Finding the Courage to be who I am

Ngugi has a problem with the treatment of the national languages of Africa. After reading The Language of African Literature I do not know how anyone cannot, at the very least, have an understanding for his frustration. African languages were not permitted in the classroom. Children were taught in English and in a very sly way, taught that their own languages were not good enough. My favorite sentence from the excerpt is so painfully descriptive. “The physical violence of the battlefield was followed by the psychological violence of the classroom.” In denial, people try to justify and trivialize what was being done. I cannot imagine having my native language treated in such a way. What would it be like to be forced to learn about my own culture and history in Japanese? And why on earth would I want to learn my history in another language? What if myself and my fellow Americans were viewed by the world as ignorant, because “oh, theeey speak English! Their literature is not worth reading or even considering, because it is written in English.”? I would be just as outraged as Ngugi is over what is being done to his fellow Africans.

There is so much culture wrapped up in the language any country speaks. I lived in Taiwan for two years, where the national language is Mandarin, which I did not speak or understand. I did not live in a big or largely populated city that spoke English. I quickly learned what I needed to survive and then started learning conversational Chinese. After being there for some time there were words that I used and had no idea how to translate for people. One of my favorite phrases is “ai you.” I can't explain what it means. It doesn't translate into English.  I know in what context to use this phrase, but for its meaning... That is something I learned from being immersed in their culture and spending every spare moment with my Taiwanese friends listening to them speak and attempting to have conversation myself.  What little of the English language that can be used to describe the phrase, is very insufficient and does not capture the cultural context. This makes me wonder... How much cultural context of African history has been lost through English only rules???

In the next two stories, “Wedding at the Cross” and “Minutes of Glory,” there are two characters who develop this obsession with proving themselves to people, who don’t matter. In the first story Wariuki was embarrassed by the love of his life’s father. The rest of his life was spent trying to prove to the father, that he was an equal. He had received what he wanted, Miriamu. They eloped and had a family. Instead of taking pride in what he had, he spent his time wishing for what he didn’t have. In the end, this cost him everything. In the end, he had her father’s approval, but what did that matter when he lost his love? In “Minutes of Glory,” Beatrice is bitter and hard and angry. She despises herself.

Reading both these stories I can relate to both characters. I grew up with a very angry and abusive father. He despised life and everyone in it. He was full of this disgusting hate for the unfairness of his life. He became the exact thing he hated so much. When I was young he left and barely looked back. We saw him for birthdays, Christmas, and maybe once or twice throughout the year. Then, to add insult to injury, he started forgetting my name. Yes, his only daughter he couldn’t remember what her name was. I hated him so much. What I didn’t realize is that I was finding my identity in him. I defined my worth by him and how I thought he thought about me. What was the result? The same self-hatred Beatrice had. Like her I truly thought I was ugly. It had nothing to do with hair color, or the fact that it was not straight, or my size, or anything outward. I can distinctly remember the first time I looked in the mirror and thought, “hm... I guess I’m not really that ugly after all.” Nothing outwardly had changed. I looked exactly the same; however, I was no longer identifying my worth on what my dad did or even what anyone else did for that matter. Who I was, was in my control. My dad, he is like Wariuki and lost everything because of his stupid obsession with proving that he was better than his dad. (As awful and sad certain parts of my life are, I would not change a thing. I am who I am, because of those things. They do not control me, nor do I find my identity in them. But they have helped to shape and change the person I am today.)

Ngugi wants his fellow Africans to see how valuable they are, not based on what someone else tells them. Their culture and history is very important and it does matter. Preserving their languages and the rich history contained in it was crucial. He also, seems to be warning people of what can happen when they spend their lives consumed by other people’s opinions of them. It is dangerous and can destroy a person, just like it did to Beatrice and Wariuki.

Finding Truth

Nadine Gordimer is outraged at the atrocities that have taken place in Africa in the name of colonization. The short stories we’ve read focus specifically on the Apartheid, which were the heinous acts of segregation that took place in South Africa. Legislation was passed that laid out a system for racial segregation that was legal. People were separated based on one of four classifications: white, colored, black, or Indian. The category you fell under, determined everything about your life; where you lived, traveled, what kind of job you could hold, etc... Each person was required to have papers that stated who they were and where they were allowed to be. Breaking the rules was not an option. This system favored those who were white and greatly discriminated against those who were not. Gordimer, a white woman, was outraged by this, as everyone should be!

It makes me very sad that at almost 26 years of age, I am just learning about the atrocities that have taken place in Africa in the name of colonization. Many people would say that being industrialized is a sign of a great nation. This leads me to the question; what is a nation? Without people there is no such thing as a nation. Material possessions, giant cities with hundreds of skyscrapers, technological and scientific advances do not make a nation, it is the people who make the nation. People are not perfect and make mistakes. Through ignorance people can do some very atrocious things and truly believe that they are right. The beauty of being human is that we can learn from mistakes, whether ours or others, and become better people because of them.

When colonization becomes the focus of people they become obsessed with money and power, humans are completely lost in the background. In the stories, “Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants,” “Amnesty,” and “Six Feet of the Country” Gordimer demonstrates the ridiculousness of the Apartheid and how out of control the system was. She also, shows the different types of people who lived during the Apartheid. First we have the two white Africans and the black African from “Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants.” The two white Africans took advantage of people and tried to make their lives and Apartheid make sense. The black African treated people like fellow humans, even if they didn’t deserve to be treated so nicely. He remained true to who he was and did not try to become something else. In “Amnesty,” you have the hero focused on ending the injustice and make life better for all people. Then there are the women, who sit at home, patiently waiting for their men to come home. They are the unsung heroes of the Apartheid, no matter how hard it was, they continued on with life and remained the strength behind the men fighting. The last story, “Six Feet of the Country,” there is the racist white “farmer,” who was there to make money and use the Africans, the wife, who was a white person tried to treat people equally, and the Africans, who were stuck in this seemingly endless cycle of abuse. Sadly, these are all types of people that we still see in our world today.

A few days ago I was talking to an acquaintance of mine, he had asked about my classes and I started telling him about this one. Over the years, I have friends who have become very active in bringing awareness to issues in Africa. As a result, I am familiar with some of the difficulties of life there, but I don’t know enough of the history to really talk about it. So, I was pretty excited to actually know what I was talking about. However, my mood, quickly changed from excitement to complete and utter disgust! He is one of those people who thinks he knows everything and before I could finish describing the class, he cut me off and started talking. I wouldn't have really minded if what came out of his mouth was not complete arrogance and stupidity. He went on some rant about how the problems in Africa are their own fault and how that they enslaved themselves and brought everything on themselves. Yes, I am well aware that some Africans sold each other during the slave trade to the New World. However, that does not in any way at all, ever (!) justify what was done to the Africans! And the logic of his argument confused me greatly.  Essentially he was saying, "Oh! Well, these people are going to treat each other badly, so we might as well do it, too!" What?! This made me very angry for a little while, but then I felt sorry for him. He is a very educated person and is quite smart; however, he was still so ignorant. He has only learned what has been taught to him. I do know that he does a lot of study on his own, but it has all been spurred by what he already knew. He simply studied more of the opinions of others, rather than learning/finding the facts for himself.

In my sociology class we have been talking about how our experiences in life or lack of affect our view of the world. Ah... so true. If I never venture outside of my own comfort zone, then I will have a very limited and ignorant view of the world. When I lived in Taiwan there was an African-American girl on my team. The Taiwanese kids and sometimes adults were terrified of her. It took some time, but we convinced them that she was a really nice person. Slowly they broke past their fear of her and started talking to her. They quickly discovered that what they thought of her was very wrong and that she was indeed a normal person, like the rest of us, just with dark skin. Their lives were changed in a very unique way. They began to then question stereotypes they had of different races, wondering if those people were really like that, or if they were also, just normal people. They began to educate themselves and opened up their world view, rejecting the ignorance of what they had been taught and finding truth.

Colonization... a dehumanizing idea.

Chinua Achebe's writings were a little different than those of Felix Mnthali. Achebe was more concerned with all of Africa at large, the problem of colonization, and what it was doing to, not only the African people, but also the rest of the world. Achebe is angered by the ideas/mentality of colonialism, which says that “Our way of doing things is best and right. Your way is either very inferior or completely wrong, so we are going to help you fix your problems with our ways.”

In the short stories “An Image of Africa,” “Girls at War,” and “The Madman.” Achebe paints a picture, so-to-say, of what colonialism is and what it does to everyone involved. The first story is written in a very different style than the other two. Colonization, although decades ago, has successfully tainted the view most the world has on Africans. Very little truth is known about them and we imagine wild savages running around half-naked with spears, speaking in some unintelligible language. Their rich culture and traditions are seen as backwards and stupid. The word ‘tribe’ is seen as something of the olden days. At the beginning of “An Image of Africa,” Achebe talks about three situations with an older gentleman, high-school students, and their teacher that displayed their ignorance and a book that he calls a “bloody racist.” The style chosen to write “An Image for Africa” was, sadly, very necessary to prove that Africans are not simply backward, savages, who are illiterate and know nothing of history or literature.

Two problems Achebe addresses that come out of colonialism are ignorance and racism. Achebe was angry about the problems that colonialism was having on the world and the great ignorance; however, he was also concerned about how it was affecting the Africans themselves. In the story “Girls at War,” Achebe sets the scene for a corrupt and totally self-absorbed government official. Nwankwo refused to help anyone, unless it would benefit him in some way. He went to find food and stocked up, while there were people starving and begging for food. He stopped to pick up a young girl and ignored an old woman. He gave the girl a ride, simply because he found her attractive and for his own pleasure. He was not really concerned with helping her. Achebe was mocking colonialism saying that the Europeans were only out for their best interest, while trying to mask it saying they were helping the Africans. The Europeans, through colonialism were using the Africans to get what they wanted and then they left them in a terrible state.

In “The Madman,” we have a perfectly sane man, who is proclaimed to be insane. He is continually told that he is crazy and eventually begins to believe it himself. Africans had been told that they didn't have a history. They hadn't written their stories down for all to read, and telling the stories wasn't good enough. The stories were considered as accurate as a fiction novel is. The idea that if a person is told that they are something long enough; they will eventually start to believe it themselves and come to identify with it. This is very common in victims of abuse; they cannot break out or away from their abuser and often continue the cycle, because they have come to identify with their abuser’s definition of them. The same thing was happening to Achebe’s people. He could see it and it angered him. They were being told that they were nobodies without a history. The Europeans were educating those they saw fit, the white and only the wealthy could afford the education their children needed. The people began to see themselves as the Europeans had portrayed them and were submitting to their control.

Something that we have talked about several times in class and I find very interesting... In the stories we’ve read this quarter and in the past two quarters there are characters that have no name. We’ve talked about what that means both in a good way and in a bad way. One thing we talked about is how that once a person receives a name they become an individual, not just someone in the crowd. Africans were not differentiated by tribes, or specific people groups, nor were they called by a real name, they were ‘the natives.’ In my opinion this is one of the most vague and non-descriptive way to refer to a people group. The grouping of colored, blacks, white, or Indian at least gave them some type of identifying term, but ‘native.’ The word sounds so... so savage, wild, and almost vicious.

The gripping power of language...

I enjoy poetry, but I'm often lost in it. I usually prefer to read short stories or essays, perhaps because the metaphorical ideas are easier for me to understand.

In any case, this poem was a little different. Simply the title alone, "The Stranglehold of English Lit.," expresses the great irritation and disgust the author, Mnthali, felt. The language is short at times and very blunt.

One can feel Mnthali’s outrage over the education in his country. How can his people learn their own history if it is being taught or told from someone who is not one of them? Or from someone who is a native, but has been taught by the English? And how can their history be accurately told, written, and shared if it is diluted from an English standpoint? I can understand some of his frustration. The history in our country is constantly being edited, people deciding what we should and shouldn’t remember. Why? What is so wrong with things from our past? At one point I know that one issue debated, was whether or not to exclude religious views of many of our founding fathers. Our country was founded on the idea of religious freedom. Today the idea of tolerance is huge, you can see it all over the place: bumper stickers, billboards, notebooks, pencils, etc. If tolerance and acceptance, with regard to religion, is so highly valued, why would we want to hide the vast diversity of our country’s religious history, where we came from and where we are today?! To me it seems very contradictory.

I cannot begin to express how much I love the passionate display of emotion that is expressed in this poem! (small continuation of/addition to my stereotyping rant... ;) ) Most people would assume that as a girl, I express my emotions. However, this is not so much the case. I prefer to keep my emotions to myself and rarely let on to what they are, verbally that is. Writing, now that is a very different story. Writing is meant to be a way to express one’s ideas/opinions/feelings about any given subject. It is, in my opinion, the best way of really expressing how one feels. Mnthali is very effective at not only expressing how he feels, but making the reader feel his outrage.

"Your elegance of deceit,
Jane Austen,
lulled the sons and daughters
of the dispossessed
into a calf-love
with irony and satire
around imaginary people."