Petals of Blood by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Author:Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House

‘Those are words of a great writer – greater even than Maillu and Hadley Chase. The school’s traditions, which had stood the test of time, had to be maintained. He did not therefore want to hear any more nonsense about African teachers, African history, African literature, African this and that: whoever heard of African, Chinese, or Greek mathematics and science? What mattered were good teachers and sound content: history was history: literature was literature, and had nothing to do with the colour of one’s skin. The school had to strive for what a famous educator had described as the best that had been thought and written in the world. Racism had been the ruin of many a school, many a state, many a nation: Siriana believed in peace and the brotherhood of man. He would never have a school run by rebels and gangsters and the European Foreigners should have nothing to fear.

‘We listened in silence, unbelief struggling with belief: was this the Chui who had once led a strike in this same same school?

‘We debated his words for almost a term. The new prefects were even more pampered than those of yesterday. The new headmaster gave orders through a very tight and rigid chain of command from the school captain, the senior prefects, the junior prefects, down to the rest of us. Privileges were also graded according to the seniority of the classes, Form VI for instance being allowed to wear trousers and jackets and ties while the Form I was not allowed to wear shoes except on the day of worship. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Napoleon, Livingstone, Western conquerors, Western inventors and discoverers were drummed into our heads with even greater fury. Where, we asked, was the African dream?

‘He complained about the falling standards of spoken and written English. At one Assembly he turned to the European teachers and said:

‘“I don’t of course want to look a gift horse in the mouth. I don’t want to tell you how you should approach your jobs. I don’t want to be like the enthusiastic American salesman who went to sell refrigerators to the Eskimo. But I am the headmaster, and it is the piper who calls the tune.

‘“Teach them good idiomatic English.”

‘We went on strike and again refused the divide-and-rule control tactics. Down with Chui: up with African populism: down with expatriates and foreign advisers: up with black power.

‘Well, the rest is common knowledge. Chui called in the riot squad which came to our school, and would you believe it, led by a European officer. We were all dispersed, with a few broken bones and skulls. The school was closed and when it reopened I was among the ten or so not allowed to sign for re-admission.’

There was a slightly pathetic note in Karega’s narration, something between despair and dumb incomprehension. A certain gloom encircled the room and they each tried to struggle against it. Munira was the first to speak, echoing the words of the lawyer.

‘I do not understand – so different from our time – I mean the demands.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.