Through the ages, women have been successfully cowed and put under by men of virtually every clime. This was done through systematic brainwashing, reaffirming their inferiority to the male species until most of them came to accept and believe the lie. The moment the mind is conquered in this manner, it becomes easy to swallow anything the oppressor wants to inflict on the victim of such mind slavery.
This is the story of Africa. Africa was conquered by systematic brainwashing and mind slavery. The damage of colonialism was more of inner damage than physical. The spirit of Africa was taken and the mind put in automatic reverse. The achievements our forebears recorded in various fields were stagnated because they left what they knew and chased after elusive realities. Africans were conditioned through defective learning processes to consider other races superior and to look up to them for the good life. The moment this status differentiation was achieved, every other anomaly was easy to accept.
This mind slavery prepared the grounds for all kinds of interferences from foreign powers in our internal affairs. Some nations have used Africa as dumping ground for toxic waste and thereby caused all kinds of diseases among the populace. Others have used Africans as laboratory animals to test their newly produced drugs. Countries in Africa have been cajoled into accepting monetary and fiscal policies that would hurt rather than help the people. When other nations produce weapons of mass destruction and need a market for their products, they instigate war in Africa and also sell weapons to the two combating sides. Substandard goods and services from these other countries flood African markets and are in high demand because of the mind slavery that makes everything foreign more appealing. The list is endless but the cause is constant. We swallowed the bait of inferiority and have not found the courage to purge ourselves of its deadly poison.
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Who gave us the names we bear as individuals and as nation states? How many African states have found the courage to jettison the names given to them by their slave masters? Even the name Africa was a coinage of the West. Who gave us the tag of Third World? Who shared the world in this manner? Why should Africans accept to answer Third World and gladly accept that they are trailing behind the rest of the world? Yes, we may not have produced airplanes that go to Mars but who said that is what life is all about? The West. They have defined life in their own way and we willingly abandoned life as we knew it to chase after them and theirs.
Africa has its own life and ways of doing things which the world should learn from. The democracy that the Igbo practiced effectively was more refined, honest and purpose-driven than what we copied from the West. Our feeding pattern is superior to what we have copied from elsewhere. Our worship patterns did not make room for religious intolerance and violence that we have now. Our educational system was practical and ensured that everyone was gainfully employed on attaining maturity.
Whenever a static car wants to move, it goes back first to gather momentum before it takes off. Africa has been static for too long. We need to move back and reconnect with our roots that we have been deliberately separated from. In our ignorance, we have accepted that everything about us is evil. Our streams contain marine spirits but River Jordan only gives healing. Our mountains are infested with evil spirits and curses. Even our native names are now considered scary as they connect us with our ancestors. We celebrate other nation’s ancestors like Abraham, Jacob, Valentine, and so on but our own ancestors are to be dreaded. Any mention of them breeds evil ancestral spirits. When will we ever celebrate the feast of Saint Okechukwu?
Our ancestors were great men known for noble deeds. If some of them were evil, so were some from other places. The same Bible that told us of Abraham also talked of Judas Iscariot. They both are ancestors of the Jews. That is how it is in every clime. It is a crime against oneself to jettison one’s name and adopt a foreign one that you do not even know its meaning and origin. It is a serious mark of slavery. We must go back and tap from the great resources bequeathed to us by our great forbears. The wisdom from these sages is unlimited and yet we have left these to run after what we cannot comprehend. We can reinvent ourselves and become First World citizens in our own rights. We can invent things that will make the world run after us for solutions to various problems. We can surprise the world with our natural ingenuity only by reconnecting to our roots and using what God has provided for us in our land.
Women seem to have fared better in their fight for freedom. At least they have organized themselves into groups whose primary focus is to enlighten fellow women on the need to reject the slave status they have been given by their oppressors. Africa, on the other hand, seems to be content with the slave status, like a puppy that gladly wags its tail at the master in anticipation of getting a bone as reward.
NNENNA Ihebom
