When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don’t just turn it off one day.

Achebe’s remark underscores the inertia and deep social embedding of long-lived customs. Traditions that persist for centuries are not merely habits but systems of meaning, authority, and identity, reinforced by institutions, rituals, and collective memory. The quote cautions against naïve expectations that entrenched practices—whether cultural norms, political arrangements, or inherited prejudices—can be abolished by a single decree or moment of enlightenment. Change, Achebe implies, requires sustained effort: persuasion, generational shifts, and the slow reweaving of social consensus. It also gestures toward empathy in cultural critique, acknowledging that people live inside traditions that feel natural and inevitable, even when those traditions are contested or harmful.