The Bible has affected their lives, but in translation, since they do not read the Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew.
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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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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Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.
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If a novel is written in a certain language with certain characters from a particular community and the story is very good or illuminating, then that work is translated into the language of another community.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Seen as an economic, political, cultural, and psychological re-membering vision, it should continue to guide remembering practices
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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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Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!
NGUGI WA THIONG'O