This essay is a response to a prompt that encouraged students to connect ideas from the book Justice by Michael Sandel with Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and an interdisciplinary unit on the colonial period in Africa. Students were asked to develop a definition of citizenship and support it with information from the two books and a variety of historical sources.
Botan A
The African people’s dedicated compassion and desire for the African continent has gradually been diminished in the last couple of centuries. Western colonialists took great advantage of our ignorance. The word “responsibility” plays an important role in our continent’s flaw. It’s important in the sense that it has more to do with the Africans themselves rather than the western colonialists. We let them in our land and now we are paying the price. As Jomo Kenyatta once said “When the missionaries came, the Africans had the land and the Christians had the Bible. They taught us how to pray with your eyes closed. When we opened them they had the land and we had the Bible.” They came in and impacted the way Africans lived. The citizens of this great continent are missing. Leaders, who are willing to take responsibility for the sake of their continent, are nowhere to be found. Being a citizen of this continent, we should do something about the way African countries were exploited in the past. This is an idea called continental citizenship. It is the same as the communitarian idea of Michael Sandal’s book Justice where there is a desire for someone to take responsibility to his or her closest relative or place. The same way we are taking responsibility for our family, community or country, we should do the same for our continent as well. Some people might argue and say what about responsibility to the world and global citizenship? The answer to those people is that being a citizen of the world there are certain boundaries and limits and in order to cross those limits you need the conformity of everyone around the world and that is beyond our power. You can’t just go up to another part of the world without knowing what they prohibit and that is why global citizenship or taking responsibility to the world is not our first priority. There are certain things needed to be accomplished first. We know that family and country come first, but if your family and country are already affected by the impact of colonialism, how is there going to a prosperous family or country for that matter, who have their culture and religion intact. In order to fix what’s inside you have to fix the upper part first. This is where continental citizenship comes into play.
Throughout the continent, we have been thoroughly exploited from all parts of the African land. Western colonization spread through the African continent rapidly and the demand for raw materials increased significantly. The industrial revolution played a major role in the spread of western colonies through the continent. Whether it was rubber from the Congo, or gold from southern Africa, or even copper from the north, these things were taken from our land. There should have been a desire or an urge from the African people to take responsibility for our own continent. There is in fact a moral responsibility in our hands because as being a citizen of this great continent , we should step up for the things colonization has impacted and how it promoted Christianity, separated villages or communities, and finally the importation of modern weaponry.
Colonization came in the midst of the 19th century and it had major impact on the African continent. The major colonial forces were most notably the British and the French. Each of them acted in their respective ways. However, their methods differed, the British used indirect rule and the French used direct rule. They built schools to promote Christianity. In the Nancy Jacobs primary sources, which discusses the periods of colonial impact talks about the influence of the British in the Igbo land (modern day Nigeria) (3.2g). The British brought in missionaries that taught in the bible and that has caused most of the Igbo children to forget about their own tradition and that has made it difficult for them to practice mother tradition. There was a kid called Nweke, who grew up in a village, however, his older brother made him go and pursue western education. After learning the western education, he came back to his village. Nweke faced problems with the way his family practiced their tradition, having doubts about his own tradition. This made it difficult for him to practice his family’s tradition. This goes to show you how this method of promoting Christianity influenced the people of the African continent.
The French, unlike the British, gave jobs to local African people. This was a method strictly to their benefit because it would strengthen its nation and influence them to act as French. They mostly recruited former slaves as it said in one of the primary sources:
Even so, when the French came, they managed what many other local competitors did not and made defensive alliances against the invaders. Serving in the French imperial army were troops recruited elsewhere in West Africa, known as the Tirailleurs Sénégalais. This was a “volunteer” force, albeit manned by many former slaves who had been purchased to give military service. Other soldiers joined for adventurre or mercenary rewards. Africans of high social standing and Creoles sometimes became offices. (2.2c pg 77)
This method was a quick way of influencing the Africans culture and making them act as Europeans. As Walter Rodney said in his book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa “The main purpose of colonial school system was to train Africans to participate in the domination and exploitation of the continent as a whole…” The Africans themselves took part of the exploitation and those who worked for the colonial forces assisted in the exploitation of Africa. Therefore this has been a huge part of colonization and how Africa was hugely influenced.
Before Europeans came into the interior of Africa, people were united as one and there was a sense of togetherness. Different tribes were united through their culture and that kept them solely intact. But as the Europeans entered the Dark Continent all of that changed. Villages were broken apart and some of the people, who had their culture intact even converted to Christianity. The Europeans cut off their tradition and separated their clans. As Obierika said in his eloquent speech in the book Things Fall Apart:
How can he when he does not even speak our tongue? But he says that our customs are bad, and our own brothers who taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad. How do you think we can fight when our brothers have turned against us? The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart. (Loc 1778)
In this speech Obierika is addressing his people and probably the whole continent that the Europeans broke us apart and influenced people to move to their side. He is pointing out that the impact of colonialism was hugely a negative effect because it has caused division between people with the same culture.
Finally, the importing of modern technology also had a negative effect in the African continent. This all started off when the Europeans were exporting slaves out of Africa through the western coast. Unfortunately, we, through our ignorance traded weapons and wine for our own people. These weapons such as guns, however, created violence and conflicts between communities and countries. Africans at that point of time didn’t have enough knowledge of this kind of weaponry and what it might do to them as consequence. As it said in the book Things Fall Apart “Okonkwo’s gun had exploded and a pierce of iron had pierced the boy’s heart.”(Loc 1306) This shows the liability of weapons in Africa and how the African people weren’t aware of what it might happen as a result. As being citizens of this great continent, we should be blamed for what has been done to our people. Our own ignorance led to not only Europeans taking advantage of us, but also from ourselves because we killed each other through these weapons. We have been blinded by our ignorance and that is why Africa has been underdeveloped. Colonialism has caused us to not only sell out our own people but it also brought something that destroyed us all.
Now in order for us to take responsibility there are two ways we can approach this impact and that is through resistance or abandoning the colonial language for good. We have seen in the past that some resistances didn’t go so well such as the resistance of the western African king Samouri Traore, who had fierce encounters with the French, but was captured at the end and all his kingdoms and villages were taken over by the French colony. However, there were some successful resistances such as the resistance of the man called Sayid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan or as the Europeans called him (Mad Mullah). He was a religious and nationalistic leader of the Somalis. He led an armed resistance against the British and the Italian for almost twenty one years. He was the one that brought the land of Somalis to not forget of the culture and religion. He was also a famous poet, who addressed his people through poems. This made the Somalis to keep their strong culture intact without any interference from the Europeans. Now if we could do the same we can overcome all those impacts Europeans had in our continent.
The other approach is abandoning the colonial language for good, which is an idea purposed by a Kenyan writer called Ngugu Wa Thiongo. He believes that learning western education and their colonial language leads to loss of tradition and culture. This is true because in the story above Nweke, after he went on to learn western education, he came back and forgot about his own traditions. Thiongo also believes that learning the colonial education will make you stuck in between two worlds. Because we, as Africans grew up in our mother’s language, tradition, and culture, yet in learning the colonial language makes us see the world differently. You feel ashamed of your own language and start to adopt colonial ways of thinking. You also can’t interact or blend in with your own people. As Thiongo said “…the bullet was the means of physical subjugation. Language was the means of the spiritual subjugation.” This means that colonial language led to the aftermath of it becoming the dominant language in Africa. This is a sign of how heavily colonialism impacted Africa till this day.
By and large, as being Africans and as citizens of this continent we should take responsibility for the impact we have faced through colonial experience. In Africa, many countries adopted western ways whether it is through promotion of Christianity or language or even the way in which governments are held. This diminished our true patriotic nature of the African culture and traditions. As Thiongo suggested we can take responsibility by abandoning colonial language and showing our true culture and tradition through our mother language. The other option which wasn’t as successful as in the past is resistance and showing force and not letting in the westerners into our own continent. Overall, if we want our family and country to live in a prosperous life, we need to fix our continent first and clean up our own mess. If we have an efficient continent, then we can have an efficient country, community, and family.