THE ILLUSION OF SUPERIORITY: DECONSTRUCTING COLONIAL EDUCATION AND CULTURAL ALIENATION IN MONGO BETI’S MISSION TO KALA

Abstract

This study examines the representation of colonial education and cultural alienation in Mongo Beti’s Mission to Kala. Colonial education functioned not merely as a means of formal instruction but also as an important instrument through which European cultural values and assumptions were transmitted to colonised African societies. In Beti’s novel, Jean-Marie Medza, the protagonist, initially embodies the prestige associated with Western education. Although he has failed his school examination, the people of Kala regard him with extraordinary admiration because of his exposure to European schooling. His experiences in the village, however, gradually expose the limitations of his education and the cultural distance it has created between him and indigenous realities. Using a qualitative close-reading approach and drawing on Postcolonial Theory, particularly Frantz Fanon’s concept of psychological alienation, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s notion of the “cultural bomb,” and Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of colonial mimicry, the study analyses Medza’s cultural and psychological predicament. It argues that Beti employs satire, irony and Medza’s journey to deconstruct the supposed superiority of colonial education. The study finds that the protagonist’s schooling has equipped him with social prestige but has inadequately prepared him for meaningful engagement with the practical and cultural realities of his society. The novel consequently questions an educational system that alienates individuals from their cultural foundations and presents cultural self-knowledge as an important component of meaningful education and genuine emancipation.