© Mwangi wa Mutahi
Almost 40 years after independence, Kiswahili
is the only African language taught in Kenyan schools, where exams are held in English.
Above, the primary school attended by Mwangi wa Mutahi.
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Our language is shedding tears
all over because its own children are deserting it, leaving it alone with its heavy
burden.
From
a Wolof poem by Useyno Gey Cosaan (Senegal)
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Kenyan novelist Mwangi
wa Mutahi is now an ardent defender of his native language but he was once as hostile
to it as some of his own teachers
 I was born into a peasant family in
1963, the year Kenya gained independence. My sole language, as a child, was Gikuyu.
It was the language in which we sang songs, narrated stories, exchanged riddles or
merely chatted, while around us adults conversed in proverb-loaded exchanges. To
the best of my recollection, Gikuyu, spoken by about 22 per cent of the Kenyan population,
was the only language we were taught during the first three years at school, although
I had learnt the English alphabet in nursery school. In our fourth year, English
was reintroduced, and we had to bid farewell to Gikuyu. From there on, speaking or
writing in our mother tongue was forbidden by school rules. Speaking it exposed us
to beating and punishment, and in some cases temporary expulsion. The resentment
with which Gikuyu and other African languages were treated in my school was almost
universal in Kenyan primary schools. In the mind of my educators, African languages
were not actually languages but primitive vernaculars.
For a while, before and after my college studies, I taught in secondary school, an
experience which gave me the opportunity to show my own attitudes towards African
languages. Would I be able to nurture Gikuyu in my students, or would I worship foreign
languages while despising my own? Not surprisingly, I turned out to be as good a
disciple of the colonial heritage as my fellow teachers who worked hard to enforce
the school rules. I found myself beating and punishing students whenever and wherever
they attempted to speak in their mother tongue. Like many before me, I found myself
adopting the colonial doctrine according to which speaking and learning African languages
stunt the student’s ability to learn. And because the national examinations were
in English, students were easily convinced that they needed to master this language
in order to excel.
Decades after acquiring political independence, the colonial system of education
remains intact. No significant policy changes in the teaching of Kenya’s languages—the
country counts about 40—have been made. With the exception of Kiswahili, proclaimed
by the late leader Jomo Kenyatta as an official language along with English, the
government tends to look upon local languages as a threat to national unity. Emphasis
is still put on excelling in English-language examinations, and plenty of African
educators uphold this system. It is the route to prestige, to potential studies and
jobs, locally and abroad.
Writer’s
block
For me, the turning
point came at the age of 32, when I sat down to write my first novel. At the time
I was living in the United States, working as a research scientist. In writing Ngoima,
I wished to portray the independent Kenyan government in its true neo-colonial colours.
I wanted to write for an audience of peasants, workers and dispossessed people. My
story exposes issues of corruption and neglect in the health care system through
a woman who runs into complications during her pregnancy.
I began writing in English, but after the first two paragraphs I realized that the
message that I wanted to deliver, in my mind, was in Gikuyu. This language that I
had grown up speaking at home was more deeply rooted in my mind than I had thought.
As the story unfolded and I tried to write dialogue, I stumbled again. Was it not
false to have my two main characters, both peasant farmers, speak in English? Both
were at home in the Gikuyu language and culture. By this time, the writing of Ngoima
was at a standstill.
Several months later, without having picked up the manuscript again, I had the opportunity
to return home to Kenya, where I spent time among the kind of people I knew when
I was growing up. In a mysterious manner, this visit home rekindled my writing of
Ngoima. It was as if I had the opportunity of conversing in person with my two fictional
characters. At the beginning of 1997, I started Ngoima again, this time in Gikuyu.
My thoughts were so clear that in two months I had completed the first draft of the
novel.
Gikuyu’s written development has been stunted because there are not enough people
writing in it. New words, terms and spellings have lagged behind other more widely
spoken tongues. I ran into these difficulties throughout the writing of my novel
but found inspiration in two other writers (Gakaara and Ngugi) who had chosen to
write in Gikuyu before me. My book started selling in February 1999. My father, a
peasant whose reading for most of his life had been confined to the Bible and hymns,
told me that reading the book had been an “educational experience” for him. In following
the characters’ lives, he had also gained a better understanding of some of the social
and economic issues facing his community.
A way
to empowerment
The way Ngoima has
been received is a small testimony that African languages are well and truly alive,
even though publishers rarely accept manuscripts in them and English continues to
be equated with national and international recognition. Although intellectuals and
writers have taken a firm stand in defence of all Kenyan languages, their real bedrock
of support is found amongst peasants and workers. They are the ones who have kept
the languages alive and evolving. They are also the ones who are in dire need of
reading materials in their mother tongue.
Writers and scholars from all regions of Africa gathered in Eritrea last January
for a timely conference entitled “Against all Odds: African languages and literatures
in the 21st century.” It was the first conference of its kind on African soil, and
was held in a country that has incorporated nine languages into its education and
development agenda. I realized that we no longer have to fear that these languages
are going to die, but rather push for ways in which they can be more widely spoken,
read and translated. To some, writing in our own language is a betrayal of the elite
system. I now see it as the way to break with neocolonial mentalities and empower
the African people. Listening to writers in African languages from all over the continent
was an inspiration to continue writing in Gikuyu, and I am now back home, busy at
work on my new novel.
mwangiwamutahi@hotmail.com
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