With a stroke of the pen, the new administration ordered federal agencies to systematically purge specific language from their lexicon, erasing all references to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility from official communications. Agency-wide notices announced the closure of DEIA offices. Employees were placed on administrative leave. Websites went dark. Training programs were abruptly terminated. A vocabulary that had defined federal policy for years disappeared, not through democratic debate or legislative process, but by executive command.
This was not merely bureaucratic restructuring. It was linguistic engineering on a grand scale. And it underscored a profound truth about modern governance: those who control language control reality itself.
“If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought,” George Orwell wrote in 1984. This observation encapsulates a fundamental principle of power. Defining acceptable discourse determines which concepts can be discussed, debated, and ultimately enacted into policy. When specific terminology is eliminated from official use, the issues those terms represent become increasingly difficult to articulate within the corridors of governance.
The impact of such policies is immediate and far-reaching. In the United States, the purge of DEIA-related language resulted in the closure of federally funded training programs, a chilling effect on discussions related to race, gender, and accessibility, and the dismantling of advocacy networks that had spent years institutionalizing equity policies. Meanwhile, affected government employees were left in professional limbo, uncertain of how to navigate these sudden changes.
This recent American example is merely the latest iteration of a strategy long deployed across political systems. But in today’s multipolar world, where influence is no longer dictated by a single hegemon, the contest over language has intensified. Competing state and non-state actors now shape global narratives, seeking to control the vocabulary that defines economic power, international diplomacy, and ideological struggle.
The Politics of Speech and the Power to Define Reality
The relationship between language and governance has been explored by numerous political theorists. Michel Foucault’s concept of discourse illustrates how language shapes what is considered legitimate knowledge within a society. In The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969), Foucault demonstrated that power operates not merely through overt coercion but through the establishment of “regimes of truth,” defining which statements are accepted as meaningful.
Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony further explains how ruling classes maintain dominance not only through force but by shaping language and narrative to make their worldview appear natural and inevitable. Judith Butler builds on these ideas in Excitable Speech (1997), arguing that language does not merely describe reality but actively constitutes it, particularly in shaping political and social identities.
Colonial Erasure and the Struggle to Reclaim Indigenous Knowledge
Nowhere has linguistic erasure been more consequential than in the colonial project. European colonial powers systematically suppressed indigenous languages, imposing administrative and educational structures that prioritized European tongues over local dialects. This was not incidental but a deliberate tool of imperial domination, as Prof Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o argues in Decolonising the Mind (1986), where he describes how linguistic suppression severed entire populations from their cultural and intellectual heritage.
Across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, colonial administrations entrenched power by privileging those fluent in the colonizer’s language, ensuring that governance remained in the hands of Westernized elites. The consequences of this persist: postcolonial states still struggle to assert their own linguistic and narrative sovereignty within global institutions dominated by frameworks developed in former imperial capitals.
The Gulf States and the Strategic Use of Narrative
While many nations seek to reclaim linguistic agency, the Gulf states have strategically leveraged language as an instrument of soft power. Over the past few decades, countries like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have carefully curated national narratives that position them as indispensable global economic and diplomatic players.
Qatar, in particular, has mastered the use of narrative control, as Mehran Kamrava explores in Qatar: Small State, Big Politics (2013). Through its media powerhouse Al Jazeera, Doha has amplified alternative narratives that challenge Western dominance over global news cycles. Similarly, Saudi Arabia has invested in global institutions and cultural diplomacy to reshape its international image, a shift examined by Madawi Al-Rasheed in A Most Masculine State (2013).
These efforts demonstrate that language control is not only about suppression. It is also about projection. As Gulf states assert themselves in a multipolar world, they provide a case study in how nations can wield narrative power to influence global governance without relying solely on military or economic might.
How Stalin Rewrote the Past
The Soviet Union under Stalin exemplified linguistic and historical erasure at its most extreme, systematically excising not only individuals but entire historical events from public memory. As Sheila Fitzpatrick details in The Russian Revolution (2008), Soviet censorship manipulated photographs, altered historical records, and revised textbooks to align with ideological objectives.
“What made Soviet censorship distinct was not merely its scope but its retrospective nature,” Fitzpatrick writes. “The past itself was continuously revised to maintain ideological coherence in the present.”
China and the Evolution of Censorship
China offers a parallel but evolving model of linguistic control. During Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution (1966 to 1976), language was not only censored but actively re-engineered. Traditional texts were destroyed, intellectuals were persecuted, and even the written language was simplified to align with revolutionary ideals.
Countering Linguistic Erasure: Strategies for Resistance
As history has shown, linguistic erasure is not inevitable. It can be resisted. The first step is fostering decentralized and independent knowledge networks that preserve suppressed vocabularies and narratives. Civil society organizations, universities, and digital platforms play a crucial role in ensuring that alternative discourses remain accessible.
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