Sinazo Alungile Novukela
Cape Town - As the world mourns the death of the UK’s longest-serving matriarch, Queen Elizabeth II, for a minute I thought of the devastating loss of one of the most revered individuals of our lifetime.
Whether the legacy she left behind was good or bad, the death of the Queen has torn the world apart; it polarised nations from hemisphere to hemisphere.
As an African espousing the spirit of Ubuntu, I would like to extend my condolences to Great Britain for the great loss they suffered as a result of the queen’s death.
I wish them strength in this difficult time of bereavement, but cannot forget how they brutalised our forefathers during colonial rule.
So as not to forget, between 1881 and 1914, Britain, along with other imperialists like France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Portugal were the instigators of the pain that was inflicted during the so-called “Scramble for Africa”, in which several European nations took control over areas of the continent for their own selfish reasons.
The colonial project of the British empire on our shores, which was led by the queen’s forefathers, manifested in the insatiable hoarding of mineral resources and land, as well as intoxicating and indoctrinating the minds of the natives with foreign cultures that eroded our indigenous knowledge systems.
The Europeans imposed their hegemonies and cultures that trampled on African epistemic philosophies.
Now the natives are more conversant and knowledgeable about Shakespeare than Nkwame Nkuruma and Thomas Sankara.
Come to think about it, this is a sad and ironic state of affairs because we have assimilated into their European ways rather than them assimilating into the cultures they found in Africa.
This is in total disregard of their European adage that says “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”.
I do not want to mention the physical atrocities of wars and slavery during colonial rule, but I want to emphasise the underlying cancer of coloniality that is wreaking havoc now in Africa long after colonial rule was discontinued in the 1970s.
After it was dismantled, colonialism morphed into an imperialist-sponsored liberation that is used to deify coloniality.
Sometimes it is called democracy, and other days it is called globalisation.
Coloniality runs deeper than meets the eye because it is not physical and tangible but invisible and psychological.
For example, the Commonwealth nations under King Charles III define their shared values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law as the binding rules of engagement between sovereign countries that form part of this club.
For me this is neo-colonialism masquerading as freedom because this is a continuation of the colonial project, because in its current form it is the reincarnation of what everyone knows from what happened in the past. Civilisation has landed on the surface where colonialism has been entrenched.
This liberation is a disguised version of coloniality because it somewhat hoodwinks the masses into believing that the world has changed and that everyone is free.
This system tries to present a new world order that is better, with the possibilities that all people of all races are equal and must feel free to express themselves in a world that is liberal and civilised.
Democratising the Africans was hailed as a new dispensation that is accommodating, and that brings about law and order as well as equal opportunities for everyone.
From a native perspective, the freedoms presented by democracy are superficial. These freedoms portray an ideal situation that provides a false sense of liberation.
These freedoms have made people hopeful, but in fact they are underpinned by the manifestation of the control of power, knowledge and being by the previously advantaged supremacists who have their roots ingrained in the project of coloniality.
These freedoms attempt to sweep all the atrocities of coloniality under the carpet. Their attempts are like a mirage. One sees them from a distance but they do not transcend into reality.
As Africans, we must be aware of these crusades. We must fight intellectually hard to free our minds from the shackles of coloniality.
As a point of departure, we need, through diplomacy, to request King Charles III to return our $400 million (about R7.1 billion) Great Star of Africa that has accentuated the Queen’s crown all these years.
The British hegemony tells us this gem was discovered in Africa during British rule. To subvert and to cut the tentacles of coloniality, we need to think out of the box. We need to shake the status quo and propagate a new way of thinking that must culminate in a process that will enable us Africans the latitude of self-renewal in the project of African Renaissance.
As we decolonise our minds, we must create a paradigm shift towards decolonising knowledge, power and being by critically assessing the ramifications of civilisation and its effects on humanity.
Furthermore, one needs to question the realities of power systems as we see them today. One needs to accept the realities of life as we find them in existence. A decolonised mind needs to embrace the underlying gamut of influence of the prevailing value system from the premise of acknowledging that ideologies that have existed from long ago need more time to be dismantled.
Decolonising one’s mindset by playing a role in creating an alternative knowledge system has the potential to make the world a good and safe place to live in.
As rational beings we need to understand that the project of coloniality is epistemic and will take a long time to dismantle.
However, one applauds the forays by African leaders who realised the need to move towards economic and political independence.
We need to delink from many years of subliminal obedience to the West. The reawakening of Africa through the formations like the Africa Free Trade Area are widely welcome because we need to delink our economy from the world economic matrix system.
Had we understood it we could have been rich today. The #Feesmustfall protests in 2015 are another example. On face value, the goals of the movement were to stop increases in student fees, as well as to increase government funding of universities.
However, the real reason was to decolonise the education system and to incorporate what is more relevant to society and include African morals in education and the use of African languages.
This is important because we need to encourage the African youth to learn the culture and the value systems of the oppressors and use their new-found knowledge and intellect to subvert the status quo.
Africans must note that the economic oppressors, those who control financial resources because they own land and other means of wealth creation, are not in the majority.
They are in the minority, and they depend on us the majority to create their wealth.
The economic oppressors have created a system of dependency where the previously colonised become consumers within the economic system, playing an insignificant role in managing and owning resources. As Africans, our decolonial thoughts need to be progressive in nature.
Let us use our majority and oneness to build the markets that will benefit Africans.
We must learn to use progressive means to empower ourselves.
It must, however, be noted that decolonial thinking does not centre on retribution and reprisals of the past injustices, but in creating a conducive environment for people to coexist in a harmonious and progressive way.
God save the King, because the Africans are coming to reclaim their reawakening!
* Novukela is a graduate from the University of Fort Hare and Rhodes University in Communications and Journalism, respectively. She is an intern in Communications at the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development and writes in her personal capacity.
Cape Times