Colonial Continuity in Post-Colonial African States: A Threat to Peacebuilding, Culture of Peace and Sustainable Development

Description

Page: 1602-1609

Eric Blanco Niyitunga¹ and Caleb Kandagor² (School of Public Management, Governance and Public Policy, University of Johannesburg, South Africa¹ and Department of Community Development, School of Applied Human Sciences, Daystar University, Kenya²)

The existence of colonial continuity in Africa has undermined and prevented any peacebuilding efforts from advancing to achieve a culture of peace to realise sustainable development. Colonial continuity has made peacebuilding efforts in Africa face setbacks due to the persistence of external interference and foreign cultures embedded within the peacebuilding model exported to Africa. Africa’s failures to achieve a culture of peace during the peacebuilding in the post-conflict reconstruction situations would enhance the possibility of achieving sustainable development. The study found that the triggers of conflicts and their recurrence during post-conflict reconstruction situations in Africa are rooted in the peacebuilding model itself and deepened by the complex and persistent colonial continuity. The study found that colonial continuity and Western attributes and/or values are embedded within the peacebuilding model itself, thus necessitating a radical liberation. This has prevented the achievement of a durable peacebuilding that would have led to a culture of peace for realising sustainable development. The study found that for a durable peacebuilding that brings about a culture of peace to be achieved in Africa, there is a need to have genuine and uninterrupted commitment to decolonisation. Such decolonisation must involve decoloniality of power, knowledge and being as well as epistemic and cultural. The study adopted a qualitative research methodology and relied on desktop research. Secondary data was collected through a qualitative research approach and was analysed through a document analysis technique.