My son, listen to your father’s words of love. I know you have book learning. But the wise man is he who has been taught by someone who has seen it all before and has learned from the experience. A career of theft and robbery is the only one for anybody calls himself an adult. Learn from the whites, and you’ll never go wrong. The white man believes that there’s no business to beat that of theft and robbery. I’ll talk frankly. The white man came to this country holding the Bible in his left hand and a gun in his right. He stole the people’s fertile lands. He stole the people’s cattle and goats under the cover of fines and taxes.
Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o, “Devil on the Cross”, 1982
