Question

Which of the following political position(s) is/are advocated in Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’O’s work Decolonising the Mind?

• A. To use the colonizer’s language as a tool for acquiring agency and social mobility.
• B. To do for African languages what Spenser, Milton, and Shakespeare did for English, what Pushkin and Tolstoy did for Russian.
• C. To critique the coercive imposition of the colonizer’s language which alienates colonized subjects from their cultural lived experience.
• D. To mimic the colonizer’s language and acquire a form of complex cosmopolitanism.

Hint:

Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’O emphasizes the importance of reclaiming indigenous languages as part of the decolonization process. He critiques the imposition of the colonizer’s language, which distorts the cultural and historical identity of colonized people.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B, C

Understanding Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’O’s viewpoint.
Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’O’s Decolonising the Mind critiques the cultural and psychological impacts of colonialism, especially through language. He argues that colonial languages were tools of domination that alienated colonized peoples from their native cultures and identities.

Explanation of the options:
(A) is incorrect – Ngũgĩ does not endorse the use of colonial languages for social mobility. Instead, he criticizes how these languages marginalize indigenous identities and perpetuate cultural alienation.
(B) is correct – He urges African writers to elevate African languages just as Western writers did for their own, advocating for literary creation in indigenous languages as a path to cultural empowerment.
(C) is correct – Ngũgĩ denounces the forced adoption of colonial languages, viewing it as a violent form of cultural erasure and a barrier to authentic self-expression.
(D) is incorrect – He rejects the notion that adopting the colonizer’s language leads to genuine cosmopolitanism; instead, he sees it as a mimicry that deepens cultural subjugation.

Final Answer: The correct options are \( \boxed{(B)\ \text{and}\ (C)} \).