One of the most frequent concepts in speeches about populations from sub-Saharan Africa living in Europe, particularly in Spain, is "integration". Both the political class and ordinary citizens talk about it. Often, the "integrationist" ideology presents the African continent as a monolithic block. That is, based on a racist conception of peoples, it reduces the intrinsic essence of Africans to a few proclaimed "common characteristics to all Africans". These pseudo-common characteristics to "all Africans" allow pro-integrationists to lump "African communities" together in a rather disparaged group called "they", "immigrants", "blacks", positioned at the antipodes of a wonderful world: "we", "Westerners", "whites".
This crusade for "generalized integration" has several "articles of faith". Here I will talk only about one of the most relevant axioms, namely: the belief that Africans know very little or nothing about "WESTERN culture".
It is a huge mistake. Because, since the colonial era, it is not "WESTERN culture" but rather "Western cultures" that are not a mystery for many Africans. In fact, without having set foot in any European country, there are myriad Africans who have accomplished an achievement that is never or rarely discussed here: generating their own African identity, the result of a harmonious fusion between African and Western roots.
The agents of this particular phenomenon are numerous. I will only consider one of these factors that, in my opinion, has had more lasting effects: education. It is important to know that the characteristics of education in Africa make it one of the most powerful tools for spreading Western culture in Africa. In fact, in addition to the fact that, in many places in Africa, instruction is almost exclusively, depending on the country, in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish, education in Africa performs two joint tasks: consolidating the African roots of youth and at the same time equipping them with tools to make them decision-makers of the contemporary world. The second ambition would be a pure utopia without proper teaching of Western cultures, particularly European ones.
The challenge of education in Africa - particularly with its two aspects, African and Western - is a decision that places an extreme financial burden on states that are often very weak economically. Faced with the financial scarcity that also defines the fate of many African families, the vast majority of them rely on the work mainly of women. It is they, our mothers, grandmothers, and sisters, the courageous women, without whose inventiveness and selflessness studying would be an impossible dream for the vast majority of Africans. Similarly, for children, young girls, and young men in Africa, studying involves unimaginable sacrifices compared to students here.
It is important to emphasize that teaching Western cultures in Africa is not comparable to the "approach to Africa" found in some Western school and university curricula. Because in Africa, Western literature, history, geography, languages, etc., are studied not briefly (in 30 minutes!), but for years, from primary school to university.
I explain all of this to say that the ideology of "generalized integration" is inappropriate and "outdated" when talking about the African continent today. In fact, the improvement of access to schooling and university education - especially for girls - in recent years has made it so that today many Africans do not wait to arrive in Europe to "integrate" into Western cultures. Because, thanks to this education, many Africans are already opting, right in Africa, for the founding principles of Western societies, as taught by great European thinkers such as Socrates, Simone de Beauvoir, Voltaire, etc. But, without renouncing their African identity.
Let us indeed open our hearts and doors to Africans in Catalonia, and we will be amazed. Ex Africa semper aliquid novi. Africa always surprises. Pleasantly.
Jean Bosco BOTSHO
