Why do Africans have European names?

3 reasons I have been given so far:

1. They were mythically told that adapting a Christian name was a mark that they had been saved and baptised and were a now a new creature with new name. Its a myth because no where in the Bible does it say that you have to change your name...
2. The white colonisers got fed up trying to pronounce Wambugu, Onyancha and said we had to have European names to get jobs on their farms. There is some truth here because my grandfather said it was either that or you were called brooryfoo (bloody fool) or "boy" and the later is anathema to the circumcising tribes.
3. To be more like our European masters, we adapted their names.

You see culture imperialism is the subtlest and most powerful form of colonialism. Today, Africans will laugh at you for having the temerity not top have a Christian or Western sounding name. We are no longer intrigued by the origins of our African names, our history, the history of our and origin of the names of places...

So why not the same for the Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Arabs and many other free nations?

Why I blog about Africa

The nairobi banker has tagged me on why I blog about Africa...

I blog about Africa or more accurately Kenya, because despite living in the UK for 10+ yrs, I am the quintessential homebody. You can take me out of Kenya but you can't take Kenya out of me. So today I blog about Kenya and Africa because its one of the best cures for homesickness that I know.

I blog about Kenya and Africa because I want to strongly counter the negative vision of Africa that the West and its media likes feeding us. Some of it maybe true, but there is much more positive stuff that they could also report on, but don't have the gumption to.

• What about the Kenya/Africa that has produced Mpesa the first of its kind in the world?
• Or even Equity, a bank that has literally turned Kenyan banking upside down so that banks are now genuinely interested in the low working class?
• How about the upcoming fibre optic cable and consequent explosion in internet penetration?
• The rejuvented economies of Ug, Angola, Mozambique
• The peaceful, democractic and prosperous Botswana
• Or the fact that for every Kenya/Zim election fiasco, there is a Ghana/Zambia election pass?

I blog about Africa because it’s the future, most other places have already peaked and we are just building up...

I also blog as a way of networking with fellow Kenyans/Africans and specifically those interested in investing and growing our economies.

And now I pass the button to:
friend and fellow blogger, Ssembonge;
missing in action Pesa-tu/Realist;
And new comers Hatua and Huduma Bora