I wake up every morning afraid that one day, I will be asked to renounce everything that makes me an African, or I won’t be allowed to live. By living, I mean, I won’t be allowed on a plane, I won’t be allowed in a mall, I won’t be allowed in a school, I won’t be allowed in the workplace and so on, unless I conform to legislated values that are completely repugnant to African customs and even my personal convictions. And please don’t take this my fear for granted.
It’s a given today too that African traditional worship systems, African cultural systems of marriages and relationships, our cultural rights of passage to adulthood and even burials, and many of our social ethos, have been consistently demonized for centuries, to the melodious satisfaction of not just those who told us theirs is better, but even to greater satisfaction of Africans themselves, who now see almost everything that is not foreign as an aberration. But in the actual sense, we are different. We are meant to be and it should have been so and continue to be so.
The Japanese for instance culturally continue to instill cherished values like taking off shoes when entering someone’s house. No shaking of hands and hugging when meeting with loved ones. Bowing 45 degrees to show respect, particularly to the elderly. Washing hands when entering a shrine. Their young ones look forward to adulthood and getting married in shrines and building families together. The Japanese have their traditional religions. Their politicians and wealthy elites, as well as ordinary people, worship in their shrines and temples. No one tells them that if they don’t abandon their traditional religions and accept another, they won’t make heaven.
Culturally, during the Chinese New Year or Spring Festival, nearly all children in China receive hongbao (lucky money). Hongbao usually consists of brand-new bills put in a red envelope and given by the elders of the family. Chinese are culturally used to drinking hot water, and many prefer the water to be burning hot because they believe hot water can cure ailments and prevent disease. Chinese people usually wear red underwear on “Ben Ming Nian” (Zodiac Year of Birth). It is believed that wearing red underwear during the whole year prevents misfortunes from befalling them in the year to come. Their young ones too look forward to adulthood and marriage rituals in their temples and building families together. They have their religion that all their political elite and wealthy class are adherents and no one dare tells them that if they don’t abandon their religious and cultural beliefs, they won’t make heaven.
The Arabs, in like manner, also have their distinct way of life. From dressing to birth to adulthood and burial rites. Their young ones all look forward to getting married in mosques and building families. They have their religion and it may even cost your life if you decide to change your religion.
The Indians have theirs. The Europeans also have theirs. The question I continue to ask is, why are they all headed towards Africa to come and share us among their various belief systems? At what point did we all agree that our values have become so abhorrent that we must accept other people’s own before we become accepted?
Africa appears to be facing the West in this assimilation and copycatism. Today, the marriage system as we know it in Africa is seriously under attack in preference for babymama-ism, babydaddy-ism, single mother-ism, single daddy-ism. With folks becoming increasingly impatient with building families together. Attributes that Africans were hitherto ashamed of are becoming accepted as our values and people are afraid of raising their voices because they will be criticized.
Sponsored Western values that we hitherto considered debased are being legislated into our fabric every year and emboldening the degeneration of our cultural values that have held our continent and distinguished us as a race from others. And more are on the way under the guise of human rights.
It appears the last generation of parents who got values from our ancestors are extinct. Parents who taught children how to sweep, how to keep a home, how to love, how to respect elders, how to work hard, how to do justice, how to endure and persevere, those who showed children the way to the farm. They are all gone. Today, kids who don’t have these values are becoming parents themselves. And they have no values to instill. They copy and paste values and parenting from textbooks and television and the Internet. They are a lost generation and who will save them since they fail to realize that we are sincerely not the same?
Citizen Agba Jalingo is the Publisher of CrossRiverWatch and rights activist, a Cross Riverian, and writes from Lagos.
NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Agba Jalingo, and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch or any other organization the author works for/with.
Leave feedback about this