The recent debate surrounding French President Emmanuel Macron asking attendees at an Africa-France summit to maintain silence while speakers addressed the room, sparked a deeper conversation far beyond conference etiquette.
To some, it symbolised colonial arrogance; to others, it was a call for order and professionalism. But perhaps the real issue is not Mr Macron.
May be the issue is Africa’s growing difficulty in balancing historical awareness with present-day accountability.
History undeniably matters. Great African leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Thomas Sankara and Nelson Mandela existed within complex geopolitical realities shaped by foreign interests, ideological battles, economic competition and global power structures.
To deny this entirely would be intellectually dishonest. But there is another danger emerging across parts of the continent: the temptation to explain every present dysfunction exclusively through external interference. At some point, a society must ask itself difficult internal questions.
Not every challenge is colonialism. Not every criticism is oppression.
Not every disorder is externally orchestrated. Sometimes accountability is necessary. Even conversations around xenophobia reveal this tension. Increasingly, there are narratives suggesting that Africans are merely being manipulated into hating one another by hidden external powers.
While external influence can exist in global politics, reducing all internal conflict to outside manipulation risks removing personal and collective responsibility entirely.
Nations are not only destroyed by oppression. They are also weakened by corruption, tribalism, institutional fragility, emotional reactionism, poor leadership culture, and the inability to self-correct. True liberation, therefore, cannot remain purely political rhetoric.
It must also become: mental, structural, economic, institutional, and spiritual.
A continent cannot rise globally while rejecting discipline, professionalism, emotional maturity and accountability in public spaces.
The future of Africa will not be built merely by identifying who hurt us, it will be built by deciding who we are becoming.