Paper short abstract:

The widespread fragmentation of identity and solidarity in African countries can bind them to cyclical exploitation, collapse, and despair post-independence. However, hope remains, requiring the forging of new national collectives and a reconnection with past, present, and future African identities.

Paper long abstract:

Post-independence, African nations continue to struggle with neocolonialism and alienation. Though officially free, African countries frequently exist “subservien[t] to the interests of Europe, supported by an Indigenous elite” (McLeod 108). In Chinua Achebe’s novel, Anthills of the Savannah, he conducts an autopsy of Africa post-independence, unearthing the sources of estranged national and individual identity which lead to fractured collective unity and hierarchical corruption. Though colonization began the imposition of fractured identity, artificial structures, and corrupt government, the contemporary ruling Indigenous elite often perpetuate these wounds and actively facilitate foreign exploitation, treating the governed at best with indifference and at worst with contempt. Achebe traces African post-independent psychological fragmentation to the continuous decision of the Indigenous elite to reject their precolonial past and instead choose structures, systems, and nationhood from the West. The Indigenous elite become neocolonial by mimicking the colonizer’s style of selfish governance, ruling only to exploit. In this vacuum of identity and unity, the governed become complicit in their own abuse, brutalized and broken. Neocolonialism and alienation are the catalysts for the cyclical corruption and violence present in post-independence Africa and ultimately lead nations to collapse. For African countries to enter an authentically postcolonial future, they need to foster national and individual identity and solidarity rooted in a shared humanity, history, and future. As Achebe delineates, post-independence despair propels the examination of colonial and neocolonial atomization, hope urges the connection with pre-colonial and post-colonial identity, and a future of lasting, authentic healing and solidarity lies beyond.