By Shepherd Manhambara

IN part one, we looked at the abnormal situation which obtains on our continent—that is, that some of us believe that Africa will never develop unless it follows the wishes of the West!
And this belief which almost amounts to a superstition of some pernicious kind is specifically championed by the now disintegrating MDC political formations in Zimbabwe!
On a continental level, the same belief reigns supreme especially in Francophone West Africa where the French have never made a pretence of leaving their former colonies alone, that is, following their attainment of political independence!
The sort of blind faith in the West which some of us have is a result of colonial indoctrination of the native by the metropolis which in turn produces a mindset and an outlook which says everything white and Western is good come what may–and everything African and black is local and therefore bad!
This self-demeaning, self-degrading and self-defeating philosophy is a kind of disease of the mind and or an affliction of the soul which continues to haunt post-colonial Africa.
So deep and so vast and pervasive in its influence is this sense of inferiority to the West that it now amounts to a bed-rock or foundation on the basis of which the West continues to siphon off African resources for a song!
One can argue that Africa will continue to move in circles, going nowhere development-wise, unless and until it is able to introspect and assess itself from inside out and stop using the West as a model to follow; first because the development of the West is largely based on wholesale plundering of resources from other nations; second because the West itself has neither the time, the will nor indeed the inclination to see Africa develop into a major global power like China or Russia are today as that would not be in its interest!
In any case, no one would like to see an Africa that can only develop after impoverishing other continents as the West has done to Africa through slavery and colonisation!
Third, all indications are that most Western countries are hosting populations whose value systems are at best suspect —for instance, the virulent form of individualism which characterises Western societies and the ever present profit motive which determines all social and economic relations as well as the morally repugnant promotion of homosexuality are good indicators of societies whose end values are in serious crises and therefore not worth emulating.
The only way for Africa is to come to terms with its history which says a lot about how Africa developed a civilisation for the whole world!
It is by recognising the classical achievements of black Africans in the ancient lands of Egypt, Meroe and Ghana and the Great Zimbabwe that we can restore pride in generations who feel marginalised and lost in the so-called global village today.
It is by acknowledging the tragedy which befell Africa during the period of Western enslavement that we can remain alert to what any people should never allow themselves to become, that is, tools for other races to take advantage of; it is by understanding fully the misfortunes which befell Africans under Western colonisation that we can relate meaningfully to the rest of the world.
Otherwise the current situation in which Africans are trying to relate to the rest of the world on the basis of their ignorance about how that world has related to them before is hugely foolish if not suicidal!
How else can we explain the fact that notwithstanding its nominal independence, Africa has remained a receiver and not a maker of its own policies, be they economic, social or moral.
How else can we explain that today Africa is being given lectures on human rights by former slave traders and colonisers from the West when in fact it should be the other way round?
It is like having Adolf Hitler presenting lectures on human rights to British and American citizens!
It is because we have no knowledge about our past achievements and our past failures that others are taking advantage of us as they have always done to us before!
The domination of our political, social, economic and value systems by Western countries thrives on our ignorance about their predatory relations with Africa before!
Expressed differently at the material level, one can say that British isles, embarrassingly tiny as they are, will remain Great Britain in so far as we do not realise that that greatness is largely based on our very own resources which those isles have continued to access for a song!
And the solution to our predicament is neither complicated nor original, far from it!
It is so simple that many of us are blinded by its simplicity!
It is simply that the de-colonisation project which starts in the late 1950s with the independence of Ghana and ends with the democratisation of South Africa in 1994 needs to be followed up by a similar project, but this time specifically designed to liberate ourselves from invisible Western handcuffs which continue to imprison our consciousness!
It is heartening to note that the recent African Union (AU) conference in Addis Ababa identified three areas, amongst others, of priority for its immediate attention: that is, ownership of African resources by Africans themselves, need for courageous and bold leadership for Africa and the need to review the relevance of content as currently taught through education systems in Africa.
At least there is some recognition at the continental level that all is not well on the education front and that something needs to be done about it.
However, while it is easy to assess the relevance of educational content in terms of the types of skills which it imparts, in terms of adequacy of areas of study and training and in terms of levels of qualification required for certain disciplines, what is not so obvious though critical is the orientation imparted by that education!
A new education syllabus for Africa is now urgently required– a syllabus which nurtures the kind of consciousness which promotes the growth of artistes, educationists, scientists, medical doctors, lecturers, engineers, etc who not only feel at home in Africa, but are also dedicated to the development of their continent.
The current situation in which our education syllabus is borrowed lock, stock and barrel from our colonisers is producing men and women very competent at mimicry and imitation, but hopelessly ill-equipped if not ‘handcuffed’ to develop our continent for the benefit of its people!
And development is not just a matter of physical infrastructure and sound habits of accounting and hygiene, good and necessary as they are, but also an issue of consciousness.