A Speech Presented at the Fourth Achebe Conference, University of Nigeria, Nsukka on March 9th, 2021
There is a familiar joke that
ever since the Niger Deltans were told that the solution to their problems is
in the pipeline, they do nothing but drag and fight over oil wells and
pipelines.
Dating back to pre-colonial
times, with reference to historical books and artifacts, it is obvious that
Africans enjoyed a level of peace and unity, compared to this period of
renaissance, after the ‘whites’ invaded the sanity of the ‘blacks’. Since then,
our value system and culture have been under threat, and are gradually going
into extinction. Chinua Achebe’s novel ‘Things fall Apart’ is a typical example
of how the ‘Whites’ invaded the ‘black’ nations. Things fell apart ever since,
and we are no longer at ease. A certain school of thought strongly believe that
African values have become non-relatable and translatable, and therefore have
no place in this age.
Have we actually lost our place
– value system and cultural heritage in the globe? Are there chances of
regaining our space in this competitive world? Should we now say that white men
are the root of our problems; that we don’t need their educational system,
their science and technology, their mode of worship of the Supreme Being, and their
social and digital life, that we have placed higher above ours? To set our
priorities right and answer the above questions, we need to examine our values
and cultures against that of our pre-colonial masters.
African Values
“He who does not know how to
look back at where he came from will never get to his destination.” – Jose
Rizal. Africans are known for their rich values which, to mention but a few are
as follows:
1. Greeting – Africans, based on their various tribes have special ways of greeting their elders and superiors. In some places, their males bow while their females prostrate to greet elders. Handshake among age groups is also common in most parts of Africa. Back then, elders raise their brows when youngsters greet in a weird manner, they even rebuke them for such a greeting. Youths then are conscious of their environment, and they are careful not to disobey or provoke the elders. But today, elders and youths seem to be robbing shoulders, the atmosphere of respect is gradually vanishing. We now hear greetings like hi mum, hi dad; with hands in the pocket, etc.
2. Value for more number of children and large/extended family co-habitation: Men pride themselves in the number of wives they got married to and the number of children they have given birth to. That large/extended family system that produced strong and fearless men then is gradually phasing out.
3. Hard work: During pre-colonial times, almost every African family has farmland, and wealth was measured based on the fatness or quality/quantity of one’s crop/harvest. Farming, hunting, fishing, etc were considered as jobs for real men while those who do nothing but sing or play music were seen as a weakling or lazy people, or better still, categorized as women.
4. Respect and worship of a supreme deity: During pre-colonial times, Africans worshipped many things they called god, known to them as the mediator between them and the Supreme Being. Some molded their god, some carved wood and called it god while some others worshipped water goddess, trees, sun, moon, etc. Those gods were valued and respected by them. They feared committing certain crimes in order not to incur the wrath of their god.
5. Political
Structure/Value for kings (Monarchs): The system of government then was mainly
monarchy. They had family heads, village heads, community heads, and tribal
heads and those were highly respected and revered. Some value their king to the
extent of burying him with human heads when he dies.
African Culture
“Having a low opinion of
yourself is not modesty, it's self-destruction. Holding your uniqueness in high
regard is not egotism, it’s a necessary precondition to happiness and success.”
– Bobbe Sommer
Aside from boundaries and color,
cultural identity gave Africans a unique definition, which can only be accepted
by others, if we accept and value ourselves. Some of African heritage includes
the following:
1. Food: Staple foods like yam, cassava, corn, millet, wheat, etc are common to Africans but different methods of preparation and eating apply. Some people turn up their noses at the restaurants when they see others eating eba, fufu, pounded yam etc. with their bare hands, but these same people stress themselves out while trying to eat same with fork and knife. Some people don’t even eat our local dishes anymore because to them, they are archaic. According to Chika Unigwe, when our bush meat crosses the borders of Africa to Europe and America, it becomes game, and most Africans who are ashamed to eat bush meat will take pleasure in eating game because the name has become civilized. Who did this to us?
2. Fashion: We were proud of our local fashion before civilization. We pride ourselves in our jigida, wrappers, uli, etc before we got entangled in foreign dressing codes. Today, uli, used for body decorations and paintings have been replaced with tattoos. It is a good thing that our fabrics, like Ankara are making waves again.
3. Language: This is the worst-hit because we hardly use our languages these days. Parents these days rather raise their children using English than their native language. The funny thing is that most of them can’t even use English correctly, and their wards end up learning it the wrong way, all in the name of following the trend. Most Africans judge intellectual faculty based on the ability to use English fluently or not, as if English is all that we need to survive on earth.
4. Festivals: The long-cherished African festivals are gradually submitting to foreign festivals. Take Nigeria for instance and Igbo in particular, Our New Yam Festivals, ofalla festivals, Igba Nkwu, Wrestling, music etc. are gradually turning to carnivals, cantatas, fiestas, etc.
5. Native Names: Most Africans are ashamed of their native names, some take up English names of their choice for themselves if their parents didn’t give them any. Some prefer to answer names of European/American dogs rather than answer their native names, just to be accepted or recognized by the Oyibos.
6. Informal Education: Formal education has taken over African informal ways of teaching their children proper manners, moral values, personal hygiene, and home tricks. Today, morality sounds strange, even in the ears of children.
7. Folklores/Superstition:
The culture of gathering around a tree to listen to folklores usually told by
elders has gone into extinction. If at all some people still have that culture
it will be very few African villages. What we hear about today is bedtime
stories read to children by their parents, and most of those stories are mainly
Disney land stories that don’t connect them to their identity and heritage. Most
Africans believe that the position of the star on their birth date has an effect
on their personality and therefore determine their fate, but found it difficult
to believe their grandmother’s superstitious jargons. We can go on and on.
Having gone through African
values and cultures, the question now is, should we go back to how it used to
be? We already know that it is not possible. Another question is, Should we
forego our identity and completely embrace the identity and cultures that stare
us in the face daily through our TV sets, internet and social media? We have
come a long way and there is no going back. Culture is dynamic, and there is
nothing wrong with embracing foreign culture. But where a culture poses more
threat or harm than good, the best thing to do is to sieve and take what is
friendly to us.
An average African thinks he is
inferior to the whites, and we tend to be gullible when we come in contact with
the whites. That is why we place much value on foreign products, foreign
schools, etc. The whites know this, and that it why they value their dogs more
than Africans. They capitalized on our inferiority mindset and made us believe
that we are worthless, and so is our thinking, language, food, mode of
dressing, and everything that made us who we are. The result is that we are
facing a lot of crises today that seem to be beyond our control.
21st Century Crisis
There is no doubt that
colonialism stimulated positive and negative changes in Africa and injected
many vices that brought about an unending crisis. The fact is that civilization
and everything it has to offer has come to stay but it is left for us to manage
the situation.
Laziness: Civilization made us
less creative and lazy because almost every activity has become computerized. A
large number of us now sit in offices pressing computer to solve our numerous
task.
Immorality: Due to the influx of
culture through civilization, lesbians, homosexuals, and prostitute have become
bold enough to defend their immoral activities
Violence: Colonial rule brought
about greed, oppression, and capitalism. No doubt, corruption, cheating,
violence etc. found their way into the African leadership system, kicking out the
traditional setting that ensures morality and decency.
Abuse of Africans by Africans:
Colonialism opened the eyes of Africans to the slave trade which abused the dignity
of human value, making even Africans to hate themselves and treat their fellow
Africans as worthless.
Political Rivalry: It was
colonialism that taught Africans that with power, they can make laws that will
enable them to commit crimes and also make laws that will exonerate them from such
crimes. That is why African leaders commit all sorts of crime, including
killing, embezzling of public funds, etc in order to rise to power and also
when they are in power. The result today is rioting, protests, armed-robbery,
kidnapping, etc due to poverty that is ravaging Africans. Need we say more? Terrorism
has rendered many people homeless because the government that has brought so
much pain on its citizens has failed to protect them. We can go on and on.
What should we do?
The worst is that these vices
and crisis are gradually becoming our new norms and most of us are helpless in
the situation, wondering if it will ever come to an end.
We always say that the only
constant thing in life is change. We
swayed towards civilization without thinking, now that we are better-equipped
knowledge-wise, we can also marry our cultural heritage with friendly foreign
cultures and come to an equilibrium. Nobody can do that for us except us and we
can start by adopting the following strategies.
1. We
should start by priding ourselves in our colour, food, arts, craft, etc because
God has placed in our lands the kind of skin, food, craft, etc that we need for
our survival.
2. We need
to start defending our good cultural values against any foreign threat.
3. We
should learn to preserve our cultural products and records for historical
purposes. (even the whites treasured them when they first came to Africa) Such
materials should be archived and used as educational materials.
4. Our
movie industries should project our values and culture, and tell our stories
instead of confusing our stories with that of a foreign culture.
5. Government
of post-colonial countries should start sponsoring bills and making laws that
will promote cultural research and defend cultures of their respective nations
and not waste time on laws about legalizing gay and prostitution.
6. Africans
should start producing movies and books in their various dialects.
7. Africans
should start telling their war stories, love stories, legendary stories, etc
for the world to hear.
8. Africans
should promote their own games along with the foreign games and sports.
9. Africans
should start teaching their children their mother tongue and let them learn
English or French in their schools as their Lingua Franca or second language
because a person without a native language is like one having no background.
Conclusion
“A successful person is one who
can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others throw at him/her.” – David
Brinkley
We will never bring things the way they used to be, and even if we can, we don’t need to, because colonization
brought much good to us than harm. The whites have opened our eyes to knowledge
and we love their science and technology, craft, music, sports/games, etc, but
we will be richer and stronger if we carry along our values and cultural
heritage, i.e., if we don’t lose our sense of dignity in the face of modernism.
Written by Olive Chinyere Amajuoyi
For Sam Maduka Onyishi
