What Africans should learn from a harsh history
(Daily Nation)
Over the years I have been thoroughly disturbed, indeed distressed, by things that happen, or do not happen, in Africa. At independence in 1963, I was a young forward-looking lad, when we sang and swore to replace the tedious and stunting colonialism, with hard work and self-determination.
But, alas, soon after independence the continent was gripped by hunger, diseases, dictatorship, mass murders and grisly assassinations.
My mind has ever since oscillated between hope and despair, as more and more gruesome events have come and passed. Noticing our dereliction and derangement, both our former colonisers and new other imperialists returned to Africa stealthily, as advisers and also as development partners. In just over two decades the imperialists had become the unbwogable managers of our continent.
Over a week ago, a very close friend of mine, Professor Kings Phiri, a top Malawian historian, sent to me his recent inaugural publication entitled: History and the Past: The present and Future of Black People. The well-written book covers Africas historic relations with the Western World, and dwells principally on our pains and woes since the days of the slave trade, to the present.
At the end of the book I asked myself three questions. Why, over the years, have we allowed ourselves to be exploited, oppressed and despised as a race? What have we learnt, as Black People, from our horrid history? And, is the white man by nature really so evil and remorseless?
Remember, however, that we have not only been exploited and oppressed by the imperialists, we have also been exploited, oppressed and murdered by our own Black people, since independence.
And although we often glorify the modern civilisation as saviour from treachery and colonialism, at the end of the day man remains a beast, with base animal instincts. It is not very long ago since we branched off from other prehistoric vertebrates. Unless guarded by strict laws, even your neighbour whom you hold in high esteem could easily creep up one night and savagely murder you.
But societies have gone through different cultural routes, and those that we today regard as developed are those which have managed, through hard experience, to bring their lot under strict rule of law, and to instil into them the values of discipline, honesty, hard work and inquisitiveness.
Only those societies which over the years have imposed strict laws against regression to prehistoric behaviours, and promoted education, and the four values which we earlier mentioned - honesty, hard work, discipline and inquisitiveness - have moved a step forward.
With the said values you can conquer the world and explore the planets. With those values you can develop tremendous wealth and build cathedrals. In deed, with those values, one can strike out into the unknown, like the ancient navigators did, and create great fortunes for others.
But our dreams for the above transformation will not come about, so long as we leave the guidance of our youth and society in the hands of politicians, however educated they may be. Politicians yearn for perpetuity in office, and always crave for quick money with which to mollify their followers. Having borrowed huge funds from the West they get trapped into doing what they are told. They, for example, lose the nerve to indict, or to preach values that are against western domination.
In deed, because our problems have kept mounting, and our leaders have had to turn to the west to solve them, our people have lost faith in their ability to move forward on their own.
But the will to build a nation originates from within its people, and not from outside. The growth must come out of our own roots, and not through grafting on to things that are alien to our society.
Thus, we have to revisit our educational philosophies and theories, to find out whether we are bringing up young people with the will to be true Africans, and also the will to develop without relying on Western and other patronages.
We have to re-invent our teachers and professors, so that they are able to inject the required values into the heads of our youth. Once we reject Western patronage, as the Chinese, Japanese and Malaysians have done, all the tragedies and humiliations that we get through Western patronage will be gone.
The above, I believe, is the message which my great Malawian friend, Professor Kings Phiri, must put across to his people. We have been ignored, despised and exploited for so long because we have ourselves allowed it to happen.
Until we turn around the attitude of our people against Western patronage, and educate them to be disciplined, hardworking and honest in whatever they do, Africa will forever be exploited by the aggressive, assertive, exploitative and abusive white and brown races of the world.
Prof Ochieng' is the Director of Research at Maseno University.
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