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.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OAnother 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.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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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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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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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.
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Through the act of translation we break out of linguistic confinement and reach many other communities.
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The Bible affects everybody’s life who is a Christian, from the middle class in Europe to the peasant in Africa and Asia.
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People went to war as a result of it and even today, every Sunday.
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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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The Pan-Africanism that envisaged the ideal of wholeness was gradually cut down to the size of a continent, then a nation, a region, an ethnos, a clan, and even a village in some instances But Pan-Africanism has not outlived its mission.
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Any writer likes to be near the area which is the location of his work.
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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.
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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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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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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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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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