THE ILLUSION OF SUPERIORITY: DECONSTRUCTING COLONIAL EDUCATION AND CULTURAL ALIENATION IN MONGO BETI’S MISSION TO KALA

Canice Ihentuge Anakoro — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This study examines the representation of colonial education and cultural alienation in Mongo Beti’s Mission to Kala. Colonial education functioned not merely as a means of formal instruction but also as an important instrument through which European cultural values and assumptions were transmitted to colonised African societies. In Beti’s novel, Jean-Marie Medza, the protagonist, initially embodies the prestige associated with Western education. Although he has failed his school examination, the people of Kala regard him with extraordinary admiration because of his exposure to European schooling. His experiences in the village, however, gradually expose the limitations of his education and the cultural distance it has created between him and indigenous realities. Using a qualitative close-reading approach and drawing on Postcolonial Theory, particularly Frantz Fanon’s concept of psychological alienation, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s notion of the “cultural bomb,” and Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of colonial mimicry, the study analyses Medza’s cultural and psychological predicament. It argues that Beti employs satire, irony and Medza’s journey to deconstruct the supposed superiority of colonial education. The study finds that the protagonist’s schooling has equipped him with social prestige but has inadequately prepared him for meaningful engagement with the practical and cultural realities of his society. The novel consequently questions an educational system that alienates individuals from their cultural foundations and presents cultural self-knowledge as an important component of meaningful education and genuine emancipation.

COMMODIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE AND MORALITY IN NGŨGĨ WA THIONG’O’S PETALS OF BLOOD

Canice Ihentuge Anakoro — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This study probes into the vicious intersection of neocolonialism, epistemological mistreatment and ethical decay in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s novel, Petals of Blood (1977). Set against the fast transforming setting of the oppressed rustic village of Ilmorog, the narrative relates how the local peasantry is methodically dispossessed by post-independence Kenyan state amid global corporate interests. This critique opines that the evolving national elites, in connivance with global capital, rationalises deprivation, effecting wide-spread violent mistreatment by means of land grabbing, physical hostility and blood-letting. The paper views the height of this vicious trend as the commodification of traditional knowledge systems and the undermining of communal morality. Engaging the analysis with a Marxist-materialist framework, the study reveals how natural cultural practices like the native brewing and perceptive properties of the theng’eta plant, is emptied of its sacred importance, hence, engaging in mass production for corporate proceeds. The reading probes into formal, Eurocentric educational systems as a tool to isolate the subaltern, while diminishing intimate relations and ethical veracity for utilitarian deals in an ever-growing capitalist system. Findings confirm the dawn of extreme disillusionment among major characters like Karega, Wanja, Munira and Abdulla, whose nightmares are traceable to this far-reaching vicious commodification. The neo-colonial machinery simply generates pervasive sorrow and isolation, having diminished human life and legacy to mere economic worth. For Ngũgĩ, therefore, genuine emancipation demands the conscious discarding of predatory economic foundation, a feat only attainable through shared, revolutionary class awareness and efforts.

EBSU Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities

THE ILLUSION OF SUPERIORITY: DECONSTRUCTING COLONIAL EDUCATION AND CULTURAL ALIENATION IN MONGO BETI’S MISSION TO KALA

COMMODIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE AND MORALITY IN NGŨGĨ WA THIONG’O’S PETALS OF BLOOD