Opeyemi Obiwumi
In the days before imperialism and colonization Africa was a proud continent; It was made up of many warring tribes all in a power struggle with each other for the resource rich land. Each tribe felt an enormous sense of national pride and entitlement that resonated in the way they interacted with other countries. After imperialism much of the pride and nationality of the African people were beaten out of them. The people of Africa were crushed, the land that they had fought so vigorously for and protected so viciously was no longer their own, but instead belonged to the Europeans. This shattering of pride was compounded with the Europeans shoving their sense of superiority down the Africans throats. After years of such abuse the African people lost all respect for their countries and instead idolized the western countries. Even years later the countries still suffers from a lack of nationalism, cursing the children born in …show more content…
Everything was better in America; it had better education, better opportunities, and presumably better people, were the thoughts indoctrinated into me since birth. Living in America in our minds was like living next to heaven, everything and everyone that came from there were idolized. This mentality was detrimental to Nigeria’s nationalism. Nigerians do not strive to make their country better, but use its deficiencies to justify leaving. They refused to bother fixing a broken country when they can go to one already paved in gold. My family was no exception, we saw everything that was wrong with Nigeria and we, like most Nigerians, choose to focus on leaving the problem instead of fixing it. With no one feeling like the Nigeria’s problems are even worth fixing the problems grow bigger and the people who can help are too busy looking for an escape.
In the days before imperialism and colonization Africa was a proud continent; It was made up of many warring tribes all in a power struggle with each other for the resource rich land. Each tribe felt an enormous sense of national pride and entitlement that resonated in the way they interacted with other countries. After imperialism much of the pride and nationality of the African people were beaten out of them. The people of Africa were crushed, the land that they had fought so vigorously for and protected so viciously was no longer their own, but instead belonged to the Europeans. This shattering of pride was compounded with the Europeans shoving their sense of superiority down the Africans throats. After years of such abuse the African people lost all respect for their countries and instead idolized the western countries. Even years later the countries still suffers from a lack of nationalism, cursing the children born in …show more content…
Everything was better in America; it had better education, better opportunities, and presumably better people, were the thoughts indoctrinated into me since birth. Living in America in our minds was like living next to heaven, everything and everyone that came from there were idolized. This mentality was detrimental to Nigeria’s nationalism. Nigerians do not strive to make their country better, but use its deficiencies to justify leaving. They refused to bother fixing a broken country when they can go to one already paved in gold. My family was no exception, we saw everything that was wrong with Nigeria and we, like most Nigerians, choose to focus on leaving the problem instead of fixing it. With no one feeling like the Nigeria’s problems are even worth fixing the problems grow bigger and the people who can help are too busy looking for an escape.