Maravi

(TALKZIMBABWE) The stolen souls of Africa

The stolen souls of Africa
By: Nancy Nyamhunga
Posted: Sunday, May 16, 2010 8:11 am

IN an article titled, African journalists leading the miseducation of our people, my colleague Nancy Lovedale bemoaned the involuntary compassion expressed by African journalists when interviewing white people on their programmes.

She rightly blamed the miseducation of black Africans which is a system that is deliberately designed to deprive a certain group of people, particularly black Africans the knowledge about themselves, their culture and history. It is an ideology that is embedded in the education system that equips black children with ideas that work against them.

God created the human being in different colours, images and way of doing things. We pray in different ways, we express grief and happiness in different ways.

Sadly, slavery, colonialism and the game in town – cultural imperialism, sought to transform an African into, not only the image of a Caucasian, but also the mindset.

The late musical legend Michael Jackson (MHSRIP) was unfairly criticised for his plastic surgery which altered his image from that of a black man to that which resembled a white man. It is all very easy to criticise, but is it not a case of a pot calling a kettle black?

Most Africans, particularly those domiciled in the western world, have devised their own ways of copying with the rejection of their natural image by a largely white society. Why is it that African women resort to the use of long straight weaves? Is it a fashion statement or a sense of wanting to belong? Is it not a rejection of the African image because that very image does not conform to what our minds have been indoctrinated with? Do we not feel “ashamed” to walk in the streets of London, New York with our natural curly hair because it symbolises “backwardness, poverty and lack of civilisation?”

Through miseducation, we have been conditioned to believe that success and modernity can only be expressed through the image of a Caucasian with long flowing hair, and thus the image of an African woman with natural hair, braids or covered hair symbolises failure and incivility.

The tragedy lies in the fact that black African women cannot naturally produce long straight hair, hence a white woman who would rather dump her trash hair in the dustbin, will instead get paid by an insecure black woman who is under pressure to belong, to transform. The black woman stays where the system wants her, a perpetual dependent and consumer of the western market but never a producer.

Add to this the scandalous beauty pegeants,”Miss World etc”, and the whole scam unravels. We are told beauty can be universal but it is judged only by those who recognise it when it comes with long straight hair. The African woman is forced to “borrow” the hair in order to belong. Forget about our beautiful braids, plaits, short curly hair or head dresses, they do not resemble beauty as the world defines it, and we are made to believe.

Yet this is all a strategy to create a market for someone’s unwanted hair and it goes well beyond this market. It strikes right at the heart of the black people; it seeks to permanently separate those who can financially afford to transform their images to “civility” from the villagers in that remote Zimbabwean countryside who brought her up. They can longer be the same people. They see each other differently and with this come up all the perceptions, all which does only one thing – to destroy the community bond.

Unless African governments take radical measures to change their educational systems, its citizenry will continue to be poisoned with ideas that are self-destructive. The idea of the deceptive “free market”, “democracy” must be scrutinised to make sure both are domesticated to conform to African culture.

African Diasporas must also acknowledge that the mainstream education systems in western countries are not fit for the black child. Where I live, the Muslims and Indians long realised this and they have independent schools where their children learn in environments that conforms to their identity and culture.

The Muslim secondary school was on top of the league last year in the entire county, having achieved the best performance at GCSE level. The Indian community’s economic successes are there for everyone to see. They own businesses, dominate the top corporate levers of both private and public sectors and there is also the Bank of India and the Islamic Bank.

Black children performed the least at GSCE, and one is tempted to think that if the parents can be “forced” to transform their images, surely the little black minds must be under enormous pressure, bullying because they look different and therefore their focus is diverted from learning to that of devising ways of coping with the rejection.

India and China Diasporas import their culture and products to the western world, but the African, instead of finding ways of mixing those delicious African herbs and come up with a unique African sauce to sell to the western market, we dwell on how to transform our images.

I have two Black Zimbabwean “friends”, both professionals domiciled in the west who categorically declare that they will never date a black man, let alone a Zimbabwean man. The irony is that they both have off springs by guess who – black Zimbabwean men from previous relationships ( This must not be interpreted as giving ammunition to male chauvinists, whom I hate with a passion), but just to demonstrate how African souls get lost under the powerful ideology of miseducating the African mind.

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Nancy Nyamhunga writes from Leicester, United Kingdom

Labels: AFROCENTRISM, CULTURE, EDUCATION, NANCY NYAMHUNGA

posted by MrK @ 5:08 PM