Why Ngugi wa Thiongo is being blamed for Kiswahili struggles

Renowned author late Prof Ngugi wa Thiong'o during the launch of his book Kenda Muiyuru. [File, Standard]

Earlier this week, my friend and former colleague Enock Matundura penned a provocative piece in his Taifa Leo column about the growth of Kiswahili and the sins, real and imagined, he feels the late Ngugi wa Thiong’o committed against the growth of the language.

In his epistle, Matundura accused Ngugi of hypocrisy and only paying lip service when it comes to the promotion of Kiswahili, as he had promised at the time he famously ditched writing in English.

He justifies his attack based on a statement Ngugi made in his book, Decolonising the Mind, published in 1981, where he wrote: “This book, Decolonising the Mind, is my farewell to English as a vehicle for any of my writings. From now on it is Gikuyu and Kiswahili all the way.”

That was Matundura’s gotcha moment.

He argues that despite churning lots of work in Gikuyu, Ngugi wrote precious little in Kiswahili.

“If at all Ngugi promoted Kiswahili like he claimed to do, why did he favour his (native) Gikuyu language every time he got the opportunity to push the agenda of Kiswahili?” Matundura charged. Here, he stopped short of accusing Ngugi of driving a Gikuyu chauvinistic agenda.

While it is doubtful that Ngugi received “opportunities to push the agenda of Kiswahili”, which he instead diverted in ‘favour’ of Gikuyu, I think Matundura is splitting hairs.

Why do I say so?

Because in the subsequent paragraph, he argues that Kiswahili does not need Ngugi to push its agenda and that as a language, Kiswahili, he adds, is perfectly capable of ‘finding its own course’. With this statement, Matundura, who teaches Kiswahili at Chuka University, effectively nullified the premise of his argument to the effect that Ngugi ‘failed to promote Kiswahili’.

He ends his jeremiad by accusing Ngugi of being a big hypocrite by ‘paying only lip service’ as opposed to using ‘actions’ to promote Kiswahili, as he had promised.

In his long career as a writer, Ngugi was called many things, hypocrite is among the mildest, but he chose to give them the contempt card.

One case springs to mind and which incidentally has to do with Decolonising the Mind. Around 2006, Ngugi was in the country following up on the court case where him and his wife Njeeri were violently attacked after he returned from exile. Then Taban lo Liyong, in his wisdom, elected to host a public lecture at the Kenya National Theatre and titled it Decolonising Ngugi.

Prof Liyong, a known rouble rouser, used the opportunity to say many bad things against Ngugi, including calling him impressionable. After listening to Taban’s ‘lecture’ I sought out Ngugi. In his soft-spoken manner, Ngugi said he wouldn’t dignify Taban’s outbursts with a response.

He, however, told me, off-record, that he considered the South Sudanese poet, a climber, a plant species that can’t stand on its own but has to rely on bigger studier trees to reach the top. In short, Ngugi implied that Taban used his name and profile to seek relevance.

Matundura, one of the finest Kiswahili authors we have in the country, is not ‘attacking’ Ngugi posthumously to seek relevance. But it is baffling that he chose that topic at all.

Just as Matundura acknowledges, other than the note he wrote on Decolonising the Mind, Ngugi was under no obligation to ‘promote’ Kiswahili. Contrary to Matundura’s assertions, Ngugi had many occasions to champion Kiswahili and he did it because he felt it was the right thing to do, not because he owed anyone anything.

While picking the ‘gotcha’ quote, which he uses to beat Ngugi, Matundura conveniently avoided the subsequent statement, where Ngugi writes: “However, I hope that through the age-old medium of translation, I shall be able to continue dialogue with all.”

Translation

That last statement is quite telling; by opting to write in Gikuyu, Ngugi did not entirely shut out readers from his works. Neither was it a declaration of hostility. Through the medium of translation, readers can access creative works written in any language. Proof of this is in the fact that Ngugi’s books have been translated into more than 30 languages worldwide, the latest being Oroche Orotoanani, a Gusii translation of Ngugi’s classic The River Between.

Matundura, more than anyone else, understands the concept of translation, having himself translated 12 books in the Moses adventure series (by Barbara Kimenya), into Kiswahili, among many other translation works. We featured his story, here, on October 3.

Matundura needs to come out more clearly on what he means by ‘promotion’ of Kiswahili. More than any other group, it is Kiswahili language practitioners, of whom Matundura is a prominent member, who have the sole duty and responsibility of promoting Kiswahili.

Shifting the responsibility to Ngugi, just because he made a promise more than 40 years ago, and calling him names in the process, is both mischievous and irresponsible.

If we are to examine how well Kiswahili practitioners have ‘promoted’ their language, we will quickly realise that they haven’t done awfully much.

A few years back, I interviewed Kyalo Wamitila, a Kiswahili scholar and author, on the state of Kiswahili writing in Kenya and he expressed his disappointment with some Kiswahili authors whom he accused of complicating the language for no good reason.

“We have some authors who go out of their way to include obscure and bombastic words in their writing in order to appear tough,” explained Prof Wamitila. “This practice has the negative effect of putting off potential readers.”

Those offending words, he added, could not even be found in the kamusi. Wamitila advocated for the standardisation of Kiswahili language and vocabulary in order to weed out unhelpful and unnecessary words employed by rogue authors.

Going by Wamitila’s sentiments, it is clear that the ‘enemies’ of Kiswahili are closer home. How then does Matundura expect Ngugi to promote Kiswahili out there, when the river has been poisoned from the source?

There is also the issue of Sheng, which has given the teaching of Kiswahili a torrid time. Again, I will revert to another Kiswahili linguist; this time, Fred Iraki. When I interviewed Prof Iraki, he was teaching at the United States International University.

He challenged Kiswahili scholars to explain how Sheng, a lingo that is picked up in the streets, is more popular among the youth than Kiswahili, which is taught up to university level?

As a way of answering himself, Iraki attributed it to the teaching of Kiswahili, which he said was boring.

“Sheng is a very exciting and aspirational language. Everyone, including those in the rural areas, wants to identify and be seen speaking it,” he explained.When you compare Sheng with the adversarial manner Kiswahili is taught in schools, then you know that the core problem lies not in Ngugi not promoting it, but in instructors not doing their job well.

Matundura will attest to the fact that today, the most interesting and catchy adverts and promos are done not in Kiswahili sanifu or even English, but in Sheng.

Psst, don’t tell this to everyone; Ngugi failed to keep his word when he wrote his autobiographical series, not in Gikuyu, but in English. Gotcha!

Ngunjiri is the curator of Maisha Yetu, a digital Arts and Books media platform