BANZA June 2016 Issue | Page 84

The selfish Ninjas These guys are the most selfish and wicked people on the planet. And ninjas because it sounds cool. I used to be one of them. They are the guys who will never help anybody unless they’re getting something in return; despite having the skills, and material necessary to do so. As a matter of fact, they would watch Game of Thrones rather than helping a friend in need. They just won’t help if they don’t gain anything from it. Their services are basically for sale. Please do not confuse them with the typical worker that works to earn money as these are two different contexts. The Travellers They deny their own land and migrate to ‘wealthier’ areas because they think their motherland doesn’t have enough money to make them happy. I am talking about the thousands of brilliant Africans that leave their beautiful continent each year in the pursuit of money. By doing so, they strip the continent of its best assets, them, and slow its development. I am conscious of the difficulties that come with unemployment or low salaries in Africa, but if young Africans do not stay home to develop their motherland, who will? The Subconscious They are my favourite! I describe it as subconscious intellectual prostitution. I believe most young people; especially young Africans, are affected by this type. What makes it worse is that most of us are not aware of it. This kind of prostitution is similar to the second category in the sense that young people invest most of their time and energy reading and learning about leaders and scientists from another land when they know almost nothing about their homeland. I believe this is a direct effect of post-colonization. We constantly get the impression that western products are automatically better than African products, so we don’t even bother to learn about African scientists or great leaders. Indeed, most of the great leaders’ we know are non-African. We often paraphrase European and American scholars who were most likely negro-phobic. Most of us do not know that the first ever Mathematicians and