Is there an African culture, an African art or an African anthropology or an African science? These questions seem mostly academic or banal but there are no clear answers to them. The academic world loves controversies and the ordinary public is fond of listening to academic debates however erudite they sometimes sound. At the end of the day it is akin to asking whether there is an African science; something that sounds ridiculous because science has no ethnic or national identity.
Is there an African philosophy? This question had triggered heated debates and controversies among intellectual circles in Africa or in the Diaspora. The issue has never been settled in a satisfactory manner although the protagonists and antagonists of the very existence of African philosophy are exchanging criticisms from time to time without coming into agreement. Back in the 1870s, there were apparently three tendencies that characterized the debates.
There were African philosophers who said yes, Africa has its own philosophy. The second batch of writers denied the very existence of an African philosophy per se, by sticking to the old Eurocentric conception of Africa that denied or refused to talk about African philosophy because it did not exist. The third group consisted of African philosopher like the late Hountoudji et. al. who argued that African philosophy should be the combination or symbiosis of the Eurocentric view plus African traditional world views. It is not clear which camp had won the day because all of the three tendencies had their strong and weak points that led to the debate to remain hanging in midair.
Most Africans address this question positively although they have no solid arguments to support their contentions. If there is a European philosophy why not an African philosophy? If there is Chinese philosophy why not an African philosophy? Simplistic as it may sound, this kind of answer may be warranted either by sheer African nationalism or by a defiant sense of self-affirmation in a world where anything African is still looked at with jaundiced eyes. The other baffling question related to this: Why is Africa is often held in uncertainty while other continents and other people are admitted to the club of the privileged few whose culture or philosophy is readily accorded universal recognition? Why Africa is the victim of doubt or a thinly veiled sense of inferiority complex? Is this the last vestige of the colonial and post-colonial eras where anything African is hard to swallow?
When it comes to the question whether Africa has “an African culture”, it would be ideal to start with the best definition of culture that was given by an anthropologist called Eduard B.Tylor, who is considered the founder of cultural anthropology, who defined culture as, “the complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”
In general, no one denies the existence of African culture or the fact that Africans have their own cultures although ‘a culture of Africa’ may be a different story. “The Culture of Africa is varied and manifold, consisting of a mixture of countries with various tribes depicting their unique characteristic and trait from the continent of Africa. It is a product of the diverse populations that inhabit the continent of Africa and the African Diaspora.”
This is so because culture, unlike philosophy cannot be readily attributed the whole continent as if it has one common culture. Africa is not a homogeneous entity like China or Japan. Although Japan and China belong to Asia, they do not have a common Asiatic culture because they are two different geographic entities with two different cultures. As a corollary of this, Africa which a continent cannot have one common culture although the commonality of the various cultures of Africa is expressed in the fact that most of them share common characteristic because of their common social physiognomies.
“Generally, Culture can be defined as a collective mass of distinctive qualities belonging to a certain group of people. These qualities include laws, morals, beliefs, knowledge, art, customs and any other attribute belonging to a member of that society. Culture is the way of life of a group of people.” There are an estimated thousands of cultures in Africa and they can be depicted collectively as representing African culture in general.
What we may call an African Culture may therefore be the collection of all the cultures of the various peoples and ethnic groups of Africa. “There are over 3000 different ethnic groups speaking more than 2100 languages in all of Africa. The people there practice a variety of religions, including Christianity, Islam Judaism, and traditional religions specific to their ethnic group.” When we speak of language we are bound to speak of cultures because language is one of the most important dimensions of culture. The most widely spoken language of Africa are Swahili, spoken by 200 million people, followed by Yoruba spoken by 45million people Igbo spoken by 30 million people and Fula spoken by 35 million people and belong to the Niger-Congo family of languages.
The other point is that the culture of Africa may be divided in various “clusters of cultures” consisting of many more sub-cultures. “The people North Africa are primarily followers of Islam and are speakers of Arabic.” If we go further south of the continent with observe the same phenomenon in southern-central Africa. “The French and Arabs have heavily are heavily influenced by the people of the Congo and they have a distinctive modern music style.” We can go on analyzing the clusters of cultures across Africa. The people of the Horn of Africa have similar cultural traits and religious beliefs that they share among themselves and form a cluster distinct from north, south-central or western African cultures and sub-cultures.
Within these cultural clusters, there are countries or civilizations that have contributed more than others in terms of their contribution to the common culture of Africa. “The first major civilization in Africa was Egypt centered around the lush Nile river delta. Egyptian civilization truly began around 3150 BC when the ruler Menes unified the entire area into a kingdom.” When we talk about early African civilizations and by implication about early African cultures, we can mention the three, i.e. Egypt, Kush and Axum as the main civilizations. In an area full of people competing for power and resources, each culture affected the rise and fall of others.
As we said above, there are obviously common features, values and morals that African cultures share between them. As culture in the African context or in general is the product of the interaction and fusion of many cultures, the values African share include, “principles such as unity, patriotism, social cohesion, respect for authority and elders and a sense of community life. African culture also promotes the sanctity of life decent dressing, honesty and integrity, peaceful coexistence and communality.” Africans have common and particular cultural heritages that define their common identities. African heritage is the history, cultural practices and beliefs of the people of Africa. It is important to preserve African heritage because it helps us understand our past and where we came from. It also helps us understand our culture and how we relate to one another.
To wrap up our discussion, we are bound to go back to the question we raised in the title to this article. Is there a culture of Africa? In other words, does Africans have a common culture? From the discussion above the answer to this question is yes and no. Africans have a common ancestry but not a common culture because they are diverse people who have developed diverse cultures through time and history.
As Africans do not have a common language, they do not have a common culture. Yes, they have common cultural attributes in the sense that culture, in Africa as elsewhere tends to overlap across geographical borders and communities that are linked by factors such as ethnicity and language. Yes, they share common cultural values and traits that bind them together as people of the same continent.
We are coming full circle and asking whether Africans have common philosophical values. The answer is also yes, they have. Do they have common culture? Yes, they have. As we tried to show in the above analysis, these questions are not only ambiguous but also simple to ask. The answers might also look complex but they are in fact simple. Both African philosophy and African culture can be addressed in the singular as well as in the plural. It is not geography but language and culture that is bind Africans together and allow them to live in harmony by sharing common world views as well as common cultural values.
There are sometimes misconceptions about Africa presented as the reality in the Western media. Africans were, until recently depicted as wild people without philosophy of life or decent cultural practices.
Negative perceptions and representations of Africa such as civil wars, hunger, corruption, greed, selfishness, disease and poverty have been the defining characteristic Africa and Africans in the minds of many Western people. These stereotypes are still prevalent. Yet, the truth is that Africans are like any people in the world, normal people of integrity and humility that define their cultural values and philosophical outlooks.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
The Ethiopian Herald April 28/2014
