Whatever happened when capitalism began spreading its tentacles to Africa? It found the continent quiet in its own way, marred by the fighting of natives using spear and shield, barter trading, leading pastoral lives, wearing loin skins, led by royal families, living, thriving, working hard to convert nature's provisions into things useful in their lives. They succeeded and whatever European or Western scholars had to say about Africa being the dark continent is utter malarkey and if you are one to accept it, then you may not have to be offended if you are one day classified with the gullible. I do believe that as a people, we have to clearly identify the foibles that mar capitalism and its great contribution to the corruption of pure African culture. As everyone knows, capitalism sparked imperialism, the need to expand in capitalism and create markets and cheap raw materials and all that. Economics and society are linked together closely and for capitalism to flourish perfectly well in the African continent, culture had to give way to a new way of thinking and surprisingly, people welcomed the change as if they were tired of their own ways. That is what had them under the pin and colonialism spread its wings. Today we are reeling from the effects of this.
There is need to know, with the amount of education and enlightenment in the world today, a lot about one's origins. Just like ongoing studies to reveal where mankind came from, every man needs to be in an ongoing process to know where he came from in terms of regional ways of living. That is what makes us different. What is happening today is that a lot of people from cultures of lesser developed nations despise their cultures and the lack of development in their nation states. There is an equal amount political leaders who in my view have no clue on how to solve the quagmire they are in and for third world nations to develop, there is a need of a paradigm shift. Not to run to the world bank for bailout packages, not even look up to developed countries that have sort of assumed the big brother positions over these nations that come scurrying to them every time they are in trouble. A friend whom I was helping with his speech therapy sessions was in one of them with his therapist when she thought that it would be better to remind him words in his native African language. He vehemently refused her to do that saying he wanted to stick to English. I was quite saddened that the man had actually denied his native language to a secondary language that he was having trouble with. A lot of people believe that speaking in English makes them better people. To me that is just a sign of capitalism victory.
In my culture, like I had said in the last article, respect was central to the existence of a people in a society. Sadly, some African leaders try to employ this tool to suppress their people, ruling their nations in a capitalist way (by way of wanting to maintain class differences and them being in the top 1%) yet singing about being cultural, their supporters naming them titles only past cultural leaders deserved, because they were father figures to their subjects who ruled with fairness and justice. Of course there were bad apples among the rulers but they were not as rampant as they are today. Leadership positions for them were a responsibility they took proper care of.
Today, the most saddening thing is how imperialism, which was fought against by many African states left a permanent mark among the nation states. This mark, is the mark of self contempt among the natives. Africans anywhere and everywhere have little faith in the ability of their motherland and its people. They do not love to be associated with the cultures that their forefathers' societies thrived on. They do not believe that their languages are worth displaying their riches and are nothing compared to the queens language, which is a beautiful one for that matter, so are countless other languages on this earth.
Finally, I want to say culture is beautiful and culture is the one definitive aspect of one's life.
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