I am from a country where many people hold their phones in their hands – some will hold two or three phones at a time. Curiosity may want you to ask why? Not because there are no phone pouch they could use, nor is it because their dress is without pockets – how will you know the type of phone they have if they keep it in their pocket? We have a culture where people like to show off because the amount of respect you get many times is based on who you are, how much money you have, your position in the society, the type of car you drive, where you live, your cycle of friends, how well you speak and write English, a foreign language.
The latter is more disturbing because many have equated the correctness of your spoken or written English to how smart you are. Some have picked on my grammatical correctness and I wonder what their point is. Whereas, many of this people cannot speak their mother tongue without diluting it with a foreign language – so if I borrow a leaf from this people, I will look at it from the microscope they use to look at people who make mistake when speaking or writing in a second language. A lot of people do not understand the etymology of words and the dynamics of language. A friend of mine who was studying English at college many years back was taking a class in Linguistics and he showed me the type of English spoken between 5 and 11th century, during the Anglo-Saxon era, and it is nothing close to what we speak today. The correctness of a language is based on what the current people accept as a norm – it is foolhardy for anyone to consider it as a measure of smartness. I have no apology for my grammatical mistakes - I am only apologetic if my mistake confuses anyone. I speak and write in my first language with fluency, even after 15 years of leaving home.
Many African languages are close to extinction because of this type of mentality. I wrote a piece on this few years back (https://www.facebook.com/notes/akinbode-a-adedeji/our-languages-are-going-into-extinction-what-is-happening/197449938455/). Parents chastise their friends when they speak their local dialect to their wards, and gradually we are losing who we are as a people. Many people are locked up inside because of their inability to express themselves in any one language fluently.
I shared an article a few days back where history recorded it that C-section started in central-Africa and it was done with the finis of modern day medicine. This was when colonial masters did not know that bacteria are ubiquitous and that they needed to wash their hands before opening up a human. The colonial masters have made us believe and continue to tell us that what we had/have were/are inferior and because of that, many of us have forgotten our root and heritage - many still carry this mentality. There are so many herbalists (not juju man) who have died with the knowledge passed down from their ancestors on what leaves and herbs have medicinal value. The Chinese have not allowed this to happen to their knowledge of herbs, so they still have acupuncture, modern companies packaging and selling Chinese herbal medicine, while we call ours JUJU. All the agbos (local herbs), which are mostly phytochemical extracted with different solvents (alcohols, water, etc.), have been labeled black medicine because nobody has spent the time to study, standardize and modernize them.
Africans are the one who will save Africa. Any external interest is primarily catering to self-interest first. Be it American, European and currently, Chinese. None of these people truly want us to progress as they have, else we become a competitor and they would not have the market to dump their goods anymore. We need to combine what we have learned with what our ancestors have left us, in order to become who we supposed to be as a people. Feeling inferior because we could not speak English or Spanish or French should not define us; time and history have proven that we are capable mentally, we need to emancipate ourselves from this lowly estate and take our rightful place in history. Africa should not be anybody’s pet project anymore – the continent is endowed in all respect and we should work to realize our potentials.
The latter is more disturbing because many have equated the correctness of your spoken or written English to how smart you are. Some have picked on my grammatical correctness and I wonder what their point is. Whereas, many of this people cannot speak their mother tongue without diluting it with a foreign language – so if I borrow a leaf from this people, I will look at it from the microscope they use to look at people who make mistake when speaking or writing in a second language. A lot of people do not understand the etymology of words and the dynamics of language. A friend of mine who was studying English at college many years back was taking a class in Linguistics and he showed me the type of English spoken between 5 and 11th century, during the Anglo-Saxon era, and it is nothing close to what we speak today. The correctness of a language is based on what the current people accept as a norm – it is foolhardy for anyone to consider it as a measure of smartness. I have no apology for my grammatical mistakes - I am only apologetic if my mistake confuses anyone. I speak and write in my first language with fluency, even after 15 years of leaving home.
Many African languages are close to extinction because of this type of mentality. I wrote a piece on this few years back (https://www.facebook.com/notes/akinbode-a-adedeji/our-languages-are-going-into-extinction-what-is-happening/197449938455/). Parents chastise their friends when they speak their local dialect to their wards, and gradually we are losing who we are as a people. Many people are locked up inside because of their inability to express themselves in any one language fluently.
I shared an article a few days back where history recorded it that C-section started in central-Africa and it was done with the finis of modern day medicine. This was when colonial masters did not know that bacteria are ubiquitous and that they needed to wash their hands before opening up a human. The colonial masters have made us believe and continue to tell us that what we had/have were/are inferior and because of that, many of us have forgotten our root and heritage - many still carry this mentality. There are so many herbalists (not juju man) who have died with the knowledge passed down from their ancestors on what leaves and herbs have medicinal value. The Chinese have not allowed this to happen to their knowledge of herbs, so they still have acupuncture, modern companies packaging and selling Chinese herbal medicine, while we call ours JUJU. All the agbos (local herbs), which are mostly phytochemical extracted with different solvents (alcohols, water, etc.), have been labeled black medicine because nobody has spent the time to study, standardize and modernize them.
Africans are the one who will save Africa. Any external interest is primarily catering to self-interest first. Be it American, European and currently, Chinese. None of these people truly want us to progress as they have, else we become a competitor and they would not have the market to dump their goods anymore. We need to combine what we have learned with what our ancestors have left us, in order to become who we supposed to be as a people. Feeling inferior because we could not speak English or Spanish or French should not define us; time and history have proven that we are capable mentally, we need to emancipate ourselves from this lowly estate and take our rightful place in history. Africa should not be anybody’s pet project anymore – the continent is endowed in all respect and we should work to realize our potentials.
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