Should Kenya and Africa be grateful for colonialism?

A British-born South African Columnist, David Bullard, was recently fired by his South African Weekly newspaper editor for asserting that Africa should be grateful for colonialism. The final straw that dissipated the patience of Bullard's Sunday times editor, Mondli Makanya, to cancel his "Out to Lunch" column was an article titled "Uncolonized Africa Wouldn't Know What It Was Missing."

 

The gist of the 'offensive' column was that it took colonization for Africa to gain some modicum of consciousness! Well, Bullard had hitherto succeeded to cloak his prejudicial statements in the name of satire. His followers believed that his was a tongue in the cheek way of attacking happenings of the day. Even when Bullard, with enviable audacity, called the President of the South Africa's ruling party ANC, Jacob Zuma, "stupid"! Needless to say, Zuma sued.

 

Colonialism is reality everywhere

But, according to Pusch Commey in the Pan-African Magazine New African (May 2008 Issue), Bullard's offensive merely stoked the embers of what has been smoldering: the race question. But I see it differently. Without purporting to hold brief for Bullard and his ilk, my take is that it is time Africans ceased wishing colonialism away as a bad dream. It happened. Not only to Africa, but also to US, Canada and Australia.

 

The more we would rather not appreciate it as a life changing fact, the more colonialism will unnecessarily continue to be a source of shame to Africans. And the shame will merely yield Africans who feel inferior and small towards their White contemporaries. That is, even in key professions like lawyering. For instance, many a law students apply to law firms merely because the same bear an exotic name and churn those with African names. I would rather acknowledge colonialism and feel grateful that Africa's heroes and heroines helped purge it out of the continent!

 

The context of the question offending

There is no denying that the question whether Africans should grateful for colonialism can be offending depending on the context in which it is voiced. Some people genuinely see the question as analogous to asking whether a home owner should be grateful to robbers, who, after ransacking his hitherto unfenced compound and house drive him to fence and therefore keep future happenings at bay. Those persuaded to such line of thinking find the fitting answer to the question as no-there is nothing to be grateful for!

 

But the colonialists did contribute to the advancement of Africa and Africans. If one is honest and opts not to interrogate 'why', then it is a given that colonialists advanced Africa. But a neocolonialism activist quips quickly: they did so in the same way a mining company builds a road up to the mining site. The development i.e. the road is here merely a means to an end. And the end is to extract the mineral resources with minimum ease. To the colonialist, so was the purported civilization of Africa by the colonialists. They had to yield people who thought and subscribed to help them achieve their goal in colonizing Africans in the first Place.

 

Who was a colonialist?

But can one say that all the whites in occupation during colonial times were pre-occupied with the urge to exploit Africans? This boils to one question: Who is/was a colonialist? Was it the colonizing state, or the administrators the state deployed (including their collaborators), or the settlers, or a blanket term for the whites who occupied our territories after scramble for Africa?

 

To me colonialists embody the state and its administrative machinery. That leaves honest settlers, missionaries and others out to civilize Africa, The latter whites' mission was to eke a living or preach the gospel within our frontiers. Some of those men did not see Africans or empowering Africans as a means to an end. Others were totally misguided by the anthropologists' exaggerations of the backwardness of Africa and Africans and were driven by desire to save the Dark Continent. Without splitting hairs to unearth who was and who was not, those motivated by desire to better Africa are people we have to be grateful for whatever their motivation.

 

There is also need to appreciate colonialism as a phase that our continent Africa went through and a reality we cannot wish away. There is no need to massage deep held resentments against colonialists or even colonialism. The truth is, at least, colonialism brought a new way of doing things. That is not to say that the colonialists' way is the superior way as white supremacists would have us believe. To say so would be to ignore the fact that a people do not adopt a way of life blindly-and Africans way of life before the white man had its logical motivations.

 

Lets interact with whites without historical baggage

In a nutshell, the way to go is to appreciate that by interacting with the early whites, our ancestors changed their world view. It is debatable whether the change was deliberate or a matter of coercion: but the interaction changed us. Whether for the better or for worse is an academic question. But there is no argument that we are possessed of the resultant culture that came out of the interaction.

 

For instance, political seats in the rural areas go to those who convince the folks that, even though schooled in the western education, they have not lost sight their immediate relations and have the respect of the clan earned by illustrious actions. The same people are individualists to the court and will not hesitate to feather their nest. This mix of the communal approach and individualist culture is the new reality in Africa. That is regardless of whether we are grateful or not for colonialism!