Dion Nkomo
Rhodes University, South Africa

Abstract
From Decolonising the Mind to Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas, Ngugi’s oeuvre presents decolonial scholarship that pursues a paradigm shift from the Global North to the Global South modes of knowledge production. Critical of capitalism and inspired by socialism, he powerfully demonstrates that the material conditions of victims of colonialism are bound to remain precarious until they address the legacies of cultural imperialism, itself an accompanist to political and economic imperialism. His amazing foresight challenges the euphoria of political independence, drawing our attention to the necessity of nuance that critically draws a line between colonialism and coloniality. Implicating language in the entire colonial enterprise, Ngugi centres the same in the decolonisation endeavour, advocating for the use of indigenous languages of the colonised in all efforts of not only reclaiming past cultural and social glories but also in futuristic Afrocentric cultural and intellectual (re)productions. Inspired by these seminal arguments, this presentation reflects on how (South) Africa has positioned language in the country’s post-apartheid nation-building project. The focus is on the role of language in education, particularly policy framing, implementation challenges, and courageous activist-scholarly initiatives that seek to transcend simplistic language policy compliance that often fails to challenge colonial linguistic hierarchies.