Page 25 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 31

Community
The
Colonial
Heritage of
a “Master
Class”
By: Mukuyu, Kenya.
Having someone to open the gate for you,
Having someone to cut the fence for you
Having someone to drive the car for you,
Having servants all over you,
is taken as a sign of what they call, “I have
arrived.” This fascination with servants
and being an overlord is so ingrained in
post colonial African consciousness that it
pervades all aspects of our lives.
Our government, politics, work, religion all
have been heavily infected with this societal
disease; a disease that will take a long long
time to completely heal.
Why does a man in public service need a
retinue of slaves trailing him every which
way he goes? Why does a Governor of a
County need five chase cars terrorizing
other motorists with impunity on the roads?
Why is it necessary for civil servants and
representatives to live lives of privilege and
impunity? Could it be that they perform
a psychological function of assuaging our
yearnings for such privilege. Are we getting
what we all deeply yearn for?
Between 2009 and 2012, I was a guest at the
Scandinavian country of Norway and lived
for part of that time in the capital, Oslo. In
this very egaritarian society, there is little
difference in what a member of parliament
earns and what a teacher in a school or even
a city bus driver earns. One goes into politics
because it is a passion and not because there
is any privilege or money in it. As a matter
of fact you can rub shoulders with the Prime
Minister or your member of Parliament in a
supermarket as he/she is personally buying
groceries just like you. The Prime minister’s
private house where he lived because he
declined the official government house was
a stone’s throw from our student housing
and it was just like any other house in the
neighborhood. He made headlines once when
he rode to parliament in a bicycle and lost his
two security officers who got caught in traffic
in their single simple car.
Our traditional society was very similar to
this seeming heaven in Scandinavia and
we are only where we are because of the
traumatic heritage of the colonial privilege
class mentality of British colonials and the
political class they coached to take over. In 3
generations since the so-called independence
the effects of this mentality is visibly waning
and the current generation which is more
embedded in global egalitarian culture of
the World Wide Web cannot anymore accept
meekly to be dictated to by a master class of
“slave drivers.”
Editorial note:
Just recently, the team had a conversation
ISSUE 31 | NOVEMBER 2024 25