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Cultural Imperialism By Oshafu Hauwa Umar
A man’s pride lies in his confidence and his personality is greatly nurtured by his culture. Man is essentially the product of his culture; it beats and moulds a person into a particular shape. Culture makes one think, speak, dance, and behave in a particular manner. As soon as a child is born, nature assigns him the task of actualizing himself through culture; it is culture that makes one Kanuri, Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Alago, Tiv, Eggon, etc.
Every society has particular culture, which is peculiar to them. Culture endows each group of people with a “we” attitude. This “we” attitude according to F.C Okoli, exclude all others outside the cultural group, who are referred to as “they”.
Africa as a society has a given culture, which is unique. This culture may not be absolutely the same among all countries; and even within a country a lot of cultures exist. But there are similarities that differentiate Africans from other people of the world.
The issue here is that, any person with an African eyes today will believe that, the very material, spiritual and aesthetic base of African people had been destroyed by western civilization.
A swirl wind of cultural change has started sweeping across African continent, since the arrival of colonial masters. History they said, are review to appreciate the present and to be able to make considerable prediction about future occurrences. In this case white men colonized Africa, those colonial masters arrived Africa with their own culture and languages, which Africans consciously or unconsciously imbibed. In the process of accepting the new culture, they forget to sift carefully and select the important and discard the less important one s. They forgot the existence of their true self (culture). As mentioned by F.C. Okoli “when things fell apart in Africa as a result of the machinations of the Europeans colonizers, two groups of people emerged. On the one hand, are the masses of African population who denied access to the white man’s world resigned themselves to the remnants of what use to be their traditional culture – the old Africa. On other hand, are some elite who have effectively shed themselves of all traces of “traditionalism” bath in white man’s cleansing pond.
These people refused to see that; western culture did not create space for African culture to exist. The colonialists subordinate African authorities, values and norms in the minds of Africa.
The white man first, threw in all his intellectual weight to convince the African that he has no past, at least not the type he could be proud of. P. Curtin in “the image of Africa” has copiously discussed these ideological bases of the so-called Hermitic Hypothesis.
He also provided African with his own language and ties up a array of benefits and perquisites that, would accrue him (the African) once he mastered the white man’s language and culture.
He spared no efforts to denigrate and ridicule African institutions, structures and life-style. African religious practices were scornfully brushed aside as old fashion (primitive)
Traditional African is characterized by its high standard of morality and respect for human life. It has been clear that Africans are notoriously religious people; respect for elders is highly emphasized in traditional African culture.. Africans were also known of their many elaborate festivals and ceremonies. They have particular way of greeting which is peculiar to them.
All these cultural heritage have been watered down by western civilization.
The obvious moral decline in African and in Nigeria in particular is indubitable. This moral decadence has permeated almost all spheres of our culture. Moral consciousness has been equated with awkward and odd life styles. All as a result of African’s careless and failure to hold their culture with high esteem.
Gone were days where life was treasured and values were welcome and hold with high level of respect, where shedding of innocent blood was a gracious offence on earth, where parents hide their faces in shame when their daughters are found out to be non-virgin by their husbands during wed lock,
The traditional notion of chastity and virginity have been rendered absurd by pornographic and sleazy materials displayed on screens, distorting sexuality and condoning promiscuity, which has given rise to active homosexuality and lesbianism in our society today. These cases of reckless sex have led to the rapid spread of STD’s particularly, HIV/AIDs in our society today. Innocent children are dying of this disease. They paid dearly for the offence committed by their parents. This is immoral evil militating against the dignity of human person.
It is a pity that Africans did not see this danger coming.
It is time or Africans to understand that western civilization did not create space for African culture. The preponderant group being the western culture did not recognized that African culture has it own wisdom, insights and values that informed the Africans lives.
Our mode of dressing has been totally distorted by western civilization through foreign films and media content. Today we seem not to have any cultural attire. Our people now prefer to go naked on the streets as against our culture, micro minis with handless tops has this to show. The acculturation of “blue jean and hamburger” has gradually found it way into young people in African society. The issue of dress code has led to controversies in our high institute in today. Example is the NASSELL crises in University of Maiduguri. Cases of immoral dressing have also gave way to rapid sexual harassment among students and lecturers, bosses and their employees. Raping in our society today came as a result of reckless dressing code by ladies.
The moral excellence of African society has over nigh transformed into moral decay. Elders are no longer respected our rapid festivals and ceremonies are now seen as “old school”
To many Nigerians, culture is almost synonymous with dance, for today’s traditional dances are performed in festivals and social functions all over the country. In contrast music, dance, drama, architecture and literature are just living symbols of our culture and studying them can lead to some appreciation of our cultural heritage.
This notion we have about culture has led to the hosting of the first African festival of Arts and Culture in Lagos, Nigeria, 1977. Since Africans think of culture in terms of dances, the jungle drums and folklor e, they though it enough if they assert the need for their revival.
It should be noted here that, striving to maintain one’s culture should not be seen as being ethnocentric. Culture cannot be perfect and so should not be absolutised. A cross-cultural perspective is therefore, a better approach to culture. One should not pretend that the interaction between Africa and western countries has not done Africa any good, not at all. In fact western civilization furnished the African man with materials progress, but blindfolded him to the vision of transcendence, denied him his quest for self preservation. Western civilization is not totally harmful to African values, infact it has done great good to Africans, but we should not be scarified at the alter of total compromise of our true identity. After all we received everything from them without a second thought.
Now which way? My dear Africans; in spite of all strides in cultural revival in the past, there is till a danger of confusing culture with an irrelevant traditionalism. Certainly it is not possible to lift traditional cultures in tact into modern Africa. But there are values that we cherished as Africans, and if revived will do us great good. Now what measures are we taken in reviving our rich culture? Or did we agree with Hamitic and Semitic hypothesis? That says African has n o past to be proud of. No God forbid we have to do something to stop this wind of cultural change that has been sweeping our society.
The issue at hand here is that, since Africa has inherited enough from her foreign colonizers, it is time for us to start appreciating these things and blending them into traditional African society in order to bear African trade Mark Gone were day where local made product are used and cherished. Now we tend to enjoy using foreign product to the detriment of our own local made products. But thanks to president Olusengun Obasanjo’s regime that banned the importation of foreign product that can equally be produced locally.
Our focus here, should be on the revival of the traditional morality for which African was known. Parents here should play the major role of ensuring moral behaviour of their children. This in the long-run will surely help-eradicate moral vices and crimes, such as bribery and corruption; reckless sex, outrageous dressing code among male and females and other perpetual evils, which have made our traditional African values more vulnerable.
Using this will help greatly in achieving safe and healthy environment. If we stayed out of unprotected and pre-marital sex STDs, especially HID/AIDs will not have found it way into our society. Now is the time to react to these moral vices by using our culture. Thanks Sincerely yours
Oshafu Hauwa Umar Department of Mass Comm University of Maiduguri
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