Written by Ebo Gyebi, AG 93.

There has not been and should never be any misunderstanding that colonization has had tremendous effects and has been the major determining factor to the current state of affairs of the african continent, albeit the entire continent was never fully colonized.

In every facet of the african life, relics of colonization is rife so much so that it is very hard for one to determine where the african-ness begins to where the colonial influences conjoin.

This piece purports to elaborate on how the colonial powers used the language machination to entrench and perpetuate their stay and influences and how the african does/can not seem to break way from it.

The african now writes their histories and tell their stories like they never existed before the coming of the european and even when they do, it is full of references from european historians and circumstances which only occurred as recorded by them.

This is what i call the power of the “words” game and the african is best at playing. the african is best at playing for we will find word/s to compliment our every deed, beneficial or detrimental.

It is kind of bizarre how the african is prone to doing almost everything in the “reverse”.

Where words of a foreign language are to be found to appropriately conform to an original tongue; the african rather makes his tongue conform to a foreign language, resulting in the misrepresentation, degradation or for lack of a better word, distortion of “authentic” meaning/s.

Inasmuch the “learned” among us would object to the fact that africa was made up of nation states, no matter how “primitive” “they” want us to believe, governed by set political, judicial and religious systems, it was and the colonial powers acknowledged this fact.

They were only out to get what they needed and had to in any way possible circumvent and/or “bamboozle” the african to achieve their goals.

Herein pops the game of “words”.

Realizing the dangers and consequences of disrespecting/ disregarding the “original” establishments of the day, the colonials resorted to creating parallel systems and initiated the “words” game by calling the original establishments/ systems “traditional” and the african has been bemused ever since.

Now, let’s play the word game.

What exactly is the meaning of “tradition”?

For a more precise list of synonyms, all i had to do, thanks to modern technology, was to right-click my mouse and voila; custom, ritual, practice, institution, habit, convention, belief and finally folklore.

If the above are other meanings of “tradition”, then what does the african mean when they refer to their “chiefs”, “custom” and their “institutions” as “traditional?

So if we had our institutions, customs, practices, etc before the coming of the european, why then didn’t we return to them after asking the colonials to leave but decided to maintain a dual parallel system?

The colonials in their quest to subdue the powers and influences of the “traditional” institutions and distract attention from their main quests, manned these quasi institutions with the “learned” as a means of creating a buffer.

The effects of this culminated in the changing of the guard when the wave of self-governance swept africa and not real independence.

Oh! pardon me; i almost digressed from the game. let’s play one more time.

What exactly is the meaning of “ independence ”?

You guessed right, i only had to right-click again. technology anaaa?

If the nations on the continent of africa are all so independent, why do look so much like satellite states of our former colonial masters?

We still mimic their political systems alongside our own, mind you; we dress just like them (even though climates are vastly different), we eat like them, marry our way and then their way (isn’t that duplication of efforts?), school on their histories and philosophies and so on.

But then ours is the traditional and theirs is modern, whatever that maybe.

I believe and hope you know by now how to play this game of “words” and will play along.