Berlin of 1884 was effected through the sword and the bullet. But the night of the sword and the bullet was followed by the morning of the chalk and the blackboard. The physical violence of the battlefield was followed by the psychological violence of the classroom. But where the former was visibly brutal, the latter was visibly gentle … The bullet was the means of physical subjugation. Language was the means of the spiritual subjugation.
Tags: violence, symbolic-violence, education, discourse, colonization, colonialism

Other Quotes by "Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o"

Hoy a los niños se les enseña a cerrar los ojos y a bloquear los oídos para que nunca vean las necesidades del pueblo ni oigan sus gemidos. El que solía oír, hoy se ha convertido en sordo. El resultado de esos colegios son aquellos de quienes se dice: «¡Lástima de esta generación, porque tienen ojos y no pueden ver, y tienen oídos y no pueden oír!». Porque se les ha enseñado a ver y oír un solo mundo.
Tags: worldview, tolerance, education, children
As she stared at them, Waringa noted that their skins were indeed red, like that of pigs or like the skin of a black person who has been scalded with boiling water or who has burned himself with acid creams. Even the hair in their arms and necks stood out stiff and straight like the bristle of an aging hog.
Tags: point-of-view, inspiration
What Waringa tried hard to avoid was looking at the pictures of the walls and windows of the church. Many of the pictures showed Jesus in the arms of the virgin Mary or on the cross. But others depicted the devil, with two cow-like horns and a tail like a monkey's, raising one leg in a dance of evil, while his angels, armed with burning pitchforks, turned over human beings on a bonfire. The Virgin Mary, Jesus and God's angels were white, like European, but the devil and his angels were black.
Tags: point-of-view, inspiration
View More by "Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o"