A person who acquires English has access to all the things that that language makes possible.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OPeople went to war as a result of it and even today, every Sunday.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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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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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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The Bible has affected their lives, but in translation, since they do not read the Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew.
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Many people do not know that Jesus did not speak Latin or English or Hebrew; he spoke Aramaic. But nobody knows that language.
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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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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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Why did Africa let Europe cart away millions of Africa’s souls from the continent to the four corners of the wind?
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Through the act of translation we break out of linguistic confinement and reach many other communities.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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