WHEN IS AFRICA GOING TO REACH OUR AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

In the 17th and 18th centuries Europe entered into what is termed today as the ‘age of enlightenment’ which defined by Britannica was “an intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries in which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and humanity were synthesized into a worldview that gained wide assent in the West and that instigated revolutionary developments in art, philosophy and politics”

The most important theme in the enlightenment thought was the celebration of reason, where humans used their understanding of the universe to better their life. Enlightenment was aimed at arriving at happier, knowledgeable and free specie.

The age of enlightenment came after the dark ages where Europe had no significant progress from the 5th century to the 15th century, where they were clouded by religion and superstition.

They waged unnecessary wars, were ravaged by diseases, and executed people for the most unnecessary of things, they were extremely unequal with the rich and powerful ravaging on the poor.

The age of enlightenment opened Europe to revolutions in Science by the likes of Isaac Newton, Galileo Galilee, Johannes Kepler, and many others whose theories changed the world, and brought about technological revolutions that brought about an Industrial revolution in Europe.

This industrial and technological revolution in Europe and other countries led to the “New Imperialism” where they needed to expand their market, for even more economic growth led them to colonize almost all of Africa. They introduced their religion, their way of life to a group of people and enforced their will on theirs.

The moral discussion for the evils of colonialism and its impact on Africa till date is a discussion for another day.
The truth is that Europe was able to conquer and colonize Africa simply because they were able to enter the age of discovery before Africa, the reason for that being a geographical one, due to climate, isolation from Europe and Asia by oceans and a desert.

After colonialism, you would expect Africa to rise to begin to be recognized after a while. With the free flow of technology and rich amount of Natural resources, you would expect Africa to be a bountiful continent but on the other hand we have a continent ravaged by wars, poverty, diseases, illiteracy and practically everything wrong.

While the Western countries might have played a role in this, most of our problems are self inflicted simply because even after over a century, Africa still hasn’t entered into an age of enlightenment.
Europe entered enlightenment after choosing to reject religion and its accompanying superstitions and focus on reason, and scientific revolutions.

They choose to use their brains and improve their world by themselves, and they discovered that sicknesses weren’t the wrath of God but by bacteria and viruses and they were able to find cures for these diseases.

In Africa, while we have only rejected OUR religion and embraced the religions that were forced on us by people that conquered us. The biggest disease still ravaging Nigeria is still Ignorance, the same Ignorance that Europe started to conquer in the 16th century.

Africa is the most religious continent with 85% of Africans being religious in contrast with a 59% worldwide. It is no surprise that the advancement of a society is inversely proportional to their religiousness. Just like in medieval Europe, religious leaders prey on the ignorance and poverty and suffering of the people to enrich them.

Also just like in medieval Europe, the leaders prey on their poor citizens and enrich them because they have ignorant and complacent citizens. Military dictatorships have been the biggest poison in this continent as it has been full of people who sought the enrichment of themselves with the rich natural resources.

We see the same grave inequality that happened in medieval Europe, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
The similarities doesn’t stop there, we also have so many superstitions and barbaric practices like female genital mutilation still being in practice in some places.

Ignorance is a disease that not even formal education seems to completely cure, and one can only wonder how long it will take before most of Africa awakens from its intellectual slumber.

People who choose to think differently than the ignorant African are persecuted and even killed, teenagers kicked out by their parents for choosing to embrace a different path. Knowledge is being treated as blasphemy by these leaders and their followers, and with poverty ravaging most of them, they can’t even afford knowledge or even care about getting knowledge, how do you expect hungry people to lead an intellectual revolution.

With all these limitations, I fear that Africa will never enter enlightenment and black people will continue to be the runt of the litter in the world. But with the amount of Africans I see on social media breaking away from the social constraints that society has placed on us, be it on gender equality and identification, or sexual orientation, it gives me hope knowing that one day, we will enter the age of enlightenment.