"We went on a journey to the city to save Ilmorog from the drought. We brought back spiritual drought from the city..."
Munira says this in his statement to the police many years after the fact of the journey to Nairobi, and by then he has descended into religious fanaticism. He looks back on this trip and can no longer see it in any nuanced way; instead, he only sees it as an instigation of problematic events and a slippage in religious fidelity. Of course, he isn't wrong about the trip being mixed in terms of its impact—it brings some relief, but ushers in the neocolonial changes that will prove so deleterious to the community—but Munira isn't talking about that. Rather, he is suggesting that there was a spiritual decline in the trip's aftermath and that that is the real problem. He does not care about the people's land or their sense of self or their history; he only cares about their spiritual selves, which is rooted in his selfishness.
"Only two nights ago we all drank Theng'eta together to celebrate a harvest and a successful ending of what was certainly a difficult year in Ilmorog. It was a good harvest and you'll agree with me that such a sense of common destiny, a collective spirit, is rare. That is why the old woman rightly called it a drink of peace. Now it has turned out to be a drink of strife."
This quote refers to the divisive impact of theng'eta. While the drink was a symbol of the spirit that sought to nurture the revolution against the colonial government, it also caused division between the characters. After drinking, the main characters asked deep questions, revealed secrets, and experienced both estrangement and closeness. While Karega and Wanja came together and had sex, Karega's revelations about Mukami led to Munira's rejection of the younger man, and, eventually, his firing from the school and Karega's subsequent leaving of the village.
"I think...I am...I think I am with child. No, I am sure of it, mother."
Wanja has wanted a child for years, ever since she abandoned the newborn she had by the duplicitous Kimeria. Though she tried with Munira and Karega, she did not conceive. After being with Abdulla, though, she has life in her womb. This is not a minor thing for the text: first, it matters that it is Abdulla, and second, it is a symbol of hope. Abdulla is a man of the people, spending time with the Mau Mau, adopting a young son, and communing with the village on the trip to Nairobi. He loves and respects Wanja for who she is. He, to an extent, adapts to the New Ilmorog but eventually renounces society as being too corrupt and cruel. His head is not in the clouds like Karega's; he isn't fooled by people or ideas. Thus, he is an apposite father for this child, who is a symbol of rebirth, renewal, and hope. Subsequent generations like those of Joseph and this baby may be able to do what the older generations could not.
Any talk of colonialism made him uneasy. He would suddenly become conscious of having never done or willed anything to happen, that he seemed doomed to roam this world, a stranger.
When we first meet Munira, we may not know his eventual path of religious fanaticism, but, clearly, he is not someone who wishes to engage in the major political or ideological questions of the day. He is an outsider, someone who prefers to awkwardly listen at a distance but not participate. He does not like conflict, preferring to shy away from the elders' passionate debates as well as discouraging his students from asking him big questions about God, history, or politics. He is a man who barely knows himself and is thus unable to understand or control his future obsession with Wanja, his complicated relationship with his father, his revised sense of personal history thanks to Karega, and his dangerous path to fanaticism and murder.
Karega and his following of Theng'eta factory workers were not any different: they had rejected it is true mere brotherhood of the skin, region, and community of origins and said no to both black and white and Indian employers of labour. But they too would fail: because they had also rejected the most important brotherhood—the only brotherhood—of religion, of being born anew in the Lord of the universe and of the eternal kingdom.
This quote gives us insight into the way Munira's mind is working now that he has embraced evangelical Christianity. He does not care about the temporal world but instead devotes himself to making sure people are concerned only with the afterlife. This is the only thing, in his mind, that people should be concerned with, and all focuses on labor, politics, history, identity, or ideology are useless. And even if the reader was to attempt to give Munira the benefit of the doubt in terms of thinking perhaps he really cares about people and does not want them to go to hell, such a claim is still easily refuted by pointing to the genesis of his conversion and fanaticism as his failed affair with Wanja and his frustration with Karega.
For there are many questions about our history which remain unanswered. Our present day historians, following on similar theories yarned out by defenders of imperialism, insist we only arrived here yesterday.
Colonial control isn't just about forced labor, detention camps, or military might: it is also about taking away a people's history and sense of self. Here, Ngugi suggests that it is not only the foreigners doing this but also their African collaborators, who trade their African identity and community for favor (via money and/or power). If African children are not taught African history or they are taught a skewed version of it that paints them as primitive or merely victims, then they will grow up having no sense of their real identity or their real potential power.
Christian, Commerce, Civilization: the Bible, the Coin, the Gun: Holy Trinity.
In just a handful of words, Ngugi manages to sum up how colonialism played out across Africa (and other colonized places). The pithiness and succinctness of this sentence only make it more damning: first come the missionaries, looking to save the souls of "heathens;" then come the companies to take advantage of the area's natural resources and to use its population as forced labor; then come the high-and-mighty justifications of "civilizing" the "savages." The Bible diminishes local religion and culture, the coin assumes an all-powerful role, and the gun keeps wayward locals in line.
"I believe we can save the donkey and save the community."
There is a bit of humor in this brief sentence, as if the donkey and the community were of equal importance, but it does attest to the importance of the animal to Abdulla and the compassion Karega possesses. But more importantly, it is young Karega who devises this simple but heroic plan to walk to Nairobi to seek help for the ailing village. Karega is still forming his political consciousness and this journey will help him further come to terms with how he sees the past, present, and future; the individual vs. the community; the relationship between labor and employer; and much more.
"I wanted to see this black man who was but a voice, a black power, and whose military genius was recognised even by our enemy."
Abdulla is talking about Dedan Kimathi, a real-life Mau Mau leader. The way he describes Kimathi is exactly how Karega wants to think about Africa's past, present, and future leaders—as black men who have power, presence, and genius. These men reflect and shape their communities; they fight, inspire, and resist. They may be recognized by foreigners, but that doesn't matter; what matters is that they are true to their people.
A group started singing a few native cultural songs...And they would burst out laughing and clapping at the daring of their voices. There were also a few Swahili and English ones. It was a truly culturally integrated party and Munira lost courage. He merely stood at the door, eaten by indecision...
This quote describes the party happening at Chui's compound when the travelers are looking for help upon their arrival in the city. It is a picture of decadence and leisure, utter incomprehension of the sort of struggles that are taking place in less privileged areas. Even Munira, ever one to insert himself into gatherings of people he thinks are impressive, feels uncomfortable at the display of comfort and ebullience. Tellingly, some of the songs are in English, which points to the presence of the colonial power and how local African elites have embraced it in order to get ahead.
