Decolonising the Mind: the Politics of Language in African Literature

Divided into nine subsections, Ngũgĩ begins by outlining the framework he thinks is necessary for understanding the true content and stakes of the relationship between language and African literature. He argues that African literature is as defined by the legacy of imperialism as it is by resistance to it, which he characterizes as  “the ceaseless struggles of African people to liberate their economy, politics and culture from that Euro-American-based stranglehold to usher a new era of true communal self-regulation and self-determination” (4).

Ngũgĩ provides further historical background, which he deems necessary for understanding what is at stake in these investigations into the relationship between language and the self-emancipation of African peoples from imperial power. Ngũgĩ writes that it was the nature of European colonization and neo-colonization to proceed in a twofold manner: violent subjugation followed by educational indoctrination. Or as the author puts it, “the night of the sword and the bullet was followed by the morning of the chalk and the blackboard” (9).

The Berlin Conference of 1884—which is sometimes called the Congo or West Africa Conference—set the agenda of European colonization on the African continent, which began with the usurpation of land and resources by force. This event was followed by the so called “civilizing” mission of educating Indigenous African peoples in the thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and behaviors that were deemed to be “civilized” (read: European). Moreover, Ngũgĩ provides an anecdote from his childhood in Kenya to drive home the point that the domination of European languages over those languages Indigenous to African peoples took on that character of the “cultural bomb.” A proof of mastery over English as opposed to Gikuyu language, for example, was tied to a whole set of material benefits, rewards, and granted students further access into the education system. The author recalls a boy in his class who mastered all subjects but English, yet could only find work as an assistant to a bus driver. By contrast, despite being only an average student, the author gained admittance to an elite school by virtue of an English credit he earned.

In addition to the way in which young Kenyan students’ mastery of the English language was used as the means of deciding who is deserving and undeserving of access to certain educational means, Ngũgĩ notes that the colonial imposition of English in place of Gikuyu had a deeper impact on the overall daily lives of the colonized: “[T]he harmony existing between the three aspects of language as communication was irrevocably broken. This resulted in the disassociation of the sensibility of that child from his natural and social environment, what we might call colonial alienation” (17).

For Ngũgĩ, the relationship between language, culture, and the possibility of human freedom are inseparable. He writes that language is divided into three fundamental aspects: non-verbal language relations such as collective activities, habits, practices, rituals, and traditions; spoken language, which establishes discourse between individuals and allows them to mirror and transmit the real world of nonverbal life to one another; and written language, which represents spoken language and codifies speech.

Now, under colonial and neo-colonial rule, the native and Indigenous languages of a colonized peoples are replaced with that of the colonizer. The consequence of this, says Ngũgĩ, is that individuals are severed from the ability to render whole and consistent the three aspects of language. In place of this form of living—where one’s actions and lived reality are reflected in speech and writing—came a new spoken and written language, which referred to an altogether different and European lived reality. In this context, it was the “petty-bourgeoisie” (20) or middle class who were the main beneficiaries of the rise of African writing as its own literary tradition, which was only made possible by the fact that African writers wrote and published their works in the languages of their former colonizers: English, French, German, and Portuguese.

The establishment of the tradition of African literature had two key features whose effects were largely to the benefit of the African “petty-bourgeoisie.” On an international level, the rise of African literature written in the language of former European colonies aided the petty-bourgeoisie “in politics, business, and education” (20) because they were deemed to be the class most fit to lead their now decolonized nation-states. However, on a national level, literature gave the class a shared frame of reference through which to define its own culture and confront the “racist bigotry of Europe” (21).

However, Ngũgĩ highlights that in contrast to the consolidation of national and international power by the petty-bourgeoisie was the use and preservation of African languages by the African peasantry and working classes in the form of daily speech, ceremonies, proverbs, songs, and poems. “Thus,” Ngũgĩ writes, “the immortality of our languages in print has been ensured despite the internal and external pressures for their extinction” (24).

Ngũgĩ concludes the chapter by equating a politician’s argument that Africa needs Europe to a writer’s argument that Africa needs European language.