THE Stockholm syndrome, according to Wikipedia, is a phenomenon which is named after a bank robbery which took place in 1973 in Stockholm, Sweden.
Several bank employees were held hostage in a bank vault from August 23 to 28 while their captors negotiated with the police.
During the stand-off, the hostage victims became so attached to their captors that at one point they rejected assistance from government officials and went on to defend their captors soon after their release from the six-day ordeal.
Since then the Stockholm syndrome has been used to refer to seemingly baffling and somewhat contradictory situations where victims of one sort or other become bonded emotionally and psychologically to their tormentors in such a way that they begin to identify with them and become close to them!
Of interest to Africa are the following questions that arise: How much do we, as blacks, suffer from this same syndrome?
In what way are our actions, beliefs, attitudes and even ambitions and or aspirations a result of this syndrome?
To what degree do we remain prisoners of the Stockholm syndrome?
Is this syndrome not an apt metaphor expressing Africa’s problematic relationship with all those imperialistic forces which have exploited the continent left right and centre from 1450, when enslavement of Africans by Europeans became a fashionable business enterprise, right up to the colonisation of the whole continent, again, by the same Europeans!
So much looting of African labour and resources has been going on for centuries as part of a take-away culture embedded in the way Europe has always conducted its relationship with our continent since then!
Why do we not realise the enormity of the crimes committed against us as a people and a continent and relate to Europe accordingly?
Is our innocent attitude towards Europe and the USA and our unbridled desire to go there, notwithstanding the rampant racism always directed against us, not an indication of the Stockholm syndrome that continues to plague our psyche — a kind of, as the Shona say, kwadzinorohwa matumbu ndiko kwadzino mhanyira — which roughly translated means, we rush to embrace that which destroys us!
And the implication of this saying is interesting in so far as it confirms that the Stockholm syndrome is a phenomenon which our ancestors had understood very well a century before the 1973 Stockholm incident!
I began to reflect upon these questions recently, soon after I came across a front page advert in a respectable weekly, which boldly displayed a picture of red double-decker bus close to Piccadilly Circus in London as the chosen destination for those who would have won in a competition!
The impression created by this advert is that winning a ticket to fly to London and then getting onto a double-decker bus to visit the Piccadilly Circus was just one short step from entering heaven itself!
Really?
What psychology is at play here?
In another Zimbabwean daily newspaper a contributor headlined his article as follows: ‘The British are coming’.
His headline was referring to the British trade delegation which the British Ambassador, Catriona Laing, had promised would come!
The implication of course was that, like the proverbial excited brides of biblical fame, we as a country had to be ready and not found wanting in our preparations for the visit.
Itself a useful sentiment that we definitely need, but no such sentiment is expressed in most of our newspapers when President Mugabe visits China and clinches several business deals worth several billions of dollars.
Not much is said either when the Russian Foreign Minister visits Zimbabwe, and again, signs a deal between Russia and Zimbabwe worth more than three billion dollars!
When such deals are compared to 116 million dollars worth of aid to Zimbabwe which the British are already reminding us of, the picture concerning where our future lies becomes clear, but do we as a people notice the significance of this disparity that stares us in the face?
Most of us will also discover that deep affection for and or love for one’s enemies is the kind of stuff not confined to biblical narratives alone.
Indeed this almost involuntary bonding between blacks and their exploiters is widespread and found in many places and contexts all over Africa as part of the neo-colonial set-up cannily designed to imprison not only our ideas and ambitions, but even our dreams of what Africa can achieve of itself and by itself.
It is obvious that our perceptions about Europe and our understanding of it and how it has interacted with Africa have been shaped by our exposure to colonisation of the brutal kind.
This colonisation of Africa has been fuelled by the endless need for our resources by what in geographical terms turns out to be a very small, but highly populated and resource-poor part of the European continent!
That material-driven need on the part of Europe has also been accompanied by what we can call a psychological investment in Africans by the same Europe. So much of what nowadays is called ‘soft power’ has been implanted by Europe in our minds and in our dreams to a degree that it amounts to a template defining who we are and what our dreams should be, all to the benefit of the former colonial masters!
In brief we remain indoctrinated by those who have always thrived on our resources at our expense!
What we need is an education which frees us from this Stockholm syndrome.
The real danger which Africa faces today is that of remaining fixated on standards, benchmarks and models bequeathed to us by our erstwhile masters when in fact those masters now belong to a part of the world that is not a true centre!
Here is what that war criminal, Tony Blair, says about the rise of China in his political memoir entitled, Tony Blair: A Journey (1910):
“I now travel to China frequently.
“Its economic power, already vast, is only a fraction of what it will be.
“Its people are smart, determined and fiercely proud of their nation.
“The will to overcome challenges, the desire never again to let China slip into unfathomable obscurity are sentiments that define the character of the country and its leadership.”
The observations-cum-confessions are being made by a former Prime Minister of Britain, a country which in the past invaded China, humiliated it during the so-called opium wars and later demonised China as a menace and a yellow peril to the Western world which needed to be quarantined.
For over 20 years, Britain and the USA spearheaded the isolation of China, just as Zimbabwe is being isolated and demonised by the same culprits today!
China’s success is a better model for us to learn from; even its former detractors like Britain, are learning from it and desperately trying to source capital from it, notwithstanding the embarrassment it causes!
Likewise Africa can do the same.
It has abundant resources, over a billion people and a monumental size area-wise to dwarf both Europe and the USA combined.
But we need discipline, indeed discipline like that of the Chinese, in order to become a global power!