Nairobi Skyline. Image credit Mkimemia via Wikimedia Commons.
Ever since Europe colonized Africa on the back of an imperial propaganda of the “Civilizing Mission,” the West has always been seen as an enemy of the customary, a modernizing savior rescuing a reluctant Africa from the jaws of a tribal existence. In this narrative, pre-colonial Africans lived in corporate tribal units characterized by a common language, culture, kinship, hereditary membership and tribal laws enforced through tribal hierarchies of power. Europe then swooped in and disrupted this centuries-old order, actively dismantling African cultural life and forcibly modernizing the continent, making it imperative for Africans today to decolonize themselves by reclaiming and protecting their “original” culture. This narrative is as neat and efficient as it is thoroughly fictional.
Source: African homophobia and the colonial roots of African conservatism
