Thiong’o, N. wa. (1992). Decolonising the mind: the politics of language in African literature. London: James Currey.
Because I have read and taught this book from the perspective of cultural theory, it is tempting to talk about the influence of Marxist ideas, and European traditions of cultural materialism. However, this would be counter-productive. Those European theoretical traditions are something Ngugi clearly knows intimately - but the dominance of that thinking in his own education is just another example of the 'cultural bomb' of imperialism.
Having said this, it is perhaps worth noting that Ngugi clearly sees issues of class as inseparable from issues of race and nationality. Resistance to the "economic and political dependence" on imperialism, is a "patriotic defence of the peasant/worker roots of national cultures" - and for that resistance to be successful "it is crucial to be alert to the class ideological assumptions behind choices, utterances and evaluations".
The descriptions Ngugi gives of his own educational experiences, and the brutal ways that imperialist values were beaten into children through the educational system, are incredibly tough to read. It is impossible to read this without feeling both rage and shame - and it seems particularly apt to be reminded, in an age of flag-waving romanticising of 'Great Britain', to be reminded of just what devastation this 'Great' nation has caused in the blustering certainty of its own cultural superiority.
In terms of educational practice though, this may be a useful exercise:
- Read pages 11-12 (or look read through my quotes from these pages below), and think about the methods employed to make English to become "the measure of intelligence and ability in the arts" and "the main determinant of a child’s progress up the ladder of formal education".
- Now try to imagine an education system that was the opposite of this.
I wonder what you came up with?
Perhaps you could let me know in the comments below?
One other thing that I have found particularly helpful: Ngugi refers to recommendations from the Teaching Literature in Kenya Secondary Schools report, 1974. These recommendations provide perhaps the closest thing to an educational ideology of resistance. One of these recommendations is:(ii) A sound educational policy is one which enables students to study the culture and environment of their own society first, then in relation to the culture and environment of other societies
This is a really interesting idea: The notion that, for example, black students should be enabled to study their own culture and society BEFORE they study the cultures and societies represented by the hegemonic cultures of globalisation.
I can imagine that it might be difficult to image a Psychology degree where students are invited to explore their own social environments before they are introduced to Piaget. Or Business Communication degree where students are invited to talk to their parents and grandparents BEFORE they read about Hofstede.
However, it is possible to imagine that if they DID - then they would be immediately encouraged to see their own culture and environment has having inherent value, rather than as something they need to overcome in order to be properly 'educated'...
Some quotations I found helpful:
Imperialism is still the root cause of many problems in Africa. - p.1.
The economic and political dependence of this African neo-colonial bourgeoisie is reflected in its culture of apemanship and parrotry enforced on a restive population through police boots, barbed wire, a gowned clergy and judiciary ... [The] resistance is reflected in their patriotic defence of the peasant/worker roots of national cultures - p.2
The oppressed and the exploited of the earth maintain their defiance: Liberty from theft. But the biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism against that collective defiance is the cultural bomb. The effect of a cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It makes them see their past as one wasteland of non-achievement and it makes them want to distance themselves from that wasteland. It makes them want to identify with that which is furthest removed from themselves; for instance, with other people’s languages rather than their own. It makes them identify with that which is decadent and reactionary, all those forces which would stop their own springs of life. It even plants serious doubts about the moral rightness of struggle. Possibilities of triumph or victory are seen as remove, ridiculous dreams. The intended results are despair, despondency and a collective death-wish. - p.3
It was after the declaration of a state of emergency over Kenya in 1952 that all the schools run by patriotic nationalists were taken over by the colonial regime and were placed under District Education Boards chaired by Englishmen. English became the language of my formal education. In Keyna, English because the language of my formal education. In Keyna, English became more than a language: It was this language, and all the others had to bow before it in deference.
This one of the most humiliating experiences was to be caught speaking Gikuyu in the vicinity of the school. The culprit was given corporal punishment - three to five strokes of the cane on bare buttocks - or was made the carry a metal plate around the neck with inscriptions such as I AM STUPID or I AM A DONKEY. Sometimes the culprits were fined money they could hardly afford. And how did the teachers catch the culprits? A button was initially given to one pupil who was supposed to hand it over to whoever was caught speaking his mother tongue. Whoever had the button at the end of the day would sing who had given it to him and the ensuing process would bring out all the culprits of the day. Thus children were turned into witch-hunters and in the process were being taught the lucrative value of being a traitor to one’s immediate community.
// The attitude to English was the exact opposite: any achievement in spoken or written English was highly rewarded; prizes, prestige, applause; the ticket to higher realms. English became the measure of intelligence and ability in the arts, the sciences, and all the other branches of learning. English became the main determinant of a child’s progress up the ladder of formal education. - pp.11-12
Language, any language, has a dual character: it is both a means of communication and a carrier of culture. - p.13
But there is more to it: communication between human beings is also the basis and process of evolving culture. In doing similar kinds of things and actions over and over again under similar circumstances, similar even in their mutability, certain patterns, moves, rhythms, habits, attitudes, experiences and knowledge emerge. Those experiences are handing over to the next generation and become the inherited basis for their further actions on nature and on themselves. There is a gradual accumulation of values which in time become almost self-evident truths governing their conception of what is right and wrong, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, courageous and cowardly, generous and mean in their internal and external relations. Over time this becomes a ways of life distinguishable from other ways of life. - p.14
Values are the basis of a people’s identity, their sense of particularity as members of the human race. All this is carried by language. Language as culture is the collective memory bank of a people’s experience in history. - p.15
Our whole conception of ourselves as a people, individually and collectively, is based on those pictures and images which may or may not correctly correspond to the actual reality of the struggles with nature and nurture which produced them in the first place. - p.15
Language is thus inseparable from ourselves as a community of human beings with a specific form and character, a specific history, a specific relationship to the world. - p.16
Since the new language as a means of communication was a product of and was reflecting the ‘real language of life’ elsewhere, it could never as spoken or written properly reflect or imitate the real life of that community. This may in part explain why technology always appears to us as slightly external, their product and // not ours. pp.16-17
There was often not the slightest relationship between the child’s written world, which was also the language of his schooling, and the world of his immediate environment in the family and the community ... This resulted in a disassociation of the sensibility of that child from his natural and social environment, what we might call colonial alienation. - p.17
Since culture does not just reflect the world in images but actually, through those very images conditions a child to see that world in a certain way, the colonial child was made to see the world and where he stands in it as seen and defined by or reflected in the culture of the language if imposition. p.17
But by our continuing to write in foreign languages, paying homage to them, are we not on the cultural level continuing that neo-colonial slavish and cringing spirit? What is the difference between a politician who says Africa cannot do without imperialism and the writer who says Africa cannot do without European languages? - p.26
Colonial alienation takes two interlinked forms: an active (or passive) distancing of oneself from the reality around; and an active (or passive) identification with that which is most external to one’s environment. - p.28
...the search for a liberating perspective within which to see ourselves clearly in relationship to ourselves and to other selves in the universe. I shall call this ‘a quest for relevance’ - p.87
[[recommendations from Teaching Literature in Kenya Secondary Schools report, 1974]]
(i) A people’s culture is an essential component in defining and revealing their world outlook. Through it, mental processes can be conditioned, as was the case with the formal education provided by the colonial governments in Africa.
(ii) A sound educational policy is one which enables students to study the culture and environment of their own society first, then in relation to the culture and environment of other societies //
(iii) For the education offered today to be positive and to have creative potential for Kenya’s future it must be seen as an essential part of the continuing national liberation process. - pp.100-101
the critic, whether teacher, lecturer, interpreter or analyst is a product of a class society. Each child by birth, family or parents’ occupation is brought up in a given class. By education children are brought up in the culture, values and world outlook of the dominant class which may or may not be the same as the class of their borth and family. By choice they may opt for one or the other side in the class struggles of their day. - p.104
it is crucial to be alert to the class ideological assumptions behind choices, utterances and evaluations. - p.105
Struggle. Struggle makes history. Struggle makes us. In struggle is our history, our language and our being. That struggle begins wherever we are; in whatever we do: then we become part of those millions whom Martin Carter once saw sleeping not to dream but dreaming to change the world. - p.108
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