You get another person who operates only in an African language and there are many persons who operate only in African languages; he or she is excluded from all the goodies that come with English.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OOur lives are a battlefield on which is fought a continuous war between the forces that are pledged to confirm our humanity and those determined to dismantle it.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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Those who strive to build a protective wall around it, and those who wish to pull it down; those who seek to mould it and those committed to breaking it up; those who aim to open our eyes, to make us see the light and look to tomorrow […] and those who wish to lull us into closing our eyes
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They want to be the ones telling people: “This is what we have done in history” but when people begin to say, “No this is what we have done in history” it’s a different thing.
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Seen as an economic, political, cultural, and psychological re-membering vision, it should continue to guide remembering practices
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I’m writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.
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We can appreciate each other’s languages. And the question of being uncomfortable about our languages would go away.
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How did we arrive at this, that the best leader is the one that knows how to beg for a share of what he has already given away at the price of a broken tool? Where is the future of Africa?
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I’m more trying to connect; I’m more listening to people. Whatever I get is very meaningful to me.
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So we’re talking about the Bible itself being a translation of a translation of a translation. And, in reality, it has affected people’s lives in history.
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It was a revelation for me, in a practical sense, that you could write in an African language and still reach an audience beyond that language through the art of translation.
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We think of politics in terms of power and who has the power. Politics is the end to which that power is put.
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Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.
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Another phenomenon developing in Kenya is ethnic cleansing – and that’s the thing that has made me very sad. Because some people will use the cover of the problems of rigged elections to do things that are unacceptable like ethnic cleansing and displacement of people. It’s completely unacceptable.
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What is translated from English and into English – and in what quantities – is a question of power.
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Our lives are a battlefield on which is fought a continuous war between the forces that are pledged to confirm our humanity and those determined to dismantle it.
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I think a repressive regime always fears people who are awakened – particularly ordinary people. If they are awakened, I think governments all over the world feel uncomfortable about that; they want to be in control.
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So what I thought was just an African problem or issue is actually a global phenomenon about relationships of power between languages and cultures.
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Then they begin to see through their language that the problems described there are the same as the problems they are having. They can identify with characters from another language group.
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A person who acquires English has access to all the things that that language makes possible.
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The Bible in translation is being read to thousands and thousands in Africa. It is an integral part of their functioning and the way they look at the world.
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Through the act of translation we break out of linguistic confinement and reach many other communities.
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What’s good about writing is that when you write novels or fiction, people can see that the problems in one region are similar to problems in another region.
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There is no way we can survive as a nation in the world without finding unity.
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And even in terms of justice, law codes, the legal system. A person who does not know English in Africa is excluded from that system because he can only operate through acts of translation.
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I was wondering why I was put in prison for working in an African language when I had not been put in prison for working in English. So really, in prison I started thinking more seriously about the relation between language and power.
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Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!
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The same questions are there in Native American languages, they’re there in native Canadian languages, they’re there is some marginalized European languages, like say, Irish.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O