Author: Samwel Ndandala
When Ngugi wa Thiongo renounced English,
Christianity, his Christian name (he was baptized as James Ngugi) and
started writing in his native Gikuyu and Swahili, I thought it was a
little extreme given his radical fanonist convictions. I thought it was
impractical. But in his book ‘Decolonising the mind’ he argues, and I should say convincingly, that language is a carrier of culture and a society’s collective memory. ‘Because
erasure of memory is a condition for successful assimilation, the
burial of African languages by Africans themselves ensured that the
assimilation process into colonial culture was complete’. That is powerful. I related to this deep insight this week. Let me explain.
At 1957Hrs on a Friday evening I jumped
into a train (the Swiss have weird departure times). With Shaaban
Robert’s autobiographical ‘Maisha Yangu’ in my hands, I was
heading home after a fruitful day at work. On my way my phone rings. I
am happy that mom is calling, but it is when I pick the phone that I
realize how inept I am. Because I want my conversation with mama to not
be understood by those around me, I make a deliberate effort to use
Kiswahili all the way, not a single English word. This opens my eyes.
No comments:
Post a Comment