At the start of the year, I realized I’d been living on a steady diet of Western ideas. So much that my intellectual taste buds light up faster for an American essay than for an African novel. Partly, this stems from my spending numerous time consuming Western materials, especially from the United States. Books, music, and articles.
I’m subscribed to the New York Times (look, they lured me with a 2.5 USD promo for a whole year – hard not to pick, right?)
I read a lot of American books. Check out my Goodreads profile. You may be surprised by the number of Western books I have read. In fact, I set out a goal at the start of the year to read more African authors than any other.
This goal has been going well. I have read Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Weep Not, Child, Birth of a Dreamweaver, Homecoming, and Decolonising the Mind. I have also read Margaret Ogola’s Mandate of the People.
At least I have been conscious to know that I’m feeding my brain with a lot of foreign ideologies, and committed to changing that to some extent. But perhaps this is not enough. While I’m motivated by the need to be a more patriotic African, I’m driven by the dopamine rush of the West.
I take less time to finish books about the West – or by Western authors – than those about local ideologies and issues. Among my favourite books of the year so far are How the Catholic Church Built the Western Civilization and What Universities Owe Democracy. They are entirely about the West.
Recently, I was disappointed by a comment from a colleague. A fairly young man who is finalizing his university education told me that I’m more conversant with Western political ideologies, especially the American ethos, than with local matters. I felt so frustrated inside.
While I was still internalizing the frustration, two concurrent thoughts passed through my mind: On one hand, I was thankful for realizing this myself and setting a goal at the start of the year, while on the other hand, it was a sign of absolute defeat. It’s no longer something I’m secretly working on, but a public shame that other people can also easily identify.
Ironically, it is the same year that I read Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s aforementioned seminal work, Decolonising the Mind, where he passionately advocates for the centralization of African languages and cultures in literary works and theater.
Now, I’m at the crossroads. For sure, I need to liberate myself from overreliance on Western ideologies. After all, I live in Africa and am directly impacted by her policies and ideologies. I’m guilty of being called a slave of the West.
Perhaps I need to expedite the goal I had initially set for myself and even beef it up with new strategies. But I must also critically assess the implications of detaching from the American world. Clearly, it must not mean supporting communism and authoritarian regimes.
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