Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is an American-based Kenyan author who is famous for his writings against the effects of colonialism including Christianity in Africa. I am cognizant and respectful of the fact that Ngũgĩ’s writings were at a different time especially when the lashes of colonization were still rawly felt in Africa. However, after reading about his interview with the Guardian, I cannot help but notice Ngũgĩ’s antiquated views on colonization. Ngũgĩ recently stated that ‘the colonized trying to claim the colonizer’s language is a sign of the success of enslavement’. How rich coming from the fellow that has made a living teaching the ‘colonizer’s language’ (English) his entire life! So how has colonization rewarded Ngũgĩ wa Thiongo ?
Ngũgĩ’s Education & Employment in England and USA:
Ironically, for a man that is so against the ways of the ‘colonizer’, he gladly accepted a scholarship to pursue higher education abroad at Leeds University in England. You know the same country that colonized his mother land. So if colonization was that bad according to this writer, why take on this prestigious education in English and not pursue a doctorate in his own mother tongue or African languages? Ngũgĩ went on to teach English (not his mother tongue) to students at the University of Nairobi Kenya. Ngũgĩ then abandoned Africa for good and acquired gainful employment from the ‘colonizer’, living his best life in the ‘White Man’s land’. He spent the major portion of his life abroad teaching English at Northwestern University, as well as at his present employer, the University of California, Irvine. The irony! Of all the things that Ngũgĩ would have studied and taught, he chose the ‘White man’s language’, and now has the nerve to ask Africans to ‘decolonize their minds’ by embracing their native languages. He has strongly criticized African parents who do not teach their young their mother tongues. Growing up in Africa, grandparents ‘taught’ oral literature and history. Those strong Kenyan grandparents that did not flee their country, go into exile or seek asylum in the colonizer’s land. Those unsung heroes, the tough field marshals that fought for Kenya’s freedom, were able to look their grandchildren in the eye and teach them Gĩkũyũ while succinctly expressing what they had to endure during colonization! That was how most of us learned Gĩkũyũ. Not from a privileged author writing books in Gĩkũyũ while comfortably hiding abroad. Another reason that Ngũgĩ was successful at securing asylum in those foreign lands was because of his command of the ‘Queen’s Language’. So please, as a beneficiary of what the ‘colonizer’ offered you, some gratitude would suffice.
Ngũgĩ’s Exile/Asylum in UK & USA:
Ngũgĩ called upon the colonizers to come to his rescue when he felt that his life was threatened in his motherland. The colonizers welcomed him with open arms. Ngũgĩ felt very safe and empowered enough in the white man’s land than in his own mother land. Go figure! One other political prisoner that was arrested with Ngũgĩ, was Koigi wa Wamwere. Koigi received his education in the United States, then sought asylum in Norway. Decades later after the political regimes in Kenya had changed, Koigi was conscious enough to return to his birth place and serve his people as a member of parliament. Koigi wa Wamwere is a perfect example of talking the talk and walking the walk. Ngũgĩ would not dare relocate to Kenya. Ngũgĩ is not about to leave his comfortable life behind to live in a grass thatched house anywhere in Kenya let alone other countries in Africa.
The big question remains why has he failed to return to his home country, may be teach Gĩkũyũ while at it? He enjoys the perks that came with the colonization that he claims to detest. Kenya’s former president Uhuru Kenyatta welcomed Ngũgĩ back when he last visited Kenya and asked him to consider repatriating back to Kenya. Ngũgĩ would not leave America for his own motherland. This is the same author of the book ‘decolonizing the mind’.
Ngũgĩ’s Healthcare in the US:
It is unfortunate to note that Ngũgĩ is facing some health challenges, and I sincerely do wish him a speedy recovery. However, I wonder why he chose to receive medical care in America and not request for a Gĩkũyũ herbalist or medicine man to mix up some herbal potions (miti ni dawa) and concoctions if he thinks that colonization was that bad. Or worse still, why not consult a mùrogi or mùndù mùgo to drive away the curse of sickness that has befallen him? After all isn’t that what our pre-colonial Kikuyus believed? This is the same gentleman scolding Africans for thinking that we need to ‘decolonize our minds’. Ngũgĩ is either stuck in the past or on his Marxist views.
Ngũgĩ, your mind is no less ‘decolonized’ for speaking your mother tongue in America, than the Kikuyu man speaking English in Kiambu.
Notably, Ngũgĩ commercializes his mother tongue. Ngũgĩ writes and promotes his books in Gĩkũyũ. I argue that any Kikuyu person or native speaker would do that, given the opportunity. Africans are proud of their mother tongues, contrary to Ngũgĩ’s beliefs, especially in social settings such as weddings, male circumcision/initiation ceremonies, funerals and other social gatherings. Notably, times have changed. Inter-marriages and gentrification has led to a large and diverse intercultural influx in many villages. Ngũgĩ has been gone from Africa way too long. It is insulting and somewhat disingenuous to suggest that tribes speak their mother tongue at events given the social diversity in Africa today. Unlike Ngũgĩ proposing decolonizing the mind using the mother tongue, why not embrace one unifying language. The Gĩkũyũ language has several dialects. The Gĩkũyũ dialect spoken is Kabete, is different from that in Kirinyaga, Murang’a or Nyeri. So the mother tongue alone is not sufficient to unify a tribe. I also know that a majority of fluent Gĩkũyũ speakers that cannot read in Gĩkũyũ, unless they have studied the alphabet in either Kiswahili or English. As an ardent Gĩkũyũ speaker, I am yet to see the Gĩkũyũ alphabet. Kiswahili as a national language is a beautiful equalizer. There is nothing wrong with English either!
Also, when Ngũgĩ was gone, we learned so much about tribal conflicts from the Hutus and Tutsi’s as well as from the Kenyan post-election violence that was sparked by mother tongue fuelled utterances by the Kikuyu, Kalenjin and Luo tribes among others. Heard of the Kikuyu vigilante group Mungiki? God knows that Kenya cannot stand to endure another tribal massacre based on mother tongue differences. Ngũgĩ may be oblivious to the ethnic killings taking place in the Amhara region of Ethiopia by dominant tribes that are dehumanizing those from minority tribes. Ngũgĩ should understand that decolonization is not the problem here, after all Ethiopia was never colonized! You simply cannot ‘decolonize a mind’ through language, especially one that is so full of hate to kill those that do not speak their mother tongue.
Talking of ‘success of enslavement’, do you know how many domestic workers are slaves to their mother-tongue-speaking masters in modern-day Kenya? It is one thing to write great fiction books, it’s yet another thing to condescendingly admonish young Africans, who are trying to eke out a living or survive, and the only way to do so is by learning foreign languages! Does Ngũgĩ know that young Gen Z Kenyans are lamenting the nepotism happening under the Ruto regime? The oppressive regime that has been hiring based on their tribal surnames or the people of their mother tongue? It also happened with the Kikuyu’s that preceded the Kalenjins. So when does this cycle end? Perhaps after we promote unifying languages in Kenya. It is beautiful to see African youth traveling around the world, and interacting at various global fora, while debating on global issues in English nonetheless. Times have changed.
Neocolonialism is only possible through greedy tribal leaders that stand to gain from selling out their own folks. Remember the tribal chiefs that sold Africans to their colonizers? It was all from their sheer greed, yearning for power, wealth and prestige. We can’t use the ‘White Man’ as the scapegoat for all of Kenya or Africa’s ills. I would also like to remind Ngũgĩ that Dedan Kimathi was captured by his fellow tribe’s men. His own mother tongue speaking brethren handed him over to the colonizer. I wonder for Kimathi’s sake what was worse. Betrayal by your own kin or dealing with the colonialist. Similarly, gang members in North America are willing to kill their own family members for them to gain notoriety. This goes to show that it is not by speaking your mother tongue that decolonizes the mind, its having the courage and heart to do what is right for humanity. Standing for what you believe is right. The courage to think on your own.
Ngũgĩ has also raised concern about Africans giving their children Christian names. Some of those pagan and barbaric African names are bound to destroy a child’s self-esteem from birth. Africans know the names that I am talking about.
Ngũgĩ, your mind is no less ‘decolonized’ for speaking your mother tongue in America, than the Kikuyu man speaking English in Kiambu. Why speak a mother tongue while you don’t practice the tribe’s ‘mihiriga’ (culture and traditions)? That may as well be the definition of hypocrisy!
So how about you show some gratitude to the colonizers that have been so good to you. You have greatly benefitted from what colonization had to offer.
I am very grateful (and unapologetic) for speaking and writing in the English Language. There was no way I would have written this piece in Gĩkũyũ without breaking the dogma of the language or tribe. I would have been severely punished in a Kiama (council of male elders), for expressing my opinion about a man that is older than me. In Kikuyu culture, women were to be seen and not heard.
Thanks to colonization, at least I can now be heard. To me, the greatest ‘decolonization of the mind’, is keeping an open mind, being a critical thinker, and speaking my mind while at it.
Written by ~Njeri Karanja Robinson.