Post by actaestfabula on Feb 27, 2006 17:28:59 GMT 3
In 1978, a short dread-locked jamaican named Robert Nestor Marley called his brethren to emancipate themselves from mental slavery, singing that none but ourselves can free our minds. Little did he know that almost 28 years later his african cousins will more than ever suffer from mental slavery and its grandson, inferiority complex . One of the worst effects of physical slavery and colonialisation is being manifested today by our young people and even the less younger ones in the form of these two. It is unfortunate to note that millions of Africans of all walks of life have a built-in feeling that they are inferior to others in some way or another.
The saddest part is that this inferiority complex is affecting entire communities or countries, in a phenomenon sociologists call culture cringe. The Wikipedia defines culture cringe as the controversial idea that some national cultures suffer from an internalized internalized inferiority complex which causes people in those countries to dismiss their own culture as inferior to the cultures of other countries. Australian sociologists Brian Head and James Walter define culture cringe as the belief that one's own country occupies a "subordinate cultural place on the periphery", and that "intellectual standards are set and innovations occur elsewhere". Consequently, a person who holds this belief tends to devalue their own country's or community’s cultural, academic and artistic life, and to venerate the "superior" culture of another country.
Africans in general and Kenyans in particular are trying with unprecedented zeal to immitate the ‘mental slave masters’ in all aspects of life, from the manner of talking to the manner of walking. We try our best to appear ‘cool’ and ‘in the move’. The sad result is a completely ridiculous and artificial generation of youth in our urban centres who don’t know themselves. With slavery and colonialisation the idea of civilisation has been completely mutated from it’s original sense, which is living in a complex society with rights and obligations, to cultural domination of other peoples. The colonialists believed that it was there right to ‘civilize’ and impose there culture on our ‘lesser’ cultures. Today they are more or less gone physically but we voluntarily and blindly copy-cat them to their most intimate habits, like how to clean ourselves after answering the call of nature! Most of the things we copy are not really understandable to us and are not compatible with our cultures and aspirations.
This phenomenon of copying is unfortunately noted in the music we young people listen to at the moment in kenya. Whereas artists in Senegal, Mauritius or Mali, to name but a few are exporting their traditional music all over the world, Kenyan so-called artists are doing their best to look like kenyans the least possible. I am sure that Kenya has lots of beautiful music to offer with it’s more than 42 ethnic groups. Why do we only hear it in school music festivals?
It is also unfortunate to note that most Kenyans, as soon as they go abroad, change the way they speak english. The result is more comic than anything else, especially for those who have not mastered the r’s. I knew a girl back in Mombasa who went to France for a week on some sort of school trip if my memory serves me right. When she came back she had completely changed her english! She was trying her best to speak like in the american movies, and it was hilarious if not sad. Moreso because the french speak one of the worst english in Europe! If they speak it at all, that is. English is not an african language. So I don’t know why we africans should try to speak it the way the english or americans do.
I can give more and more examples of mental slavery from the smallest levels to more general scales.
Let us please discuss this issue as I think it is an important one in our quest for national unity.
acta est fabula
The saddest part is that this inferiority complex is affecting entire communities or countries, in a phenomenon sociologists call culture cringe. The Wikipedia defines culture cringe as the controversial idea that some national cultures suffer from an internalized internalized inferiority complex which causes people in those countries to dismiss their own culture as inferior to the cultures of other countries. Australian sociologists Brian Head and James Walter define culture cringe as the belief that one's own country occupies a "subordinate cultural place on the periphery", and that "intellectual standards are set and innovations occur elsewhere". Consequently, a person who holds this belief tends to devalue their own country's or community’s cultural, academic and artistic life, and to venerate the "superior" culture of another country.
Africans in general and Kenyans in particular are trying with unprecedented zeal to immitate the ‘mental slave masters’ in all aspects of life, from the manner of talking to the manner of walking. We try our best to appear ‘cool’ and ‘in the move’. The sad result is a completely ridiculous and artificial generation of youth in our urban centres who don’t know themselves. With slavery and colonialisation the idea of civilisation has been completely mutated from it’s original sense, which is living in a complex society with rights and obligations, to cultural domination of other peoples. The colonialists believed that it was there right to ‘civilize’ and impose there culture on our ‘lesser’ cultures. Today they are more or less gone physically but we voluntarily and blindly copy-cat them to their most intimate habits, like how to clean ourselves after answering the call of nature! Most of the things we copy are not really understandable to us and are not compatible with our cultures and aspirations.
This phenomenon of copying is unfortunately noted in the music we young people listen to at the moment in kenya. Whereas artists in Senegal, Mauritius or Mali, to name but a few are exporting their traditional music all over the world, Kenyan so-called artists are doing their best to look like kenyans the least possible. I am sure that Kenya has lots of beautiful music to offer with it’s more than 42 ethnic groups. Why do we only hear it in school music festivals?
It is also unfortunate to note that most Kenyans, as soon as they go abroad, change the way they speak english. The result is more comic than anything else, especially for those who have not mastered the r’s. I knew a girl back in Mombasa who went to France for a week on some sort of school trip if my memory serves me right. When she came back she had completely changed her english! She was trying her best to speak like in the american movies, and it was hilarious if not sad. Moreso because the french speak one of the worst english in Europe! If they speak it at all, that is. English is not an african language. So I don’t know why we africans should try to speak it the way the english or americans do.
I can give more and more examples of mental slavery from the smallest levels to more general scales.
Let us please discuss this issue as I think it is an important one in our quest for national unity.
acta est fabula