ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ย. 2024
- Hello there!
It's Ruguru here. This is the first video of what I hope will be a great and mutually enlightening journey looking and delving deep into our literature. Literature and books have played a key role in assisting me on my own journey of finding out more about myself, my history and my culture. And I wanted to share that with you. Though I believe in reading widely, I confess I have a very big fat soft spot for African literature, and especially historical fiction, which I have been relying on for the most part to help with my attempts at decolonising my very colonised mind.
In this first video, I talk about Decolonising the Mind by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. This is one of the books that inspired me to read and consider how I was colonised in the very first place. I talk about how reading this book made me realise that loving African literature also means loving and exploring African languages, which is why on this journey, I am also working very hard to learn more of my mother tongue(Kikuyu) and Swahili. This is an ongoing journey and so consider the use of English here solely as a means of communication.
In reading and reviewing this literature, and the more to come, please feel free to comment and engage with the material. Perhaps there are books that you also feel passionate about, please do share them so that others can also see and benefit. So, do subscibe and share, and I look forward to getting to know more about you and the stories you are reading or listening to! I will be posting a new video every week!
As for the Books:
You can buy Decolonising the Mind* by Ngugi wa Thiong'o here: amzn.to/3fEf5m3
Kenda Muiyuru by Ngugi wa Thiong'o: amzn.to/3hUDtSC
We can also keep in touch via social media here:
Instagram: / ruguru_ruguru
Twitter: / ruguru_ruguru
* might earn Amazon commission on qualifying purchases.
Looking forward. Shukran!
Asante Sana, hope it'll be interesting!
Anticipating
Asante Sana, Chisaka!
I’m in the journey of decolonizing my mind. This is useful 🙏🏿
Happy to be of help! 🤗
Yes, this book is POWERFUL. I'm an African/Black American and the first section sounded so much like education system here. For a long time, I had similar thoughts and this book affirmed everything I was feeling. Today, I have a mobile app teaching some of the basics in various African languages, but _this book_ is what helped me believe in it. I can't thank him enough.
very well said. Looking forward to more
Thank you for watching. If you have subscribed and put on the notification bell then you can know when I upload the next video! I hope you will enjoy them!
Subscribed. Hooked. Challenged. Definitely buying the book! Thank you for sharing this review with the world 🌍 It is sad really to even think that the teacher who encouraged you to read books in order to know yourself was Kenyan yes but from abroad while our local Kenyan teachers are busy pulling on the opposite side of ‘hate your language! Try to become someone you are not! Do not speak your mother tongue! Your English is not good enough!’ 😒😒 Thank you for starting this very timely conversation.
I completely agree and I think we have to do much work to unlearn what these education systems have taught us. Let’s keep having the conversations and hopefully this can translate into something that changes things for future generations too!
This is very good and encouraging, congratulations and keep going.May God continue to bless you.
Kazi nzuri!
Asante sana, nashukuru! 🙏🏿🙏🏿
Great video !!!
Camping 🏕 by my tablet waiting 🥳
Hehe not too long now! Thank you!
I’m with you, still on my decolonization journey. Thank you so much for this platform ❤️
Then we are in it together, let’s keep working on it and help each other out! 😊 🤗
Been looking for these type of books for my online book club!
I love to listen to you .. representing our youth and ourselves to understand the history that was robbed from us .. am your fan and following 👍🏾
Thank you for watching, hehe we are many so it’s great to have our voices and using all the platforms, hopefully, to many more!
Hi. I just discovered your channel as I am starting out with a book channel. As I have decided to read more books by african authors, I googled who was on already there on youtube and yours came up. I am now reading Forty eight guns for the General by Eddie Iroh which is fictional novel but it gets you thinking about some of the things you talk about( though only a small part).
I am going to read this book. Thanks for this . I will watch your more recent videos. Good points.
Quite informative. Thank you for this.
Thank you for taking the time to watch. I hope you will enjoy the future videos too! 🙏🏿
@ Sure.
Thanks for the review.
The topic of languages is one that will always be relevant. In SA we have 11 official languages and sometimes I feel bad for not knowing all the languages. I feel bad for being fluent in English. The only thing that comforts me is the fact that I took my home language as a subject in school; so I can confidently say I can speak my language and read and write in it.
But I don't really think it's bad that we have the language of English because if we didn't, then you and I would not be able to watch each other's videos since I think you don't know my home language Setswana and I also don't know yours.
Writing books in English allows us to tell our own stories to the world and those that were ignorant can become informed about our stories.
All we need to do is support our authors so that their books become national bestsellers. Then promote them so that there can be hype around them forcing the people of the West to want to read the books. I think in those way we will also create an opportunity for them to be international bestsellers and also have their books translated into other languages and being adapted into a movie.
For example how many authors from America and Europe do you know of, but have never read their books? You know them because someone kept talking about them and made their stories relevant.
Lastly I just want to say - I fully agree that we should be proud of our languages. I love Setswana. I think I get excited when I hear someone speaking the language fluently and also using proverbs and idioms.
Thank you for such an in depth discussion. I loved it 😊
Awesome 😍😍
Great video and message
Thank you so much for watching, I really appreciate. 😊🤗
This is great!!I'm so happy you've joined this booktube community and most importantly talk about our own authors!!💕
Thank you so much for the welcome! I just saw your channel! I am watching them now and thank you for talking about our authors, we should do something together at some point. 🤗
@ Warms my heart!!!☺
Yess lets do something fun here one day!!♥️
Hi Ruguru, please check out the book, "Paekche's Principle:The Great Secret of Asia", perhaps another tool to help decolonise the mind.
😘😍🤩
Thank you! 😊😊🤗🤗
Hi Ruguru, well done on starting this vlog because you have a wealth of knowledge to share. Excellent first choice of topic, the complex pursuit of decolonising the mind. Many of us are in working on getting over the colonisation hangover. Your insights will surely aid this. Well done again. I enjoyed watching this as I do our random chats about our culture.
Thank you so much for watching! I always value our conversations and appreciate them, we need to keep having them! I hope I keep making useful/valuable videos, so as usual, I welcome all your recommendations. :) :)
great video bro
❤️ awesome
Already planning to decolonize my mind
Thank you!
I'm really enjoying my time on your channel
Enjoyed the video. I've read Wizard of the Crow but not this one. It sounds very interesting.
💪🏿 The question of expressing oneself in English is just a deflection from the conversation and caucasians are very good at that, gas lighting. Sneaky.
Culture bomb = (colonial) school nowadays
The goal of (colonial) school for 130 years is to reinforce and maintain imperialism and western dominance (politic , economic , cultural domination) by oppressing , devaluating african peoples and their languages and cultures and by raising European languages and cultures. It trains students to hate their people , their culture and language and to unquestionably , unconditionally love and raise colonial language and culture. This make that peoples who finished (?or go to school are trained to fight against their peoples (and their language) and fight for colonialism , imperialism , for western governments (and industries)enrichment and power.