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.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OIn 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.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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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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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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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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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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What is translated from English and into English – and in what quantities – is a question of power.
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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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If a novel is written in a certain language with certain characters from a particular community and the story is very good or illuminating, then that work is translated into the language of another community.
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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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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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There is no way we can survive as a nation in the world without finding unity.
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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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Any writer likes to be near the area which is the location of his work.
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The Bible affects everybody’s life who is a Christian, from the middle class in Europe to the peasant in Africa and Asia.
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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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The Bible has affected their lives, but in translation, since they do not read the Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O