Ngugi and the evils of colonialism

Novelist Ngugi wa Thiong’o. He has now authored a memoir, ‘In the House of the Interpreter’. [PHOTO: COURTESY/STANDARD]

Even though his memoir says a lot about the author, it also tells how the colonialists who invaded Kenya tried and intimidated many people and enslaved them in their own homes as JENNIFER MUCHIRI argues in this piece.

 Then said Christian: What means this? The Interpreter answered: This parlour is the heart of a man that was never sanctified by the sweet grace of the gospel.  The dust is his Original Sin and inward corruptions that have defiled the man. He that began to sweep at first is the Law; but she that brought the water and did sprinkle it is the gospel.

These words, borrowed from John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, give the title of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s second installment of his memoirs, In the House of the Interpreter. A sequel to Dreams in a Time of War, this new book is about Ngugi’s life as a student at Alliance High School between 1955 and 1958.

 While the allegory likening the prestigious high school to the Interpreter’s house in Bunyan’s work is used by Carey Francis, the long serving headmaster of the school, Ngugi’s narrative of his days at Alliance is a testimony of the lessons instilled in the boys who passed through the institution and, indeed, moulded by Carey Francis, the ‘Interpreter.’

The story opens in April 1955 with Ngugi looking forward to a reunion with his family at the end of his first term in a boarding institution.

He is both excited and hopeful. Excited because unlike three months earlier when he had to travel on a goods train from Limuru to Kikuyu to chase his dream of schooling, now he travels third class and is set apart from other passengers by his school uniform; hopeful because he has performed extremely well in his end-term exams and he knows that this news will put a smile on his mother’s face. Unfortunately, his excitement and hope soon turn into despair when he discovers that his ‘home’ is no more; the State of Emergency is still in force, all the homes of suspected Mau Mau sympathisers have been destroyed and the people moved to concentration villages.

While the walls of the ‘Interpreter’s House’ shelter the young Ngugi from the vagaries of the State of Emergency during the school term, the holidays present him with the reality that his people face under the colonial government.

Feeling of fear

This book is also about Ngugi’s feeling of fear, hopelessness, and even alienation from the only place he had known as home.

His move to Alliance to pursue his dream of an education in a way makes him feel like a stranger among his people back in the new village. His experience is a testament of the painful experiences of Kenyans, particularly in Central Kenya, whose land was taken away by the British and thereafter were herded into concentration villages.

The supposed reason for this displacement was to ease the work of the colonial administrators in hunting down the Mau Mau fighters.

 Having arrived at the school at the height of the State of Emergency, Ngugi confesses that he saw the school as a sanctuary, which would protect him from “the hounds [which] remained outside the gates, crouching, panting, waiting, biding their time” (4).

British forces

The hounds are the British forces, including the home guards, who made life extremely difficult for and instilled fear in the natives.

In addition, his arrival at the school would mark a significant change in his social environment and lifestyle, and also begin an entirely new phase in his life as one of the new breed of educated Africans in the country.

Ngugi mixes the story of his life as a high school student with the story of the country and the world at the time. Kenya is going through the most trying period of her colonial history – the State of Emergency and the heightened clamour for independence.

Elsewhere on the continent a number of countries are acquiring independence; and the world is still recovering from the effects of the Second World War.

Ngugi’s days in school are riddled with fear that the secret of his family, specifically that his brother Good Wallace is a Mau Mau, would be discovered.

If this were to happen it would jeopardise his chances of remaining in school and thus achieving his dreams. Life is not easy for young Ngugi. They have lost their home; his mother is detained at the home guardpost for questioning; his sister-in-law is imprisoned; and his people continue to suffer the evils of colonialism. The young man’s dreams are threatened.

Life interruptions

The fear that rules the people in the outside world shadows the young Ngugi into the ‘fortress.’

Ngugi explains, “… the loss lurked inside me, stoking fears of more unexpected and sudden interruptions of my life” (30).

His stay at Alliance arouses in him the desire to understand the world around him, guided not only by the fundamental principles of the institution, particularly that of service, but by the many lessons he learns while there.

His narrative is a tribute to the school and especially Carey Francis who, he indicates, played the role of a father figure, disciplinarian, teacher, friend, advisor, and role model to the young boys at the school.

He encounters the Christian concept of salvation while at the school and one of his greatest regrets is that he does not succeed in converting any of his peers.

His days as a Boy Scout instil in him a sense of discipline and the value of service. His love for literature begins with his encounter with Shakespeare.   The narrative ends in 1958 with his graduation from Alliance. He has passed his examinations and is waiting to join Makerere University, the dream of every young man his age then.

As if to remind him that the fortress that was Alliance High School is no more, the colonial government arrests him and puts him in prison for almost a week on account of not having paid taxes.

He refuses to be cowed by the injustice of the arresting officers and defends himself in court where he wins his case in an unprecedented manner. Indeed, the confidence cultivated in him in the Interpreter’s House has paid off.

Dr Muchiri teaches Literature at the University of Nairobi.

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