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'OThe 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.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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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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Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.
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I’m writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.
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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 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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How could Europe lord it over a continent ten times its size? Why does needy Africa continue to let its wealth meet the needs of those outside its borders and then follow behind with hands outstretched for a loan of the very wealth it let go?
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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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Through the act of translation we break out of linguistic confinement and reach many other communities.
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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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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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Seen as an economic, political, cultural, and psychological re-membering vision, it should continue to guide remembering practices
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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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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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A person who acquires English has access to all the things that that language makes possible.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O






