Recently, African culture eggheads met in Ethiopia at the instance of the African Union (AU) to remind Africans both home and abroad that culture is necessary for human and physical developments. Edozie Udeze writes on the imperativeness of this timely intervention
Pan-Africanists, African scholars and culture technocrats have always maintained that African peoples wherever they are should not discard their norms and traditional values. All those positive cultural elements that bind the people together and give them leverage over other continents of the world should be kept and projected in order to make the continent of Africa and it crop of leaders excel and perform better.
These and more were the issues raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, recently when a crop of African culture eggheads and technocrats met to discuss ways to use peoples’ cultural values and heritage to turn the continent towards meaningful development and advancement. The conference, termed the 3rd Pan-African Cultural Congress (PACC3), was organised by the African Union (AU) and held in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.
The central concern of those at the helm of cultural affairs in Africa is that globalisation should not be allowed to distract the people from those positive issues that have been good for the welfare of the African peoples. “Globalisation ofers great opportunities, but its benefits at present are unevenly shared… And of course, persistent inequalities and struggles over scarce resources are among the key determinants of situation of conflicts, hunger, insecurity and violence which in turn are key factors that hold back human development and efforts to achieve sustainable development,” one of the official sources said.
Using culture as a predicate, the youths in particular, should be taught the culture of respect, honesty, handwork, diligence, love for their own dressing and traditions, and the need to be proud of what is their own. This was why in his paper titled Cultural Pan-Africanism as pillar for sustainable development in Africa, Professor Tunde Babawale of the Centre For Black and African Arts and Civilisation, (CBAAC) made it abundantly clear that if culture is the totality of the way of life of a people, that same culture must be used by the people to maintain distinct identity and behaviour.
“This same culture,” as Babawale pointed out, “ought to be dynamic and should give order and meaning to the social, political, economic, aesthetic and religious practices of the people. Culture, therefore, gives people distinct image different from others. In other words, culture manifests in people’s ideals and ideas, beliefs and values, folklore, environment, science and technology and in the forms of their political, social and economic institutions. Equally, it is usually revealed in the aesthetic quality and humanistic dimensions of literature, music, drama, architecture, carvings, paintings and other artistic forms.”
Babawale’s contention is that since the primary essence of culture shares almost some semblances, there is also a common agreement that culture is a preserve of human beings alone. Therefore, other creatures, though with their peculiar behaviour, are incapable of exuding culture. And if people can learn and share culture from one another, there is the urgent need to discard what is bad and incorporate what is needful to move forward. “Consequently, culture is as important to man as his existence. But for culture and its transfer, the contemporary world would not have been able to connect with its past and would have lost all vital knowledge that remain useful to the basic means of human survival,” he said further.
The general understanding is that the peoples of Africa should at all times stick to those beliefs and norms that are not opposed to human development in order to make their existence meaningful. The conference re-echoed UNESCO’s submission that no cultural values should be lost, or neglected or discarded. For, according to UNESCO, “culture is a source of identity, innovation and creativity, a set of distinctive spiritual and material, intellectual and emotional features of a society which encompasses complex web of meanings, relationships, values and so on that frame people’s relationship to the world.” Without culture, people have no focus, no bearing and meaning.
In order to make all these work in a globalised world, Pan-Africanists and those who have chosen to champion the cause of the continent and its diverse peoples have to wake up this spirit of cultural renaissance.
This is so, because Pan-Africanism is a movement of a group of people that seeks to unify African peoples or peoples living in Africa into a one African community.
Indeed, the AU charter defines it “as a political and cultural phenomenon which regards Africa, African and African descendants abroad as a unit, and aims at the regeneration and unification of Africa and the promotion of a feeling of solidarity among the people of the African world.” And so for this perspective to take its proper shape, it behoves on these champions of the people to boldly mount the necessary campaigns to free the people from cultural imperialism that has drowned most Africans and made them alien to their beliefs.
For there to be a sustainable development driven by the people’s cultural values, every African must first of all see his identity as being of the best quality. For culture, development and Pan-Africanism to work harmoniously well to usher in a new Africa, there has to be a synergy of purpose among these elements. Over the years, Pan-African cultural heads of departments and directors in their many international and local conferences have called for leaders to emulate the Asian Tigers in their attitude towards Asian values. UNESCO has always made it clear that no continent or a set of people can develop meaningfully well if they do not resort to and concentrate on what is their own by nature. Asians have come to command the respect and attention of the world simply because they have consistently stuck to the basic elements of their beliefs and norms.
In a similar conference held in Brazil (20 – 23 August, 2012), and titled Heritage, identity, education and culture: management of historical sites related to the slave trade and slavery in Nigeria, the argument was that no cultural or historical heritage should be allowed to suffer the fate of neglect or abandonment.
The Brazilian conference held in the historic city of Rio de Janeiro where slave trade had one of its strongest taproots canvassed the view that all the slave route sites in Nigeria have to be preserved for the sake of posterity. Holding brief for the nation and its efforts to keep the sites in place, Babawale had argued that people should be educated more on the whole essences of these sites in the lives of the society. “They are all important in all facets,” he noted.
Beyond identifying the numerous sites in Nigeria, he directed attention to the efforts of government in preserving those of Badagry and Calabar which, he said, have made the two towns important historical centres. “Yes, Badagry town has a unique history. Apart from being a slave route and port, it was reputed to be the first place where Christianity was preached in Nigeria. The first storey building in Nigeria was also built there in 1845 and still stands on its original site. On the other hand, Calabar is reputed to be Nigeria’s first capital city. It boasts of the first secondary school in Eastern Nigeria; Hope Waddell Training Institution (1895) and had been recognised as an international sea port as far back as the 16th century,” he stated.
In all, like the myriad of other fora, conferences and workshops held on the place of history, culture and people’s attitude to what is their own, it was generally agreed that renewed efforts have to be put in place to make Africans come to terms with their various historical heritage, traditions and norms. African development must be strong on cultural values.
