What makes my blood boil?
Who said that Western culture sets the standards of upright and acceptable norms in African society?
As black people, we owe it to ourselves to embrace our culture to preserve our identity.
The world outside Africa seeks to understand what happens on the continent. Still, those living within often appease and blindly glorify what they portray as if seeking approval. This mindset can be linked to the slave mentality.
Culture and identity go hand in hand!
Abandoning one’s culture for reasons unrelated to morality only demeans a person’s essence.
Culture precedes identity –Today, the average African is unable to reach their true creative potential due to a lack of cultural identity. According to a study by Sternberg and Lubart (1995), reaching the peak of one’s creative potential requires factors such as personality, style, a suitable environment, and intelligence.
Society, as we see it today, lacks individualism and often emulates an overly glorified Western culture, at least as seen in several metropolitan African communities.
As a result, the creative mojo is stunted, resulting in inventions and reinventions that are subpar and lacking purpose. Often leadership can be likened to a hive of bees, aware of their weaknesses yet still they seek conflict, creating luck to fly against the winds of success and blow up the would-be prosperity of generations.
“I’d like to quote Prof Githu Muigai — an excerpt from The Great Debate. ‘There is a limit to what law can do to transform society.’ According to Blackstone, the law is the rule of action prescribed by a superior that the inferior is bound to obey. The above quotation and citation by Prof Githu Muigai and Sir William Blackstone confirm that upholding a constitution that doesn’t have the nation’s DNA embedded in it is only a recipe for disaster.
In Plato’s description and understanding of culture, he stated that society should be organized as an organic whole, with each part doing its part to provide for the proper functioning and prosperity of the whole. In my understanding of this description, Culture is the DNA of society.
Reason.
Again, I will quote Kant, whose ideas don’t support all aspects of cultural identity but also has a positive addition in his submissions. According to Kant, Culture is a purpose in nature and an inducement for humans to act as themselves.
Culture in society gives individuals identity which brews a personality. In the current era where many are so lost and have almost no sense of belonging zero down to lack of culture.
With culture, one has:
- Sense of belonging.
- Self-esteem
- Access to social networks of shared value
- Enhanced creativity
- Creative environment
- Comfortable mental space.
In fear of the extinction of African culture, we should get back to the drawing board and focus on ourselves and our various nations. We should give much attention to art, beliefs, moral codes, and practices that are the peak of our identity.
