AFRICAN DRAMA KOBINA SEKYE: The Blinkards. Assess the negative impact of colonialism in the play.

Answer Details

In Kobina Sekyi's The Blinkards, colonialism is presented as a corrupting force that has damaged the identity, values and social harmony of the coastal Gold Coast community. Writing as a nationalist, Sekyi uses satire to expose the many negative effects of colonial rule and the cultural surrender it produced.

Cultural alienation and self-contempt. The most damaging effect is that colonialism has made Africans ashamed of their own culture. Characters like Mrs. Borofosem and Mr. Borofosem despise African dress, food, names and customs and strive to be English in everything. Colonialism has "blinded" them, hence the title, so that they can no longer see the worth of their own heritage.

The corruption of language. Colonial education has led many to prize English and scorn the vernacular. Some characters insist on speaking English badly rather than their own tongue well, and the play mocks the affected, broken English of those who imitate their colonial masters, showing how language becomes a mark of pretended superiority.

Distortion of marriage and social custom. Colonial and Christian influence disrupts traditional practices surrounding courtship and marriage. The confusion over the marriage of Bassa and Tsiba, and the clash between English wedding customs and African tradition, dramatises how imported ways create disorder and hypocrisy when grafted carelessly onto local life.

Class division and snobbery. Colonialism breeds a pretentious elite that measures status by proximity to European ways. The cosmopolitan club and the fashionable set look down on ordinary people who keep to native custom, producing social snobbery and division within the community.

Loss of authentic values. By encouraging imitation over genuine progress, colonialism substitutes surface Anglicisation for real development. The play suggests that the colonised have gained mere mimicry while losing the dignity, wisdom and cohesion of their own culture.

Sekyi's corrective. Against this decay, the figure of Onyimdze embodies the balanced, self-respecting African who resists cultural surrender. Through him Sekyi argues that the antidote to colonial damage is pride in one's own identity married to sensible use of what is genuinely valuable in Western learning.

In conclusion, The Blinkards portrays colonialism as breeding cultural shame, linguistic affectation, social snobbery and the erosion of authentic values, and Sekyi's satire is a nationalist protest against the blindness it produced.