Afrikan people have been forced to assimilate no matter where we have been on this earth.
We have had to take up the white mans rules, his customs and his ways even on the mother continent.
I was watching a movie called "BURN" starring Marlon Brando made in the 70's about a british mercenary who was paid to go to an island in the Caribbean and start an uprising amongst the blacks there to divide the country into civil war.
The portuguese had control of the nation but the poruguese natives there wanted to start up their own nation with their own government and the freedom to trade with whoever they wanted.
So the mercenary trained up this black guy to rebel against the portuguese and eventually the country was divided.
The two opposing governments (the new republic made from the portuguese whites and the new black republic) came together to discuss how they could live in peace.
But the black general didnt want to live by the white mans laws, rules and customs so he chose to remain seperate and he was as a result forced to give up his rule.
The whites took over because he and his people didnt want to assimilate.
But the mercenary told him straight out that civilization belongs to the white man now.
And he must follow his rules in order to get ahead.
I dont think that is true.
While i do believe that we should use some of their tactics to build our civilization and run our own nations, i think when it comes to our traditional ways of doing things we should follow our own customs, culture, rules and traditions.
I can see why so many whites truly believe that they are superior to us.
We value the things that they make for themselves.
We value their cars, clothes, shoes, gizmos and technology.
And i can see why: some of what they ahve created is far more superior to anything ever produced in history.
But we also value their family system (mother, father and children living in a home) which is alien to the family household our ancestors created (extended family with grandparents, aunts uncles cousins and living together).
We value their literature and their art without valuing our own.
We value their social customs and religions without reckognizing we had customs and religions of our own before we were taken here and forced to live under their rules.
The white man hasnt accepted other peoples traditions and yet the stay on top of the world.
The japanese with all of the problems they've had from europeans still held on to their traditions and yet they are one of the main economic powers in the world.
There are some things we have to accept (like the fact that we have to follow their laws and rules in order to stay out of jail).
But i think we should seriously think about uprooting and taking back some of our ancient afrikan traditions.
For instance in many west afrikan nations during and prior to the slave trade, many afrikans didnt know what a cold was because we used traditional herbs to cure ourselves of all types of diseases.
Afrikan doctors and universities were some of the best on earth to the point where peolple from as far as europe and the middle east came to afrika to study techniques and herbal formulas created by afrikans.
I can go on and on but the point im trying to make is look at what we created ourselves and you'll see that what we had, in many ways, is far superior to the lifestyles we presently lead.
We need to look back in our history and find the best of what we had and find some way to update it so that we can use it again.
8 comments:
"you'll see that what we had, in many ways, is far superior to the lifestyles we presently lead." - so true, so true....interesting enough, I too have bee pondering this very same point. My thoughts are leading me back to the basics....basic food, basic hairstyles, basic study, basic praise, basic thanks, basic relationships. Not that all of the above cannot be very complex and multi-faceted things. But, when we study our "history"/"culture" we see how far from so many basics we have strayed.
Hmmm, I dont think civilization belongs only to the white. We are all agents
So many white pple have taking what we do up as part of civilization too. Some of them now make thier hair the african way
There are so many things wrong with our culture too. FGM being one of them but I am an advocate of let preserve our food, our hairstyles, fashion just like KC hinted.
Talking abt fashion as in the clothes we wear, I dont like being on wrappers like we do in Yoruba land so, that wont work for me. But men we have got other gorgeous stuff and the whites that come around here do get into what we do cos they like it
I dont think anyone is superior is all about us living together, working/walking together and loving together
hey... this tradition thing and assimilation i think is a global thing, i think it is sonmething god wanted, a global community where we all give to one another, our unique fdiversity... it is just that man kind in its fallen state is so full of competition and domination and greed and all thats ugly thus those that were deemed weaker have been mauled over to join the hordes... bandwagon, but i cant blame whites all together, i think that no one has the power to control me unless i give it to him... we could have fought like the asians but we must agree we were awed by the white man and a number of leaders were bought over coz they thought they were gods... gees civilization started in africa! if you read the history books. anyway, in a way what we have gleaned off the whole civilation thing from whites is not al together bad... no, i tll you, if you lived in africa you would understand, lemme give you examples, twins were killed coz they were considered evil, a woman that got pregnant before she was married was murdered as punishment, in some tribes, like mine, (my grandmam's sisters still honour this tradition)
women were not allowed to eat meat, chicken, eggs, all the nice stuff, it was left for me, and then a wife was shaed by the whole family, say my father in law came home to visti or my brother in law, my husband would give me to him for the night... as a 'welcome' sign.
there are so many things i cant put down but... in general, we also had some advancement, we never realsied all thepotential we had and thus never used it...the whites were shrewd ad fast and to this day keep us on the leash coz we let them... thats my view... we made them feel suerior, its up to us to undo what was done back then
Well said. Yes, the whites have made living much more easier in many aspects, but there's nothing wrong with embracing our culture..we can't ignore our roots.
I'd suggest u visit some African countries if u can..starting with Nigeria of course :)
Okay, here is ma 2cents and a penny:
In this life, whatever, whoever and wherever you are, you need to learn that your way isnt the perfect way. While learning to embrace our culture, lets not forget that other cultures, also deserve some forms of respect.
With this said, I think its important to assimilate the better things you learn, and sieve out the junk that arent as good as your tradition.
I for one, do prefer the monogamy way of having a family...one mother, one father, and whatever many kids... I chose to assimilate that. I also chose to assimilate some parts of the ways that the western culture values respect for children BUT i chose to sieve out the junk of their culture that allows children to be rude and to dominate their parents and elders. NO CULTURE has all the right answers and as much as I LOVE being African, I know that some aspects of African culture are actually really crappy.
So I've decided to redefine MY culture, which is prettymuch a mixture of the better things from all the experiences I have had.
Oh and may I remind you that culture was MADE?! It isnt something that God passed down like the 10 commandments...African culture was manmade. And i mean that in more ways the one. Most aspects of Afican culture was influenced by men, hence why our culture tends to favour men so much. In some African cultures, a woman may NEVER EVER refuse whatever her man tells her to do...she must never run for help even if he decides to beat her to near death, she must never get angry when he has other women, ... and this gets passed down generations so that when a woman does decide to get help from say...an abusive relationship, the society denies her any help because they dont believe that she should ever ask for any... I dont know if you know where am going here but my point is, Culture itself, is transitional and i BELIEVE that that is necessary as we need to shift the power AWAY From the egocentric motivations that may've influenced the cultural practices/beliefs in the first place.
I do agree that some people tend to totally forget about their culture because they're insecured and stuff but hey! We'll always have insecured people who do not kno wwhat htey have, but am hoping we can have less and less people who do not believe in changes.
Peace, Love and AfricanBread...(yumm lol)
~LongLiveAfrica~
@Dairy of a mad sister: you are a woman after my own heart with the way you put everything in the right perspective.
Lulu made so powerful contribution and so is Buttercup.
I thought I was the only one that saw a lot of things wrong with our traditions and these things actually took so many times to fight off, some we are still fighting. And you dear sisters made mention of some of them such as dominations, the killing of twins and so on
And it will be good if James Tubman can visit some African Countries starting from Nigeria to be able to grasp a lot of issues that the feminists like me resist
Tradition is good but we should be ready to sieve the many bad aspects
Thump up sisters
i think one of our main problems is that we are so overloaded with confusint information
you see ads everywhere telling you should think a certain way look a certain way, talk a certain way
everything is so confusing now-a-days
there is a study that has been done since the early 1900's
and it asks of the population "what makes you happy"
people have historically said the smae thing over and over again
great relationships, leisure time, financial independence, peace of mind
this is what our afrikan civilizations tried to develop most of all when you look at the real history (not the history built by foreigeners)
sure they had to train the population to resist temptation and to be hard but they also established instituitions that tried very hard to keep their populations protected from enemeies and comfortable (i dont know if that makes any sense)
not all was good but not all wa bad either
@lulu... you make so much sense
and thank you so very much for schooling me on some of the inept pollicies that some afrikan cultures had
i dont know what to say
the only thing i can say os that i have a loooooooot of learning to do
that is why i like you lulu
not only are you beautiful but you are smart as a bullet (i just made that expression up)
you are a real catch my dear
@butta... i would love to visit nigeria
i wouldnt mind seeing you in south afrika as well
when i visit there ill be sure to give you a ring baby :)
@sorry standtall... neither one of us are superior to the other
every ethnic group in the world has given something of great value to the world but the afrikan contribution to civilization has been denied for so long even though we gave the most of any other group
like cheikh aanta diop said (scientist from senegal) if afrikan people had stayed in afrika instead of populating the world every other sopt in the world except afrika would be a desert
and there would be no whites, no asians no native americans
we would be the only ones living
every other ethnic group owes us everything because we are their mothers and fathers
thats somethig to think about
@diary... the aquarius is definately a seeker of knowledge
that statement was so complete
i dont know if i can really add anything
i think the afrikans who are abusing women have fallen into the chauvanistic trap set by european and middle eastern cultures
im not saying that there was no indigeneous civilization in afrika that wasnt chauvanistic
but i am saying that we had many civilizations in west afrika that were matrilineal (favored the influence and blood line of the women over the men)where there was a great respect for women in that society
of course i probably dont know as much as you all would because you all came from there but i know somethings
and i do know that if you study the history of the european and how they treated their women and children it is worse when compared to how afrikans treated theirs
why do you always have to tell me "sorry"?
Have you ever lived in Africa? If you have then you ill stop shifting the blames of our faults, errors and all
Come to Africa, read our history then you will have a better perpsective of a lot fo issues
Pls stop blaming all the wrong deals of our forefathers on the white! FGM has being existing b4 they came, so is the killing of the twins and so many others issues.
We will heal and move forward if we know that the shoes pinches cos we are stepping in wrong places
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