As for you, from now on I shall no longer call you slaves or servants in public. Now you are truly my friends. Why? Because even after I had given you back the keys to your country, you continued to fulfill my commandments and to protect my property, making my capital yield a higher rate of profit than was the case when I myself used to carry the keys. Therefore I shall not call you servants again. For a servant does not know the aims and thoughts of his master. But I call you my friends because you know-and I shall continue to let you know-all my plans for this country, and I shall give you some of what I acquire, so that you will have the strength and motivation to break the skulls of those who talk about the “masses” with any measure of seriousness.
Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o, “Devil on the Cross”, 1982
Photo: R. Kennedy Stephen
