Decolonizing

In a world of think pieces (like this one) and long-form YouTube videos, decolonization is one word that gets thrown around a lot. Sometimes it even seems that it doesn’t actually mean anything to its users beyond a means to gain internet popularity and political clout. Many people on the internet talk about the things we need to decolonize: the universities’ curricula, art, food, government policies, etc. I’m on Substack with a particular mission to decolonize myself and inspire other Africans to do the same. But what does decolonization mean exactly?

Before I answer that question, I want to explain how and why I made decolonization my mission. When I was 16, I became very interested in classic Western literature. By this time, I already knew that I enjoyed writing. Whenever I told people that I like to write, they asked me if I like to read books. These encounters gave me an idea to familiarize myself with the literary classics so that I had what I thought were the right answers to give. My interest was not because I was curious, but because I thought being able to quote Hemingway and whoever would make me seem smarter. So, I tried to read Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities because an excerpt of it was featured in one of my favourite films, The Dark Knight Rises, read by Commissioner Gordon at Bruce Wayne’s funeral. It’s such an emotional scene for me, because of the Dickens excerpt, but I hated the book. I couldn’t even get through the first few pages. I had a hard think about why I was choosing to read Western classics, which are sometimes quite racist in their portrayal of black people and other people of colour, and not African literature. This is when I decided that I needed to alter my point of view in regard to African literature and arts in general.

The idea that Western-origin literature and arts are superior is unfortunately prevalent in many African societies, including Tanzanian society. In high school, I joined a Tanzanian writers’ group chat. I was shocked one day to see how most people held non-African literature in high regard. There was a discussion on book recommendations and not a single Tanzanian book was mentioned, neither in Swahili nor English. For Tanzanians who have been in the Tanzanian school system, often the case is that one has to go out of their way to know about most non-African books and even access them. This is a symptom of something much worse: decolonization is not happening at the right pace. We have a long way to go and the longer we wait, the worse it’s going to be for future generations. The only time there was collective hype and excitement about a Tanzanian book or writer in recent decades was when Tanzanian-British writer Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021.

So, there are two issues, in my view, Western-origin literature is considered better, and we have been conditioned to believe that great art and culture are great because a Western institution says so: The Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences (Oscars), The Recording Academy (the Grammys), etc. People feel obligated to read, watch, listen and even fake-like things that they wouldn’t have considered if someone else hadn’t indicated that these are “the best” according to (typically) Western standards.

For several years, I have been decolonizing myself. To me, decolonizing means participating in the cultures of previously and currently colonizing societies because I actually enjoy specific things and I am curious about them, and not because these things are considered to be the pinnacle of human intellect. (They are not). Am I not curious? I am very curious, actually; just not about everything, especially non-African arts when there is still so much to learn about my country and the continent. There are people outside of Africa who are not interested in the continent, as is their right not to be, so curiosity in non-African arts and attentiveness to foreign measurements of greatness should not be expected of Africans, especially by other Africans. Instead, we should encourage and inspire fellow Africans to consume more of what is ours because, for many, knowledge about our own cultures and cultural production in our countries is severely lacking.

On my decolonization journey, last summer, I rediscovered my love for Tanzanian music. A friend sent me some Singeli songs to listen to: Demu Wangu by Meja Kunta and Mabantu, and Madanga Ya Mke Wangu by Meja Kunta and D Voice. I normally don’t take music recommendations seriously (as in, I almost never listen to the songs people send me), but at this point, I was desperate to reconnect with my country’s many subcultures after being away for so long. For over two years until that point, I was excessively plugged into Tanzanian pop culture. The two Singeli songs were a gateway to a new reality filled with pride for Swahili culture’s artistic expression. I was so hooked that I went into a Singeli rabbit hole. I’ll write about this in another post. Actually, I’ll defend Singeli in another post.

There are many other things I have discovered and rediscovered in the last year, apart from Singeli. I single it out (pun intended) because this is a music genre that has been demonized in Tanzanian society. Another Tanzanian I know found out that I listen to Singeli and was very surprised by this. Educated and cultured people don’t listen to Singeli – at least that’s what our society tells us. For whatever reasons, there is an unorganized collective of people who consider Singeli (and Taarab, another Tanzanian music genre) to be something for Uswahilini (low-income neighbourhoods. Notice how low-income neighborhoods bear the name “Uswahilini”). Funny enough, these same people will consider it cool to know American rap lyrics – even the kind that are misogynistic and hateful.

With this Substack, I’m hoping to push myself deeper into Tanzanian and African cultures. I intend to learn more and tell others about them. I am tired of caring about who won a Grammy and who is at the Met Gala when there are rarely any Africans creating in these spaces. If they are, their works are not even respected. When Tyla, a South African singer, won her first Grammy earlier this year for Best African Music Performance for her viral song Water, the song Water No Get Enemy by Fela Kuti, the late Nigerian Musician, was played as she walked up the stage to receive her award.

A lot more can be said about decolonization. For example, the fact that English is my primary writing language. The most important thing, I think, is for Africans to be fully committed to decolonization. It should go further than a tweet. This is not to say one can never enjoy the Grammys or whatever else there is to enjoy in past and modern Western culture. Please do as you please! Just don’t get hypnotized into thinking that we don’t have equally and sometimes better arts back home.

I’ll leave you with that as a first newsletter and also direct you to my 8-hour-long Swahili music Spotify playlist* that I have been curating for over a year. Additional languages can be heard in some songs including English, French, Comorian and a variety of South African and Congolese languages. This playlist is heavily and intentionally Tanzanian. It features the Tanzanian genres Bongo Flava, Singeli, and Taarab, together with the South African genre Amapiano and an Amapiano-inspired Tanzanian genre known as Bongopiano in some internet spaces.

Until next time!

*For political reasons, I deleted the playlist and will no longer support mainstream Tanzanian artists.