Chika Onyeani continues to drop his usual bombshell:
>From the time we are born, we are taught to hate everything African or Black.
We are taught to value the Caucasian culture over our own culture. We are
taught to value the Caucasian history over our own history. The miseducation
starts from the day we enter school, when the African child is confronted with
the first nemesis of cultural annihilation: the language of his culture is
repressed in favor of the English language.
The African race is the only race, togehter with the American Indians, to
have been conquered historically, culturally, socially and economically. The
preservation, effectiveness and ultimate survival of a race depends exclusively on
their ability to communicate effectively in the language of their culture and
history.
What makes a race formidable and distinct is the effective use of their
language. The Chinese have it, the Japanese have it, the Indians have it, the
Pakistanis have it, the Germans have it, the French have it, the Swiss have it,
Flemish have it, the Walloons have it, the Koreans have it; and the English from
Britain don't only have it but have spread their language and culture beyond
the small island where it emanated. The Arabs, bless Islam, have it as well
and through the expanding embrace of the Islamic faith more and more people are
preserving their language and culture.
In the next twenty years, most of the African languages will be extinct.
Swahili, Igbo, Hausa-Fulani, Fula, Akan, Yoruba, and the other minor languages
will give way to the onslaught of the English language.
The annihilation of the African languages can be traced directly to the
stupid notion on the part of older Africans who had come in contact with the
British and French that it was more of an honor for them to speak English or French
with their accent, than to learn these two languages as a secondary language
as other cultures have done. Africans delight in talking about how their
children can speak with either French or English accents with no trace of the heavy
African accent. Most of us cannot converse with our children in our own
languages because we had been taught to avoid our own languages. ....
The second annihilation which confronts the African child when he begins his
school life is the name he must answer to. As a conquered people, Europeans,
especially the English and the French, insisted that Africans abandon their
historical names to answer to their own names, David, Michael, Paul, Peter,
John, Andrew, William, Walter, etc., etc. They insisted that if Africans had to
become "Christians," they had to abandon their names which are historically and
culturally rich. As most Africans named their children after their parents,
grandparents, great-grand parents, relatives, and others, the abandonment of
these names lost significant connection to our past and ultimately to our
future.
The Caucasian churches in Africa are the leading offenders in annihilating
the culture and history of Africans, since the first Caucasians arrived in
Africa. I have read through the Bible, and I have not found where it says that
answering to a particular name is necessary to become a Christian; yet it was a
condition that the churches adopted to force Africans to abandon their
historical and cultural names. When a race is able to discern the attempt to
ahhihilate their culture and history, but rather chooses to do nothing but continue
with the practice, then that group is stupid.
I have never seen a European adopting an African name. They are not a
conquered people - so why would they want to answer African names. They don't
value our culture and history. The conquered people must be made to change their
names in favor of the conqueror. Today I see these Christians, especially
priests, insisting upon these foreign names in the belief that a person cannot
be regarded as a true Christian without answering to English or French names.
They neither understand the historical antecedents of how the change of names
was used to enslave Africans nor how this is still being used to continue the
cultural and historical annihilation of a race....
At least in the earlier times, you could blame the Europeans for this
miseducation of the Africans; but now, the culprits are the African scholars
themselves, who have been too lazy to research our past and correct the convoluted
history being taught in African schools. Unless you know the accurate history of
your past, you cannot know the present and neither can you prepare for the
future.
This laziness continues to contribute in a major way to the annihilation of
the history and culture of Africa. In permeates the whole educational system
of the African. It avoids what is most relevant in place of what is
expendient.
It is this miseducation of the African (black) that continues to make him
dependent on the Caucasian for everything he does. We have a high cadre of
Africans who have degrees, but whether they are educated is another matter.
If we were to look at some of the categories in the lives of Africans
(blacks), we can immediately see the hollowness of their education. We can see how
we have allowed ourselves to be miseducated, with cheerfulness, because getting
the degree was more important than getting the substance of learning attached
to a particular discipline.
The authentic education of the African will start not just with changing the
historical, cultural, political and economic history books of our schools.
Rather it will start when already educated Africans abandon the easy way out by
producing what they need rather than depending on Europeans and Caucasian
Americans.
Our authentic education will begin when we are able to build our own roads;
our authentic education will start when we can produce the drugs and medical
equipment that our people need; it will start when we can manufacture our own
lights bulbs, build our power plants, build the electrical grids and be able to
provide electricity to our multitudes. After all, the Caucasian has already
done everything for us. All we need is to copy what they have already done
and copy it for our own benefit. We don't have to invent a new mousetrap; it
has already been invented.
Our authentic education will start when we endeavor to produce the goods we
consume; it will be an accomplishment to see our office equipment produced by
African companies. It will be an accomplishment if we can tell the Japanese to
go to hell, and we are able to produce our own radio, stereo system,
television, satellite television, our own locomotives.
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