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'OWe think of politics in terms of power and who has the power. Politics is the end to which that power is put.
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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Seen as an economic, political, cultural, and psychological re-membering vision, it should continue to guide remembering practices
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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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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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Any writer likes to be near the area which is the location of his work.
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The Bible has affected their lives, but in translation, since they do not read the Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew.
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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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I’m more trying to connect; I’m more listening to people. Whatever I get is very meaningful to me.
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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 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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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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I’m writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.
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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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So we’re talking about the Bible itself being a translation of a translation of a translation. And, in reality, it has affected people’s lives in history.
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Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!
NGUGI WA THIONG'O