Kenyan | Dutch
I had just moved from Tanzania to the Netherlands to study and also try out my chances with professional football in Europe. At one point, I was not satisfied with the way things were going with football and my studies. I felt very stuck. I had to sit down and think about what I wanted. As I questioned everything, one of the things I realised was that, in my pursuit of a football career, I was disadvantaged when it came to the dominant narrative of the way things are supposed to work in this world. I began to fully grasp and understand the ‘West is the best’ concept. I realised that I was ‘behind’ the Dutch footballers of my age simply because I grew up in East Africa. Our standard for ‘good’ back home did not live up to that of the Dutch standard, the standard that qualifies for success in the world of football. In my head I did not agree with this philosophy. With my own eyes, back home, I had witnessed and been a part of ‘good’ football. Football that flourished based on athleticism, flare and creativity. This was not the same football that flourished in the Netherlands.
This perspective of ‘good’ is respective to a range of things such as beliefs and even environmental conditions of an area. It is these things that influence people to carry out actions the way that they do. This is not only applicable to football but to many other areas of the social scene. It is unfair to dismiss a perspective or label an epistemology as inferior without understanding its foundation. Sadly, this is something that happens a lot. Too often eurocentrism dismisses ideas and philosophies simply due to the fact that they are non-western.
It is through this experience that a new purpose within me was born. I became really passionate about decolonising prevalent dominant narratives, especially ones in relation to the African continent. I try to explore these narratives in the daily conversations I have and also in a blog that I started called Decolonise the Mind (Twitter: @Decolonise_w_N).
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