Colonization of the Mind: Global Mental & Health Instability

On December 15th, 2021, I arrived in Accra, Ghana, and stayed for a few months to discover, learn, explore and connect. I have the aim to develop an anthropological field study on the effects of globalization and westernization on Afrakan infrastructure throughout the diaspora. I started this initiative observing different ‘ethnic’ groups, communities, cultures, and languages in the Greater Accra Region. I have been cognizant of the effects of racism, however, to observe the overarching impact in an Afrakan country felt like being a witness to a silent/spiritual war. This silent war has been upheld by sophisticated, yet. barbaric institutions which global citizens find themselves participating in. In 1851, Samuel Cartwright, a proclaimed psychiatrist declared that enslaved Afrakans fleeing captivity were suffering from drapetomania, a mental illness (Cartwright, 1851). However, I am certain we suffer from a mental illness which pertains to the failure of defending our sovereignty, livelihood, and dynasties by any means necessary due to a diminishing love of self and growing fondness of the abuser/oppressor/captor. This mental illness is actually a disease which eats away at the DNA and is labeled Akoayareε which is a combined condition of εhu-yε (state of fear) and akoa-yε (slave state) - some people may have more extreme conditions than others, hence it is a spectrum.

There has been limited effort to observe the mental illnesses existent in 'white' societies or the restoration of the spiritual and physical mind of inhumane acts toward Afrakans. What prompted white communities to dehumanize non-white people, what civility exists in such a barbaric act? The western people strategically studied Afrakan (indigenous, non-western, or non-white) infrastructure and people for centuries before executing colonization and there has been a debilitating impact on global consciousness and intellect. There has been no emergence of enlightenment for justice, truth and equity as it has replaced with capitalism a system of bloodshed. Capitalism main source of wealth is from enslavement, deportations (illegal exportation of people), massacres, forced labor, unjust legal codes, resource extraction, cultural obliteration, etc. for the obtainment of mineral reserves to preserve power.

It has become overwhelmingly clear to me that the global Afrakan community is stuck in a cycle of mental and spiritual bondage as we willingly participate in institutions which oppress our land, our families, our culture, our history, and our identities. There has been an attitude to give up the fight rather than unify because we have been conditioned to believe to distrust each other, it would be too hard to unify, or some of us are just so economically desperate. There was a study conducted that revealed that socioeconomic statuses encompassing educational attainment, financial security, and perceptions of social class influenced behaviors either causing low violence or high violence in a community.

History teaches us clearly that the battle against colonialism does not run straight away along the lines of nationalism. For a very long time the native devotes his energies to ending certain definite abuses: forced labor, corpor