One of the enduring mysteries of our age is the Western obsession with exporting abroad commodities that are either in short supply, severely rationed, or rapidly disappearing in their own societies.
How did we arrive at this curious spectacle?
How did a people who burst out of a cold and frequently inhospitable corner of Eurasia, armed with inventions borrowed from others, such as gunpowder, the compass, and paper, which they borrowed from the Chinese, after centuries in which plagues routinely wiped out between a third and three-quarters of their populations, come to rewrite themselves into the founders and custodians of human civilization?
How did societies that marched across continents committing atrocities, exterminations, and genocides under the banner of “civilization” become the self-appointed lecturers of humanity?
Is there not something profoundly absurd in genocidalists claiming ownership of civilization when the very root of the word is civil?
How did European missionaries preach that theft does not pay while blessing the wholesale looting of Africa, Asia, and the Americas?
How did men carrying the Bible walk side by side with men carrying chains, muskets, and title deeds to stolen lands?
And what are we to make of priests who dutifully recite, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” yet belong to civilizations that have elevated vengeance into a geopolitical doctrine?
Can anyone point to a single enduring example where the Western powers collectively forgave a nation that challenged their interests? Their historical record suggests that forgiveness is a virtue reserved for sermons, while punishment is reserved for policy.
But perhaps the greatest comedy is unfolding before our eyes.
Today, fascistic tendencies are spreading across Europe. Police beat citizens protesting the slaughter in Palestine. In some European countries, you can’t wear a shirt with a slogan or carry an unapproved flag. Alternative political narratives are increasingly criminalized. Foreign media outlets have been banned. Dissenting voices are hounded from public discourse. The space for permissible opinion narrows by the day.
Yet it is from these same societies that delegations arrive in Africa carrying lectures on democracy, press freedom, and human rights.
One is tempted to ask: are these commodities manufactured exclusively for export?
For what possible reason should Africans import lessons in free speech from countries that are busy policing speech? Why should we receive tutorials on democracy from political establishments increasingly intolerant of dissent? Why should we accept lectures on human rights from governments supporting or excusing industrial-scale human killing and suffering abroad?
The time has come for Africans to awaken from this long season of intellectual gullibility.
Mature people do not judge societies by their slogans but by their conduct. They do not mistake propaganda for principle. Above all, they do not permit those who have misplaced virtue at home to market it abroad as an export commodity.
We in Africa must learn to ask questions and keep asking them.
©️ Fẹ̀mi Akọ̀mọ̀làfẹ̀ (1st Dan)
Blog: https://femiakogun.substack.com
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