We've adopted many European traits & customs on the African continent & by our reluctance to decolonize or follow our own ways, one could assume that we want to be European. In South Africa, I blame this in the sheer oversaturation in Eurocentricism when we're younger. So much so that it becomes a decades long process to re-Africanize at times.
The thing is, you become whatever you see as better when you were young. If your people are dominated by a foreign culture, you'll likely see that culture as better & often adopt it (sometimes subconsciously) in many ways.
Here in South Africa, coming from our seperate, respective indigenous tribes; we seem to have spent no time in embracing a South African identity our forefathers never embraced to begin with themselves. The trouble with unsuspecting simple folk like precolonial Africans is that they are just trying to survive, concepts like clothing attire & language are seldom important in their quest to just get something (food & shelter) to survive. Pehaps, language & culture are less important to them because they ONLY know of their own language & culture. The "importance of language & culture" thus identity become important to the educated who no longer see their world as new.
Often, a nation's survival relies on the ability of the people to keep their language, customs & cultural practices alive. And if they can't do that they'll cease to exist.
I believe that we emulate foreign cultures so much because we often have no mainstream alternative as Africans when European nationalism protected Europe from being over-influenced by foreign cultures so much to the extent that their own identity is almost erased.
When we're oversaturated in Eurocentric thoughts & media from our youth, it becomes ingrained in some. We simply want to pursue whatever seems better, whether it be European or American. The tragedy with South African people who want to promote their own is that they're sometimes stifled in doing so by being either shown a foreign alternative or told "We don't do that here" as if the outside world does not exist. The trouble with this is if you ignore the outside world is that you block an opportunity to learn something new & improve yourself & your society. It is a cycle - where if a people, culture or language refuses to acknowledge that the outside world exists, they become almost inherently in danger of being influenced by stronger external circumstances whereas were they to learn from the outside world & create their own alternative, they'd become a stronger language & culture.
People who never learnt to write, record their history & celebrate it on a frequent basis are today not known & most likely have been assimilated to a nation that could.
It is seldom that an isolated community becomes a strong identity. The few cases this exists are Easter Island, the Aztecs & various African tribes. When coming into contact with other, perhaps stronger tribes, they become almost subordinate like with colonization of the reclused world by Europeans. Mister Thomas Sowell once, eloquently, stated why Africa was so isolated from the developing outside world (it's simple geography) & to add to this, perhaps the reason why Europe & Asia became so developed is because they were home to more than one species of hominid at the same period.
Our need to emulate foreign cultures comes from the lack of immersion in our own culture & then adding value to our identity to make it richer. Perhaps our tribe doesn't make it easy by ostracising helpful "different" concepts, this is the very ignorance that leads to a nation's downfall. We need to create answers to the outside world so that the youth doesn't see itself as inferior by not being a certain foreign identity. Then & only then will we stop the need to mimic Europe & America.
It is not diversity that strengthens an identity (& national vision) but rather inclusion. European (& Usonian) identity is so strong because of inclusion of immigrants. Were they exclusive & kept to themselves, an influx of outsiders could very well dilute their culture, identity & ultimately their language. They'd then be like the mimicking Africans looking in from the outside of Europe rather than have nationalized "immigrants" who share their vision, language, culture & customs.