A Response to Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's, "Declonising The Mind"

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NGUGIS DECLONISING THE MIND
Ngugi wa Thiong'o started his literacy works in English and succeeded but finally changed them to Gikuyu his mother tongue. The book “Decolonising the Mind” explains how he became a Gikuyu Writer to exhort other African writers to write in their mother tongues. It provides a distinct anti-imperialist view on the ongoing debate on the destiny of Africa as well as the language's role in fighting and effecting imperialism and neocolonialism contexts in African countries.
Many African writers utilize imperialists’ languages like the Portuguese, French and English languages forced on them. This is because after colonization they have never ended colonialism and slavery in their minds. They see their languages as inelegant, shameful and incapable of presenting intellectual and scientific thoughts as well as very crude for exportation to other lands. And so they write using foreign languages instead of growing African language literature.
Ngugi makes a good stance that the association of Africans to the forced language is unique from that of their local ones. Speaking as well as writing in colonial languages is distinct from the native languages. Additionally, the colonial languages are truly foreign as sections of the society comprehend it badly and therefore, some audiences cannot get the works in these languages.
Ngugi is concerned about education’s focus that has employed foreign languages calling them as destructive: “therefore, language and literature were taking us further and further from ourselves to other selves, from our world to other worlds” (Thiong’o 12). Clearly, there is need to develop works that indicate the real African involvement from the local’s view point. Local languages are integral parts of showing the...