Talk at UC Berkley - 10 February 2026

AFRICA’S ILL-FITTING IMPERIAL CLOTHES:

WHY POST-COLONIAL AFRICA UNDER-PERFORMING ITS POTENTIAL

Sterkfontein Caves, Cradle of Humankind

Thank you for inviting me to share my thoughts on a subject that is close to my heart.  It is a subject that has pre-occupied my mind since my youth as a student activist, a young professional, a university executive, a World Bank MD, and an African citizen aspiring to retire. The simple answer to why  Africa is underperforming its potential is that colonialism has not yet ended.  It is not yet Uhuru. The more complicated answer is the subject of this talk.

I chose the metaphor of ill-fitting clothes to capture both the physical reality of the discomfort of being in ill-fitting clothes, and the symbolism that ill-fitting clothes signal and the cultural, spiritual, and emotional impact on one’s sense of self-worth and dignity.  Ill-fitting clothes are particularly powerful metaphors of disharmony in the relationship with oneself, one’s family, and one’s community. Clothes convey important ritual, symbolic, and ceremonial meanings. 

Ill-fitting clothes are particularly out of place in Africa. The picture captured by early European explorers in West Africa speaks of the striking flowing robes both men and women were wearing, and the jewellery they adorned their bodies with.  Gold, silver, and beads, added to the majesty of the looks of our African ancestors.  One might well ask: how have we come from that picture to wear ill-fitting clothes such as suits and ties in hot humid tropical Africa? How have we come to wear wigs and tight clothes that are ill suited for our abundant hips as the mamas of Africa? 

It is always helpful when you are lost to go back to the beginning.  Africa’s post-colonial present can only be understood by going back to the beginning.  That beginning is also the common heritage of all human beings on Mother Earth given that Africa is the cradle of humanity and also the cradle of the very first human civilisation.

I would like you to come with me on a journey of exploration of humanity’s evolution in Africa as the youngest species within the animal kingdom.  Our common ancient ancestors evolved into whom we are by learning from nature’s intelligence. They learnt to understand that in the universe everything is connected to everything else. They learnt that the essence of being human is to be interconnected and interdependent within the web of life. They learnt that human beings are at their very best within supportive loving relationships.

Ancient wisdom derived from these lessons led our ancestors to embrace a living systems values framework. This values framework enabled them to develop reverence for mother nature and to appreciate her gifts of life: land, water, air, and energy, as sacred.  The living systems values framework is expressed as Ubuntu in Nguni languages, Utu in Swahili, Omenala in Igbo. Ubuntu forms the core of African philosophy and practice.

African philosophy was elaborated and systematised by the High Priests of the then Kemetian Empire, now known as Egypt. These Priests/scholars also developed an understanding of cosmology through detailed observations of the nature and relationships between celestial bodies such as the Moon, stars, and the Sun.  Ancient Egyptian prosperity was nurtured by leveraging the understanding of the relationships between the rise and fall of the Nile River, and the cycles of the Moon.

Scientific knowledge our ancestors developed included mathematics, architecture, and chemistry. This knowledge laid the basis for the building of the Pyramids and the elaboration of burial rites.  These developments have left an indelible heritage in Egypt. This heritage has survived attempts at erasure by those finding it difficult to accept that Africa is not only the cradle of humanity, but also the cradle of the first human civilization.

The greatness of this scientific and philosophical knowledge system was such that it attracted scholars from far and wide.  They came to study under the tutelage of Egyptian priests at the Mystery Schools set up as early as c3000 BCE.  Greek scholars started attending these schools from c624 BCE. Thales of Miletus was amongst the first (geometry, mathematics), followed by Pythagoras (22 years mathematics), Solon (law and political system reforms), Plato (11-13years Maat later Logos), and many more. Some historians of antiquity suggest that a book of 1000 pages would not be able to include all those Europeans who benefitted from the Kemetian Mystery Schools.  

Why is there so little acknowledgement of the source of Greek philosophy? Is this not high-level plagiarism regarded as unacceptable in respectable academic circles? Heraclitus, a contemporary of Pythagoras, called him out as “a vulgar plagiarist of Egyptians.”  How many of you knew that Greek Philosophy originated from Africa? I did not know until my son, Hlumelo Biko, wrote and published a book, The God in Us: How African Spirituality Ignited World Religion and Global Civilisation, in 2024. Why is this void in the History of Science that acknowledges Africa’s role so persistent?  

As far back as 1954 George James, an African American scholar published, Stolen Legacy: Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy. Unsurprisingly the book remains hardly known.  It contains too many inconvenient truths for Westerners to face up to.   The same applies to the work of Senegalese polymath, Cheikh Anta Diop.  He published 27 books, including his 1991, Civilisation or Barbarism, to challenge attempts by racist European colonial advocates to disown Africa of its heritage by separating Egypt and North Africa from the mother continent. How often have you as academics and scholars referred to these books to enable your students to look at Africa from a different lens beyond the colonial gaze? Would it not be to the benefit of both European and African descendants for all of us to re-embrace our common heritage and liberate ourselves from the colonial mindset?

The clash of cultures and misalignment of values between a living systems values framework evolved in the mother continent, and the colonial imperial values of individualism, competition, extractive socio-economic systems, need to be acknowledged.  This clash of values between colonial conquerors and indigenous people across the globe has brought us to the current planetary crises: climate change, inequalities and conflicts and wars. The idea that human beings have been given dominion over nature, and that competition over scarce resources justify violation of the rights of fellow humans, is the antithesis of the living systems values framework embedded in Ubuntu.

The invention of categories of “races” was a necessary pseudoscientific tool to justify the dispossession of land and its resources from indigenous people by Europeans.  As members of a self-defined superior race they felt entitled to what they dispossessed inferior races of.  This “othering” of human beings who lived outside Europe, permitted colonial conquerors to dispossess, enslave, kill, and maim fellow human beings at will, for many centuries. Our essence as human beings as interconnected and interdependent does not allow us to violate others without being traumatised in the process of traumatising others. Othering is a device to silence that inner voice inherent in being human.  

The impact of European conquest across the globe violated living systems values and the seven principles of Maat – the core curriculum of Mystery Schools: Justice, Truth, Harmony, Balance, Order, Reciprocity, and Propriety.  These seven principles are embedded in the Ubuntu way of life.  Every one of those values is violated by the extractive socio-economic and political systems at the core of the global power system we have today.  To add insult to injury, the Berlin Conference of 1884 attended by 14 European countries, divided the African continent between them without any concern for the consequences of their actions.  The boundaries set between African countries at that Berlin conference make no sense from a geographic, cultural, nor socio-economic perspective. Attempts at African union have been thwarted by the legacy of those boundaries. European divide and conquer handed post-colonial Africa a poisoned chalice.

The most devastating legacy of colonial conquest is the intergenerational trauma it has left on the African soul. Loss of the land of one’s ancestors considered sacred in African belief systems, inflicted deep wounds in the soul of Africa. African people were uprooted from the nurturing sacred soil of their ancestors.  Their ancestral cultures and belief systems were silenced.  African countries that had significant colonial settlements for many centuries were particularly hard hit by the daily assault on their cultures and ways of life. 

My own country, South Africa, suffered severely from colonial settler impositions such as the migrant labour system, colonial spatial configurations of our towns and cities, and the destruction of indigenous food systems. These impositions remain embedded in our post-Apartheid socio-economic and political systems. The 1994 Political Settlement failed to include fundamental social and economic transformation of our society.  Today 70% of privately held land is in the hands of descendants of European settlers. 70% of the shares on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange belong to European descendants. 64% of those living below the poverty line are descendants of indigenous Africans. 50% of young black people are chronically unemployed.

Africa is the only continent in the world in which the depth and breadth of European culture find expression everywhere.  These are the symbolic and physical imperial clothes. The imposition of Christian names by missionaries, remains a permanent feature of African identity.  Replacing African names with European ones hurts all the more so because in African culture, names are sacred. They connect us with our ancestors.  For example, I am named after my maternal grandmother, Mamphela. Like many other people of my grandmother’s generation in the 17^th & 18^th century, she was forced to assume a Dutch name, Aletta, as a requirement of becoming a Christian.  I grew up with that Dutch name as my middle name. 

The first President of post-apartheid South Africa, Rolihlahla Mandela, was renamed Nelson on his first day at school in rural Eastern Cape in the early 20^th century. Imagine the humiliation and confusion of a child being told that; “from today your name is Nelson.” No discussion nor explanation, simply an instruction. Africans across the continent carry ridiculous English, French, German, Portuguese names, as branding from their colonial conquerors. These ill-fitting clothes are an embarrassment to Africans with a high consciousness of the oddity of these impositions. The question is why do we perpetuate them?

African history, languages, arts, and belief systems have been systematically undermined.  In my own country African languages are being lost to future generations. The post-colonial education system has failed to promote indigenous languages. It remains an untransformed education system based on outdated inappropriate European epistemologies.  I always cringe wherever my fellow Africans identify themselves in global platforms as Anglophone, Francophonie, Lusophony. It is outrageous that our minds are still so captured by our former colonisers that we continue to brandish these identities. Language carries culture.  African cultures will continue to suffer from under-utilisation and downgrading by ourselves, until we rise to our responsibilities to be proud stewards of our common heritage.

In our Parliaments across Africa our representatives have simply adopted the colonial system with little change.  Members of Parliament would rather speak in broken English than in their indigenous languages. In my country despite the designation 11 Official languages the use of indigenous languages is the exception not the norm.  IsiZulu, Sesotho, or Kiswahili should have been adopted as South Africa’s official languages, with English and Afrikaans being optional choices. But we failed to bite the bullet during the negotiations leading to 1994 and beyond.  

Zimbabwe is the extreme case of imperial branding.  Judges of the High Court of Zimbabwe continue to wear white wigs made with horsehair. These are imported from Britain at the cost of US $180 000 annually. How ill-fitting to wear these wigs in hot climates!  Colonised mindsets are the only explanation for these oddities. The British are laughing all the way to the bank!

Embracing alien systems and their values reflects loss of pride in one’s culture and lack of due reverence for one’s heritage.  Post-colonial Africa cannot flourish under the alien socio-economic and political systems it has embraced as part of political settlements with former colonial masters.  There is an African saying that if you wear someone else’s clothes, you will remain naked spiritually; if you eat alien foods, you will remain hungry.  Africa’s self-image and self-worth is undermined by its uncritical embrace of alien systems.

Africa must re-embrace the indigenous living systems values framework to enable it to transform its socio-economic and political systems accordingly.  After more than six decades of experimentation of imposed European democratic and neo-liberal socio-economic systems, it is time for change. Imposed competitive multi-party-political systems are unlikely to work.  The capitalist system is using the power of money to drive multi-party electoral systems.  The choice of political leaders is driven by special interests. Money driven politics is not only common in Africa, but everywhere in our troubled world. 

Most political parties that have emerged from former liberation movements have morphed into state capturers.  They have abrogated to themselves the right to govern regardless of the will of the people.  Many actively discourage civic education for fear that an educated citizenry would demand accountability from public representatives. Kader Asmal, the late Minister of Education in the early 2000s in our country, was stopped in his tracks trying to embed civic education in the school curriculum by then President Thabo Mbeki. South Africa’s laudable Constitution works largely for elites. Criminals also benefit because they can afford to pay lawyers to protect them under its Human Rights framework.  Most young citizens graduate from our education institutions without understanding what it means to be a citizen, what are their rights and responsibilities, and how to exercise one’s citizenship to elect and hold accountable those in public life.

Governing parties across Africa have adopted the colonial practice of state capture that benefits a few at the expense of many. Former liberation movement parties have become shameless in their state capture practices. The idea of good governance based on a competent ethical accountable public service remains in our national policies, but is not practiced in many countries.  Public institutions, infrastructure for essential services such as water and sanitation, education and health systems in most African countries, are in a sorry state of disrepair. Liberators have become oppressors.

Africa’s youthful population remains its greatest asset. Young people continue to be betrayed by those who claim to have been their liberators.  60% of Africa’s population is under 25 years. This offers Africa a massive demographic dividend to drive economic prosperity, innovation, creativity, and transformative power. African leaders have failed to harness this potential into an engine to shape a future of prosperity.  Africa’s future lies in leveraging our demographic dividend to prospect and process our huge natural and mineral resources. 60% of arable land in the world is in Africa.  We must cultivate this using indigenous organic farming methods to become the food basket of the world.  

Conclusion

The future prosperity of Africa demands the jettisoning of imperial clothing.  Africa must explore and adopt indigenous political systems that operate on a living systems values framework. The seven principles of Maat: Truth, Justice, Harmony, Order, Balance, Propriety and Reciprocity, should guide the conduct of all citizens.  Public servants must be held accountable to these seven principles by active citizens.

Africa’s enormous endowments of natural, mineral and youthful population, need to be leveraged to reshape the terms of engagement in trade, political, and cultural relationships with the rest of the world. Morocco is a great example of how to transform natural endowments into active platforms to generate wellbeing and prosperity for all.  It has turned its phosphate resources into a foundation for creating an industrial giant, OCP Group, that processes phosphate rock to provide prosperity and wellbeing for many more citizens and counting. 

Botswana is another shining example of the promise of a different future. Its founders chose to build a democracy incorporating Batswana cultural practices of traditions of bottom-up democratic processes – Makgotla - to discuss and test public policies before they are adopted by Parliament.   After years of elderly people leading the nation, the under 40s have now established a coalition government to reimagine the future. The young leaders are reshaping the socio-economic system into one much more equitable and responsive for meeting the needs of all citizens.

African unity is imperative to future prosperity and wellbeing for all.  Africa will forever remain subservient to the rest of the world unless it implements its own decisions to work towards unity as set out in the 2015 Agenda 2063.  Without unity and greater collaboration in leveraging intra-Africa trade, Africa is likely to remain in its ill-fitting clothes on a playground controlled by powerful global interests.

Africa’s youthful population is a source of hope.  Young people are becoming more conscious of their power to shape the futures they desire.  In my own country a growing number of the 18–50-year-olds are seeking ways to engage in political and socio-economic processes to become the leaders they have been waiting for.

Fundamental transformation of our education systems is essential to support the rise of these young people to their responsibilities. Academic institutions must collaborate with others in the education system to embrace an epistemology and curricula that reflect our rich common African heritage.  How we teach also needs to change into a more interactive empowering process to unleash the potential of all young people to become self-confident ethical leaders.   

Africa’s opportunities lie in promoting self-liberation of its youthful population from ill-fitting clothes.  Africans must proudly wear their beautiful African clothes both on their physical bodies and inside their hearts and minds.  They must become champions of reimagining Africa and working across boundaries to re-embrace the wisdom of our ancestors.  Re-embracing Ubuntu and infusing it into redesigned Africa’s socio-economic and political systems, is the only guarantor of the future of wellbeing for all within healthy ecosystems we all desire. 

Thank You

Mamphela Ramphele

10/2/2026, UC Berkley.