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.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OThe Bible has affected their lives, but in translation, since they do not read the Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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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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People went to war as a result of it and even today, every Sunday.
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Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.
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Of course it’s very, very important for me to feel Kenya, to feel, every day, this is where images come from. So to be taken away from that by political pressure or other means – one is taken away from the area, which is the basis of inspiration – is difficult.
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For me, being in prison writing in an African language was a way of saying: “Even if you put me in prison, I will keep on writing in the language which made you put me in prison.”
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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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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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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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We can appreciate each other’s languages. And the question of being uncomfortable about our languages would go away.
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Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!
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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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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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Any writer likes to be near the area which is the location of his work.
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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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