The African writer and the battle for decoloniality

From Page 4 This is because Dambudzo Marechera is celebrated in institutions which under-valued Black ideas and knowledge(s). His education at Oxford University clearly substantiates that fact not to mention that he was the only African writer to win the Guardian Fiction Prize. The same applies with other writers who have resorted to denial of the African struggles to find belonging in spaces where Africans are unwanted.

A new wretched of the earth Marechera represents a lost-generation of Africa’s intelligentsia. He is a representation of the mythical “bornfree” whose education has failed to make them decolonial beings. Their education has further exiled them from their African socialisation which they perceive as highly denigrating. Unlike, the first version of the “Wretched of the Earth” pronounced in Fanon’s decolonial meditations, Marechera’s life through the pen replicates the worst. His work speaks clearly to a physically “born-free” generation which has a colonially devalued intellect. This generation’s devalued acknowledgement of “being” is a result of grappling with internalised coloniality while at the same time trying to reconcile with one’s aspirations to be truly free. These are the “liberated African” with little — if not any recall of armed struggles of their respective mother countries and it’s not their fault that they arrived late in the world to be the children of the oppressed. Some of them were born during the transitional periods across the entire continent when their nations were preparing themselves for independence. While others like me were born many years after their respective countries’ struggles for freedom. These half and full “bornfrees” are the new wretched who happen to be beneficiaries of bankrupt Western knowledge which has failed to humanize them to be “real” African intellectuals. They are caught up in the entrapments of coloniality and are well-defined in terms of aspiring to be global citizens than they are Africans. They have nothing to lose, but the Africa identity which they don’t care about. For them being African is carrying the yoke of the “oppressive” post-colonial state which they vilify left, right and centre. As a result, from time to time whenever opportunities are availed they swap national patriotism for writers’ residences in Western universities.

These great minds lost in the trap of double-consciousness find themselves in Western institutions which denigrate African political values and the post-colonial state. In return the West gives them high accolades which give them credentials to lambast African states for poor governance. These become the voice of polarisation which deodorises Western governance styles and denigrates African leaders for failing the masses.

This is the reason why most of our writers in the continent have failed to stand firm in defending African economic development oriented policies. For instance, the launch of the land reform programme in Zimbabwe made way for demonised misrepresentation of Zimbabwe’s political environment. As a result, much of the literature that has been produced since the outbreak of land repossession from colonial ownership has portrayed the country’s political systems as barbaric and undemocratic simple because those we have entrusted with the mandate to tell our story are not one of us though they look like us. They are mercenaries produced out of the school of double consciousness. To be continued.

Richard Runyararo Mahomva is an independent academic researcher, Founder of Leaders for Africa Network — LAN. Convener of the Back to Pan-Africanism Conference and the Reading Pan-Africa Symposium (REPS) and can be contacted on rasmkhonto@gmail.com