BY KENNETH DUMBURA
The path to decolonization was rough. It passed through reverses and compromises and was sabotaged by those within and external to it. It was, therefore, never taken to its logical conclusion.
And because of the miscarriage of decolonization, Africa has never been afforded any space to recapture the power to decide the course of its destiny. Whenever Africans tried to capture and put the destiny of their nations into their own hands, the powerful forces of the colonial matrix of power were quicker to interrupt, de-centre and discipline the initiatives. Nothing was ever subjected to as much disciplining as African nationalism and pan-Africanism.
Their true champions suffered isolation, sanctions, assassinations and coups (see Chapter 1).
Mental colonization is the hardest part to decolonize and the worst form of colonialism. It stole the African souls, invaded their consciousness, destroyed and distorted their imagination of the future. This crisis was well captured by Zeleza (2006: 124) when he posited that:
‘Foreclosed are the possibilities of visioning a world beyond the present, imagining alternatives to capitalist modernity.’
It was so terrible that even those Africans who initiated the political decolonization of the continent were the worst affected by mental
colonialism. All of the founding fathers of postcolonial Africa were graduates from colonial schools and Western universities.
No wonder then that what they fought for was initially simply part of their desire to be included within the colonial state. It was only after they were not accepted that they then mobilized workers and peasants to fight against the colonial state.
But they never lost the terrible tendency of standing astride the African world they were taught and socialized to hate, and the European world they were seduced to aspire to and to like. The founding fathers of African nations had deeply bifurcated consciousness that made them dream in both European and African languages.
