The Peculiarities of African Cultural Identity

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The Peculiarities of African Cultural Identity

It is unfair to define African identity, without drawing the attention on cultural identity in its broad and narrow sense. According to Ndubuisi, cultural identity can be understood as a ‘geo-political and socio-cultural entity’ (Ndubuisi 2). That is to say, as Poole puts it in his book Nation and Identity, ‘It may well be that every significant identity carries with it a sense of place and provides its bearers with a special relationship to that place.’ (Poole 127,128) Furthermore, he highlights on the significance of culture arguing that:

If my identity is formed within a certain culture, then it defines my fundamental perspective on the world, constitutes me as a member of a community, provides me a set of memories and aspirations, and thus with a past and a future, and it gives me a place which is mine. My cultural identity defines who I am; and when I envisage the loss of that identity, I am confronted with the thought that I will lose my sense of self and cease to be what I am. (Ibid, 119)

Fundamentally speaking, each individual feels somewhat the need to be identified with a group of people, to be involved in a ‘collective existence.’ (Poole 14) In the case of African cultural identity, Thiong¼o argues, ‘the exploration of the African consciousness is part, a very important part, of that larger theme: the search for an identity in an essentially colonial situation: ‘Who are we, where do we come from; and where do we go from here?’.’ (Thiong¼o 89)

To fully understand the dynamisms of African cultural identity, one ought to dive in into myriad of cultural frameworks. These frameworks fundamentally distinguish Africans from other ethnicities; they provide Africans with a sense of belonging, moreover. It is significant to say that the metaphysical beliefs are immensely essential in Africans’ lives. For instance, Agorsah, in his book Religion, Ritual and African Tradition, argues that ‘according to Yoruba tradition, most diseases and deaths have supernatural causes of witchcraft, curses, or charms. Witches are usually elderly women thought to possess some spiritual or concrete witchcraft substance.’ (Agorsah 12) Moreover, he also claims that ‘many of the rituals involve libations or sacrifices, during which tradition recounts various life situations and thus persuade the participants to realize that all wickedness will be punished, all good rewarded, while in the long run, Providence makes justice prevail.’ (Ibid, 64)

Religion has an essential role in shaping the African behaviour, as Naaman asserts in his article, ‘African Traditional Religion a Sub~structure for Sustainable Development in Africa: A Kenyan Perspective’, Africans eat religiously, dance religiously, trade religiously and organize their societies religiously; but this is done in a holistic manner, without any dichotomy of the material and the spiritual.’ (Naaman 5)

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