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The
West and the rest of us
By Sam
Kargbo
I will for
sometime dedicate this column to an old but yet undecided topic. The title
as you will notice is not original. The idea itself is not. Perhaps, what
is new is my little contribution.
Africa has always been at the
receiving end of global intercourse, especially with the West. Beside
colonialism and neocolonialism, the West has perpetrated uncountable evil
on the people of Africa. The West has not only wasted Africa�s philosophy
of life but has also assaulted and ruined its several traditions and
cultures. The immediate effect is that the average African now lives and
faces the challenges of life and living without the support of African
ethical and moral principles. The African is now practically driven by
Western ways of life. To worsen matters, the African youth so lusts after
Western ways of life that anything seen or imagined to be done by the
Westerner is regarded as an absolute standard. They take to Western ways
unconditionally. This unreserved reverence for Western life is more than
anything fundamentally inimical to the cause of Africa and her strive for
global respect. Copying or imitating Western ways of life without the
necessary sixth-sense for moderation or adaptation is like taking
antibiotics without medical advice.
The average African today sees
beauty in the eye of the Westerner. The elite are worse. They speak, dress
and think like the Westerner. This Westernisation epidemic has in effect
killed everything African in us. Unfortunately, there is no social or
political institution to fight for the resurrection of our cultures. Not
even the political institutions that are empowered by us to manage and
champion our collective aspirations. The urban family that is supposed to
be metropolitan buffer against Western intrusion is unfortunately the
first to spread the red carpet for Western values. Children are forced to
speak in borrowed accents; they are meant to believe that African
traditions and ways of life are of the devil. No effort is made to make
them understand the teachings and lessons of these traditions. Some
parents go as far as preventing their children from speaking their African
language or any African language for that matter. In the mind of such
unfortunate parents, the African language or what is spitefully called
�vernacular� is capable of hindering children�s understanding and fluency
in the English language. What a pity! The universities that are supposed
to be the supermarkets of our cultures and traditions and the vanguard of
cultural redemption are themselves the tools of our cultural destruction.
They are in reality the most fertile grounds for
imperialism.
How many of us know or bother
to know the burden that our Western tastes put on our naira? How many of
us care to know what contributions we make to the ascendancy that the
dollar or the pound has over our naira because of our love for the ways of
the West? How many of us know how much ground we cut from under our feet
with our unbridled lust for Western values?
Of all the evils that the west
has inflicted on us, the one that I consider most gruesome is its sexual
perversions. The sexuality of the African that obeys the laws of nature
and missionary prescriptions has been rudely supplanted by the westerner�s
perversity and sordid sexuality. Sexual standards and values are now set
by market forces of demand and supply. Sex itself is now packaged and sold
like any article of commerce. Young girls advertise their sexual
capabilities and expertise like newspaper vendors. Nudity or vulgar expositions are
added to promises and assurances of cooperation and amenability to sexual
perversions. The sex market has become the strongest night economy in
African cities today. Governments and social institutions look the other
way and at times even encourage it because of the pressures of ignored
duty and responsibility that it soaks or diverts. Things have gone so bad
and markedly weird that homosexuality is even fast gaining acceptance in
some parts of Africa.
This brings me to the night
life of our �expatriates� and tourists in Nigeria. Most of them are here
without their spouses. Others do not even contemplate marriage. Some of
them are too old and unsightly to attract decent persons for steady
relationships. But they have dollars and pounds to buy sex. After the
decent and moral postures of the day, the night provides them with the
opportunity to express their true persons. There are several places that
serve as rendezvous for them and their sex tools. But I will talk about
one for a practical illustration of what I am talking
about.
Wale Ojo and I accompanied a
mutual friend in the entertainment industry to a neighbourhood that houses
the visa offices of the American, British and other big embassies in
Lagos. The friend was to meet some of his Oyibo friends. He had equally
wanted to show us to his big Oyibo friends. With the exception
of Wale and I and the male waiters, we were the only black males in the
vicinity. The place was jam-packed with Oyibos. I saw uncountable varieties
of colours and skins. Some of them looked like rotten fish. Others were
like over-ripe bananas. I also saw all kinds of girls that night. Some of
their faces were so horrible that they do not need make-up for roles in
horror movies. Some were so bony that I was afraid they could drop dead
any moment. The irony however was that it was those bony ones that were
the hottest in demand by the Oyibos. In no time the whole
environment looked like a sex theatre. The dress pattern of the girls was
near uniform. They all wore miniskirts that could hide the undies for the
few that cared to wear undies. There was none with a bra. The romance
sessions got wilder as the night wore on. Some of them walk to some dark
places and returned with reduced steam to be refueled with more
liquor.
My friend Wale Ojo was so
embarrassed that he could not drink his Fanta. By the time I noticed his
sullen mood it was too late to encourage him to drink. His worst nightmare
was confirmed when we were told that the Oyibos pay as little as N500 for
quick sex with our sisters. According to Wale, similar quick sex costs
between N15, 000 and N20, 000 in UK.He wondered why the government could
not do something about such exploitation. But how many of us are getting a
fair deal with these Oyibos?
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