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Cultural Synthesis in Africa |
| Section: CULTURE / CROSSROADS |
| Author: Ali A. Mazrui |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 2/1/1986 |
| Size: 8,546 Words, 51,024 Characters |
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The interplay of Africa's indigenous cultures with Islam on one side and Western civilization on the other has had political and economic ramifications. But in the final analysis the central process of the triple heritage has been cultural and civilization.
Civilization may be defined as a culture which has endured, expanded, innovated and been elevated to new moral sensibilities. An interviewer once asked India's Mahatma Gandhi: "What do you think of Western civilization?" The Mahatma is reported to have replied, "I didn't know they had any!" it was presumably the West's "moral sensibilities" which Mahatma Gandhi was questioning when he queried whether the West had as yet evolved a civilization.
But by the other criteria of the concept of "civilization," especially that of innovation, the Western world surely scores rather high in the last three or four centuries of human history. For our purposes, the world "civilization" can be applied to the Western, Islamic, as well as indigenous legacies, provided we always bear in mind that the term is always relative and somewhat hyperbolic.
A number of stages can be discerned in the evolution of the triple heritage at this cultural level. Initially, there is the simple phenomenon of culture contact - two systems of values being introduced to each other and beginning to be aware of each other's peculiarities.
In African history this was followed by culture conflict, as the two or three legacies began to clash with each other as they discovered areas of incompatibility and mutual incoherence.
Thirdly, comes the stage of culture conquest as one legacy establishes a clear ascendancy and sometimes effectively compels the more vulnerable culture to surrender.
There then follow a period of cultural confusion. Among the members of the subordinate or vulnerable culture the choice is between cultural surrender, cultural alienation and ruthlessness, or cultural revival and the resurrection of the original authenticity.
But is there really no other choice apart from either surrender, alienation or revival? In reality there is a fourth possible outcome - cultural coalescence or integration, a fusion of two or more cultures into a new mixed legacy.
Where is Africa as the twentieth century approaches its end? Insofar as Western culture is concerned, most of the Africa has certainly gone beyond the minimal stage of culture contact. The West has declared its presence in the continent in such varied ways that Africa has gone beyond the stage of a minimal introduction to western power and at least some of the Western institutions.
Virtually every African has seen a motorcar and may have heard a transistor radio; many Africans have dealt with white people either as administrators, missionaries, tourists, teachers or passersby. In any case, much of Africa has been dealing with regular policemen, tax collectors, the cash economy and sometimes even Western shirts and shoes. There is little doubt that the bulk of the continent has been sufficiently penetrated by the West as to have gone beyond the stage of mere culture contact.
With Islam the penetration is less widespread geographically, but often more rooted in duration and intensity. In the Arabized northern part of the continent, Islam has held sway for more then a thousand years and has indeed found very strong roots in the societies. Islam is also strong in part of West Africa and parts of the Horn of Africa and the eastern seaboard. But in much of Central Africa and the south, Islam has a weak presence. It would therefore be quite correct to describe Islam's relationship with indigenous culture in central and southern Africa as being at the stage of culture contact.
On the other hand, where the Islam has already been long established, its relationship with indigenous cultures has gone beyond the stage of cultural confusion and had made a lot of progress towards cultural coalescence.
However, Islam's own relationship with Western civilization, as distinct from its relationship with indigenous cultures, continues to manifest the tensions of conflict and confusion.
On the whole, it is not very easy to distinguish the stage of culture conflict from the stage of cultural confusion. Analytically, the culture conflict occurs when the indigenous system is still relatively intact and is resisting the encroachments and blandishments of the newly arrived civilization seeking to impose its own will. The stage of cultural confusion follows a partial conquest, a conversion of some of the leaders of the indigenous culture to the new gods of the conquerors, and a conflict of values within the same individuals creating psychological and moral bewilderment.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than on the issue of what constitutes corruption and abuse of privilege. This whole phenomenon of corrupt practices, conspicuous consumption, and perversion of governmental procedures in Africa has its roots in the ideological flux which characterizes the transiti...
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...ce - a phenomenon of values in transition, perspectives in collision.
A state of confusion generates its own attempts at escape. Some Africans reach out for a cultural revival, a restoration of authenticity. Others capitulate to the new civilization, engage in cultural surrender. And many are relegated to the limbo of cultural alienation - "bewitched, bothered, and bewildered."
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
comprehensive academic resource that encompasses a broad range of
articles by scholars and experts in the areas of Global Studies,
Liberal Arts, Fine & Applied Arts, General Science, and Spanish.
Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
includes the complete contents since 1986 and continues to publish
a new issue online each month. |
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