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“Nkosi, Nkosi sikelela!” a voice breaks out in song in one corner of the Great Hall.
“Awu Nkosi sikelel’ i-iAfrika” ... students join in throughout the hall as they sing a decolonised version of South Africa’s national anthem.
This came after the announcement that Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong’o was stuck in traffic outside the University of the Witwatersrand, together with other esteemed guests.
On his arrival, Ngugi was welcomed by a roaring crowd to start his public lecture series, Secure the Base, Decolonise the Mind on Thursday night.
University of Cape Town Professor Xolela Mangcu, who introduced Ngugi, said this lecture series followed the calls for the decolonisation of higher education from various student movements.
Referred to as the Father of Decolonisation by Mangcu, Ngugi spoke about the colonial mindset in the context of decolonisation. He challenged the notion that the West saved Africa. He maintained that “Africa has been the eternal donor of the West”.
He noted that the colonisers gave Africa access to their accents, while Africa gave the colonisers access to their resources.
Ngugi spoke about language and about Africa’s position in the rest of the world, standing in front of a backdrop of the African content titled “True size of Africa”.
He said that language was the key factor in assimilation and challenged the governments’ language policies that, he argued, killed African languages.
“Make the knowledge of an African language count in awarding degrees and promotions ... A knowledge of an African language should count in evaluating teachers, even those from abroad”, he said.
“[Ngugi’s] ideas on decolonisation of the mind have had a remarkable longevity, providing the grammar for contemporary student movement for this country such as FeesMustFall and RhodesMustFall” said Dan Ojwang, associate professor at Wits.
Simamkele Dlakavu, a post-graduate student at Wits, highlighted the importance of intersectionality in the decolonisation movement.
“Decolonisation is about imagining an alternative to our dispossession, oppression, brutalisation, and poverty. But then if we want a decolonial reality it can’t be decolonial for certain beings, for certain black beings. It must be decolonial, liberatory for everyone or it will be b***t”, she said.
Part of this lecture series took place at the University of Cape Town this evening and will continue at a later date at the University of Fort Hare.
Ngugi wa Thiong’o also has a book out, Secure the Base: Making Africa Visible in the Globe, originally published in December 2015.
