Response to Decolonizing the Mind

In Decolonising the Mind Ngugi Wa Thiongo makes the call to African writers to begin makeup belles-lettres in their own spoken communications, and to make sure that literature is connected to their spates revolutionary struggles for independence from their colonial regimes. He begins with the historical meeting he was invited to with his fellow African writers in Kampala, Uganda. In this conference, writers who wrote their stories in African languages were mechanically neglected.He also continues to point out or so how incline and other European languages atomic number 18 assumed, until today, to be the earthy languages and unifying forces in both literature and political views among African stack. For instance, to explain his point, Ngugi maps Chinua Achebe, one of the major African writers, who embraces the use of an English linguistic communication in his works. Ngugi quotes For me (Achebe) there is no other choice, I have been micturaten the language and I intend to u se it (Achebe, 62).Finally, Ngugi concludes that writing in African languages is a necessary step toward cultural individualism and liberation from centuries of European exploitation. Firstly, I accept Ngungis claim that an educational strategy that focuses and embraces only foreign works, such as language and enculturation is destructive Thus language and literature were taking us nevertheless and further from ourselves to other selves, from our world to other worlds(266). Obviously, there is a pick out to create a literature that embraces the real African experience starting line from the perspective of the locals, not the intruders.The local language is an integral part of conveyance of title that experience, this is simply because much of the local tradition is preserved in that language. For example, Ngugi insists that stories and songs are effectively passed down from one generation to the next through and through viva (story-telling), and the fact that both the story teller and the listener are interested and involved in the conversation. Therefore, the benefits of embracing and working in the local language and within the local traditions bring the entire community together.Secondly, I support Ngugis view that colonialism has deemed African languages unworthy of use both by the colonizers and the colonized. He explains how a cultural bomb was dropped on Africa so the chiefs and because the resources of Africans were controlled. In my view, not only colonizers understand that it is not enough to dish out everywhere Africa with guns alone, but they also need to take over the mind of its people through language and the fine education they offer through that language.This is seen in the schools where European languages are idolized, in the streets where African languages become identical with the language of the peasantry, and at the prison cells were those African writers who choose to stay reliable to their female parent tongue are held. I strongly agree about Ngugis choice to write only in Gikuyu rather than English language I recall that my writing in the Gikuyu language, a Kenyan language, an African language, is part and parcel of the anti-imperialist struggles of Kenyan and African peoples (267).He reminds me my native country, Kenya, and Kamba is my mother tongue, so if I choose to write in Kamba as Ngugi did, I will not be doing something kinky. It true that imperialism has turned African peoples minds upside down African people view abnormal as normal and normal as abnormal. For example, Europe and the States became flush and continue to get rich from using both Africas natural and human resources, but African people are made to believe that they cannot become poverty free without European and American intervention.Therefore, Ngugis decision to abandon English completely in his writings and embrace Gikuyu in attempt to align himself with the people (Gikuyu-speaking population) is one step toward cultura l indistinguishability and independence from European exploitation. I also agree with Ngugi that settlement is not simply a process of physical force rather the hummer is the means of physical subjugation, and Language is the means of the spiritual subjugation(265).In Kenya, colonization propagated English as the language of education as a result, viva voce literature in Kenyan indigenous languages gradually faded away. This is devastating to African literature because, as Ngugi writes, language carries culture and culture carries, especially through orature and literature, the entire body of values by which we perceive ourselves and our browse in the world(267).This means that Language as culture, it expresses and carries the culture of people therefore, it becomes the storehouse of its images, ideas, wisdom, experience and history. It ties me to my people and becomes part of who I am. And finally, language as culture, it shapes how I look at the world and myself. Lastly but no t least, I think Decolonising the Mind is an integral to understanding an anti-colonialist struggles. Europe and America view colonialism in terms of the most visible aspects of a nation, to wit its leadership.People fail to see and recognize the long-term effects of colonialism, such as the widespread poverty. Decolonizing the Mind reminds me of another aftereffect, specifically, the supremacy of language by the horse opera World. In a sense, the language barrier enables social apartheid where legal time interval is considered anachronistic. By dominating African languages, and asserting the superiority of European ones over them, Western nations, including some African nations, do perpetuate a system where educated whites rise to the highest.As a result, native Africans resign to the working classes and peasantry. This domination of language effectively prevents any native African from rising into clever ranks because, as Ngugi puts it, the use of European languages splits Af rican soul in two, forcing him to give up his roots if he wishes to climb the social ladder. Work Cited Currey, James. The Language of African Literature Decolonising the Mind The politics ofLanguage in African Literature. capital of the United Kingdom 1981. 263-267