African Cultural, Education and Historical Retention And Transmission The state of the African South African nation is in dire straights. This is because of what we know and do not know. We know that modernity is in keeping up with the times. In all endeavors of mans existence here on earth, the aim has been more or less to better ones lot. In our case here in south Africa, we do note(mistakingly so) that our culture is non-existence in its real form. We do talk a lot of politics, but we really do not put into perspective the nature and role of our African cultures here in Mzantsi. We know, in a remote sense, what our culture Really is about-but not really concretely. We sometimes do not see the need to, but I am going to make an attempt at resuscitating our culture in this piece and what that means or it means for us as african people of South Africa. Wilson says that, It is very important to keep in mind that a culture is to a significant extent a historical product. A culture is socially manufactured, the handiwork of both deliberate and coincidental human social collusions and interactions. A culture also manufactures social products. Some of the most important social products it generates include its own cultural identity, and the social and personal identities of its own constituent group and individual members. I will add below what Wilson has to say about culture So, how have African people become such a fragmented and disorganised group of people today? Why cant we be like the Indians and the Japanese? the question one of my 17-year-old nephews asked me some years ago. The answer is quite simple. We cannot be like them because we do not have the same historical experience. We do ourselves a great disservice when we compare ourselves to other people since we can only compare that which is similar, not dissimilar. We are different because Africa was attacked by Arabs and Europeans, and our people were forcefully taken to another land and enslaved. Neither the Indians nor the Japanese have had that experience and therefore it is absolutely pointless to compare ourselves to them. When slavery and later colonization took place the vision that our ancestors had of educating and raising African children was taken out of their control and a new way was imposed on African people. Worse, this new system of education ran counter to the interests and needs of Africans. As a result, today, African people have never had so many talented and educated economists, educators, sociologists, doctors, lawyers, artists, etc, yet we suffer the worst health, housing, and education on the planet because our education was never designed to promote our interests but rather the goals and the interests of our oppressors. The self destructive behaviour and derogative lyrics of the rap generation is a striking example of our children, today, who have not been taught to promote their cultural, historical, customary, traditional, and os forth, interests of their people and communities. The dysfunctional children we see in our midst is partly due to us parents ignoring/or not knowing our culture, and being scornful of it. A Brief Look at corruption: Corruption in Africa therefore is not the cause of poverty but a consequence of it. People in Africa are corrupt because they do not earn enough money to live decently and therefore must resort to illegal methods to make ends meet. In fact, where ever you see crime take a good look, you will usually find high unemployment and intolerable living conditions because it is a consequence and not the cause. Improve the living conditions and corruption and crime will quickly disappear. Its a very simple equation but of course no one is interested in this option because the capitalist system, which is really the old Roman slave system under a different name, cannot survive without access to a large number of unpaid workers or people who are barely paid. Under globalization, its modern name, 80% of the world is still exploited by the 20% who still continue to own all the wealth. Changing the name periodically (feudalism, industrialisation, capitalism, socialism, communism and now globalisation) is simply a strategy that the West uses to make us, the ignorant masses believe that there is genuine change taking place in society. Now you understand why every country you visit and in every area of activity the owners and those who make money are always white or are close to white, while those who work, serve and are exploited are always black or close to it. This is what African parents must begin to understand so that they can explain to their children why African people are consistently at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. And tell these children why they imbibe the the cultural retentions and transmission of their own indigenous culture, customs, traditions, etc. A Peek At African Education This is relevant to the present state of Education in South Africa. I think many of the points that Asa makes are and will be lessons and affording South Africans some answers as to how to set up, reform and control the Education of Africans as advised by Asa below. Are you going to say no to calculus as a standard for the high school level? I think calculus is a reasonable standard. All children are brilliant enough to learn calculus, if you want to offer it to them. But if you want to teach calculus, you have to know calculus. And most teachers dont. So why blame the child for the inability to achieve when the deficiency is in the other place? Obviously, if you want the child to achieve in calculus and teachers dont know calculus, then now youve got to prepare the teachers. Now youre talking about staff development. See how its all connected? If someone really wants to raise the achievement of children, youve got to recognize reality in the classroom. Once you do so, youll know that well have to do what we did in the 1960s. When this country thought that the Russians were ahead in the space race, when they put up Sputnik, the next thing that happened was that the U.S. massively mobilized for science education. It was science, science everywhere. We had a National Defense Education Act. Look at the language: education became a matter of national defense. When the rubber met the road, they knew they had to do something and they funded the process of doing it. Whats happening now? The budget is bankrupt on social welfare issues and nobody wants to do anything about it. So you manipulate the standards to make it look as if youre doing something. But you cannot fix the problems that are wrong in the public sector without providing resource. We have got to learn to ask new questions and not simply give a Black version of the white question. So intelligence testing should go out the window, as far as Im concerned. Now if you want to know how we know its irrational, get the book edited by Helga Rowe, Intelligence: Reconceptualization and Measurement, which are papers from a summit meeting of psychologists in mental measurement in Melbourne, Australia, in 1988. They were trying to figure out what was the state of the art in measurement, especially intelligence measurement, and they came away with three conclusions. Actually, there were probably more conclusions, but these are the three that interested me: 1. They couldnt agree on what intelligence was. Thats what you might call a construct validity problem. Its a little hard to measure precisely when you dont have agreement on the construct. 2. Theres no predictive validity to IQ tests unless you use low-level thinking as your achievement criteria. If you use high-level, complex, conceptually-oriented problem solving, then theres no correlation between IQ scores and achievement outcomes. This is serious, because thats where the IQ test is supposed to be making its contribution, in predictive validity. But its not there unless you measure something that somebody has already had time to process. 3. If they can ever agree on what intelligence is, and if they can ever measure it, they will have to take context into account. Thats what the Black psychologists have been arguing for before I was born: that the context is what gives meaning to a response. You cant universalize a dialogue, linguistically or culturally. Its scientific idiocy to do so. So you have to understand whose IQ is being tested -- those who make the irrational IQ tests. IQ testing doesnt do any good for anybody other than people who need work. Its a professional welfare program. African cultural transmissions and retentions should be the modus operandi of how we begin to restore and practice our original and indigenous cultures, customs, traditions and so on. We Can Also Learn Something About How And Why We should design our education the ways in which he suggests below Jose Marti On Education: On Education - Popular Education: 1. Instruction is not the same as education: the former refers to thought, the latter principally to feelings. Nevertheless, thee is no good education without instruction. Moral qualities rise in price when they are enhanced by qualities of intellect. 2. Popular Education does not mean education of the poorer classes exclusively, but rather that all classes in the nation, tantamount to saying the people-be well educated. Just as there is no reason why the rich are educated and not the poor, what reason is there for the poor to be educated and not the rich. they are all the same. 3.He who knows more is worth more. to know is to possess. Coins are minted, knowledge is not. Bonds or paper money are worth more, or less, or nothing; knowledge always has the same value, and it is always high. A rich man need money with which to live, but he can lose it and then he no longer has the means of living. An instructed man lives from his knowledge, and since he caries it with him, he never loses it and his existence is easy and secure. 4. The nappiest nation is the one whose sons/daughters have the best education, both in instruction of thought and the direction of feelings. An instructed people loves work and knows how to derive profit from it. A virtuous people will live a happier and richer life than another that is filled with vices, and will better defend itself from all attacks. 5. Every man when he arrives upon this earth has a right to be educated, and then , in payment, the duty to contribute to the education of others. 6. An ignorant people can be deceived by superstition and become servile. An instructed people will always be strong and free. An ignorant man is on his way to becoming a beast, and a man instructed in knowledge and conscience is on his way to being a god. One must not hesitate to choose between a nation of gods and a nation of beasts. The best way to defend our rights is to know them well; in so doing one has faith and strength; every nation will be unhappy in proportion to how poorly educated are its inhabitants. A Nation Of Educated Men Will Always Be N Nation Of Free Men. Education is the only means of being saved from slavery. A Nation Enslaved To Men Of Another Nation Is As repugnant As Being Enslaved To The Men Of Ones Own. Jose Marti, Guatemala (Mexico) 1878 José Julián Martí Pérez is the Cuban national hero and an important figure in Latin American literature. Education and culture are one and the same thing. We should tailor and design our education around our culture. What the meaning of culture is shall be dealt with below to some extend by Wilson below. We must not only say we have a culture, but we must be able to talk about it, describe and live by its principles. We can also learn from those who have dealt with the same problems, as we are faced with in our educational system, in the same blueprint or vein as that suggested by Jose Marti above and then some We have to learn how to critique ourselves and accept our shortcomings and over-inflated sense grandeur. We should get rid of our confusion as to who we are as African People. We neither American nor European, nor will we ever be. We shall never be accepted as those people, instead, they would respect us more if we were our selves, without trying to ape others. Our cultures should guide our thinking. Our customs condition our behavior; our tradition determine ourselves as a people and nation. We cannot afford to be hoodwinked by television, and other western cultural imperial artifacts and gadgets. We should know these, but use them to suit ourselves. We cannot think like we are of European origin in our psyche and other distorted cultural unrealities we so apt to adopt, at the expense of our own indigenous cultures, traditions, customs and so forth. Our culture, that of the all the African people of South Africa(9 of them), should be our specialized field and know how the world listens to us when we tell or talk/live [about] it On The Cusp Of An African Cultural Renaissance When Fu-Liau visited Bahia Brazil, he was shocked to discover Congo descendants who still maintain their traditional ancestral cultural customs; far more authentic than what is practiced in the Congo today. He was startled after being invited to observe secret education systems which proved to be virtually identical to his own initiation in the Congo years ago; initiations long since destroyed by the colonials. Traditionally, varied rituals address every occasion in African traditional life. The rituals provide individuals with an opportunity to stand before the community for naming ceremonies, enstoolment ceremonies, initiation rites, harvest festivals and other times to link and collectively give thanks to god, the ancestors, and nature. These rituals, and the purposes for them are common in Africa and the Diaspora. They provide an opportunity to promote community unity, to outline purpose and expectations, to reinforce the positive aspects of the culture, and to acknowledge the power of the Creator. Most of these ceremonies give validation to the elders, the children, the leadership, and to any links that contribute to community health. Ceremonial practices help communities to affirm community ties and values. Our culture is not useless and dis not die-off. It is still alive, in whatever form, today. In rebuilding and recasting our cultures, we should also be cognizant of certain negative effects and affects of other foreign cultures have on our culture. Our communities can benefit greatly if we could collectively resist the meaningless holidays and ceremonies which are promoted in contemporary capitalistic societies. These holidays, and their aggressive promotion, are meant to encourage spending to enrich certain businesses and corporations. These holidays have no positive transformative value for individuals and communities participating in them. Regardless of years of separation from Africa and constant pressure to ignore all things African, Africans in the United States have managed to maintain African Cultural Retentions. One example of this is the strong community commitment to and participation in child-care and socialization in rural areas and in strong urban communities that persisted for years. Even when there was little money, these African communities were consciously and subconsciously committed to quality child development. A few of these practices include the use of folktales as a means of teaching about community mores, encouraging youth participationin all community activities, childbirth techniques, post childbirth rituals, natural healing practices, and more. These diverse retentions could be found in may rural communities, such as Bay City, Texas, but they could also be found in pockets of urban communities those within Harlem, New York. (Wilson) African socialization practices served to assist communities in da-to-day operations, collective survival, interpersonal relations, and basic quality of life issues. the content of an African education and socialization process contains many components whic are modified according to the specific goals and aims of a community. We, as Africans of South Africa are facing a gigantic task of trying to cope, exist and survive. To do his, I am willing to be persecuted in whatever manner anyone deems possible, but that will not stop me from posting on other sites, till maybe some take me seriously about issue facing South Africa, and ultimately Africa... What does all this mean for and to Africans of South Africa today? It means everything. We can describe these cultural practices from our cultures in Mzantsi. Use of folktales-I grew up listen to all sorts of folk tales and ghost stories, and from them I carry within me the mores and morals of our communities; I have worked, as a youth, in and with the community. I made it my business to talk and teach youth sports and help them understand their schooling; I have and am still talking to young girls about their social worth, and in the midst of the boom of Mbekis children as they are referred to in our community, the is a constant struggle to demystify the current notions about birth-giving and bearing many babies to be compensated by the government. We have incorporated into our teaching they youth the precepts, ideas, African concepts of how an African society should function. We teach them about the role played by children and youth in the community. Teach them about the customs of the community in regards to treating women with respect, teaching the younger children the values , morals and mores of the society. This is an uphill battle, but we are in it. We have books that deal and describe our culture written as early as the 1800, from which we can cull whatever we need for the 21st century, and make them suit the aims and goals of our communities. We are writing original articles such as this one to slowly bring to the forefront the importance and greatness of African cultures in south Africa. We cannot afford the individualism that has been foisted upon us by the Apartheidizers and their allies. We have in our own cultures as our culture, wherein we can learn and know/understand about the Planting seasons, how to carry out a wedding, rules governing relations between to two merging families; laws for the bride and groom; how boys are initiated, along with girls; how deal deal with ailments and sicknesses; the ways of behaving and living with the elderly; kinds of diseases and solving of problems for those who do not bear children; aphorisms and other sayings. The laws and rules for kings; there is a whole segment on the wealth of the community; drama, poetry, plays, games , dances, music, art, and games for children The bringing up of youth and the rules that are observed and practiced by the communities. We have a slew of activities that if we were to look at them as one culture unified in diversity, we can and will clearly discern our culture much better. What Am I saying? well, we have a culture that is still there if we put our minds to it. Identifying and making concrete assertions and presenting what we are talking about in our culture in clear terms is the goal. Yes, Math and science, geography are important as education. Culture is no less important as something that ought to be studied and practiced by Africans here in South Africa. Hall writes: Culture is a word that has so many meanings already that one more can do it no harm. ...For Anthropologists culture has long stood for the way of life of a people, for the sum of their learned behavior patterns, attitudes and material things. ...Others, looking for a point of stability in the flux of society, often become preoccupied with identifying a common particle or element which can be found in every aspect of culture. Wilsons discussion of culture is more precise: The cultural identity of an individual or group is the social product of a socialization process in which new responses, values, perspectives ad orientations are acquired and existing behavioral repertoires of the individual or group are modified to some extent, as the result of his or its subjection to direct or indirect social conditioning experiences. Cultural identity also result from the patterning of its modal thoughts, feeling, or actions after other cultures or groups who serve as models. We should link these definitions to the actual African culture that we have in 9 diverse cultural ways that is our culture, but not different from one another. There are no tribes in the true sense of the intended meaning of that word. There are diverse, variegated, but one same diverse cultures of one nation of Nguni/Bakone(Africans Of Mzantsi)the Africans of South Africa. This point needs to be paid attention to. We see a culture that is diverse and colorful, not a tribalized backward peoples. We have the same cultural or whatever practices, same language(of this were to be worked on as I am doing in some of my blogs now), the music, dances, traditional dresses and music is the same, even if it were to be categorized into several genres. It is one music of one culture and One nation of Africans of South Africa. Yes, when we speak real-politik, there will be some people who will be rubbed wrongly by my comments and observations. So too, there should be a second look at what I am talking about in regards to writing and projecting our culture to the world through the viral stream. We have to begin to talk about the various aspects of our cultures amongst ourselves, and compare notes and observations and commonalities of these 9(nine) cultures of Mzantsi. We will be more respected and acknowledged if we are able to present one cohesive and holistic culture of the Africans of South Africa. We should discuss it here on the FB and other outlets. also, we should write specific original pieces on the various topics that make up our one but diversified cultures. Politics is important, but without culture it is barren, fake and a fiction. We have seen, as we grew up what role culture has played in some of our lives. Although we are aghast with the present behaviors of our children, and the way our communities are under siege from many sides, we can also, and should, by the way, be able to talk, at least, about our culture, extol its virtues and vices, and at the same time design it to suit the present way of they way we live, in a myriad places and in various ways. It is one culture made up of 9(nine) peoples of South Africa, and we should make that count for what it is worth. As I have stated above that I will pick up on Wilson this further down to engage the discourse as to what culture is. Wilson writes: From their life experiences, a group develops a set of rules and procedures for meeting their needs. Or, it is the historically created designs for living, explicit and implicit, rational and non-irrational which may exist at any given time as potential guides for the behavior of man. Thus, culture, though a product of the actual lived experience of a people - the primal source of much of their daily personal and social activities, their forms of labor and its products, their celebratory and ceremonial traditions, modes of dress, art and music, language and articulatory style, appetites and desires - is essentially ideological in nature based as it is on shared beliefs, customs, expectations, and values. Hence, culture does not exist outside and independent of its human subjects. culture is represented symbolically and operationally in the minds and characteristically mental/behavioral orientations or styles of its members, and is incarnated in the customary ways they move and use their bodies. The culture is represented in the minds and bodies of its members, and expresses itself through the systematic ways they attend, experience, categorize, classify, order, judge, evaluate, explain and interact with their world. Mentally, culture involves the socially shared and customary ways of thinking, a way of encoding, perceiving, experiencing, ordering, processing, communicating and of behaviorally expressing information which distinguishes one cultural group from another. All these activities are dedicated to the end of adapting culture to the consistent and changing demands of its physical and social environment and reciprocally adapting the environment to the demands of culture. To the degree that the shared beliefs and behavioral orientations of the members of a culture are consensually consistent, reasonably rational and realistic, are effectively and consistently socialized and reinforced, the culture is characterized by coherence, somewhat low levels of internal conflicts and contradictions, relatively smooth, automatic, coordinated operation, and thereby effectively functions in the interests of its members. Socially, culture patterns the ways its members perceive each other, relate to and interact with each other. It facilitates the ways they create, develop, organize, institutionalize and behaviorally apply their human potential in order to adapt to the conditions under which they live so as to satisfy they psychological, social and survival needs.(Wilson) Knowing, living and understanding our cultures is one of the many ways we can begin to rehabilitate our people and communities. It is important that we do this as soon as we can because at present, we seem to be at a breaking point, and who knows what will happen beyond that. We need to begin to talk about our cultures, customs, traditions, history, languages, music, dances, sacred rites and practices, traditional dress, social mores, moral, respect and Ubuntu/Botho-Eruditely. We can all of us, Africans of South Africa do this, because we are better than this. SKHOKHO!
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 05:22:53 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015