“Keepers of African memory must do for their languages what all others in history have done for theirs“, Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o, at the 2003 Steve Biko Annual Memorial Lecture in Cape Town, South Africa.
Of the many encounters I’ve had with Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o, personally and through reading his transformative books, his Steve Biko Annual Lecture presentation, “Consciousness and African Renaissance – South Africa in the Black Imagination“, stands out higher than Mount Kilimanjaro, in my mind.
If there was ever a masterclass on African literature in African languages, with an understandable leaning towards the South African linguistic sphere and her countless authors in their African mother tongues, this one is second to none.
In that presentation, Prof wa Thiong’o excavated the history of colonialism in South Africa, of course within the African Continent, Asia and the Americas context, its thievery of not only the land but also the dispossession of the indigenous people of their languages and inversion of their memory in the image of their dispossessors, oppressors and exploiters.
Prof wa Thiong’o’s surgical analysis of South Africa’s struggle history, in all its forms, but particularly its grapples with indigenous linguistic expression, preservation, promotion, conquest by colonial hegemony, independence and the post-independence scenarios, ranks among the best of the legacy he’s left us and posterity for centuries to come.
In that sense, his articulation, reclaiming and championing of African literature in African languages as an integral and essential part of the struggle for political liberation and socio-economic emancipation ranks up there in the gallery of our heroes and heroines across the world and ages.
I first met Prof wa Thiong’o in the early 1990s when we, as the now-defunct Congress of South African Writers (COSAW), invited him on a speaking tour of South Africa.
What stands out in my mind, up to now, was his challenge to us to translate from Kikuyu into isiZulu and other African languages his book, Matigari. He emphasised that the translation should not be via any colonial languages.
I think that challenge still stands to date!
Later, in the early to mid 2000s, then as founders and organisers of the now 20-year old South African Literary Awards (SALA), we met Prof wa Thiong’o again in South Africa and sought his counsel on our plans to expand SALA beyond the country’s borders.
He congratulated us on the establishment of this Awards system and particularly its core principle of recognising literary works in all SA’s eleven official languages but cautioned us “…to take your time to, first, build and consolidate SALA in South Africa and only when it’s strong enough can you explore and consider expanding it beyond your borders…”
Prof wa Thiong’o has left us a very rich and everlasting legacy, a roadmap to our ultimate total liberation, like he said back in 2012 in South Africa, “… one of the basic, most fundamental means of individual and communal self realization is language. That’s why the right to language is a human right, like all the other rights, enshrined in the constitution. It’s exercise in *different ways communally and individually chosen, is a democratic right…”
Rest well, our Elder of African Letters.
Your revolutionary spirit lives in all of us!
Amandla!!!
