INGRAINED INFERIORITY POST COLONIALITY IN AFRICA.

The picture above shows the great Patrice Lumumba of the Congo being made to literally eat his words. Lumumba was the Congo's first democratically elected leader and a beacon of hope and freedom throughout the entire continent of Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa. What were these words, you might ask? His crime was a simple one: he proclaimed that Africans had sovereignty and that their liberty was not granted but earned through blood, sweat, and tears. He firmly and astutely stated that Africans were not to be seen as the infants of the West, children to be guided and granted freedoms when deemed "ready." Freedom, he asserted, was our right, not a "gift."

"Although this independence of the Congo is being proclaimed today by agreement with Belgium, an amicable country, with which we are on equal terms, no Congolese will ever forget that independence was won in struggle, a persevering and inspired struggle carried on from day to day, a struggle, in which we were undaunted ...

When Kwame Nkrumah taught us about neocolonialism, we had no idea how deeply the roots of coloniality were entrenched within the African landscape. Coloniality is not only a structural concept that affects our societies on an economic, societal, and political level but also controls our psyche, becoming evident in our personalities and psychological conditioning.

Do not be confused—the men who fed Lumumba were Black, likely from the Congo, the very country for which he gave his life. The Belgian government only admitted its crimes against the Congo and its role in Lumumba's assassination over 40 years later, in the early 2000s. The men responsible for his death would later lead the Congo, likely under the influence of Western powers.

How peculiar is the African condition, where even if we are "democratically" elected, we can only rule by abiding by the demands of foreign entities? Is that true sovereignty or disguised disempowerment? This essay seeks to explore the ways in which coloniality has completely taken over the African landscape. This encroachment is evident through multinational corporations controlling our private sector, foreign policies and soft power influencing our governments, and an internalized inferiority complex, mentally enslaving us regardless of our efforts.

In my country of Lesotho, we perceive anything poorly executed as being done in a "Sesotho" way and compare what we perceive to be good and well-executed as being "Western" and progressive. This system of thinking has permeated everyday speech and become common parlance, with people equating White and Western with rightness, and Black and Basotho with inherent wrongness.

This mindset has unfortunately led to the denigration of our culture, causing us to lose faith in our traditions and even demonize our practices. In clinging to Western ideals, we hope to become second-class citizens—thinking that if we try hard enough, we might become White-adjacent.

This way of thinking was evident even in my upbringing, as I was constantly praised for my grasp of the English language as a child. In hopes of gaining more adoration, I pursued Western ideals more fervently, as this was the standard by which I was judged.

My concern for these recent trends is simple: if we do not seek to re-examine our attitudes, we run the risk of becoming self-inspecting slaves. We might achieve flag independence, but we can never escape our chains if we perceive ourselves as next in line to our "masters." This means we do not need the master's shadow over us—we will do their work for them. This is evident as local leaders climb the ranks of national leadership and sooner or later abandon their ideals for those better suited to their new positions—Western ideologies.