Colo

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Colo

"Colo" a.k.a. "Colonial Mentality" is one affliction or condition that has been prevalent ever since European nations colonized African nations. Though the world including African nations have undergone various types of transformation, colonial mentality still exists in varying degrees and proportions.

While some families and parents have educated their children to have healthy self-esteem and thus avoid or shed the mentality; others because of their esteem problems have nurtured the mentality in new offspring that could have been spared the condition.

Colonial mentality exists when a person believes that any and everything foreign and specifically emanating from the Western nations is superior to that made, manufactured, produced or existing in their own nation (including their very own fellow citizens); simply based on the fact that whatever it is or may be, is foreign. A person who has such a belief system can thus be called "Colo."

Some examples include: those who believe that imported clothing are better than those domestically produced, regardless of whether the very citizens of those same nations admire or envy their locally produced fabrics and clothing made from them; those who believe foreign employees a.k.a. expatriates are superior workers to domestic workers who may be equally or more qualified that their foreign .....competitors; those who respect foreigners more than their very own fellow citizens and basically act the slave to master role just by virtue of the fact that the foreigners are Caucasians with lighter skin tones; those who adopt foreign mannerisms at the expense of their national mannerisms, believing they are superior to theirs; those who abandon their own native languages at the expense of foreign languages, slangs and improper grammar, believing that makes them elite, and forgetting that adopting a foreign language in addition to one's language is the more admirable quality; etc.

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Colonialism succeeded in creating the myth of the Westerner as "superman" or omniscient by whom the desperate African was to be teleguided in every sphere of life, even to the point of aiding and abetting the very deconstruction of his own humanity. Being human would be measured also by how much of a patchwork of whiteness one has succeeded to render oneself, through consumption of second-hand white hair, skin-bleaching creams, white dress codes, white food and eating habits, and ultimately, the white body.

What is the notion of Africanness when the African elite can afford to consume the global consumer culture of which McDonalds, Coca-Cola, CNN, and satellite entertainment television are harbingers? The majority of people have to content themselves with what trickles down (in hand-me-down or worn versions) to them in the ghettoes and villages (if at all), from relatives and patrons at the centre of power and resources?

In Africa, modernity or development, since contact with Europe, has traditionally been conceived, presented and pursued as something induced from without; a process that favours imitation over originality. Such a concept of modernity to Africans has entailed self-denial, self-abandonment, or self-humiliation, and the adoration of most things Western - packaged and presented as the norm in a variety of ways, both crude and subtle. Salvation, comfort or self-betterment has been seen as something possible only with Westernisation, as African civilisations or cultures are perceived as a blockage to progress to be crusaded against at every level by every means.

Such devaluation of Africans, their institutions and their cultures, has meant the institutionalisation of consumerism and the enshrinement of dependency by a Westernised elite who have seen in consuming Western a source of power and identity. The result of this has been disillusionment at the grassroots, especially among the rural populations, who have been forced to mark time with so-called "African traditions" for the gratification of the powerful.

Those without the opportunity to steal either from others or from the state, the peasants who live in the rural areas despite themselves and who are closely attached to their ancestral prescriptions of the good, normal and upright life, again, despite themselves - though African elites would like to idealise and romanticise the "traditional Africa" in order to perpetuate their suppression. For the simple truth, believe it or not, is that most of those vociferous about preserving African cultures and values, whether on the continent or in the Diaspora, are the least endowed with these, and who at best, visit their villages once a year, either to consult the diviner on their prospects for job promotion, to campaign for the re-election of "sons and daughters of the soil" in high office, or to bury one of their urban dead. My contention is that the "traditional Africa" allegedly epitomized by the rural poor, is a symbol of tradition despite itself; African peasants have been forced to pose as custodians of a tradition of which few, least of all the leading elite, are proud.

The villagers aren't interested in preserving tradition any more than their urban counterparts are; they are well preoccupied with enhancing the chances of attaining their objective interests even as foragers and scavengers fro crumbs underneath the dining-tables and refuse-mountains of peripheral consumer capitalism. The urban-based elites - give the impression that the peasants have something they ought to be proud of, but their daily activities and behaviour are such that they undermine the very doctrine of the importance of upholding African traditions, cultures and values.

At best, these elites want only what they term "traditional dances" or "les danses folkloriques", which they can use for their personal amusement or to entertain their foreign friends and counterparts. Thus one of the rare times one actually hears of "our cultural heritage" is when Rousseau's "noble savage" is pulled out of the "happiness" and "naturalness" of his village - to entertain his urban lords and masters either during the national day celebrations, revolution anniversaries, or at the occasion of the visit of a foreign head of state, Director of the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Performances which were reserved for solemn occasions in the past, have today been trivialized and in certain cases commodified for touristic consumption, partly because the new breed of leaders know next to nothing about the societies they so claim to represent, but also because of the desperate quest by side-stepped rural communities to survive through feeding Western tourism.

Hannah
10/26/06

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In these days of advancement, should holding on to culture be desirable, or even feasible?

Buda
10/28/06

admin

Not if it means the advancement of the few to the detriment of the many. People's got to do what they want, what they need, materially and symbolically. This is for them to decide, not for someone to decide from above. And it is possible, even without public support. No culture is fixed in time, they live only as long as those who participate in them live.

Hannah
10/28/06

admin

I guess Americans have colo mentality according to your definitions cos they seem to beleive or even recognise the fact that Japan and pretty much western Asia produces better electronic products... The Asians seem to think that Hollywood makes better, interesting movies....Colo mentality is everywhere and Nigerians are not the only ones that are guilty of it.

Naija-MVP
10/28/06

admin

What is sadder is that when fellow Nigerians point out this anomaly, the propagandist of negativity are quick to try to shoot them down, but when it comes from a Caucasian, they are quick to see the benefits of it.

Is colonial mentality SO ingrained? Some White men have sure screwed up some Black brains so bad that 'some' Blacks cannot accept things, situations or corrections except and until the White man proclaims it so.

This gives one malaise and is shameful for me to even have to acknowledge that it does exist and is indeed true. I presently have no possible solution to offer except the re-education of our general population.

Any idea how to eradicate this problem, short of a vaccination?

Author unknown

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Re: Colo [Ghanaian]

Well, I guess in European countries, we also talk about exotising. People go to another place and simply find everything better than their own country. The grass is greener else-where.

I guess it all has to do with stereotypes. We all have a certain image about other countries and their people, which, at one point is normal. Only, you cannot take it too far and from the moment that there is interaction between two cultures, these stereotypes should be set asside and people should start to know each other from another perspective.

Originally, I come from Greece, but I live in Belgium. You cannot believe how many times that I've been told that I was this rich kid who had the oportunity to go out of Greece, with a working father and mother, a restaurant that is full of customers every day. But it's not as ideal as people think. I mean every population has its problems and most certainly, has a lot of positive aspects which people should be proud of and strengthen.

Georgia
12/10/05

admin

Re: [naija-women] Colo

Substitute INFERIORITY COMPLEX for colonial mentality. Who can top the fruits of miseducation/miseducators??????

Ogunsu
12/10/05