Page 64 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 18

Leadership

Abel Merawi western standards, and so our cur- disarming beauty of black wom-
Abel Merawi is from Addis Ababa. He riculum prepare us for a western life. en. The spirit of Thomas Sankara,
Markus Garvey, Emperor Menelik II
Our financial institutions and eco-
is an English literature teacher, freelance nomic systems are directly imported, and Haile Selassie continue to haunt
writer/reporter for Ezega.com and an Am- with little to no consideration as to Africans who have gone astray from
haric-English translator and editor. He their applicability in African context. the vision of Pan Africanism. Our
We are entertained by cheaply im-
forefathers were chained and taken
also writes for www.msingiafrikamagazine. ported Hollywood movies, we form away from Africa, but we currently
com. You can reach him via: abelmerawi4@ opinions based on the brainwashing risk our lives to enter Western coun-
gmail.com Western mainstream media, and we tries by any means necessary. Our
call this news and documentaries. ancestors, the chieftains of egalitar-
ian Africa, have risked and lost their
Collective amnesia has been instilled lives in an attempt to defend Africa
in Africans, making us forget and – their homeland. Alas! Today our
people for a while, but only spiri- ignore our past greatness. Western- political leaders and elites compete
tual and mental hegemony has the ers have told us that we are uncivi- to attract foreigners at the expense
power to systematically colonize and lized, barbaric, poor, and have called of their people. Kwasi Wiredu in his
enchain people for more than 400 us by nasty names. But most hurtful 1998 article, Toward Decolonizing
years. As Elie Wiesel expressed it in is our reaction – we have accepted African Philosophy and Religion,
‘Night’, it was neither Nazi Ger- it. We echoed of our uncivil nature has argued, “Such minds are what
mans nor Jew capos that guarded through our intellectuals, called may justly be called colonized. They
the concentration camps and the gas ourselves barbaric, and lived poor are minds that think about and
chamber; it was rather illusion. To surrounded by abundance. They expound their own culture in terms
colonize and enslave Africans too, used ‘white’ to unleash a force of of categories of a colonial origin
the colonizers and enslavers made evil across the world. They gave without any qualms as to any possi-
us accept an illusion. We accepted ‘black’ a double meaning: externally, ble conceptual incongruities.”
their superiority and our inferiority, ‘blacks’ were those to be oppressed
and so did some of the post-inde- in the name of civilization, and In Roots, by Alex Haley, we see
pendence leaders of African nations. internally, ‘blacks’ were the uncivi- how Kunta Kinte refuses to accept
The Africans who were educated, lized people who fought civil wars. the new name, Toby, he is given by
or rather indoctrinated, in western As national borders were erected the slaver. He proudly announc-
mentality, still imitated the oppres- by colonizers in a treaty to parti- es, “I am Kunta Kinte, first son
sors in governance and ambition. tion and loot Africa, civil wars were of Omoro, who is the son of the
Westernized Africans continue to bound to occur in post-indepen- holy man Kairaba Kunta Kinte!”
reignite the dying fire of colonialism dent Africa. We also learned civil He almost lost his life before
while extinguishing the living fire wars from the ‘divide-and-conquer’ abandoning his origin, his identity.
of freedom from Africans. We, the strategy of Europeans, who came to Currently, westernized black par-
generations that followed, still strug- our continent only after committing ents are doing the dirty work of the
gle to breath an African air, as we ethnic cleansing in their own land former colonizers, they willingly
are suffocated under the dark mist and created homogeneous Europe- name their babies western names
of oppressed mentality. an nations. Our western educated they see in Hollywood movies. In
leaders imitate the ways of their Ethiopia, where the colonizers were
We have inherited western dreams masters, and so enforce the same defeated by black roaring lions, I see
and ambitions from our political, cruelty in Africa. neocolonialism slowly invading us.
spiritual and intellectual leaders. To At schools, thanks to westernized
reclaim Africa, we must abandon To learn freedom, we must unlearn parents, curriculums give priority
the false prophets who roam in our slavery. To reclaim Africa demands to mastering English more than
midst spreading the oppressors’ the abandonment of foreign stan- any other subject matter. I am also
false narratives. We have inherited dards of measures we have learnt ashamed to see businesses in Addis
westernized institutions that made along the way. For instance, we must Ababa, the capital of AU, with
mental colonization possible even stop using the ghostly image of the displays such as New York Café or
in the absence of the colonizer. We white skinny female standard of Texas Language center. All around
have measured our education in beauty, before we can admire the me, I see westerners in black skin. I

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