Why the GREAT Reclaiming? We are presently witnessing a generational shift of historic proportions. Today’s youth, roughly 12–30 yrs old, are the first to grow up in a world which is not totally subjected to the systematic de-culturalisation that defined the colonial and neo-imperial “modern age.”
Their parents and grandparents, us, endured a deliberate stripping away of language, story, custom, and worldview. This was replaced with alien traditions that carried with them a message of being inferior. One example might be children singing nursery rhymes like “Jack and Jill” and “The cow jumped over the moon” instead of their own ancestral tales; Another example; from early on, youth were taught the superior status of the metallic fork over the spoon.
Not to speak of the quiet privileging of lighter skin tones, colonial languages and customs.
Such practices as these normalized the stigma of cultural inferiority and detached entire peoples from their own histories.
Today?? Youth empowerment??
Today, this generation of youth faces instead, the relentless power of global media and a materialistic consumer culture. It is not surprising that they all reach out avidly for what is “new,” “shiny,” and sanctioned by digital empires. Although not immediately evident, the world never lost the power of the media and neo-colonisation to manipulate and curate values, desires, and identities in this post-modern world. Today a simple swipe will do.
All around us we see the glorification of difference all wrapped up in patriarchal stereotypes hidden in remembrance day celebrations, tours and selective history. I think they call it cultural distraction.
A wonderful term which speaks about being content to admire the same colonial global systems that profit from otherness, conformity, and endless novelty.
The key in this time of reclaiming is that youth are open to hearing the teachings of our own thinkers, activists, philosophers such as Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Wangari Maathai, Cheikh Anta Diop, Franz Fanon. The teachings of the famous philosopher, Hon. Marcus Garvey must be brought into the open and his philosophy become the mantra for educational systems that realize the importance of Africa the motherland to the new world.
YOUTH!! WAKE UP YE MIGHTY PEOPLE!!
I am speaking to educators, all those powering youth empowerment today, young people themsleves!! History is in the making. As we move from de-culturalisation to spreading our-story, we need the thinkers, the dreamers, and the philosophers to lead the way. Our youth. Reclaim our roots!! Come On!!! as the scripture says”let noone despise your youth..” Let’s redefine what it means to be “modern.”
#GenerationalShift #FutureThinkers #GenZ #MarcusGarvey