Remembering Mazrui. ... Africa as a whole borrowed the wrong things from the West – even the wrong components of capitalism. We borrowed the profit motive but not the entrepreneurial spirit. We borrowed the acquisitive appetites of capitalism but not the creative risk-taking. We are at home with western gadgets but are bewildered by western workshops. We wear the wrist watch but refuse to watch it for the culture of punctuality.We have learnt to parade in display, but not to drill in discipline. The West’s consumption patterns have arrived but not necessarily the West’s techniques of production (Cultural Forces in World Politics, 1990). The original colonial university was so uncompromisingly foreign in African context, and was planted with few concessions to African culture. Its impact was more culturally alienating than it need have been. A whole generation of African graduates grew up despising their own ancestry, and scrambling to imitate the west. Those early African graduates who have later become university teachers have on the whole remained intellectual imitators of the west (Towards Re-Africanizing African Universities: Who Killed Intellectualism in Post-Colonial Era? 2003).
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 09:01:51 +0000
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