You knew what you loved and what you hated and what you did, what actions, what side you had chosen. You could not, for instance, work with the colonists in supressing the people and still say you loved the people. You could not stand on the fence in a struggle and say you were on the side of those fighting the evil. Her father had wanted to make money and to accumulate property: he had chosen neutrality, and he had hated any suggestion of being involved on the side of the people in case this ruined his chances of making money. The tragedy of her father, who by his neutrality had therefore chosen the side of the colonists, was that despite his selling out, despite his denial of self and of his father, he had ended up ruined anyway, the world disintegrating around him.
N. wa Thiong'o, Petals of blood (1977), 399
