The irony is that, the more the world shrinks and becomes more and more global , the more ignorance and cultural biases still prevailing among humanity is astonishingly growing, and at such an alarming rate.
Sarah Palin once described Africa as a ‘vast country’, and this was after her nomination as Republicans vice Presidential flag bearer of the greatest country on earth. If such naivety occurs from a person we would readily assume to know, you can then imagine the level of ignorance in the mind of ‘commoners’.
From realistic comments from friends who are non-Africans, I see there is still a current and widespread perception of Africa as a large dark continent where primitive people still prevail and where scantly cladded tribesmen with bows and arrows for hunting are still rife, even amidst the progress of internet and success of media culture, to many Westerners, Africa is still synonymous to hopelessness and poverty, a region that needs the sympathy and charity of Western aid to survive.
I can go on and on to describe the concept of Africa from a typical Western perspective, this is borne, not out of prejudice but from blatant ignorance and inertia. Don’t be angry if you are black, just be surprised. In spite of the media propaganda about anti-racism et all, it is still ingrained in a white person’s brain that he is superior to Black; God help you if you are Black and African, the Lord is your strength when you are Black, African and Nigerian. I call it ‘Triple jeopardy’.
Contrarily, I come into my land and I notice the wide respect we accord to White skin. An average black man has it ingrained in his psyche that a White person is superior to him, even if he has a Master’s degree holder and the latter has an NVQ1. Hahahaha! Comedy of error.
Without gaining knowledge of the journey back, we shall be trapped. First, we shall be affected with all these apparent biases and instead of doing something to better our lots and correct the disparity with love, we either develop a complex: we accept and live with our ‘inferiority’ or we become angry and respond in such manner that we become far worse than our accusers.
A typical African, in order to survive amidst all these misconceptions, returns either to the abandonment of religion or to the violence of war- or both. We seem unprepared to combine the talk of education and the walk of pragmatism into the emancipation of the mental slavery resident in us. We still rubbish the energy from our root and continue to follow the acute detailed dictates from the West. If Africans don’t discover themselves and still bin their identity and culture, they shall continue to see themselves as second rated citizens. You cannot imitate somebody and expect to be more than him.
In spite of humanity’s advancement, I confess that this racial and cultural ignorance is not often borne out of ill motives, but out of what I call disinterestedness and inertia. There is a level of ignorance permeating the entire earthly horizon, it is as easy as falling into the wide and fallacious opinions of saying Jamaicans take pots, or that Muslims are terrorists, or that Indians use ‘jazz’, or that white girls are cheap or that all sleet faced Asians are Chinese . For instance, back home, I often wonder at the number of fundamentalist Christians who think Jerusalem is a Christian land filled with churches! All these misconceptions are borne out of our ignorance to read and laziness to venture.
I feel hurt when I am assumed for less than I deserve, but I try not to retaliate. I laugh over the ignorance and try to improve on myself. Martin Luther King once said that the law may not be able to change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless. I commend the effort of some Western countries in tackling this anomaly by implementing laws to discourage the opinionating of its ideology, but the workability of these laws in individuals is another topic. John McCain once said something about Vladimir Putin, he said: ‘when I look into his eyes I see 3 letters: K-G-B. McCain has been affected. I don’t wish to get to a stage where I will look into a White man’s face and see 6 letters. R-A-C-I-S-M.
The journey forth thus calls precisely for what is being denied in our world today in order to truly progress. Think of definitions like Big Society, Multiculturalism, Multi-ethnicity, Solidarity etc. The heart might have failed in the workability of these things, but as long as the Heart still breathes there is still hope.
I passionately work towards being influenced by goodness. The British Empire came to my land for money, but without them today, I wouldn't have gotten my Christian faith, I wouldn't have been educated, if for the single fact that I met with Christ, it is enough reason to see the advent of the White man as a journey forth. But when I bin what I already have instead of working to refine it and guarding it jealously, I am then behaving like a child who sees honey and throws away bread. A wise adult would see honey and consume both bread and honey.
As I become a citizen of the world and I see the great hospitality of the British, the deep rooted culture and creativity of Italians, the diligence of Eastern Europeans, the faith and generosity of the Arabs, the discipline of Asians, the magnanimity and zest of the Americans, the sophistication of the French and the pragmatism of Russians. I would like to purchase these ingredients, add the salt and condiments of African passionate energy and vast abilities, mix and cook these together to produce a tasty menu for the advancement of humanity.
