Quote:
Originally Posted by Atabong
We can now see very clearly for our selves how the Africa created by Westerners is the problem. This ‘daunting stigma of differences’ has now brought our naivety to the surface. Our figurehead leaders are a disgrace to humanity.
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The challenge is to rediscover our identity and values that we may consider core to our collective culture. I agree that for most of us, we are using the bifocal lens of westerner's in analyzing what we should expect from our culture and how it should progress. It is very easy to come up with an endless list of things we can and should improve on, because inherently we are basing our standards on the western culture that is already ahead of us.
It is a catching game and we are not the pace setters. We will only be as developed as they will want to see us as being.
We have grown up and learnt the western education system, our minds have been tuned and indoctrinated into perceiving events in such and such a way.
Therefore we find many things wrong with our own societies, yet we can't fathom or accept what makes us so endearing to so many people from the corners of the World. We cannot find in our own cultures useful traditions that should be cherished, restored and maintained.
Quality of life should not be judged by how many work hours you put in a week, it shouldn't 'begin after your 62, and your endless stock options have vested'. Life should not be about working Mon, Tue, Wed, Thur, Fri, Sat, Sun double or triple shifts in an endless mechanized system as a Zombie with limited time-offs or vacation.
African culture is living every day like your on vacation. Life becomes a stream that guides you and you adjust to the circumstances, like a dhow coasting on the ocean being carried by the wind. Going with the current not against it.
As seconds become minutes then hrs then days then months then yrs, we stand back shocked as to how time has flown by.
Yet there was so much we wanted to accomplish, so much we have been spoon fed we need to get accomplished.
The struggle against the current never wanes. We put a lot of effort in steering, but for every progress we make we seem to be loosing our true social warmth, we became indifferent, lack the vibrancy we had, we become dull, we go through the motions.
The frustration is etched on many faces, yet the option of returning is too daunting to face, we convince ourselves we aren't ready, so we continue against the current.