Education remains a highly contentious subject in the African context. Historically, it has served as both a powerful instrument of empowerment, opening avenues for individual and societal advancement, and a tool of insidious subjugation, used to enforce colonial ideologies and erode indigenous knowledge systems. The enduring intersection of knowledge, power and the lingering residue of colonial legacy continues to shape contemporary debates. As such, this creates a fraught terrain where questions of who is deemed ‘educated’ and whose knowledge systems are recognised as legitimate are fiercely contested.
This persistent tension, the struggle between historically imposed Western educational norms and the validation of diverse indigenous knowledge, is sharply exemplified by the recent disparaging remarks of self-styled public commentator Prince Mashele. He derided MK Party MP and musician Gezani Kobane (Papa Penny) as an “idiot,” basing his assessment solely on Papa Penny’s lack of a formal academic degree. “The guy has not been to school. He has never seen a classroom in his life, but he is an MP making laws for me [when] I have a master’s degree,” Mashele asserted.
Mashele’s perspective reflects a more profound historical phenomenon rooted in the colonial construction of education and how African elites were socialised into a Eurocentric intellectual framework. Rather than liberating African thought, this framework has served as an instrument for reinforcing existing cultural, racial and economic hierarchies. It perpetuates the notion that Western forms of knowledge are superior, thereby marginalising and devaluing indigenous knowledge systems. As an elder in the African context, Papa Penny has established himself as a successful artist and an admired leader in his community and South Africa.
Nevertheless, the hierarchical notions of success and knowledge, founded on nebulous civilisational norms (like ‘meritocracy’ and ‘smart’), create a situation where those who acquired Western education are seen as inherently more qualified to lead and govern, irrespective of their understanding of their communities’ lived realities and cultural contexts. This dynamic contributed to a form of intellectual dependency, where African elites prioritise Western validation over the development and recognition of their unique intellectual traditions, thus reinforcing the very hierarchies colonialism sought to establish.
Papa Penny has never denied that he lacks formal education or even claimed to be different. Besides his contribution to the arts in South Africa, he has never shied away from contesting public office. He has served as a local councillor for Nkuri village in Giyani and is now a national MP for the MK Party. Furthermore, Penny Penny’s dedication to uplifting his community extends beyond politics and music. He has previously collaborated with ZZ2 to uplift members of his community while Mashele is committing academic fraud and dancing for his supper.
Papa Penny Ahee!!!!!
Colonial Education as a Mechanism of Control
Individuals like Mashele are products of the colonial-based South African educational system, which did not emerge organically but was the confluence of multiple external influences, including missionary activities that paved the way for state intervention. While education is often idealised as a mechanism for knowledge creation and development, colonial administrators and missionary evangelists viewed it primarily as a tool for manipulation and control. This system was designed not to cultivate critical African intellectualism but to create a class of intermediaries, a buffer zone between the colonisers and the colonised, who would serve the interests of the colonial state.
These individuals were intended to serve as conduits, effectively translating and implementing the colonial state’s directives. Their role was not to challenge or question the prevailing power structures but to reinforce them. Thus, the colonial system has created a layer of ‘native’ administrators and professionals (or simply colonial clerks) who are invested in maintaining the status quo, effectively becoming stakeholders in their subjugation. This strategy facilitated resource extraction and colonial policy enforcement while creating internal divisions and intellectual dependency, a legacy impacting African societies today. It established a hierarchy where Western knowledge equated to power, marginalising ‘other’ knowledge and hindering autonomous intellectual development.
Prominent African scholars such as Archie Mafeje and Samir Amin have long argued that colonial education was structured to produce an African bourgeoisie that would act as a buffer between European colonial rulers and the broader indigenous population. Mafeje critiques how African intellectuals, educated within colonial institutions, internalise Eurocentric ideologies and become alienated from the social realities of their people. This is precisely the context in which Mashele’s remarks can be understood not merely as an individual opinion. But as a manifestation of the deeply ingrained colonial logic that equates formal Western education with intelligence and governance capacity while dismissing the ‘other’ side of the abyssal line as primitive or inadequate.
The Assimilation of African Elites into Colonial Structures
It is not surprising, therefore, that Mashele perceives the world in the manner that he does. The educated classes in Africa were historically assimilated into structures of whiteness and entrenched within racist class hierarchies that systematically marginalised and oppressed indigenous populations. These elites, schooled in colonial institutions and exposed to Eurocentric worldviews, frequently internalised the ideological frameworks of their colonial rulers, leading to an epistemological rupture between them and the masses.
Unfortunately, this class of assimmilados or ‘honorary whites,’ a term that speaks to their complicity in perpetuating colonial hierarchies, continues to this present day to advance assimilation projects that, whether consciously or unconsciously, undermine the black population. They perpetuate a system where Western knowledge is privileged, and indigenous knowledge is relegated to the margins, thus hindering the development of genuinely African-centred solutions to the country’s challenges. This perpetuation of colonial mentalities creates a barrier to true liberation, as it maintains a system where African elites are more concerned with gaining approval from external sources, whites in Mashele’s case, than with addressing the needs and aspirations of people.
In Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism, Mahmood Mamdani describes how colonial education in Africa created a bifurcated society where a small Western-educated elite (amazemtiti or majakane) was given limited privileges. At the same time, the vast majority of Africans remained subjects rather than citizens. This process fostered an internalised sense of superiority among the educated elite, who have adopted colonial attitudes toward governance, development and social stratification. Thus, Mashele’s remarks exemplify the ongoing impact of this historical conditioning, where formal Western-style education is upheld as the only legitimate form of knowledge while indigenous intellectual traditions are disregarded.
The Colonial Education System and Its Structural Privileges
As a result, colonial education positioned African elites within a privileged social stratum that not only benefited from but also actively reinforced the racial and economic hierarchies that subjugated the broader native population. This process of incorporation into colonial and post-colonial power structures created a class of intermediaries (amazemtiti or majakane) who, whether consciously or unconsciously, perpetuated the ideological and material conditions of oppression.
This critique aligns with Frantz Fanon’s (1961) argument in The Wretched of the Earth, where he describes how colonial education cultivated a “mimic class” that sought to emulate European values while maintaining a psychological distance from the masses. This class, as Fanon describes, does not seek to transform society but rather to inherit the privileges of the colonial system. This explains why, even in post-apartheid South Africa, figures like Mashele can dismiss individuals such as Papa Penny based on their lack of formal education, as they have been conditioned to view Western education as the primary metric of intelligence and governance capability.
Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Fallacy of Western Superiority
While education encompasses more than organised, formalised learning, dominant perspectives on the subject continue to be driven by colonial narratives. These narratives remain informed by what historian Cheikh Anta Diop calls “the myth of African primitivism,” the erroneous belief that Africa had no advanced intellectual traditions before European intervention. This myth has been perpetuated in various forms, including through “the outdated missionary argument that there was no religion in Africa prior to the arrival of Christianity.” This fiction is linked to another key ideological construct underpinning colonial justifications for erasing African knowledge systems, the doctrine of terra nullius or “land belonging to no one.”
Interestingly, scholars such as Claude Ake and Molefi Kete Asante have demonstrated that African knowledge systems were highly sophisticated and well-adapted to their cultural and environmental contexts. African societies developed rich intellectual traditions that included philosophy, astronomy, medicine, governance and oral literature. Education, as a function of culture, operated within specific and dynamic cultural contexts, and it was by no means inferior to Western pedagogical models. Then the brainwashed would sheepishly ask, “If African knowledge systems were so advanced, why didn’t Africa develop like Europe?”—a question that is itself a product of colonial indoctrination and epistemic violence.
Walter Rodney, in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, meticulously demonstrated that Africa’s historical trajectory was not one of stagnation but was violently interrupted by the transatlantic slave trade, colonial exploitation, apartheid, and resource plundering. African innovations in metallurgy, architecture, agriculture, and governance were widespread and uniquely suited to the continent’s diverse environments. The assumption that Africa failed to ‘develop’ in the European sense ignores the deliberate suppression of African advancement through colonial rule, economic dependency and neocolonial control over African resources and institutions.
Nevertheless, Willem A. Saayman highlights three salient characteristics in the African educational process: observation, imitation, and explanation, with the third being a developmental outcome primarily associated with rites of passage. This process was largely unstructured in terms of time and space because it was based on meeting the practical requirements of life as experienced. Pre-colonial African education also facilitated technological development by focusing on food, clothing and shelter needs. On the spiritual side, it emphasised relationships with the community, elders, the living, the dead and nature.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the colonial legacy of education continues to shape contemporary perceptions of intelligence and leadership in Africa, as demonstrated by Mashele’s dismissive remarks towards Papa Penny. The colonial education system not only perpetuated the notion that Western knowledge is superior, but it also marginalised African knowledge, relegating it to the periphery. However, people like Papa Penny, who have succeeded through cultural pride, community engagement and practical wisdom, challenge education’s narrow, colonial conception. Therefore, there is nothing positive to Mashele’s rant as he promoted meritocracy and superfluous education that have not upgraded the oppressed majority to a position of dignity and equal rights.
Si ya yi banga le economy!
Siyabonga Hadebe is a PhD candidate in international economic law and a labour market expert based in Geneva.
