African Cultural Complex African Cultural Complex
Any study of African culture must take into account that Africa 5 minutes ago, 50 years ago, 500 years ago and Africa 5000 years... African Cultural Complex

Personalities of African culture(s)


This article is broken up from the original article due to length.

Any study of complex African culture must take into account that Africa 5 minutes ago, 50 years ago, 500 years ago and Africa 5000 years ago is not a static feature. A diverse Africa has influenced, and been influenced. Concepts and cultures of African origin have been exported and re-imported, just as genes, ideas and technologies have exited and reentered African populations.

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Now and in antiquity, from KMT to modern Congo, respect for elders has remained an unbroken cornerstone in African cultural systems. Marriage rites, burial rites, ancestors rites, still honor their original foundation. For 2000 years in Ethiopia the ethics and ethos [3] of Ethiopian culture have not altered, even though rituals attached to those ethics may have come and gone. So we might change dowry from Cows-to-Coins but the function of dowry (Labolla/Mahr) remains the same. And it is also critical to understand African culture is more than symbols, and rituals, languages and aesthetic, it is also those virtues such as hospitality, empathy, courtesy, and respect. So much so that the entire foundation of many of the rituals and customs are there to transmit these virtues. And it is from culture’s creativity that creates music and dancing, poetry and arts.

Any study of African culture must take into account that Africa 5 minutes ago, 50 years ago, 500 years ago and Africa 5000 years ago is not a static feature.A diverse Africa has influenced, and been influenced. Concepts and cultures of African origin have been exported and re-imported, just as genes, ideas and technologies have exited and reentered African populations.

But these are only some manifestations of culture. What some are left with today is the byproducts of culture, only music or only dance, while having no deep memory of the core cultural system.



Culture is the core of our African humanity and holds some of the secrets to life’s purpose. There is no authentic autonomous identity outside of the culture that cradles it. it is certainly not National Geographic‘s image of drum beating Africans in grass skirts, or CNN’‘s notion of dancing naked Africans eating bush meat, or even the Kora player playing in a European night club. It does not exist for the pleasure of Western tourist, like a African culture is not a theme show at a Walt Disney exhibit. Too often the notion of African or Black culture is viewed through the touristic culturally-curious lens of Europe. So “culture” per UK’s mission in Africa is tantamount to “jungle culture.” And it is also certainly not what “blacks’ in urban America do on MTV base. Today, it is almost impossible to conceive of African culture and not hear some drums beating, and some guys jumping around the stage: It is someone—not Africans—who defined that as the total expression of African culture; Africans continue to internalize that myth. But in Ethiopia culture is in the coffee ritual, in Mali it may be tea ritual and camel racing, in Afro-South America it can be seen in capoeira; in Haiti it manifest in Vodon, in Trinidad in the Steel Pan, in Barbados in the Cou Cou and flying fish.

Dark skin is just skin with a high percentage of melanin. It does not inform anything distinctive, apart from the social historical reality that people with dark skin get treated bad— but beyond that it does not define someone’s value formation—only culture does that. And in absences Ocacia - African Designer Clothingof this culture, blackness just absorbs the cultural identity of oppression; contributing to the culture-less deserts of humanity. African culture is the culture of the inventiveness and adaptation of African people, since no continent can sponsor a culture—only people can. (The physical continent, beyond environmental impact, is a negligible agent of African culture)


‘Culture’ is a concrete social phenomenon which represents the essential character of a particular nation–Hofstede (1991)

Cultural laws are about boundary-maintenance, which fundamentally inform notions of morality that in turn inform legislation and nationhood. And Africa’s cultural fences are the bastion to African self-definition, and if haphazardly torn down and replaced with untested immoral values, what kind of death will that bring to Africa’s unique humanity?The majority of African cultures are
communal, as oppose to “individualistic and this one difference creates entirely different paradigm and behavioriors. (Africa would never produce Nihilism orExistentialist though for example) This communal root spills over to inform notions of “human rites” and ethics. All of these factors are interwoven in the fabric of Africa’s quilt of cultures.
African culture includes but is not limited to: The centrality of spirituality, the placement of music, aesthetic, family formations, marriage rites, both the tangible and intangibles intellectual paradigms. The agents affecting culture are climate, geography, technology, cross-cultural interaction and unfortunately a history of oppression.

Long ago some wise people realized that certain habits bore bad fruit, while other habits, such as marriage bore success in the group setting. It was also realized that at some stage children became adults when they had been fully institutionalized to the ethics of the group’s culture. At this stage a ritual marking this transition to full group membership. These “rites of passage” became critical in nation building. [1]



Modernity is not the sole ‘invention’ of Westernization, but more over, ‘modernity’ is the accumulated Conquest of the Western world

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Africans were part of modernity, how many Arabs and Asians were also part of creating modernity? Modernity may have been assembled in a White man’s house but by many non-White people. So no one race can claim everything in modernity. Modernity does not imply West or White. It has been and is the product of a global human effort.


What is the point of African culture(s) if not to be applied to every aspect of the African world? Why should the values and traditions which have preserved African humanity be replaced with the cultures or value systems of those practiced by Europe? Because to do so is to concede to a superiority in European values and cultures. Just when the circumcision rites were being labeled as “irrelevant” the same modern science now discovers the health benefits and lower transmission of STDs among circumcised males. What other revelations lie within the wisdom found in culture?

Rites of Passage Xhosa culture

Xhosa Rites of Passage


And the same is true for the billion dollar video-game industry. So normalized and obvious that the viewer forgets these are just European cultural folklore in modernity. And the failure to place African cultures in a modern context kills Africa’s ability to extract wisdom, success and development from African cultures.




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And why also can’t African food be served in all hotels in Africa? Why is Africa treated with a false dichotomy of “modernity” or “culture“? Especially when modernity is a byword for Western culturalization. The real reason most Africans do not take the ethics and the aesthetic of these diverse cultures and put them in modernity is due to mental slavery. Many see African cultures are “backward or impractical” but the truth is most Africans globally do not have the confidence to seek meaningful applications and models for African culture.

The chameleon changes color to match the earth, the earth doesn’t change color to match the chameleon– Senegalese Proverb

One example where this has been challenged and won, is with the locks hairstyle, which is seen across the cultural divide. It has left Jamaica and gone to America, and ultimately been a successful alternative hairstyle in much of Africa because of Reggae music. (a perfect example of how musModern Application of African Designsic was used as a form of agency). From a Caribbean fringe culture to a global success story. But how can Africa alter, change, and utilize what is not understood? It is like going through the cupboard and finding 10 bars of gold and flushing it in the toilet , ignorant of its value. And this is what happened across the globe, burning ancient artifacts, throwing out beautiful art and replacing it with Chinese junk.




Despite the wonderful talk of an African renaissance, there is no evidence of attempts to evolve an all-embracing culture which allows a healthy expression of diversity. Without a mosaic (national) culture that provides room for co-existence, there cannot be an inclusive political philosophy that allows all to become stake holders in government. Neither can there be a moral order–upon which all development is predicated–without a solid cultural foundation…. Africa’s post-colonial trauma results from institutions, governance and economic development models without any cultural underpinnings–Sam Mwale



While starving we could pick between KFC, Nandos, Hawaiian food, American Food, Chinese and Indian. While waiting for the flight all the authors of EOR Tambo Airport Fast Food No African Foodurope were represented in the bookstore, maybe less than 1% of the content had any African authorship, less than none had any progressive African history. No Pan-African documentaries or African filmmakers were available in the Look N Listen DVD shop—only Hollywood and Bollywood.

On the long-haul flight to Turkey and then on another flight to St Lucia while booking the ticket there was an option for a Kosher meal (Jews represent a nearly invisible religious demographic). While watching a film on the plane, the language options were Hebrew, Catalan, Arabic, etc. While attempting to login to Facebook there were many language options. Under the section Africa and Middle East there was Afrikaans (spoken by not even 0.1% of Africa), Hebrew (another minority language) and Arabic. Do you know what all of this tell us? Cultural agency, and cultural definition driven by pure market economics. [8]

Nothing African owned here in South Africa

OR Tambo Airport Fast Food No African FoodRace or discrimination play no direct role in any of these happenings. Because the religion/culture of Islam and Judaism has a dietary definition and has economic power and therefore agency it can impose itself and be accommodated. Because the economic power of Hebrew speakers or the geo-politics of Jewish filmmakers and Israel as a dominant market, Hebrew is accommodated for .Because Indian food and other cultures have the agency, the cultural definition they can have menus representing their cultures—-the local African cultures/religions cannot.



Indian Food Cultural dominates in a Strong European Cultural nation like the UKThe power of agency determines much of the patterns of cultural dominance in the world. When Ancient Egypt was conquered it converted the invaders to the religion/culture of the ‘conquered.’ In Persia despite being destroyed by the Mongol armies, it was the conquering Mongols who surrendered their culture and gods for Islam. Islam had enough definition to displace the invaders culture and faith and supplant it with an Islamic-Mongol culture. [1]

Culturally the UK has produced no serious food heritage. (unless you call Fish and Chips food). So the arrival of a stronger cultural cuisine of a minority group was able to over power and culturally displace the entire UK culinary tradition. The “superiority” of Indian cuisine not only in taste but also in its institutionalization dominance a country as powerful of Britain. Today Indian food is the “national dish” eaten across the cultural divide. Kebabs are also impacting traditional British culture in this way.



Have you seen the film Prometheus? But it could be any Hollywood film. How many European cultural references are embedded in that story? What piano piece is David playing in the start of the film? Wagner a modern classical composer who himself is reference Viking mythology with his piece Entry of the gods into Valhalla. What poems were referenced in the film Interstella? Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas. And Thomas work appears again in Solaris with Clooney “”And death shall have no dominion.” Returning to Prometheus what does it mean? It comes from Greek mythology. And in the same film David quotes Percy Shelly’s (19th C) Ozymandias: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ What about Hannibal the sequel to Silence of the Lamb, with its central theme of Dante’s work.

Do we not see how European culture is constantly venerated their own icons? This is why we say Europeans have a deeper connection with their ancestors than us. And the irony is not only Europeans do this, “proud” Black rappers also use their lyrics to look intellectual by celebrating European culture; rappers like Jay Z and others. 




See African Agency|








When the culture of a people fails, or is made to fail by an external oppression, they will absorb and replace what is lost with the culture available–usually the culture of their oppressors. When a people experience a trauma, it causes the natural cultural defenses to weaken and this allows in new cultural components from the strongest source.

Humans, regardless of race, are just human biological blanks, we absorb the culture that we are settled in. Arabs are Arabs because of Arabic culture. A genetic Arab raised in a strong Jamaican culture, with no reference to their Arabic roots, will be Jamaican. This is why community is a fundamental component in the shaping and retaining the cultural character of any community.

Often when a people are displaced they always have a reaction (one which may acquiesce or one which may reject the invading dominant culture). That reaction may often creatively try to recreate an image of its self by amalgamating bits and pieces, by integrating new ideas. Or it might violent reject the new culture, but still try to gather fragments and recreate itself in opposition to the oppressive force. Depending on agency levels, the new “cultures” may Africanized everything they absorb, but if agency is low the new ideas will unAfricanize the African in the process. And this can happen even when their is a conscious and violent reaction to an imposing culture. Because once people have lost a memory of themselves they might inherit (unconsciously) a “new identity” modeled on the oppressors template.


African culture did not stop at the Atlantic Ocean or the Red Sea

What we have to appreciate is that culture is so dynamic it is impossible, most of the time, to identify a “pure” African (or anything) inside of any specific culture—especially in a world so globalized. People often look at a popular aspect of identity and culture and make the mistake of saying “Oh that is 100% African” or “100% European” . So the West African dress (heavily influenced with coming of Islam), the Masai beads and fabric (trade with Europeans), the Swahili culture, South African Shweshwe fabric (a European cloth adopted by Xhosa people), Ancient Egyptian chariots (from Syria), Native Americans on horses (from Spanish), 1,2,3,4 (numbers from Arabs), on and on. When you go back far enough you will often find it has a multi-cultural or multi-racial genesis. Today we see some of these things as exiting “As African” from eternity— but it is not the case. (And this is true for everywhere, esp Europe)






African culture is now attached to a dollar culture—the service indus

African Kora Player

African Kora Player

try of touristic prostitution —devoid of meaning and significance. When the tourist dollar dies so too does the culture. The “zoos” of African culture will, at this rate, be the hotels and other tourist nodes. The next generation of Africans in their baggy pants and Western antics, will bemoan the situation and say; “Long time ago we use to do these things, we can no longer remember what they mean.”




Some look at the West as the product of a technologically advanced decadent culture. The decadency being the product of the people’s inherent culture. But suppose it is the “modernity” and “wealth” that produces decadence? That would mean as soon as Africa becomes economically on par with the West we too will lose cultural values, and descend into the same lifestyle of greed and excess, waste and indifference.




Khoisan People of Southern Africa

Khoisan People of Southern Africa






Maasai Man in Kenya

Maasai man in Kenya






Popular culture and the mass media have a symbiotic relationship: each depends on the other in an intimate collaboration–K. Turner









Scripts are Powerful Political and cultural symbols



Scripts across the globeCultures which actively use their scripts or have created their own native scripts also have a pattern of historical strength and identity.




One of the challenges with African languages is that with the arrival of both modernity and the colonial languages, the natural inventory system within the languages died. New words came from the colonial source, as opposed to the languages own ability to invent new words for this new rapidly changing modern world. (Death of African languages)

Urbanization is the slaughter house of African languages. And it is not only a threat from outside i.e. English. Amharic has, on its own, displaced more languages in Ethiopia than English.






Some aspects of African culture are negative, and range from non-productive to lethal. Some have no place in modernity. Some are hindrances to development and while they services those people in specific historical periods are made useless or redundant in modernity. Political correctness sometimes avoids a full disclosure on other people’s culture, while racist attitudes assume that what is standard in the West should be standard for everyone.

In some parts of South Africa, families do not allow a marriage unless the woman first proves she can give birth. Once she conceives the marriage is approved. Not everything in culture is good, because what is now happening is men are using this excuse to have pre-maritial sex without any intention of marrying the woman. It also creates a culture where a woman’s worth is exclusively in her ability to give birth. Women are therefore under social pressure to have a child, even without a husband or financial means. Coupled with the labolla (dowry) crisis, it hurts the development of strong moral families. [3]

Force Feeding Children

Force Feeding Children


Types of FGM

Types of FGM







Religion is a bottle with a label on it, spirituality is the thing inside. Religion is simply the culture of spiritual belief– ‘Alik Shahadah

Vodon Dancing


Outside of the Abrahamic faiths, and perhaps Vodon, many African religions are inseparable from the ethnic identity and culture. So the religion of the Serer historically part of Serer identity, the religion of the Maasai is part of Maasai cultural and identity. To be Zulu culturally before Christianity more or less meant to take on the spirituality of the Zulu religion. And because religions rarely crossed ethnic or political lines there was no overt need to identify them as distinct “religions” vs. “culture.” And still today part and parcel about being Somali, or Fulani is integrated into “being Muslim.”



Religion, like culture itself, consists of systematic patterns of beliefs, values, and behavior, acquired by people as a member of their society. These patterns are systematic because their manifestations are regular in occurrence and expression: they are shared by member of a group. Both religion and culture (if treated as discrete phenomenon) have traditions which services the group, whose meanings or relevance might be unknown to the user. Perhaps one difference is in religion the source and rational is a divine instruction for a particular action, while in “pure” culture it is informed by societal norms. So “do not eat pork” is an instruction from a divine origin in religion. In culture “do not eat pork” maybe a tradition established by ancestors and a social habit whose origin is long gone but still a factor shaping dietary habits. Religions will always create cultures, and culture becomes religion by attaching divinity to the behavior, habits, and attitudes.


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There might then be a KwaMashu township culture which is unique to KwaMashu in South Africa or Kalagi in Gambia. And then superimposed on this might be a Christian culture and then a general globalized culture: This is why it is called a culture complex. How these various cultures interact and conflict and resolve each other make up the unique culture of a specific group. These are all factors in culture which are condensed in any study. But “Being Ethiopian” like “Being Hawiye (Somali Clan)” switches priority at any given moment. Even with subtle distinctions between being Habesha vs. being Ethiopian National. All of these aspects of identity have unique cultural attachments.

Where does Muslim culture stop and Somali or Fulani culture begin? How can you tear Ethiopian Christianity out of Ethiopia? Taking Islam out of Oromo Girl | A plethora of cultures impacting her lifeWest Africa is like trying to take the green out of grass. In any instant someone could be more Muslim than Somali and then 2 seconds later be more Somali than Muslim (if we tried to split it apart). All of us live in a 21st century world which has a serious impact on globalized socialization. In other words without even knowing it we behave as people in a global cultural village with globalized interactions.



Our culture provides us with an ethos we must honor in both thought and practice. By ethos, we mean a people’s self-understanding as well as its self-presentation in the world through its thought and practice in the other six areas of culture. It is above all a cultural challenge. For culture is here defined as the totality of thought and practice by which a people creates itself, celebrates, sustains and develops itself and introduces itself to history and humanity– Maulana Karenga


Culture is therefore a complete process, that is not limited to “the people”, it is at a legal level, a family level, an a political level. When you land in IsCulture is Politicsrael you see a complete set of systems working in tandem which promote an Israeli national culture. When you land in the USA you see American culture, it is not a coincidence those things which shout “This is America”. As mentioned before, it might be called Western, but it is someone’s culture. French culture, Italian culture, etc are promoted at a state level. So in Africa the political process has an inescapable responsibility to African culture.





So what is the real issue the West has with the Hijab? The Hijab is a cultural political symbol of the face of the rise of Islam. Every year more the streets of Europe see more women wearing this “alien” dress. The traditional imposition of White supremacy is being beaten back by an pigmented culture. Now the Muslim is again in Europe, but not with weapons of war, but weapons of culture. We can now see White skinned British girls walking down Oxford street in hijab which spits in the face of “Europeanization.” And the new cuisine, language are all carried on the wings multiculturalism, the same multiculturalism that keeps the West powerful via fresh labor, skills, and money. So every attempt is being made to have the cake and eat it to, keep the perks of diversity while attempt to Europeanize them as they did with the African-Caribbean community. The irony is that the strength of “the other” in Europe is because of their cultural identity. Once that is gone the social function that multiculturalism serves will vanish and become social delinquency.

We are not Africans because we are born in Africa, we are Africans because Africa is born in us –Chester Higgins, Jr.










Mursi Lip Piercing

Mursi Lip Piercing

Contrary to what the left’s relativist ideology says, for us all civilizations are not of equal value..We must protect our civilization–Claude Gueant (Racist French Politician)





If a fish jumps out of the sea and grows wings, feathers and a beak, at some point in that change the fish ceases to be a fish – culture is no different. We must identify what we are discussing when we saw cultures change. Cultural diffusion looks at how cultural changes spread from a small source sample from one society to another. The process by which discrete culture traits are transferred from one society to another, through migration, trade, war, or other contact (Winthrop 1991:82).

This author suggest two types of change “off Axis change” and “on axis change”, where the axis is the core value formation of a culture. Because we run the risk of making an error of confusion cultural innovation with radical core changes. For example Franz Boas viewed culture as consisting of countless loose threads, most of foreign origin, but which were woven together to fit into their new cultural construction. Discrete elements which become more interrelated as time passes–blurring their discreetness in the process. Now on axis change allows these elements as Boas notes to be woven together under the authorship of the people receiving innovations. In the off-axis setup this process is overwhelmed by imposition.



Technology has altered much of our landscape, people in Gambia now go to the Mosque by car as oppose to by horse. People talk on mobile phones, but the greetings are still “Assalam Alaikum.” Technology has shaped the culture but it has not made a significant change to the core Islamic faith, despite the Adhan now being called out on a loud speaker and electricity being in every Mosque. People now read Qur’an on Ipads is an evolution but not a change which suggest Islam is becoming Scientology.

Between Monday and Friday every person undergoes “change” it however would be a misrepresentation of the facts to suggest this “change” means people become radically different individuals. The cliche express “cultures change they are not static“‘ is being abused to justify radical alternation to African cultures. So the barriers which protect African identity are now being torn down under the word “cultures are not static.” New markets and foreign destructive habits can now nest in African societies under the banner of “cultures change.” But cultures even if they change should always change under the process of agency.



Because of the imposition of European culture, it has grown from being a visible culture to just being just the norm for everyone including non-Europeans. Eating with a knife and fork or wearing a tie is all part of a specific ethnic culture which via acculturation has become “normal” for everyone else. So issues around culture being seen as backward are debunked because European culture is wrapped in technological innovations and certainly not perceived as “backward.” There is no part of the American dream that is not a cultural construction. The value formations instruct the culture which is uniquely American. Nothing humans do is untouched by culture and therefore there is no positions in a sanitized culturally-secular world. In other words a culture-free society or a cultureless way of doing anything.

And in more subtle ways language affects perception. The term ethnic is used by Africans inside of Africa to describe their nature features and cultures. How can an African be “ethnic” in a continent where Africaness is the norm?

We also see people saying “cultural dress” ; the mental process is creating a “normal dress” and then a “cultural dress” and while it is 100% accurate, we need to examine how European culture is so normalized it forces everyone else’s culture to be “Culture.”

In the West it is customary to say “Lets go for a drink ” this is an aspect of socialization and culture. It is the cultural way in which people engage with one another. It is however not the standard. In the Sahel of Mali the custom every time people meet is to sit down and drink sweet coffee.



Muslim Hausa in Nigeria

Muslim Hausa in Nigeria

It is easy to prove that most taboos are, indeed, relative. Incest, suicide, feticide, infanticide, parricide, ethnocide, genocide, genital mutilation, social castes, and adultery are normative in certain cultures – and strictly proscribed in others. Taboos are pragmatic moral principles. They derive their validity from their efficacy. They are observed because they work, because they yield solutions and provide results. They disappear or are transformed when no longer useful–Sam Vaknin





All human values are rooted somewhere, we cannot prove “right” and “wrong” by mere logic, because all values at some stage must be anchored in some fundamental truths unique to the user’s community. Why is life sacred, why is incest wrong? Why is there a taboo on public nudity? Why is homosexuality seen as undesirable? Why is slavery unacceptable today despite it being acceptable for most of known history? Why is suicide condemned? Who decides which freedoms are restricted by law? It is easy for our modern society to agree on most of these points, or at least agree on the logic used to secure these arguments. So people say “off course slavery is wrong.” However, the large agreement is perhaps due to the legacy the global Abrahamic faith notions of morality.

There is also a moral zeitgeist that continually evolves in society, generally progressing toward liberalism in the West. This liberal trend always reverses when adverse social trauma impacts a society, such as rise in crime, prostitution or teenage delinquency. In the case of homosexuality and incest we can see practical biological reasons for why societies do not encourage it. Beyond argument it goes against the principles of peoplehood—the natural drive to continue the species. But this “practicality” is the foundation of African cultural ethics, what appeals for the best interest of the group. “Thou shall not kill” members of your own tribe (in-group and out-group morality) has practical overtones. ‘Bury the dead‘, has health overtones, ‘do not eat pork‘, again another health observation. ‘Circumcise the boys‘, again practical, and now studies reveal the hygiene and reduced chances of HIV transmission, but it also goes beyond practical when it binds groups of people together and forms civilizations. “We belong to the group” is the foundation of civilization and the cultural habits and rituals are the acts which pledge allegiance to the group cohesion. And despite the plethora of ethics and people who populate the America’s there is a core moral centrality which is enforced in legislation, which in theory is in the direction of the largest demographics cultural sensitivity. At what age is a child an adult? In absence of discrete rights of passage, Western societies depend on relativistic logic to formulate a fix number—but still it is based on the local cultures.


Protagoras, the Greek Sophist, observed that ethical codes are culture-dependent and vary in different societies, economies, and geographies. The pragmatist believe that what is right is merely what society thinks is right at any given moment. Good and evil are not immutable. Morality can be said to be intra-cultural but not trans-cultural. But ethical or cultural relativism and the various schools of pragmatism ignore the fact that certain ethical precepts – probably grounded in human nature – do appear to be universal and ancient. Certain values such as justice, honor, veracity, keeping promises, moral hierarchy – permeate all the cultures.


The major virtues found in all cultures include wisdom / knowledge; courage; humanity; justice; temperance; and transcendence. [3] Different cultural groups respond differently to moral dilemmas as established in Fons Trompenaars “Did the Pedestrian Die?” And communal cultures v. individualistic cultures display radical difference in priorities. The tattoo culture in the West is a sign of “I do not belong to this majority group“, however no such concepts are found in Africa. tattooing or scarification is an mark of “I belong to this group.” The motivation for body piercing and adornment in Africa is more for inclusion, rather than exclusion.

The taboo of slavery in our modern societies has no bearing on what was moral in Ancient Rome. Pederasty was normal in Ancient Greek cultures, but today is viewed with absolute repulsion. Our morals have evolved, but evolution does not imply superiority. Moral superiority is impossible to gauge as we live within the world we are creating and hence are studying and judging self (a paradox for objectivity). Evolved ethics just means many processes have gone into arriving at what most people agree is “rights” and “wrong.” Today, and only today, does the bulk of the world take issue with slavery. The world however does not have the same issue with incarceration with hard labor of criminals (a euphemism for slavery). In Ancient Africa crimes against the state or a citizen were punishable by enslavement.[4] So incarceration in some African societies is only separated by a word, “slavery.” And our society is morally comfortable with the process as long as this word “prison” is used and not “slavery.” And terminologies have always been used to shade communities from harsh realities they are uncomfortable with. [5]





You can not measure an African success with a European ruler–Shahadah

People say “In African culture had/has a relationship with nature.” But is this static? It seems to be switched around these days. Africans are traditionally communal —not individualistic. Africans have a moral culture. But how long ago was that? These things are not promised by God to stay that way if the root of culture are destroyed (by internal or by external forces). These days people are “proud” of an identity that has no deep roots in anything environmental, ethical or developmental. This pride is in the notion of a name for a culture that has long lost of of its ethical parts—only the name remains. So understanding Ethiopian or Zulu, or Akan culture beyond the name and the coverings is critical to preserving what makes it special.

The more we understand each other (African to African) the easier unity becomes. You cannot respect what you do not understand. You cant understand anything through bigoted eyes. And without African unity the relationship between Africa and the world will always marginalize African development in every area of people activity. There can be no equitable exchange between Africa and the world if Africans are looking for ideals in ‘the other’, or defined by ‘the other.’ if Africa is not on an equal platform of self-determination and agency then that unique contribution is moot.


Alik Shahadah

Alik Shahadah


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