We're coming to the end of a year, designated by the UN as the International Year for People of African Descent and, as expected, there would be planned activities and events to celebrate this.However, in the current atmosphere of political and other flux, here as well as elsewhere, it's not inconceivable that there could be wayward elements who would find "a happy hunting ground" for adding fuel to the fire of real or perceived ethnic disparities and/or subliminal tensions of one sort of another. Conceivably, some peculiar constellation of circumstances could explosively disturb an ethnic equilibrium.Be that as it may, the question of a dominant multi-layered "identity," real or assumed, will, I suppose, continue to be a complex as well as a contentious one.It's been said that people are strengthened by a knowledge and appreciation of their respective cultures, however broadly, narrowly or distortedly defined.
Particularly where there has been a cultural hiatus, there appears to be an imperative to attempt that nostalgic journey down memory lane-presumably in the hope that "memory retrieved could result in paradise regained."Where history has decreed that societies are comprised of diverse strands of humanity with a variety of cultural backgrounds, affinities and indeed aspirations and proclivities, and occupy the same geographical space, it's incumbent that there be healthy mutual respect for each other's cultural baggage.The natural evolutionary process should be allowed to produce an acceptable modus vivendi which results in the "melding" rather than "melting" of cultures. The buzz word phrase now, as I understand it, is "multiculturalism." The acid test being equitable dispersion of state financial patronage to events or activities so recognised as such by officialdom.
Interestingly, African-American journalist Keith B Richburg once spent three years travelling in Africa seeking answers to "the chaos then sweeping the continent of his ancestors..." He appeared to have experienced a "cultural shock," which led him to ask, "Is this my country and are they my people?" Needless to ask whether he received endless flak from an assortment of Afrocentrists.Bob Marley referred to "Buffalo soldier, stolen from Africa, fighting on arrival, fighting for survival," presumably, hoping to expunge the haunted void and darkness of the middle passage and thereafter.The quest for an African Utopia must have been the corollary to refurbishing "a besmirched and tainted image, reclaiming an erstwhile dignity and locating the African psyche outside the ambit of self-diminution and self-contempt.There appears to be a need, here as elsewhere, to expunge the tormented feeling of inferiority that has, wittingly or otherwise, been associated with things identifiably African, notwithstanding the legend, supported by archaeological findings, that humanity first made its landfall on the African continent.
Pursuit of an African identity, among others, as there's no law against "a multi-layered identity," should not be a catalyst for divisiveness. That, of course, applies to the inordinate pursuit of other identities.Ironically, in Africa itself, the tribal identity seems to supersede the all-encompassing African identity. In our own case, an African identity may be our way of dealing with the "memories," before they consume us.According to Mayo Angelo, "...the descendants of slaves are filled with self-loathing and doubt." I might also add that although the shackles may be off, psychologically, we remain as "caged birds." We need to hearken to the clarion call, "Children of the darkness, come out into the light."The quest for an African identity need not, in the first instance, be that of pigmentation per se, but a return to ancestral roots and, arguably, "a spiritual recrudescence." It's simply not a question of engaging in superficialities for the sheer heck of it.The popular notion that the slaves were primitive or savage and devoid of culture or any value system may have been grossly mistaken and indeed fabricated to justify the inhuman treatment meted out.
According to Gad Neuman, "All through the Americas slaves resisted the imposition of European culture or incorporated it within their traditional African practices. In the process, they retained significant parts of their African heritage.The African influence in language, song, dance and religion are manifestations of the survival of African patterns of thought and behaviour and evidence that the slaves did not supinely accept the master's view of the world but clung to aspects of their own African culture or adapted to the demands of their current situation.Their folktales and songs constituted significant parts of the slave's culture. According to Neuman and others, they helped the slaves develop survival strategies, as well as provided them with metaphorical victories over their white masters.Simon Schama pointed out that Western culture has demonised and patronised its victims as primitives. The redress by "idealisation," to wit "the noble savage," is another form of condescension, thereby robbing the cultures of their human complexity, "with their plausible complement of virtues as well as vices." Need I say more?
