The Value of European Education? Puh-lease!
“Vincent Khapoya notes the significant resistance imperialist powers faced to their domination in Africa. Technical superiority enabled conquest and control. Africans recognized the value of European education in dealing with Europeans in Africa. They noticed the discrepancy between Christian teaching of universal brotherhood and the treatment they received from missionaries. Some established their own churches. Africans also noticed the unequal evidences of gratitude they received for their efforts to support Imperialist countries during the world wars”.
So I found the above paragraph here on Wikipedia. There are many truths in it. But I am not sure about the statement about Africans recognising the value of European education. The more I think about it, the more evidence I stumble upon that European education was useless to, and destructive of, the original African way of life. Even the things that shock our sense of human rights and humanity today (in our Europeanised minds) may not have been so bad in Original Africa. And before anybody starts listing dehumanising practices to me, I will simply say “Hiroshima” and add that Earth would have been safe.
Whoa, Nana! This is way different from the earlier post. What are you trying to say?
ReplyDeleteIt looks very interesting wikipedia article. I have just seen this article. Now i am going to read the entire article about African Colonisation. Thanks for sharing such informative article with us.
ReplyDeleteOh, now you are gonna get it.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you, the African cultural practices that are now seen as primitive and callous and "that shock our sense of human rights and humanity today (in our Europeanised minds) may not have been so bad in Original Africa."
Most cultures evolve and practices change given time, and with the influx of other cultures, the change is more noticeable.
I do sometimes wonder how different Africa would have been without colonization.
What's ironic is the way this old style education has been fiercely held on to in Ghana whilst in the UK it was long discarded as ineffective.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the quote, "Africans recognized the value of European education in dealing with Europeans". Does it mean they thought that it was easier to deal with Europeans once they understood their education system?
I understand education was so inseparable from the missionaries project that, perhaps, to be educated was godly. But I still don't understand how Ghanaians were persuaded their practices were demonic and that they did not have access to God (I wonder how many Ghanaians still believe that today).