"Crisis in the soul"

Chinua Achebe:

What I think is the basic problem of a ... country like Nigeria is really what you might call a "crisis in the soul." We have been subjected — we have subjected ourselves too — to this period during which we have accepted everything alien as good and practically everything local or native as inferior. I could give you illustrations of when I was growing up, the attitude of our parents, the Christian parents, to Nigerian dances, to Nigerian handicrafts; and the whole society during this period began to look down on itself, you see, and this was a very bad thing; and we haven't actually, even now with the independence, we still haven't got over this period [...] You see, a writer has a responsibility to try and stop this.

– Pieterse, C.; Duerden, D. (1972). "African Writers Talking". pp. 7-8.