Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

There is a wonderful interview with African author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o available at Los Angeles Review of Books, online HERE.  Here are two notable excerpts, one about language and one about education:

I reject a hierarchy of languages where some languages assume themselves to be higher than others—especially within postcolonial countries or countries that experience any system of oppression whatsoever. At the same time, I believe that all languages are very unique. Each language, however small, has a unique musicality that cannot be replaced by another. I like to compare them to musical instruments. A piano has its own specific sound or musicality, which you cannot mistake for that of a guitar. You cannot destroy or diminish the importance of other instruments like the guitar or the violin and leave only the sound of the piano. When different instruments work together, they produce harmony, orchestras—just like languages.

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We need the world to empower all people, not just a few. We have a tendency to think of knowledge as belonging to professors and writers, but everybody has their own knowledge. I’m a distinguished professor of English and comparative literature, but when my lock and key don’t work, I don’t think, Oh, let’s call my fellow professor for help—I find a locksmith. The same goes for the working person in the factories. Again, because of the nature of the society in which we live, the hierarchies of everything are also reflected in education and knowledge systems. We assume that some people have the knowledge and others have to kneel down and ask for the knowledge to trickle down to them. Instead, we have to find a system in which we harness the knowledge systems that people have. You don’t put knowledge up in hierarchies—it’s communication, a give-and-take. Then, we can truly advance.