Sometimes, the captives get so used to captivity that they miss their chance to leave. Like victims of Stockholm syndrome, Africans cannot see themselves any other way except for the way their ‘white’ oppressors and abusers see them. Their belief is simple ‘White is right and black is wrong’ ‘White is perfect and black is flawed’.
But how did we get here? How did the inferiority complex eat so deeply into the system of Africans that they forget to look within or even around them to see the wonderful things that Africans have done and are still doing?
It all started with the slave trade. Bound hands and feet, and treated like an animal or even less, had an effect on the victims of the slave trade and even generations after them. While living life as slaves to the whites, Africans who got their freedom continued to see the whites as demigods. Whatever they did was the right thing to do, or it was plain stupid, Africans would revere it and want to do the same.
In an attempt to measure up to some warped standards, Africans have demonised their accents and shamelessly chased after another man’s mother tongue and accent, even paying lots of money to sound like the white man, and failing woefully most times. It is a thing of pride for many Africans to be able to speak like the white man, even if they can’t say a single word in their mother tongue. After all, the recognition of a white person who is probably insignificant has been valued over African culture.
Should we talk about how traditional African meals, music, and even attires have been demonised or localised in favour of the white man’s traditional meals? Only a person with a gross level of inferiority complex will want to change himself completely so that they can be accepted by someone else. Worse still, they crave acceptance from someone who will never see them as equal, no matter how many discoveries are made by Africans throughout the world and across different fields.
Why would a company in Africa choose to hire foreigners rather than indigenes when they have the experience needed to do the job? Why subject an African to security checks like a criminal, when other races will walk past with little to no checks? Have Africans ever complained? No. They got used to being treated like the scum of the earth that they don’t even bother pushing for better.
Read Also: Dear Africans, Your Culture, Traditions Are Not Demonic
Who do we blame for this disgusting inferiority complex that has Africans devaluing and belittling themselves before other races of the world?
The educational sector bears the brunt of the blame. Africans have been educated about what the rest of the world feels is important, even when it bears no theoretical or practical relevance to the content. Still, we ‘borrow’ more and more irrelevant topics and discourses and spend time on them, while relegating African conversations, ideas, and theories to the background.
Instead of learning the histories and practices of other continents, Africans should learn about their culture, and history, and explore their talents and creativity.
Shall we talk about how Nigeria’s inferiority complex has made it comfortable with exporting its natural resources (oil) to a wasteful country to process, only to purchase it again at a higher price? That goes beyond just an inferiority complex by a far mile. What happened to refining your petroleum products in your country and exporting it to the rest of the world while making a lot of profit from it?
Why do rich and well-to-do parents prefer to send their children to foreign schools even at the primary level? The answer is simple. There exists a mindset that education in Africa is hopeless. However, they forget all the experts who have done great things economically, and medically and made their mark in history with only their African education. Western education consciously and subconsciously kill every love, value, and appreciation for anything African, enthroning only the traits that suit the Western narrative,
When you add religion to Western education, you have two of the main culprits of African’s insincerity. Western laws drafted for Africans, media narratives painted to favour the other parts of the world, as well as the complexities of economic, political, and racial interactions have all led Africans deeper into the dungeons of inferiority complex.
The Christian religion is another concept that has been used to trample upon the confidence of Africans. To satisfy their imperialist harbingers of the gospel, Africans have destroyed their religious shrines, symbols, and the very practice of African religion, just because they think practising Christian religion will help them meet up to some invisible line or standard.
The West continues to portray Africa as a failed continent where corruption, poverty, and insecurity are the order of the day, but do Africans know that the countries they feel inadequate towards are also swimming in corruption and insecurity, with eroded morals and humanity that has become a shadow of itself?
For how long will Africans continue to look up to the Europeans and the rest of the world for permission before they can live their lives the way they should? When will we stop glorifying the West, and making them faultless? Africa must change the narratives that the colonial masters and the rest of the exploiters have moulded against the continent and show them the greatness that dwells within the boundaries of this continent. But will that be possible if Africans don’t purge themselves of all the negative stereotypes they have internalised and built into a negative self-image?
Africans must conquer their inferiority complexes and it begins by embracing their roots, complexion, language, culture, religion, and everything else that has been demonised. Africans must understand that they remain under modern-day slavery due to capitalism, religious imposition, cultural imperialism, economic slavery, and racial segregation.
Now is the time for Africans to take up narratives to counter all the lies they have been told. You might call it a revolution, but a change in the consciousness of the average African is the goal, and it must be achieved if Africans ever plan to be confident in their lifestyle and identity, and not live their lives as second fiddles, trying to play catch-up but never actually catching up. Africa must break the chains that hold it down and achieve freedom today, and this freedom begins in the mind.
Now is the time for Africans, to fully return to Africanism. Enough of the ruthless capitalism from the western world that has so much divided African nations, and thus far made them a shadow of themselves.
