Between Fanon and Nkrumah

A recent convo with a friend led to her asking me why, as a Pan Africanist, I use more quotes from Frantz Fanon than from the great Apostle of Pan-Africanism, Kwame Nkrumah, (I consider Marcus Mosiah Garvey the doyen of PA.)

My answer was that without a reading and thorough understanding of Fanon, reading Nkrumah will be a wasted exercise.

She asked me which books I would recommend for an African desirous of liberating her mind.

Without hesitation, I told her that books by Fanon (especially ‘Black Skin, White Masks’ and ‘The Wretched of the Earth’) and Carter George Woodson’s ‘The Miseducation of the Negro’ would top my list.

I chose Fanon because, in my estimation, no one comes close to Fanon when it comes to diagnosing the Psychology of the Colonially Oppressed.

I was baffled when, during my sojourn in Europe, I discovered that this very brilliant psychologist/psychiatrist remains unknown to most Europeans, even those who ply trade in the treatment of Africans with psychological and psychiatric disorders.

Naturally, she wanted to know more: I obliged her. We had a most engaging encounter. Below is my distillation.

I have lived in both Europe and Africa - with both Africans and Europeans.

Although, I don’t claim to be an authority, I can say that I know and understand both peoples fairly well.

My observation of both peoples convinced me that the only problem the African faces is psychological.

No, it’s not economics or poverty or political instability.

Those problems are real, no doubt, and they are quite devastating, but they are problems that are surmountable by a determined people.

A reading of history shows that human beings have faced and solved socio-economic and political problems, once they put their MINDS on solving them. Marcus Garvey perfectly understood this when he exhorted Africans: “Whatever man has done, man can do.”

Yes, MIND!

The problem of the African is that of mindset.

In the African, we have someone with a DEFEATED MIND.

In the African, we see a being with a mind which has undoubtedly been psychologically- defeated, even to the genetic level.

That offers the only explanation for the aberrant behaviors that have become normalized in Africa.

Examples abound plentifully: people see nothing wrong in sitting on vast mineral wealth, yet exist in grinding poverty, still yet dance in supplication to gods for their mercies!

Let’s turn to Wikipedia for a simple definition of mind: “The mind is the set of faculties responsible for mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various mental phenomena, like perception, pain experiences, belief, desire, intention, and emotion.”

Great thinkers in all the ages recognize the importance of the mind in the formation of character. “You are what you think” is a popular saying.

Everything begins and ends with the mind. Every idea is conceived and germinated in the mind. The mind, as the originator of ideas, determines not only what a person thinks of himself, but it will also determine how far in life the fellow will go.

We are limited only by the limit we impose on our minds.

Unfettered, the mind offers endless possibilities!

For the African to succeed requires a change in how he perceives himself.

Until the magic of changing of mindset is wrought by whatever means, in vain shall the African continue to strive for progress! A people without a mind of their own cannot make progress.

Even without a degree in psychology, a keen observer of the African will notice a human being who suffers from acute self-doubt, and one who sees himself as incomplete without the validation, affirmation and confirmation of foreigners - Americans, Europeans, Asians and Arabs in that order.

This sense of worthlessness sans the approval of non-Africans pervades every facet of the African existence. We witness this in every conduct of the African - from his choice of name, food, books, music, and other traits of culture.

From the highest officials who have no problems imposing inhumane economic policies dictated by foreigners on their own people, to the lowest police corporal who sees himself as the ultimate in state power who, put in a uniform, transforms himself into the state and feels fulfilled only when he inflicts maximum violence on his compatriots. Witness how Nigerian police officers treat their compatriots.

This is also reflected in the differences with which African officials deal with foreigners with lighter hue (respect and deference), and the way they handle their fellow Africans - with undue harshness! A Ghanaian immigration officer who will not hesitate to beat up a Nigerian of superior status will treat the lowliest of Lebanese with utmost respect and deference.

This sense of self-hate and psychological inadequacies produces the self-negations we see daily in Africa.

Although nominally independent, Africans have refused to purge themselves of the inferiority complex imposed on them by their colonizers. This sense of inadequacies not only makes them crave everything foreign, it concomitantly makes them to reject everything African.

The problem is thus: how can a man who hates himself be persuaded to improve his situation? Will a man who is consumed with self-hate be interested in loving anyone that resembles him or in transforming his environment for the better.

This, precisely, is the great conundrum of Africa.

On a personal level, we see this in religion which is nothing more than the worship of ancestors. The African not only rejects his own ancestors, he is prepared to wage wars and die in defence of the religions his colonizers imposed on him. The continent is littered with religious wars the likes other people abandoned centuries ago!

On a national level, although the continent has been spared the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, we still see African governments impose the same harsh Covid-19 measures on their own people simply because they have been adopted by the omnipotent Master, their former colonizers!

It will be impossible for a man who considers both himself and his fellow Africans to be worthless to understand Nkrumah’s exhortation: The independence of Ghana is meaningless, unless it is tied to the liberation of Africa.

But for someone who has read and understands Fanon’s admonition: “I am black; I am in total fusion with the world, in sympathetic affinity with the earth, losing my id in the heart of the cosmos -- and the white man, however intelligent he may be, is incapable of understanding Louis Armstrong or songs from the Congo. I am black, not because of a curse, but because my skin has been able to capture all the cosmic effluvia. I am truly a drop of sun under the earth,” Nkrumah’s clarion call needs no elaboration.

For Africa to recover and take its place in the comity of nations, it is vitally important for Africans to heed Steve Biko’s advice: “So as a prelude whites must be made to realise that they are only human, not superior. Same with Blacks. They must be made to realise that they are also human, not inferior.”

Let’s seek more wisdom from Prophet Fanon:

“To educate the masses politically is to make the totality of the nation a reality to each citizen. It is to make the history of the nation part of the personal experience of each of its citizens.

“The unpreparedness of the educated classes, the lack of practical links between them and the mass of the people, their laziness, and, let it be said, their cowardice at the decisive moment of the struggle will give rise to tragic mishaps.

“To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them; that if we stagnate it is their responsibility, and that if we go forward it is due to them too, that there is no such thing as a demiurge, that there is no famous man who will take the responsibility for everything, but that the demiurge is the people themselves and the magic hands are finally only the hands of the people.

“Every colonized people-in other words, every people in whose soul an inferiority complex has been created by the death and burial of its local cultural originality-finds itself face to face with the language of the civilizing nation; that is, with the culture of the mother country. The colonized is elevated above his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother country's cultural standards.

“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.

Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.”

©️Fẹmi Akọmọlafẹ

Fẹmi Akọmọlafẹ is a writer and author

February 4, 2022