Take them off, watch them hit the ground, and step throughout them, simply because the colonial masters trampled over your rights, cultures, and even your very id, leaving you confused about your ‘reinvented nature.’
Africa has been reinvented so many instances and clothed in heavy colonial clothes that it trudges via its existence not realizing what it really is, and taking each definition and id ascribed to it by its oppressors.
The colonial masters did a radical job of projecting an id onto Africa, telling Africans what they need to and shouldn’t be. False narratives have been written, stereotypes have been upheld as details, and the ideologies, cultures, techniques, and traditions of Africa have been erased by individuals who exploited Africa till they received what they needed.
What was Africa earlier than explorers landed, searching for treasures, land, and mineral assets? What’s Africa after the so-called independence that many misplaced their lives to get?
Up to now, twenty-four African international locations converse English as their official language, six African nations nonetheless have Portuguese as their official language, whereas 29 converse French, but they declare to have attained independence.
Should you say you might be unbiased, however you bear the names of your colonisers, converse their languages, worship their gods, and uphold their beliefs over your cultures, are you really free, or have you ever willingly enslaved your self?
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If the very names Africans use to establish themselves are borrowed from their oppressors whereas ignoring the normal names that symbolize their distinctive tradition, are you able to say that the continent has an id? The very title ‘Africa’ may very properly not have an African origin- discuss an id disaster.
Why are areas in Africa named after colonial warlords and criminals whose invasion and genocidal acts prompted the lack of lives, theft of assets, and destruction of properties?
Monuments in Nigeria are nonetheless named after Fredrick Lugard to this point. The truth is, the very title ‘Nigeria’ was allegedly coined by Flora Shaw, a girlfriend of Frederick Lugard on the time. Port Harcourt, a state in Nigeria is known as after a colonial paedophile, Lewis Harcourt, and no person is battling an eyelid. Leopoldville will get its title from King Leopold, and Stanleyville was named after Henry Morton Stanley.
Up to now, numerous streets, areas, and cities are named after the very individuals who introduced apartheid to South Africa and grabbed their lands. In Zimbabwe, faculties are named after Prince Edward and Queen Elizabeth, and children are educated simply the best way these colonialists prescribe.
If Africa continues to be educated by the very individuals who enslaved her, and in the identical method they laid down, can the mentality of Africans ever really be free from the manipulations of its oppressors?
They let you know what to check and when to check, even when it doesn’t fit your clime, you observe it to the latter; having a whole lot of ‘educated’ individuals who have really been indoctrinated. Folks whose data is ineffective in Africa brag with certificates just because the colonial masters recognise them.
In Africa, African faith is shunned and tagged as devilish or fetish simply because the colonial masters mentioned so. They got here to your land, burnt your gods, and taught you their overseas faith whereas convincing you that your gods are overseas and harmful ones, even once they killed your brothers within the title of that very same faith.
On a cultural degree, Africa can’t declare possession of its historical past. Africans have deserted the folklore and the tales instructed from technology to technology in favour of tales instructed by individuals who ‘found’ villages and lands that have been already inhabited by males of outdated. Should you select to inform your tales as seen via the eyes of the outsider, you may as properly don’t have any story or historical past. Should you abandon conventional attire for Western materials, you proceed to lock your chains with your personal palms.
Africa should really eliminate its colonial clothes in no matter type they arrive and take possession of its id, assets, and narratives. Africa should face the remainder of the world, together with its former oppressors shoulder to shoulder, not as subservient individuals struggling to seek out their manner, and responding to the whims and caprices of the colonial masters.
The decolonisation motion is all-encompassing; Africa’s assets needs to be left for Africa to discover and utilised. Stolen historic artefacts have to be returned to Africa. The tutorial sector needs to be decolonised, in order that now we have African faculties, and never simply faculties in Africa.
Naming ceremonies needs to be carried out on all of the cities, states, roads, and areas named after the oppressors, and African names needs to be given to them. African spellings and pronunciation of African names needs to be insisted upon, and never some Westernized variations, just because the colonial masters couldn’t be bothered about getting it proper.
Africa has been sleeping on its alternative to create its personal id free from Western interpretations and infringements. Africans ought to instantly stop their shameless shows of favouritism of alien cultures and practices over theirs. Africa should stop celebrating its conquest and subjugation by foreigners and take up their id because the individuals of Africa, with their distinctive languages, religions, practices, names, and cultures.
If Africa plans or hopes to realize any type of financial, social, and political progress, it should take cost of its narratives, construct its id, and captain its ship.
Years have handed, and alternatives have been misplaced, however it isn’t too late for the continent to reinvent its id; this time, telling the remainder of the world what Africa really is and what it believes in and stands for. It’s time for Africa to get up and shed its colonial clothes and dress itself in its true African garb, standing proudly for the world to see.
