Evolution of Tradition.

Is it possible that the hem that holds Africa together could be the blade tearing us apart?

Tradition definition:cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs and institutions.

As far as African civilisations go, it was apparent that the woman's role was mostly submissive; hardly any administrative role. So an old adage tells us 'the place of the woman is in the kitchen' .I wonder what the guy who came up with this line would say now in an era where women run industries, homes, countries. My question is how is it possible to prescribe to traditions that were there centuries ago, imposing them in the 21st century?

Can tradition evolve? Hell yeah.

case study:







Polygamy was an African practice pre christianity era. Men would be allowed upto as many wives as they could afford. Today, most African countries that have embraced christianity have shunned polygamy and have opted monogamy, ofcourse because of their new found beliefs.Infact in some African countries it is illegal to have more than one wife.

Lets not even pretend for one second that traditions are not evolving. But why are we still holding our women captive all in the name of tradition? Clearly someone is making the decisions of what traditions to carry forward into the future and which ones to make illegal. Who makes this decisions if not us. Or worse still we have let 'someoneelse' make those very vital decisions for the growth of this continent.

It is important to know where you are coming from to know how much further you need to go to get to your goals. The challenge for Africa is an evolving one. With new infrasturcture, technology, globalization etc we are slowly consuming a lot of influences from all over the world and the adverse effects are breaking us further apart as a continent. Africa is losing its identity of being the source and is now characterised by wars, poverty,diseases and all kinds of suffering.

It shouldnt be this way you know. I believe our tradiotions will be our identity. But surely we cannot be prescribing to old traditions. The evolution of our traditions as a continent will be key in uniting this continent. We should be proud of our differences from the rest of the world. Let the world emulate us. Let them want to be us.

I fear that my childrens' children will never understand what Africa is and its potential. Why? because day by day we lose our identity. 100years from now, the whole world will be one big village(we are slowly heading there). No culture, No morals, No identity. How important is your own identity to you?




Key Point: Lets embrace change as a continent. Sustainable change for all,with no ulterior motives of trying to hold back one group of people from progressing. We need our traditions,as a blue print so we can never lose our identity.

Thats all Im saying.

Prologue

From an early age, I knew I was an African. But I can say now that it didn’t mean anything special for me at that time to recognize my race. As I got older, watching flicks like Sarafina sort of opened my eyes to a lot of things going on around me. School taught me a lot about what a flourishing race we were before the white man came and took our land and subdued us to humiliation for decades. I learnt so much about the white man and his ways growing up, that sometimes it is easier to identify with his ways and forget my heritage. While I was learning all this things about Europe, Americas etc, I forgot about my home, my people, our pride.
In the past two years I have been blessed to travel within the continent. And I realise that Africans mostly know stereotypes about each other. That’s the equivalent of gossip might I add. Think about it. We hardly know anything about each other but we know a whole lot about other continents.
The label the white man gave this continent ‘the dark continent’ is sort of apt here as we are like strangers living under one house. The truth is we are all just one big family.
This continent has all you need. Trust me. Everything that you need is here. Wealth, wonders, culture, and beautiful weather you name it. But we prefer to go on holiday in the Bahamas because we probably know more about the Caribbean than Kenya which has more flora and fauna and it will cost you less.
The sad reality is that because we refuse to learn about each other, the continent remains divided. We lose out. We bleed ourselves dry constantly on our knees to the other continents who in essence are our peers. We have reduced ourselves to beggars, whoring ourselves out for loans when we have the resources. We are letting our brothers fight and kill each other in wars; you lie to yourself if you think civil wars in Africa have nothing to do with you if you are an African. We let them slander our brothers in ‘their’ media so as to create a greater rift between us. It affects you it affects me.
That’s all I’m saying
To be continued...