For Ngugi wa Thiong'o, political independence from European colonial powers is not enough; cultural independence must also be achieved. Unfortunately, in Ngugi's eyes, not enough African writers seem to realize this. They insist on writing in the language of the colonial oppressor, in English and French, instead of their indigenous tongues.

This is a prime example of the colonization of the mind. Such African writers may have been strong supporters of anti-colonial independence movements; they may even have been active participants in the struggle against colonialism. But by continuing to write in the language of the oppressor, even after the oppressor is no longer in charge, they are complicit in a continuation of colonial subjugation, albeit by way of culture rather than guns and bullets.

For Ngugi, it is therefore essential that Africans, especially African writers, engage in a process of decolonizing the mind, developing a cultural mentality that owes nothing to European culture and everything to indigenous African culture. If self-determination is to mean anything, then it must involve Africans seizing

back their creative initiative in history through a real control of all the means of communal self-determination in time and space.

Language has a big part to play in such a process. It helps to define people, to relate them to their natural and social environment. For centuries, European colonists used language as a tool of repression, as a way of keeping Africans in a state of subjugation.

The cultural identity of Africans was effectively determined by these alien languages, which were part of a gradual process of colonizing the mind. As a consequence, indigenous Africans were deprived of the ability to determine their own destinies using the power of their native tongues.

Despite their radicalism, despite their commitment to African independence and to anti-colonial resistance movements, too many African writers have perpetuated this linguistic imperialism by arguing that “the renaissance of African cultures [lies] in the languages of Europe.” It is precisely this attitude, and the continued colonization of the mind that it represents, that Ngugi seeks to challenge.