A society's world view derivesfrom various factors and informs both perspectives and actions. Rev. Damian Musonda, rector of the major seminary in Zambia,  presents the African world view, and  Alex Muyebe, S.J., former JCTR staff member, explores the identity issue.  Zampi Phiri, S.J., looks at the traditional practice of bride price, reflecting from his pastoral experience.

UNDERSTANDING THE AFRICAN WORLD VIEW

   This presentation is meant to set the background for a discussion of healing in the African context.  It will provide the outline of some main elements that form the African world view.  The world view provides the people with concepts about the world, who they are, and what they have to do in order to realise what they consider to be their destiny.  It also provides tools for responding to the situations of crisis.  It is the starting point of thinking, conduct, and emotional reaction.  Since the world view belongs to the deepest level of culture, it is important to say something about the levels of culture in order to understand it.  This presentation will begin with the discussion of the levels of culture, the world view in general, and afterwards discuss the African world view.

THE LEVELS OF CULTURE

There are three levels of culture on which society organises itself.  The first and surface consists of the signs and symbols minus their meaning.  These signs and symbols are the building blocks of a culture.  Anybody, even those who are not members of the culture, can recognise the elements that form this first level of a culture. 

The second level is that of function or meanings.  The society relates various signs and symbols to one another through function to create a system of meanings.  This is not evident to the stranger, and needs time to discover the various meanings attached to various signs and symbols or a cluster of signs and symbols.

The most important and deepest level of a culture is the mentality.  This is the basic psychology, the underlying ways of a society, the starting points of thinking, reacting, and motivating, the fundamental premises, attitudes, and drives.  This third and deepest level of culture determines the first two levels of forms or symbols and of function.  In order to move beyond the level of symbols and experience the realities they symbolise, one has to move to the third level of culture.  By investigating the third level of culture one is faced with the fundamental conceptions and values.

THE WORLD VIEW IN GENERAL

A major and most important element that shapes the third level of culture is the world view.  The world view is the central systematisation of conception, of reality to which members of the culture assent (largely unconsciously) and from which stems their value system.  The world view answers such basic questions as: who and what am I?  Why am I in the world?  What is reality?  Is the present life the only possible way to live?  What is the meaning of death?  What is the origin of the world and its purpose?  What is the proper orientation to time and space?  The answers to these and similar questions give a distinctive character to a culture.

The world view has five functions to perform for the members of a culture.  The first function deals with the explanation of reality.  In this function it tells the society what and how it is to think about the world and life in general.  For example, the concepts of witches, sorcerers, taboos, totem, and so on, are part of the African world view which provide the African with a satisfactory explanation of otherwise enigmatic happenings in the world, such as sudden deaths through a tragic accident or an unexpected coming upon a fortune.  Myths, apart from being a means of communicating moral values, also give explanations of reality.

The second function of the world view is evaluation.  This judges all important and valued behaviour in the economic, political, social, religious and educational fields in terms of the people's assumptions, beliefs, values, meanings and sanctions.

The third function is psychological re-enforcement.  When anxieties and crises in life happen, it is to one's conceptual system that one turns for the encouragement to continue or to be stimulated to take other actions.  This is the case during such times as illness, birth, death, and transition times such as puberty and marriage.

Very often the psychological re-enforcement takes a form of a ritual or ceremony communally celebrated to render support to an individual and a group.  This psychological re-enforcement is perhaps the function that vividly points to the existence of the African world view in the present situation.  In times of crises many people, even the educated, turn to traditional practices such as consulting diviners and traditional doctors.

The fourth function of the world view is integration.  The world view systematises and orders for the particular people their perceptions of reality into an overall design.  This design helps them to interpret multifarious events to which they are exposed.  In the process it filters out most of those elements that do not conform to the beliefs that explain what reality is.

The fifth and last function of the world view is adaptation.  This especially works in times of cultural change.  The world view reconciles irreconcilable differences between old and new understandings. new ideas are integrated into the old system of understanding reality and life.  Thus, whatever is novel in any society is at least partly traceable to elements in the world view that has developed over time. 

A society will hesitate or refuse to adopt any new idea that it senses to be inconsistent with its cultural system or for which it feels no need.  If, on the other hand, the new idea appears at least in some respect desirable, the society will begin to re-interpret it so that it does fit into own world view.

AFRICAN WORLD VIEWS

There are many variations, interpretations and institutionalisation of beliefs and customs among the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa.  This poses a difficulty of precisely delineating the fundamental elements of the African world view or even better African world views.  My task here is not to give a full account of these various elements in the different African cultures, but rather to give a synthesis of major elements that can be found more or less in any African culture.

INTEGRATION

The first element in the African world view is the philosophy of integration.  God, humanity and nature are ontological categories which are inextricably related, even though they are conceptually distinct.  Animals, plants and inanimate things are an integral part of nature, deserving as much attention and respect as human beings.  The basis of this unity is God himself who communicates his life to all creatures in the act of creation.

This is why in the African world view there is no dichotomy between the secular and the sacred.  All reality is sacred.  In this connection the fundamental concern of the Africans is to maintain unity.  Thus Africans seek to maintain the relationships in nature, among the people themselves, and with God.

That is why the healing process does not only target the body only, but even more importantly, it is also aimed at bringing about social harmony. During my research I came across a case of a person who had quarreled with his mother over the marriage payment for his daughter which he allegedly did not share with other relatives as per custom.  I was told that due to the broken relationship between the two, his goats started to die one after the other.

Then somebody stole his nets.  Within a short time he became ill.  So the elders had to intervene.  They went to the diviner who told them the cause of his illness.  They were told that the mother was responsible for all the calamities the man was experiencing because she was annoyed at his behaviour.  If he wanted to be cured he had to go and apologise to his mother and let them share a meal as a sign of reconciliation.

Sharing a meal is a sign of communicating goodwill and life.  In order to ensure unity, the will of the ancestors, embodied in customary law and traditions coming from the ancestors, has to be followed.  Following them is a sure sign of maintaining unity and life.  In this connection the role of leaders is crucial.

On the ethnic level the chiefs are symbols of unity for the people in their area.  They are a link to the past and ensure that the life of their people is protected and enhanced by the people's adherence to the traditions of their ancestors. On the level of the clan, the elders play a very prominent role in ensuring unity of the clan and protection of life.

The clan is the level where the communion of life is thought to be strong since all the members of the same clan share the same ancestral blood.  So following the advice of the elders is crucial for maintenance and enhancement of the common life of the clan.  To disobey them is to put life at risk. Elders, through their experience and their nearness to the departed in the hierarchy of being, are better placed to interpret the will of the ancestors.  For this reason they are to be obeyed.

HIERARCHY OF THINGS AND PEOPLE

The second element in the African world view is the hierarchy of created reality and people.  The African people believe that although all created reality and people share the same life there is variety and degree of participation in it.  God is the fullness of life, from whom all other beings get their life.  Below God are divinities and spirits (natural or ancestral and of the spirits of the deceased) who are also the creation of God.  Then follow the living people.  Below them are the animals and birds, followed by trees and grass.

Finally, at the bottom level, are the non-mobile things such as stones.  This hierarchy is based on the degree of life each being possesses.  In the human community there is also a hierarchy that takes into account the degree of life each person possesses.  At the top level are the ancestors followed by the spirits of the departed.  The living follow, with elders forming the most important category.  Below elders are those who are married and are heads of families.  The lowest category are babies.  We can see here that the status one has in the society depends on vital rank.

LIFE

The third element of the African world view is the belief that life can increase, decrease and interact.  The increase of life is achieved in various ways.  The ordinary way is through growth from childhood until one reaches old age, the highest stage among the living.  Another way is through ritual.  This occurs in succession ceremonies and other rituals connected with acquiring powers to do certain tasks, such as being a medicine person or hunter.

The third way of increasing life is through being possessed by a higher being such as a spirit.  One acquires by this some characteristics of such a higher being and can do extraordinary things such as walking on fire without being burnt.  Finally, a being can increase life through eating and drinking, touching, and just being close to another person or the abode of the spirit of other things.

Just as there may be an increase of life, there can also be a decrease.  Life can be decreased by such things as curses or being in contact with harmful things such as bad medicine.  Thus sorcerers are detested because they are believed to destroy life through malice and use of bad medicines.  Disrespect towards an elder can lead one to lose life through the anger of such an elder.

A word said by an elder is believed to be charged with power which can either enhance life through a blessing or destroy it through anger or a curse.  This is why part of the respect the people give to elders is due  to the  belief that they have a power which can be beneficial if they are happy and destructive if they become angry.  The increase and decrease of life is achieved by the interaction among creatures, including human beings.

Life can move from one being to another.  There is no difference between material and immaterial, animate and inanimate beings.  All beings have life that can be communicated.  The higher beings such as spirits and humans can tap the life of lesser beings and use it to enhance their life or that of other human beings.  This is what happens in the use of medicines.

The life inherent in certain trees and parts of animals is tapped and used to increase the life of human beings.  The African people believe that an individual can communicate life to things and people he or she is in contact with.  Furthermore, in the act of making something like the crafts, an individual communicates his or her life to his or her creation.

Therefore, according to the African people sorcery beliefs, a sorcerer can harm an individual through the person's property and everything that a person has made, such as a stool, a clay pot, basket, and so on.  A sorcerer can take a piece of the property of the person he or she wants to injure and mix it with charms.  In this way the sorcerer brings about the sickness or death of his or her victim. 

ubupyani rite

Another example that points to the belief among the African people that an individual can communicate his or her life is the ubupyani rite among the Bemba of Zambia.  This rite is done by one of the relatives of the deceased and with the surviving partner.  At the appointed day they perform ritual sexual intercourse.  The purpose of the rite is to bring back into the clan the umupashi, "spirit", of the deceased and to free the living partner from what the African people consider as the still-existing marriage bond.

There is a strong indication here that an individual communicates life to those with whom he or she is in very close physical contact.  The same ubupyani rite also expresses the belief that an individual communicates life to material things he or she is in close contact with.  Part of the ubupyani rite consists of the chosen successor taking part of the property  of the deceased.  The African people believe that the property of the deceased person contains, somehow, his or her life.  Thus the successor does not only assume the social status of the deceased, but also shares in his or her life by using the very materials that were used by the deceased.

A final example relates to the belief among the African people that one can communicate one's good or bad condition.  For example, among some African peoples it is believed that menstruating women, those who have had miscarriages, and people who have killed dangerous animals such as a lion or leopard are in a bad and dangerous situation.  So they are not supposed to eat with others or touch the fire on which food is prepared for those people who are not in the same condition.  They are also not allowed to be in physical contact with other people.  If these polluted people broke this prohibition, then they would bring about sickness and even death to other people.

SYMBOLS

The fourth element in the African world view is the importance of symbols in the communication of life.  All important stages of the person's life are marked by rites that involve the employment of symbols.  Important stages of birth, puberty, marriage and even death are symbolically celebrated.  These symbols are used because they are part of the unity of life I spoke about above.  They are believed to have life although they are on the lower level of the hierarchy of life. 

The employment of symbols follows three laws.  First is the law of continuity.  This law comes from the belief that whatever emanates from  the person, such as a word, name, shadow, forms part of the person.  For example, to pronounce a name is already to lay hands on the person.  Furthermore all the things the person is in contact with, especially his possessions, are considered to be part of him or her and can be used to represent him or her. 

The second law is that of similitude or simply that "like produces like."  This means that analogy and correspondence are as good as identity, and by analogy and sympathy, the properties of a body of a given order are applicable to another order.  For example, a lion is known to be a good hunter.  So the human hunter uses part of the body of a lion to enhance his hunting ability.  The third and final law is that of contrast.  This means that a thing can work on its opposite.  For example, the wound caused by a knife can be cured by the application of rust since rust signifies the death of the knife.

ANTHROPOCENTRICISM

The fifth and final element of the African world view is anthropocentrism.  This means that the African people believe that at the centre of the world is the human community.  Inferior forces (animal, plant, mineral), exist only the will of God, to increase the vital force of humans while they are on earth.  Higher and lower forces therefore are thought of by the Bantu in relation to living human forces.

God and the other beings higher than human beings are believed to maintain the human community.  The anthropocentrism of the African world view means that the maintenance of the human community is the main preoccupation of the people.  Nearly all activities are geared to this.  The prayers to God and the veneration of ancestors serve to maintain the human community.  This human community is a corporate body in which community values are more stressed than personal ones.  The individual finds fulfillment as a member of the community. 

Such values as solidarity, togetherness and strong family ties connecting the living and the departed, are strongly stressed above an individual's values such as personal achievement.  Personal fulfillment is seen in relation to that of the community.  All this is because of the common sharing of life.

DEEPEST LAYER

This brief presentation of the world view aimed at giving some elements of African culture that still influence the thinking, acting and emotional response of people even in the present African situation.  These ideas form part of the underlying psychology or the deepest layer of culture.  They help the people to respond to the challenges of the present moment where a lot of changes have been experienced on the two levels of culture of symbols and function.

Rev. Damian Musonda
St. Dominic's Major Seminary
Lusaka

IDENTITY CRISIS AND BREAKDOWN OF CULTURAL VALUES

     What has triggered my reflections here is the question, “To what extent would you agree that Africans are faced with an identity crisis and that this is one of the main factors underlying the breakdown of cultural values?”  This question is loaded and complex, and it begs several other questions.  It implies that identity crisis causes the breakdown of cultural values. 

      My thesis is that it is the breakdown of cultural values that causes identity crisis, and not the other way round.  What some Africans are faced with is a value crisis that leads to identity crisis.  I have deliberately chosen to relate identity crisis to some Africans, and not to all Africans because different African people have different experiences as far as adherence to cultural values is concerned. 

IDENTITY: CONCEPT AND CRISIS

      One of the great ironies of modern Africa, according to the well-known cultural historian, A.A. Mazrui, is that it took European colonialism to inform Africans that they were Africans.  This identity was born out of European racism.  What then is identity?  And who specifies the identity of a person or a people?

      Some authors say that human identity is formed by intense relations of self-exploration and in response to our relations, including our actual dialogues, with others.  This means that our identity as Africans crucially depends on our dialogical relations with others.  Identity has both personal and social dimensions.  The social identity is derived from the society and is recognised a priori by the society since it  is based on social categories everyone takes for granted.  But personal identity does not enjoy recognition a priori and it has to win recognition through exchange.

      In order to discuss the question of identity crisis, we need to take cognisance of the fact that people exercise respect for individuals by identifying them with particular socio-cultural, political, economic and geographical groups.  This means that members of groups are publicly identified with the dominant characteristics, practices and values of their group.  When then is a group of people said to be faced with identity crisis? 

      My own understanding of identity crisis is based on cultural values because it is cultural values that govern our practices and shape our characteristics.  It follows that some Africans can be said to be faced with identity crisis if they are experiencing what I call “a cultural value vacuum.”  This is when people do not have their own cultural values to govern their practices and to shape their characteristics.

ENCOUNTER BETWEEN CULTURAL VALUES

      Cultural values are a cohesive factor in building human societies.  Upholding of cultural values within a group is the founding stone of society, manifesting themselves through language, history, religions, hopes and fears.  There are several key African traditional cultural values.  Here I will mention only two.

      The first African traditional cultural value worth mentioning is commitment to strong communal bonds which manifests itself in various ways such as in solidarity and charity, in the inclusive concept of family, i.e., “extended” families, in hospitality and sharing. 

      The second African traditional cultural value is the centrality of life, the deep respect for life.  This value manifests itself in birth and death rituals, ancestry, family and offspring, naming systems, inheritance customs, connectedness to land and environment (ecology), and in religious beliefs and practices.

      At the advent of Islam and later of Western civilisation, the African traditional cultural values were brought into contact with foreign cultural values.  The encounter of different cultural values brought about conflicts and tensions of cultures in dialectical interaction with each other.  In The Africans: A Triple Heritage, Mazrui says that culture contact leads to culture conflict as two or more systems of values discover areas of incompatibility, areas of dissonance. 

      He also says that when cultures come in contact, it may happen that one of the cultures begins to gain ascendancy, and when this happens, the process of culture conquest has begun.  This has occurred with the introduction into Africa of Islam and Western influences. 

ASCENDACY OF FOREIGN VALUES

      The infiltration of the Western culture mentioned above reached Africa primarily through colonialism.  The culture conquest of the Western culture over the African cultures (African traditional cultural values) was to a certain extent by design.  Mazrui argues that the colonial powers either engaged in a straightforward policy of linguistic, educational and cultural assimilation or else they adopted a selective and more subtle approach.

      Western education became a powerful weapon of acculturation, moulding the minds of the Western-educated elite to desire particular aspects of European culture such as European clothes, food, laws, patterns of government and imported European goods.  At a time of far-reaching social and political changes of the twentieth century, Western cultural values began to gain ascendancy over African cultural values.  This made some Africans estrange themselves from their own traditional cultural values, and opt to fully embrace the foreign cultural values, without much, if any, critical analysis and reflection and understanding of the new cultural values.  Analysing this all-pervasive influence of foreign values, Mazrui states:

      ''The authentic values of the past that had withstood the test of the time were being decried, ridiculed, and debased in the face of the new values imported by European civilisations.  Hence, the new ambitions of the colonised subjects took the form of wanting to live like the colonialists, dress like them, eat and drink like them, speak and be housed like them, and laugh and get angry like them, in short to have the same religious, moral and cultural yardsticks.”

TRANSFORMATION AND BREAKDOWN

      One wonders if Africa’s experience as described above is an indication of transformation of cultural values or that of breakdown of cultural values.  Before discussing this it is important to acknowledge that culture contact does have its own merits.  It does provide a diverse set of cultural values.  I agree with cultural nalysts who argue that a diverse set of cultural values enriches our opportunities and enables us to recognise the value of various cultures.  This thereby teaches us to appreciate diversity not simply for its own sake but for its enhancement of the quality of life and learning.

      I understand transformation of cultural values as a process that brings one’s cultural values into dialectical interaction with other cultural values, resulting into informing, sharpening up and enriching own cultural values for the purposes of cultural, intellectual, human and spiritual growth and development. 

      On the other hand, the breakdown of cultural values is a process that brings one’s cultural values into dialectical interaction with other cultural values, resulting into obliteration or destruction of the cohesive nature of one’s cultural values to the extent of rendering them obsolete.  This is like throwing away the baby with the bath water! 

      Both transformation and breakdown of cultural values involve a process of dialectical interaction of one’s cultural values with other cultural values, but ending up with opposite results.  On one hand, if this process results in informing and enriching one’s cultural values, it means that transformation of cultural values has taken place.  On the other hand, if this process result in inhibiting and destroying one’s cultural values, it means that breakdown of cultural values has taken place.

      Since the beginning of culture contact in Africa, we have experienced both cultural transformation and cultural breakdown.  One of the few examples of cultural transformation in Africa is what I would like to call “the bright side” of individualism, one of the key cultural elements of Western culture.  By adopting the positive aspects of individualism, we see that our cultural values have been enriched.  For example, some Africans have a right to choose for themselves their own pattern of life, to decide in conscience what convictions to espouse, to determine the shape of their lives in a whole host of ways that their ancestors could not.  From this we see that the positive aspects of individualism do bring about an opportunity to exercise the right to self-determination.

      Another example of cultural transformation in Africa, which I am not going to elaborate here, is the practice of democracy in its various forms.  In the context of Africa, this means a shift from monarchism tendencies and other practices in the traditional system of governance. 

      What are some of the examples of breakdown of cultural values in Africa?  Here I am going to mention and explain only one example of breakdown of cultural values in Africa.  In the recent years, the vast majority of African urban communities have shifted from embracing an inclusive concept of a family to embracing an exclusive one. 

      This is a negative aspect of individualism.  One may say that some of the factors causing the break-up of the strong cultural bonds are poverty, the separation of work from home life, the, growth of a capitalistic, mobile and bureaucratic world.  This does, to some extent, explain the growing numbers of the street children, and in some cases, street families in our cities.  We see that people are moving away from the communal pattern of traditional African societies towards a new model of individualism, the nuclear family, private property and accumulation. 

      In the past, African people used to see themselves as part of a larger order.  Although this was perceived as being restrictive, it did give meaning to the world and to the activities of social life.  The things that surround us were not just potential raw materials or instruments for our projects, but they had the significance given to them by their place in the chain of being. 

      In the same token, the rituals and norms of society had more than merely instrumental significance.  By getting rid of a larger order and settle for a smaller order of individuals, we have thrown away the baby with the bath water.  Now some of the things have lost their magic.  People have lost the broader vision because they are focussed on their own individual lives.  One author has commented, “Centering on the self both flattens and narrows our lives, and makes them poorer in meaning, and less concerned with others or society.”

VALUE CRISIS AS IDENTITY CRISIS