The challenge of decolonising the mind

Mercilessly rippled out of the context of his memoir, here is Binyavanga Wainaina’s hilarious take on the difficulties of decolonising the mind:

I read Decolonising the Mind by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o a few week (sic) ago. It is illegal and it was thrilling, and I had vowed to go back to my own language. English is the language of the colonizer.

I will take Gikuyu classes, when I am done with diversiddy and advertising, when I am driving a good car. I will go to the village and make plays in Gikuyu, in my good new car. I will make very good decolonized advertisements for Coca-Cola.

I will be cool and decolonized. An international guy. Like, like Youssou N’Dour.

- Binyavanga Wainaina in One Day I Will Write About This Place P. 92, Granta

His “own language” here is supposedly Gikuyu, which alas, he does not speak, even though Wainaina was a polyglot.

In a few short words, Wainaina manages to bring levity to a number of issues including book censorship, decolonising the mind and colonisation, identity, and the futility of striving for cultural purity in the Babel that is our globalised, cosmopolitan world.

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