“Seen as an economic, political, cultural, and psychological re-membering vision, it should continue to guide remembering practices”

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.

The Bible has affected their lives, but in translation, since they do not read the Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew.

Through the act of translation we break out of linguistic confinement and reach many other communities.

So what I thought was just an African problem or issue is actually a global phenomenon about relationships of power between languages and cultures.

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.

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.

Many people do not know that Jesus did not speak Latin or English or Hebrew; he spoke Aramaic. But nobody knows that language.

A person who acquires English has access to all the things that that language makes possible.

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.”

If poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can’t buy it.

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.

Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.

Those who strive to build a protective wall around it, and those who wish to pull it down; those who seek to mould it and those committed to breaking it up; those who aim to open our eyes, to make us see the light and look to tomorrow […] and those who wish to lull us into closing our eyes

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.

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.

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.

We have to assume now that all mission is cross-cultural.

We have to remember that information sharing is restricted by legal barriers and cultural barriers and by the notion that information is power and therefore should be hoarded so if you share information you can extract something in exchange.

But herein lies the rub: Christianity has been on a long-term trend of decline in every Western cultural context that we can identify.

I don’t care if this is a great cultural event or a national symbol. It has nothing to do with me. It deals with the city.

[Museums] all belongs to the cultural department, which is the biggest cultural department in the world.

Lawrence Hill, a cultural and spiritual descendant of West African griots, has used his vast storytelling talents to create an epic story that spans three continents.

To conjure with the passive culture and adapt to its rules is to degrade and deny the fullness of our meaning and intention.

We try to avoid the single-building syndrome. You have to look at the big picture. If you try to put social and cultural development ahead of economic development, it doesn’t work. You have to do it all together.