:00:04. > :00:14.uprising began in 2011. Those are the latest headlines. Now it is time
:00:14. > :00:16.
:00:16. > :00:20.for HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. My guess today is one of Africa's
:00:20. > :00:24.greatest living writers, tipped to win the Nobel Prize for literature.
:00:24. > :00:32.He decided he is ago not to write novels in English, Art in Gikuyu,
:00:32. > :00:40.his mother tongue. Or the one has written -- Ngugi Wa Thiong'o has
:00:40. > :00:43.written extraordinary memoirs. Have South Africans forgotten the
:00:43. > :00:53.struggles that brought independence? Has that independence been a
:00:53. > :01:08.
:01:08. > :01:17.disappointment? -- Young Africans. Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, welcome to
:01:17. > :01:22.HARDtalk. Thank you. One of your volumes of memoirs opens with you as
:01:22. > :01:25.a small boy, returning home from school. The village had been
:01:25. > :01:34.destroyed. Your mother and family were moved into protection by the
:01:34. > :01:43.British. It is a stark moment to open your memoirs. How much to you
:01:43. > :01:50.still remember that the moment? Yes. In my latest memoir. That
:01:50. > :02:00.moment is very strong in me. Sometimes, when I read from the
:02:00. > :02:06.
:02:06. > :02:16.memoir, a particular section, I feel a bit emotional. But it theory -- my
:02:16. > :02:16.
:02:16. > :02:26.eyes are the field. The emotion comes back, unexpectedly. -- my eyes
:02:26. > :02:27.
:02:27. > :02:36.are filled with tears. It was from 1955 -- the emotion comes back.
:02:36. > :02:44.Discovered in my novels, there is this idea of return and to the
:02:44. > :02:54.disappointment that might come with the unexpected happening. The theme
:02:54. > :02:55.
:02:55. > :03:04.of return is there. In all my novels. I did not know but its roots
:03:04. > :03:10.were in that experience. It is interesting you say that, because
:03:11. > :03:14.you have been in exile from your native country for 30 years. I
:03:14. > :03:23.wondered in terms of the destruction that was done in Candia -- Kenya in
:03:23. > :03:29.the 50s. The Mau Mau uprising. The British said we would finally paid
:03:29. > :03:38.reparations to some victims. What do you think about that? The British
:03:38. > :03:45.litter relief destroyed our whole culture, our tradition. Our lives
:03:45. > :03:52.were turned upside down. That image of desolation, returning home after
:03:52. > :04:02.being away for three months. To the place you are born -- you were born.
:04:02. > :04:05.
:04:05. > :04:10.You don't see anybody. Empty houses. An image of desolation. That is just
:04:10. > :04:20.one image of what happened in the country. The actual destruction was
:04:20. > :04:22.
:04:22. > :04:29.really widespread. I don't know how Europe at that. How you could ever.
:04:29. > :04:33.Your brother was shot, and that can never be undone. One of my brothers
:04:33. > :04:41.ran to the mountains, he was a guerrilla fighter. Another brother,
:04:41. > :04:46.a half brother, who was dead. When the British forces came, they came
:04:46. > :04:52.suddenly and surrounded the whole village. People say they are coming.
:04:52. > :05:02.They would run away. My half brother who was deaf could not hear
:05:02. > :05:04.
:05:04. > :05:11.anything. They shot him. What do you say to those, some historians who
:05:11. > :05:17.say that Mau Mau were exceptionally brutal people. They murdered their
:05:17. > :05:27.own as well as whites. All my writings have been against that kind
:05:27. > :05:28.
:05:28. > :05:38.of attitude. At some point, people must take responsibility. Even
:05:38. > :05:42.
:05:42. > :05:46.though it is a different generation? Yes. Nothing. Nothing. It is good.
:05:46. > :05:56.The only good element is an element of acknowledgement in all the
:05:56. > :06:02.
:06:02. > :06:12.torture. He removal. There was one guy, he used to cut off the years of
:06:12. > :06:12.
:06:12. > :06:18.the date and I don't know what he did with those ears. It was so
:06:19. > :06:28.brutal new kind of... It is quite difficult to put it into words.
:06:29. > :06:29.
:06:29. > :06:36.problem was that word the Mau Mau brutal, to? Of course, yes. They are
:06:36. > :06:45.fighting a war against an occupier. One brutality is in order to oppress
:06:45. > :06:54.and exploit, to dominate. The other brutality is to liberate. To get rid
:06:54. > :07:02.of brutal aggressors. You cannot equate the two. We don't deny that
:07:02. > :07:10.there are cruelties. You cannot say the cruelty of the guy who is a
:07:10. > :07:15.pressing is the same as those who are saying, don't sit on my back.
:07:15. > :07:19.Through your work, there is a fascinating conflict between the way
:07:19. > :07:27.you view the British as oppressors, and to the way in which you went to
:07:27. > :07:33.a British school, which you clearly, which clearly helped you.
:07:33. > :07:38.Reading Shakespeare, for example. It liberated you. You are both
:07:38. > :07:46.oppressed and the liberated by the British. We are talking about a
:07:46. > :07:54.colonial system. We are talking about people being against a system
:07:54. > :08:01.that oppressors. The colonial state, by any definition,
:08:01. > :08:08.particularly a colonial settler state, is in a pressing state. For
:08:08. > :08:18.one thing, this state means that you come and take away land that belongs
:08:18. > :08:23.to the natives. Even at the start of your memoir, you talk about
:08:23. > :08:33.depending on whether you were a black African, or white, you went to
:08:33. > :08:39.a different toilet. A different world. It is an apartheid system.
:08:39. > :08:49.Toilets for Africans, Asians only. The point you are getting out, you
:08:49. > :08:50.
:08:50. > :08:58.talk about Shakespeare -- characters becoming the and daily friends. You
:08:58. > :09:06.like some bits of British culture, but you loathe that it's...
:09:06. > :09:10.cultures, African, Asian, European. There are positive elements. There
:09:10. > :09:16.are democratic and humanist elements in every culture. In every culture,
:09:16. > :09:23.including British culture, they are elements that are operative and
:09:23. > :09:30.backward. You cannot condemn a whole culture, to say there is nothing to
:09:30. > :09:39.learn from say, African culture, English culture. They all offer
:09:39. > :09:45.something to learn. Shakespeare is very interesting, because
:09:45. > :09:55.Shakespeare was a safe subject. There is nothing more British than
:09:55. > :10:02.Shakespeare. You read his work. You read the struggle for power.
:10:02. > :10:11.Macbeth, it is very brutal. They kill their guests at night. They
:10:11. > :10:21.want power. The historic place. Take any play by Shakespeare, and what is
:10:21. > :10:23.
:10:23. > :10:30.interesting is not the athletic -- ascetic, it is the struggle for
:10:30. > :10:33.power. He wrote a very eloquently that the bullet was the means of
:10:33. > :10:39.physical subjugation, language is the means of spiritual subs --
:10:39. > :10:47.subjugation. It is part of the journey of your life, to write not
:10:47. > :10:50.in English, are to write in Gikuyu. Why did you take that decision?
:10:50. > :10:59.Because language is so basic to any community. What I found is
:10:59. > :11:06.interesting. What ever -- we never want people colonise another, they
:11:06. > :11:13.always impose their language. took the decision while you were in
:11:13. > :11:20.prison, ironically, after the colonial powers had left. It was a
:11:20. > :11:26.Kenyan who put you in prison because you were aged dangerous writer.
:11:26. > :11:34.point of language is that after some time, you become a part of their
:11:34. > :11:40.metaphysical empire. In Empire of the mind. The mind, language, that
:11:40. > :11:50.is central to the idea of a physical empire. The way I look at it is
:11:50. > :11:50.
:11:50. > :11:56.this. If all languages for me are a wonderful human achievement, they
:11:56. > :12:04.are wonderful languages. But at Rotherham has been in a system of
:12:04. > :12:12.impression -- problem has been. Some languages say we are better than
:12:12. > :12:17.others. We are better than that language, it that culture. Not just
:12:17. > :12:27.better, higher. It is in terms of the high rocky of power and the
:12:27. > :12:28.
:12:28. > :12:33.relationship between languages. -- relationship of power. I wonder if,
:12:33. > :12:40.as you know, a great African writer took a different approach. He
:12:40. > :12:43.suggested that it was not the case that you put. But also, a younger
:12:43. > :12:49.Nigerian writer says that English is my language. She has taken over
:12:49. > :12:58.English. I wonder if your use of this world of that time, of the 50s
:12:58. > :13:08.and 60s. Younger African writers take a different view. English not
:13:08. > :13:15.-- English is not an African language,. . We have genuine African
:13:15. > :13:25.languages. He is a quote. English is mine, I have taken ownership of
:13:25. > :13:29.
:13:29. > :13:34.English. She has decolonised us all. No. She is still colonised? Claiming
:13:34. > :13:44.something is colonising it. That does not mean that what she does
:13:44. > :13:45.
:13:45. > :13:51.with English is wonderful. I have no doubt... We should not perceive it
:13:51. > :14:01.as that. When we do that we are contributing to the expansion and
:14:01. > :14:07.
:14:07. > :14:14.deepening of the English language. You translate your own works into
:14:14. > :14:22.English. Isn't that contributing to colonisation? No, because
:14:22. > :14:26.translation is a very important process, look at the contribution of
:14:26. > :14:36.translations to the rise of literatures and languages. From
:14:36. > :14:36.
:14:36. > :14:40.Latin. Early on, translation was very important to the rise of
:14:40. > :14:47.European languages. Even Shakespeare would not have happened without the
:14:47. > :14:50.context of translation. But Gikuyu, for all its importance and strength,
:14:50. > :14:58.means you have a very limited market of people who will ever read your
:14:58. > :15:02.work. But if you translate into English, you will get a greater
:15:02. > :15:07.audience. That is a fallacy. Everyone says if you write in
:15:07. > :15:17.English... You can write in saloon and the work can be translated into
:15:17. > :15:19.
:15:19. > :15:24.English, into French and so on. -- you can write in Zulu. My question
:15:24. > :15:30.is, can anybody else imagine French literature in Zulu? Where someone
:15:30. > :15:34.says, oh, this is French literature, but really, it is written in Zulu?
:15:34. > :15:41.Do you know what is happening right now? There are so many prizes right
:15:41. > :15:47.now given in African literature. But you know the condition? Written in
:15:47. > :15:57.English. We will promote African literature on the condition that you
:15:57. > :15:57.
:15:57. > :15:59.do not use an African language. This is crazy. Can you imagine English
:15:59. > :16:06.literature in Chinese? We are promoting English literature but it
:16:06. > :16:11.must be right in Chinese? But I can think off Robbie Burns he writes an
:16:11. > :16:15.old Scottish, which nobody reads. Let us move on to Kenyan and how you
:16:15. > :16:19.think of the country 's top do you think after all of these struggles,
:16:19. > :16:26.the struggles that your family went through and so on, the country is a
:16:26. > :16:36.disappointment? Not really. The way I look at it is, look at where
:16:36. > :16:39.
:16:39. > :16:48.Kenyan, where Africa has come from, really. And the depths from which we
:16:48. > :16:54.have come. If you think how much Africa, the entire human bodies of
:16:54. > :16:58.Africa, has contributed to the making of the old European cities
:16:58. > :17:03.and so on, it is incredible we are even where we are. So, it is not
:17:03. > :17:13.really... A disappointment in that respect. Achieving independence is
:17:13. > :17:15.
:17:15. > :17:19.very important. However, problems are still there. The question of
:17:19. > :17:27.empowering the people was always the question in the colonial struggles.
:17:27. > :17:32.It is still a question today. into personalities in this as well?
:17:32. > :17:37.It is not just great historical events, you have Mandela in South
:17:37. > :17:39.Africa as opposed to Robert Mugabe will stop that is, there are
:17:39. > :17:49.different leaders who have set a very different time and that has
:17:49. > :17:59.
:17:59. > :18:07.been a problem for Kenyan. Nelson Mandela, he is very about
:18:07. > :18:13.simplicity. You feel his power and so on. We are good allies, we're
:18:13. > :18:19.great in one way. These people, these leaders, have been extremely
:18:19. > :18:21.important. But we have also had dictators. And one thing that is
:18:21. > :18:26.important about dictatorship in Africa, in tenure in particular, is
:18:26. > :18:30.that it is something we do not want to admit. Many of these
:18:30. > :18:35.dictatorships were actually supported by the West. There comes a
:18:35. > :18:41.point where you have to take part in your own problems. Where you have to
:18:41. > :18:47.say, for example, Rick Kenyatta, he is facing charges of human rights
:18:47. > :18:52.abuses -- Uhuru Kenyatta. He is a very rich man who has inherited a
:18:52. > :18:58.lot of wealth. Is that the future for Africa? There is the question of
:18:58. > :19:03.us taking responsibility. And Africa taking responsibility for
:19:03. > :19:07.everything, including the minerals, the gold, diamonds, zinc, copper,
:19:07. > :19:15.oil... Everything that is now controlled by Western interest is in
:19:15. > :19:21.Africa. I would like to see and Africa that. -- and Africa that
:19:21. > :19:31.takes control of that. But you have to understand, African lives are not
:19:31. > :19:36.
:19:36. > :19:42.dispensable. When it comes to the question of Kenyatta, -- Kenya, I
:19:42. > :19:46.completely oppose people in Kenya not taking responsibility for the
:19:46. > :19:56.violence. But look at the ICC. It has done more harm to the cause of
:19:56. > :19:57.
:19:57. > :20:03.justice. The International Criminal Court? Really? Because they keep
:20:03. > :20:07.focusing on Africa. And the Africa. You do not live in Africa. You have
:20:07. > :20:12.been in exile for 30 years. Could you go back? When you returned 30
:20:12. > :20:19.years ago, you were brutally attacked and so was your wife. Could
:20:20. > :20:29.you live in Kenya now is Mack I could. Remembering that there are
:20:30. > :20:33.
:20:33. > :20:38.problems in Kenyan. We have many challenges, economic challenges,
:20:38. > :20:44.democratic space. We have to have that democratic space. We have to
:20:44. > :20:48.have a space of empowerment for regular people and so on.
:20:48. > :20:53.crime. Crime is a big challenge because you suffered for it.
:20:53. > :20:57.also, when I talk about the ICC, that does not mean that Kenya should
:20:57. > :21:03.not take responsibility for what happened, but what upsets me is when
:21:03. > :21:13.for instance, Kenyan members of Parliament, when they were asked to
:21:13. > :21:14.
:21:14. > :21:19.set up tribunal 's in the country, they said no, go to The Hague. The
:21:19. > :21:27.Kenyan parliamentarians themselves. They said go to The Hague. For the
:21:27. > :21:33.ICC. Yes. Now, they say imperialism. Hypocrisy. The ICC should be
:21:33. > :21:38.criticised. It is doing a very bad job but at the same time, we cannot
:21:38. > :21:43.use that as a cover to avoid our own responsibility for what we have done
:21:43. > :21:47.and what happens in Africa. Just a couple of minutes left. I wonder if
:21:47. > :21:51.you feel the current generation of young people in tenure and elsewhere
:21:51. > :21:58.in Africa really care much about the independence struggle. It could be
:21:58. > :22:03.seen as being two generations ago, nearly 60 years ago in Kenya. Do
:22:03. > :22:07.they care? Do they read about it in history books? Oh, I am sure that
:22:07. > :22:12.for many of them they care that it is not something they have
:22:12. > :22:19.experienced directly. They have heard from their parents. And some
:22:19. > :22:25.of them obviously it is remote. Just now, what they want is employment.
:22:25. > :22:29.They want democratic empowerment. began our conversation talking about
:22:29. > :22:34.you as a young boy coming home to see this scene of devastation and I
:22:34. > :22:38.am just wondering what that young boy would make of you now, a
:22:38. > :22:47.successful writer, a successful academic. What would that young boys
:22:47. > :22:54.think of you? I would hope... I would hope he thinks I am still a
:22:54. > :23:00.fighter. I am a fighter. The present situation in the world, whether
:23:00. > :23:04.Britain or America or elsewhere, where the gap between the poor, or
:23:04. > :23:10.what we call the haves and the have-nots is deepening and widening
:23:10. > :23:17.whether here or in Britain, America, Arabia, this is not good
:23:17. > :23:26.for the world. This is the basis of great instability. And then, there
:23:26. > :23:34.is something else that is important, I think. If you have a prosperous
:23:34. > :23:39.middle-class, there is development. But development whether it is
:23:39. > :23:44.Britain, America, Kenya, South Africa or Asia, should be measured
:23:44. > :23:49.not from the perspectives of those who are at the top of the mountain
:23:49. > :23:54.the few who are at the top of the mountain, but be measured from the
:23:54. > :23:58.needs and perspectives of those at the bottom of the mountain. Argue
:23:58. > :24:04.hopeful that could change within your lifetime? Well, the struggle
:24:04. > :24:10.continues. This struggle did not been yesterday -- did not begin
:24:10. > :24:17.yesterday. Remember Charles Dickens. Who would have ever imagined the