“It is a waste of time to search into the darkness of the African past for an African
Civilization, forget the chaotic and barbaric past of the African continent."
To say that the statement is Eurocentric is a euphemism because it implies that Africa's past had nothing of repute or value to present to the world.
Walter Rodney in his book "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa" (1972) testifies that Africa had a civilization which was crushed by colonialism. Thus the statement
It has the following effects:
It has the potential to inflame hate and exacerbate the already fragile tension between Africans the white supremacists;
This sort of speech also endangers the lives of well-meaning Africans everywhere in Europe. The first stage of Genocide is classification. The next is symbolisation. Classification simply means that one party implicitly or explicitly is creating a divide or some form of social strata. Symbolisation, on the other hand, is to force with hate symbols upon a particular race of people. By that statement, darkness, chaos and barbarism are already used to qualify the African people.
The statement is also an attack on the heritage of the African people. Not just the African continent as a geographical location. In 2017, a 12-year-old girl was reported to have said:
"Now that Trump is president, I’m going to shoot you and all the blacks that I can find"
Such statements if left unchecked can spark off continental chaos and may even degenerate into other forms of social mayhem.
2. Rite of Passage
According to Van Gennep, the three rites of passage are
separation: This he describes as separation from a previous world. In some cases, this stage is accompanied by the shaving off of one's hair.
liminality: This speaks to a state that is in-between the previous one and the final or next stage
incorporation: This stage is usually consummated by a ritual. In some climes, for instance, one of the rites involves "bull jumping". If completed, then one is said to have transited from boyhood to manhood.
3. How Africans contribute to the western insults about the people of Africa are:
Refusal to embrace development: This in many cases is as a result of corruption. African politician would rather embezzle money than commit them to the greater good;
Refusal to obey law and order even in one's best interest;
Decadent value system
Lack of respect for human lives
Refusal to embrace indigenous technology
4. Africa is resource-rich but poor developmentally
According to Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, a human will cater to it's basic/primary needs (such as food, shelter, clothing etc) first before seeking the satisfaction of higher needs of self-fulfilment etc.
Development is strongly related to the need for a higher quality of life/self-fulfilment.
Many African nations are poor developmentally because they are still grappling with the issues at the base of Maslow's pyramid. In the west, there is social security. To a large extent, the effects of the base pyramid are mitigated by the government hence, people can strive for higher ideals which translate to development.
Neo-Colonisation/Hegemony
In this case, the west is largely to blame. International tools of Neo-colonisation such as the IMF and more recently the WHO are tools being used to control many of the African countries albeit indirectly. Some sociology/political experts state that the objective is to prevent any world power from emerging from Africa.
Poor Leadership
The Leadership of the African continent seems to stifle technological growth whilst the developing nations embrace this knowing that it is the future. When an economy is unable to manage it's resources, even if it is the richest in those resources, it will experience stunted growth if it lacks leadership.
5. Underdeveloped and Underdevelopment of Nations in Africa
The greatest any nation has is its people. The colonial governments stripped Africa of the minds that developed it and used those minds to develop theirs. This is the underdevelopment of Africa.
On the other hand, when an African nation is said to be underdeveloped, it is so because it is grappling with challenges such as poverty, high infant mortality rate, uncontrolled population, lack of industrialisation, low literacy levels etc.
Cheers!
