Previous Work of Ngugi wa Thiong’o Highlights Loss of Self

I was delighted to recall that I was familiar with Ngugi wa Thiong’o as I read a work of last year around this time for a H101 course. The River Between explores the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya that afflicted Thiong’o and his family during his childhood. The primary focus of the short novel is the division of culture that occurs between two villages located in Kenya on mountainous ridges with a river between them. The influence of European explorers brings Christianity to the area, and while one village accepts Christianity the other fights to cling to their historical and cultural traditions the Christians label as barbaric, such as forced female circumcision.

One quote in particular struck me from the novel that ties together with the subjugation Thiong’o discusses in “Decolonising the Mind” relating to language. “If the white man’s religion made you abandon a custom and then did not give you something else of equal value, you became lost” (The River Between 142). This loss ties into the loss of language Thiong’o describes in his essay, for the novel shows the leader of the newly Christian village changes his name from a traditional Kenyan name to the Anglicized Joshua after a prominent Christian prophet and leader. The other village scorns Joshua for this choice, among others directly resulting from the European influence, and through Thiong’o’s narrative that heavily encourages the native ways of life we are able to see that he agrees complete assimilation was a loss of identity for his people. Yet although in this novel Thiong’o laments the loss of his sense of self through what he later calls forceful “spiritual subjugation” in his essay (1130), there seems to be hope offered in his essay written later in his life. Thiong’o encourages us to change what is taught to reclaim the mind, which would be equivalent to reclaiming the forcefully abandoned customs of The River Between.

Decolonising the mind bits and pieces

Thiong’o raises many points that are taken from Bourdieu we have study so far.  I couldn’t help but think of Pierre Bourdieu while reading this text.  Ngugi is a victim of his social status.  By nature of speaking his mother tongue he is already classified under a certain social class.  Being colonized by Europeans he was forced to speak English, thus making him a a victim of globalization.  We discussed the term habitus which I think fits perfectly for the situation of Ngugi.  The tension between what he enjoys independent of his sub culture and his enjoyments shaped by part of this sub culture is what he struggles with his entire life.  He does not want to be stripped of his roots yet English is also a part of his life.  This also raises the question about taste.  Much to the shagrin of Bourdieu I would have to say that Ngugi fights very hard to keep his taste separate of his subculture.  He states that African literature can not even be discussed meaningful by the other social forces that are trying to force it to its extinctions. Once again we are pushed to a sort of “barthe-ian” notion that yes I will write this but you will really not understand it.  But in not understanding it we will receive pleasure.

The Culture of Language or the Language of Culture?

In Decolonising the Mind, Thiong’o discusses the importance of language in culture, a topic that we have not really focused on this semester. Following the ideas of theorists like Barthes and Lacan, we have explored the elements of language, but not how language influences the world and culture. I found it very interesting how Thiong’o talks about language as the vehicle of culture while realizing that language is deeply rooted in culture. All of the values that we hold dear, no matter our culture, are wrapped around language. In Thiong’o’s eyes, without language, there is no culture, but without culture, is there language?

I feel that this binary of language and culture is crucial in our understanding of meaning. Through the lens of colonialism, Thiong’o offers his thoughts on why language is so important. Through his brainwashing education, he was led to believe that his “mother-tongue” is completely invalid. While describing the oppressive nature of his education, Thiong’o tells us, “The language of my education was no longer the language of my culture” (1131). This shows just how powerful language can be in cultural terms. By the colonist punishing the use of his native language, Thiong’o’s moral values, cultural viewpoint, and even his identity was challenged. At this point, English for Thiong’o was a “means of communication,” but not a “carrier of culture” (1133). In this colonial society, “the most coveted place in the pyramid and in the system was only available to the holder of an English credit card” (1132). To the colonists, communication is much more relevant than culture.

Up to this point in the semester we have been talking about what language is, but now we turn to what language does. I feel that Thiong’o would agree with Bourdieu in the fact that cultural dominance (aka social hierarchy) decides what language will be an understood communicative language and what will be a language to preserve culture. For the ones privileged enough to be a member of the dominant culture, these languages are one in the same. However, for people in Thiong’o’s situation, communication with people outside of their culture may be very different from the communication within their culture.

Language may be a part of culture, but language, itself, has a unique culture. I argue that there is no other aspect of society that has so much power. Language is a vehicle of communication, miscommunication, conflict, resolution, identity, and, culture. Societies are built and destroyed by language. As Thiong’o learned through his oppressive education in a colonial society, a denial of language is a denial of culture. A denial of culture can lead to its eventual destruction.

-Kurt Henderson

Thiong’o and Lacan’s Mirror Stage

In Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Decolonising the Mind, I saw strong callbacks to Lacan’s mirror stage. It seems that Thiong’o believes, with strong evidence, that many colonized children enter a second mirror stage when introduced to the colonized language. Thiong’o tells how children were reprimanded at school and around school grounds when caught using their native languages (1131-1132), establishing these languages as bad or incorrect forms of communication. Thiong’o further insists that native languages were associated with “low status, humiliation, corporal punishment, slow-footed intelligence and ability or downright stupidity, non-intelligibility and barbarism…” (1136). These traits are all the makings of seeing oneself as inadequate when looking into the mirror. Thiong’o insists that these traits were associated with native languages in order to make the colonized language the proper form of communication, or the ideal that one sees in the mirror. Thiong’o says that the colonizer’s language was “the magic formula to colonial elitedom,” (1132) and was met with “prizes, prestige, applause; the ticket to higher realms,” (1132) when children used them. The two sides of the mirror then were native language (flawed)/European language (ideal). Overall, this was done to fortify the colonizer’s control over the colonized country and its people. This linguistic mirror was ingrained in the colonized’s culture, perpetually forcing them to reject their native languages in favor of the European tradition. In his essay, Thiong’o suggests that, even after colonization in African ended, the colonizers still ruled Africa’s culture. This was shown through the exclusion of African language writers at the Conference of African Writers of English Expression. Thiong’o maintains that African writers need to break from this tradition, not seeing their native languages as imperfect, but as an adequate way to express the African condition.

Yet, while reading Thiong’o’s essay and writing this post, I questioned whether this structure had to be so dichotomous. Did one really need to choose between native language and European language? I ask this because Thiong’o insists that Africa’s native languages are truer to the African experience, and a way to reject colonialism. However, one cannot ignore that colonialism will forever be part of the African experience for many African countries, and that these European languages were widely used during that time. Through rejecting the colonized language and calling it illegitimate, does Thiong’o refuse the African culture that emerged due to European languages? Thiong’o insists that culture emerges from language, (1134) so what about African culture that emerged due to the introduction of these European languages? Are these cultures less true of the African experience? These are questions that I do not have an answer for, but only emerged as I read the article.

– Sean Ettinger