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 Bible affects everybody’s life who is a Christian, from the middle class in Europe to the peasant in Africa and Asia.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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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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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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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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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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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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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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Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!
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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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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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Seen as an economic, political, cultural, and psychological re-membering vision, it should continue to guide remembering practices
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If poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can’t buy it.
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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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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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In terms of language, English is very dominant vis-Ã-vis African language. That in itself is a power relationship – between languages and communities – because the English language is a determinant of the ladder to achievement.
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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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