Exactly!
written by titus , June 02, 2007

Thank God there are still people like you around. I thought I was the only one!

...
written by aeichener , June 02, 2007

This article is a nice counterpiece to Stephen Wanyama's view - which has spawned a lot of comments, showing how the topic touches many of us - and while I do certainly not agree with Michael Okello, I applaud the editors' decision to publish his gloss. There is a world of a difference between such an opinion piece and the ignorant crap that David Mathai wrote and which still continues to soil the image of KenyaImagine and to tarnish its formerly high reputation.

Now, to the beef of Michael Okello's article. Peter Ndiangui has already put forth some of the reasons why one cannot - IMO - agree with it. I will not repeat these.

Peter ascribes some of the common political woes that plague Africa to colonialism. That is certain true (e.g. the Kenyan spirit of servitude instead of service, and the common affliction of bigmanism that tarnishes not just this nation alone), and yet one should not forget that some of the "great African empires" about which armchair panafricanists in a cozy suburban US family home so gladly fantasize, were in no way better that present dictators and often worse.

I do think that there are common roots and cultural backgrounds which many Africans of different ethnia can share (intolerance and bigotry not being among them however; those came by ship and were all too easily embraced by the negroes obsequiously dancing around these new goods). However, to understand oneself as "African" to me seems as little reasonable as to identy as "Asian" or "European". An Afghan shopkeeper and a Vietnamese rice farmer have nothing in common, as little as a Sicilian vinemaker and a Danish civil servant. No inhabitant of either of these two continents would identify so, unless it were in a purely negative sense of definition by opposition ("We are Europeans, not Americans!"; a common opinion these days in the face of the onslaught of barbary, bigotry and brutality of the New Savages from the West).

It is easy to identify as an "African" when you are stuck in Norway and grappling with immigration, bureaucracy and people a loss less coloured than you, just as European expatriates in any place of Africa not infrequently still celebrate their dubious whiteness in their own little circles; it makes no sense however when you are at home. That is my point.

Alexander

Great article but...
written by pndiangui , June 02, 2007

Great article but I find your article a little bit skewed on "practices" rather than on the underlying principles.
If for example adopting "mobile telephony" or "television" is "westernization" and should be condemned , that's a little bit too way skewed. If advocating for gender equality is itself "westernization", I also find that way too skewed. But if for example if you said we need to do more of "our own" with the said technologies or methods by focusing in consuming the technology with an approach of leveraging bits of it to create our own as has been an example of ‘m-pesa’ in Kenya or local television programs delivered on TV channels built through foreign technology well that’s balanced. We have seen this approach work well for the Koreans and Japanese.
You see Okello , social dynamics are bound to change with changing times, new innovations change the practices , for example rather than use a donkey to deliver products from Kisumu to Mombasa , a rail serves us better, that itself hasnt changed the fact that it is transportation it is just that it is a faster "method" or "practice" and may be more efficient way of getting something done. My take here is that we need to be more objective of what we define as "african" and what should be taken as "foreign" and hence bad if adopted. I see you have included the great Egyptian civilizations by the Nubians of the modern day Sudan and the West African great political and millitary structures even more to that I would add the academic centers of excellence in Mali that analyzed the ongoing trans-Atlantic trades and also the South African’s shona Kingdoms. Henry
In a CBS documentary, Henry Louis Gates, Harvard professor of African American history has documented these African historical 'successes' very well and you can purchase some of the greatest DVD’s of his last all world tour. I had a glimpse of some and Gates was truly objective during his trip and unlocks other African civilisation lost in history.

Moving on however, this thing of ‘westernization’ to me is poorly defined and fundamentally flawed. I don’t know if we should now start talking about ‘indianization’ of the west with all the huraboo about ‘spirituality’ and ‘meditation’ gaining dominance in the west, coming mostly from Hindu and Chinise societies.
My point is , societies have influenced others or have been influenced by others from time in memorial. Nations Powers or Powerlessness in military, industry/technology or knowledge has defined who becomes irrelevant in the cultural transfers and adoptions. Most of the influences as I see them have come through due to the vehicles of change
( what we can call ‘methods of doing things’) being better in face value than the older ones or by sheer force being pushed into the societies by the reigning ‘superpowers’.
It is however important to note that the dominant ideology permeates every facet of human existence - taste, morality, customs, religious and political principles. Since the nineteenth century the West has defined human development and set the pace of change which others have followed. The West has not imposed its will on the world by force but by the sheer attractiveness of its civilisation and the belief in the desirability of material progress and prosperity. It is able get people in other nations to desire what it desires and thereby manipulates their aspirations. This is the bedrock of imperialism. It is what enables it to control and use the resources of underdeveloped nations in a manner advantageous to the developed nations and at the expense of the economies of underdeveloped countries.

The economic run of the ‘west’ or 'North' as we call it since the industrial revolution or infact since the Roman empire has meant that most of the inventions and commercialization of them have in most parts of the world emanated from these socities, hence creating a critical mass of the ability to push their ideologies, practices or technologies or force them into other societies. Such has underpinned the definition of ‘civilization’. Therefore, with the adoption of these ‘methods’ from the ‘political organizations’ like we have today, the means of transport and communication has itself been perceived to be ‘foreign’.
Moving on; To me these ‘methods’ were no bad at all. It is the way in which that these 'practices' were adopted which was in violation of the natural principle that govern all humanity that might have got those who were living in Africa (Africans by geographic proximity defination) in the wrong way. And any other culture that has seen such practices adopted or was fed in practices that followed such routes will definitely in a way loose its soul. An example as you said, is the way current African political structures were adopted. It wasn’t in the willingness of its people, but through forced methods of governance that followed brutal colonization both physically and more so mentally. If the ‘political management structures’ were transferred in an incremental, non-violent, non-colonial way, probably we couldn’t have seen the kind of disruption that went with them. But with the colonialists, wiping the history of the African people even through arbitraly non-negotiated boundaries that created the present day 'Nations', as you said people lost the meaning of ‘who they are’.
But ‘who we are’ as ‘African people’ (where ‘Africanization’ is also very subjective in its definition), is beyond ‘methods’ and ‘practices’. I think what we stand for, and our overall understanding of why we exist, in itself our role in this world, defines us better at the very root and shapes our behaviour even when faced with cultural revolutions. If this is what you say we have lost , I can fully attest to it. Ever since those living in the present day Africa had their indigenous philosophy, cultures and economies rooted out 'violently' by slavery, colonialism and neocolonialism, Africans have lost much of what they once had and were. The effects of the way the practices were pushed down to Africans during these periods , have made Africans never to accept themselves fully or show any marked belief in their ability to change their status for the better.
There are various ways in which these attributes have been seen to manifest themselves, both at individual and national levels. Having ‘something we stand for’, has been hard to come-by since those days of the slavery and colonialism. In essence, we lost our soul as a society. Japan has demonstrated the deeper understanding of a society that adopts methods or practices (technology) and still keeps its core purpose of existence.
I don’t see the skewed view of practices and methods of doing things as being the wrong thing, I see as getting back the African philosophy of what they stand for and what they see their role is in the world is, as the building principle of becoming objective of what is right or wrong in the acquired practices in an era of ever changing technology riddled with different cultural dynamics.
Its however lazy to think that other Nations might not have suffered under colonialism and now they have put their acts together.
But is there really an European civilization?
Is there an ‘African society’?

rabble rouser
written by kamau , June 19, 2007

I have always found the argument of Egypt as a source of great afro-centric learning very suspect. I suspect that since Egypt was the crucible of western civilization it has always struck me a back door alley through which we Africans and blacks can lay claim to western civilization.

Afro centricity is quite a comical concept to me especially in the States and the rest of the African Diaspora. There are no issues celebrating the pharaohs however, naked herdsmen in the Sudan, well that just the “west” portraying Africans as backward. From my perspective afro-centricity is a western obsession that we Kenyans have no resources and latitude to indulge in. We will always be Kenyans and African no matter what. Pragmatically speaking, what use is culture if it does not put food on your table? Culture after all is not a static entity in a glass display case high up in a museum shelf. Culture is alive adoptive and ever changing.