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.
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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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 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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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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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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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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Writing in African languages became a topic of discussion in conferences, in schools, in classrooms; the issue is always being raised – so it’s no longer “in the closet,” as it were. It’s part of the discussion going on about the future of African literature.
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There is no way we can survive as a nation in the world without finding unity.
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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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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 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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A person who acquires English has access to all the things that that language makes possible.
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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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How did we arrive at this, that the best leader is the one that knows how to beg for a share of what he has already given away at the price of a broken tool? Where is the future of Africa?
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We can appreciate each other’s languages. And the question of being uncomfortable about our languages would go away.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O