Colonialism, Scapegoatism and Moral Failure in Africa

A Phenomenological Exposition

Abstract

There is no gainsaying, that most African societies that have been victims of slavery, colonialism and imperialism have consequently remained underdeveloped. Discussions on freedom and agency from developing countries perspective continue to highlight the historical realities, especially colonialism, as being the cause of underdevelopment and backwardness of African polities. In many instances, African leaders or better still, African political actors place less emphasis on endogenous socio-political issues (e.g., corruption, bad leadership) which have negative consequences on self-determination, progress and development, but on the other hand, provide effective guard to crime, corruption, levels of poverty and social apathy. The interest in this research effort is a focus on how individual and collective moral agencies have resorted to scapegoating to avoid taking responsibility for state failure in Africa. Thus, this paper posits that individual and collective scapegoating proffers an alternative perspective onto taking moral responsibility by individuals and groups in the polity. Essentially, therefore, scapegoating places the blame elsewhere other than on the self or on one’s group for one’s actions or inactions towards the stagnation of the state. This form of scapegoating may have been the derivative of a social coping mechanism as blame shifting to avoid moral responsibility. Therefore, this paper, through qualitative analytic method, argues that leadership moral responsibility rather than scapegoating, can only be game changer to the growth of African society.