USA Africa Dialogue Series - Kenyan scholar decries cultural extermination of Africa

AfricanConstitution.Org       Africa has rendered itself a toilet for alien cultures, says US-based Kenyan scholar   By Makau Mutua   SUNDAY NATION, Nairobi (26 February 2012) -- We [Africans] have become a fatalistic people. We don't expect good things to happen unless either we cut corners or the glory of providence shines upon us. We don't believe in ourselves and in our ability to excel. We believe we are mediocre. We dream small dreams. We have accepted a racialized African standard. We think we are [the West's and everybody else's] pit latrine. That's why Kenya and Africa have one of the fastest growing Christian and Muslim populations. We've given up and turned our fate over to messianic faiths. We must turn away from [this] fatalism [and cultural colonialism] and [restore] our [culture and identity]. Our minds seem to be infertile and barren. We suffer from a poverty of philosophy. We suppress our intellect [with foreign] cultures, religions, [prejudices, stereotypes] and the tyranny [and corruption] of the [African] state. We've refused to reward our thinkers. Look at the miserly pay for our professors. [This is] why [many] of our leading minds have fled Africa [to work for the West and other foreign nations]. No [nation] has ever become great without a formidable intelligentsia. Let's invest in education to fight the demon of [our mental] infertility. We must conquer all [our cultural and intellectual] demons to turn [Africa's] inflection point into a renaissance. Kenyan-born Makau Mutua is the dean and a distinguished professor at SUNY-Buffalo Law School and the chair of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.   AfricanConstitution.Org © 2012