How Africa can use its traditional knowledge to make progress | Chika Ezeanya-Esiobu

[MischievousMonkey]

 

[MischievousMonkey]

Indigenous Knowledge and Education in Africa
Chika Ezeanya-Esiobu

Free access link: Indigenous Knowledge and Education in Africa | SpringerLink

 

[MischievousMonkey]

Her articles in the Pan-African review: Chika Ezeanya-Esiobu, Author at Pan African Review

 

[CopiousX]

So true, I believe Cheikh made a similar analogy to African poets who must use English or French to explain concepts such as color, music, and topography that have no parallel in Europe.




Instead of an apple, Dr. Ante Diop spoke of the “white as snow” simile which is utter nonsense to a SubSaharan African, who (outside of Mt. Kilimanjaro) may never see snow in their lives. The existential dichotomy is worth its own thesis research in my opinion.

 

[Bawon Samedi]

Interesting video.

 

[#1 pick]

Unique perspective.

 

[Sinnerman]

I have the video bookmarked for later. One thought I do have floating around in my mind is that the next great African power should have its own, indigenous pervasive ideology

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

I have the video bookmarked for later. One thought I do have floating around in my mind is that the next great African power should have its own, indigenous pervasive ideology

Absolutely. To me, it’s the only way it could be viable. Africa is neocolonized so creating a new African power or superpower would require its own ideology and system rooted in more indigenous practices. I don’t think there’s an issue with borrowing but it’s gotta be to the benefit of Africans. An example of that is using Western languages as a way of communicating across tribe while still encouraging indigenous language through translating books into the various African languages out there.

Edit: this video is tough as fukkin nails! Talk that real talk sista!

 

[Sinnerman]

Absolutely. To me, it’s the only way it could be viable. Africa is neocolonized so creating a new African power or superpower would require its own ideology and system rooted in more indigenous practices. I don’t think there’s an issue with borrowing but it’s gotta be to the benefit of Africans. An example of that is using Western languages as a way of communicating across tribe while still encouraging indigenous language through translating books into the various African languages out there.

Edit: this video is tough as fukkin nails! Talk that real talk sista!

Video was dope as hell

But for sure. Africa and the Black Race in general is in an unprecedented situation, and we're going to need a unique solution to get out of the rut we've been in for the past few centuries

 

[Secure Da Bag]

She seems amazed, exasperated, and frustrated all at the same time.

God bless her.

 

[MischievousMonkey]

Absolutely. To me, it’s the only way it could be viable. Africa is neocolonized so creating a new African power or superpower would require its own ideology and system rooted in more indigenous practices. I don’t think there’s an issue with borrowing but it’s gotta be to the benefit of Africans. An example of that is using Western languages as a way of communicating across tribe while still encouraging indigenous language through translating books into the various African languages out there.

Edit: this video is tough as fukkin nails! Talk that real talk sista!

About that: we talked a lot about colonial languages being actually a weapon for pan-africanism by being de facto lingua franca on the continent
-> https://www.thecoli.com/threads/french-is-a-black-language.495625/

Even though you cannot dispute that, and that for this reason I tend to disagree with people saying that the colonial languages should be trashed all together... Reading her book (Indigenous Knowledge and Education in Africa) and hearing about my parents' education on the continent are leading me to believe that the education system still needs a major upheaval when it comes to colonial languages.

In Africa, the children spent their first years in school learning french, or english, so as to be able to follow the curriculum which will be cruised through only in these languages. Not only does it make the entirety of education more complicated, but it also atrophy their mastery over their indigenous languages and alienate them.

From the book:

Gandhi decried the unrelated nature of the textbooks that the students were using to their own real-life experiences. The colonial curriculum did not imbibe any sense of pride in the student’s history and surroundings, such that the more he studies, the farther removed he is from his identity until “he becomes estranged from his surroundings” and “he feels no poetry about the home life, the village scene are all a sealed book to him, his own civilization is presented to him as imbecile, barbarous, 18 2 The Case for an Indigenous Knowledge Based Curriculum superstitious and useless for all practical purposes. His education is calculated to wean him from his traditional culture” (Gandhi 1956, 29). P.26

Gandhi blames the foreign medium of expression utilized in India’s education system. According to him, English language as a medium of expression has stifled spontaneity, the precursor of creativity, in the Indian classrooms. The students have become adept at memorization, become imitators and gone very far from being creators. Indian children have been turned into foreigners in their own land, as the students spend years trying to master the foreign language instead of investing those years in developing their intellectual capacity (Gandhi 1956, 48). Gandhi relates a personal story of being punished in class for speaking Gujarati, his mother tongue, and spending four years in the classroom learning Arithmetic, Geometry, Algebra, Chemistry and Astronomy in the English language, instead of the one year it should have taken him to learn those same subjects in Gujarati. P.27

In True Education, (Ahmedabad 1962), Gandhi compares the Dutch medium of instruction, which the black of South Africa are educated in, and the English which the Indians are educated in. In both cases he submits that the resultant effect is the same; students from both societies graduate to become mere imitators of their foreign masters, highly constrained from churning out original ideas, although they may be as well educated, if not more, than their English counterparts. He contrasts this with the situation in Japan where the use of mother tongue as the medium of instruction in the schools has brought about an awakening in the people, leading to originality and huge strides in science and technology education (Gandhi 1962, 13). P.27​

And thinking about it more, I'm pondering: in fact, if we look at some European countries such as the Northern countries or even Germany... Those are countries in which English is taught as a secondary language, not a primary one, but they still master it pretty damn well if you consider the general national level, right? That allows them to converse in English with foreigners without alienating themselves.

So even though I believe we do need to keep those colonial languages as lingua franca... I don't know.

On the other hand, trashing these languages or even relegating them to the status of secondary languages would generate more issues, notably: in which language will school be taught? How do you choose in which language, out of the hundred of languages spoken in Ivory Coast the country will educate the youth? What gives you the legitimacy to even choose one over another for all those children coming from different ethnic groups? The issues of power arising from such a choice would be critical, because choosing one over the other is giving power to the group practicing the language over the others.

And you'd still encounter the same exact problems evoked previously: the little Peuhl boy or girl that have to learn Wolof to go through the curriculum is set aside and alienated, not from his or her African identity, but from his or her Peuhl identity. That is my problem when I heaar people say "just scrap it all and institute swahili as the language". I have nothing against swahili personally, but you're still crushing the other African languages in the same way.

What about creating schools for each language, so that every children can be taught in his native language? Well, that would amount to create schools for each ethnicity. How does that work in a context where we try to avoid tribalism? How does a country work in unison if its populations speak so many different languages?

Maybe we should take a look at how the Netherlands, for example, do...


All in all, this is a pretty entangled issue, that will require great creative thinking to solve.

 

[CopiousX]

About that: we talked a lot about colonial languages being actually a weapon for pan-africanism by being de facto lingua franca on the continent
-> https://www.thecoli.com/threads/french-is-a-black-language.495625/

Even though you cannot dispute that, and that for this reason I tend to disagree with people saying that the colonial languages should be trashed all together... Reading her book (Indigenous Knowledge and Education in Africa) and hearing about my parents' education on the continent are leading me to believe that the education system still needs a major upheaval when it comes to colonial languages.

In Africa, the children spent their first years in school learning french, or english, so as to be able to follow the curriculum which will be cruised through only in these languages. Not only does it make the entirety of education more complicated, but it also atrophy their mastery over their indigenous languages and alienate them.

From the book:


And thinking about it more, I'm pondering: in fact, if we look at some European countries such as the Northern countries or even Germany... Those are countries in which English is taught as a secondary language, not a primary one, but they still master it pretty damn well if you consider the general national level, right? That allows them to converse in English with foreigners without alienating themselves.

So even though I believe we do need to keep those colonial languages as lingua franca... I don't know.

On the other hand, trashing these languages or even relegating them to the status of secondary languages would generate more issues, notably: in which language will school be taught? How do you choose in which language, out of the hundred of languages spoken in Ivory Coast the country will educate the youth? What gives you the legitimacy to even choose one over another for all those children coming from different ethnic groups? The issues of power arising from such a choice would be critical, because choosing one over the other is giving power to the group practicing the language over the others.

And you'd still encounter the same exact problems evoked previously: the little Peuhl boy or girl that have to learn Wolof to go through the curriculum is set aside and alienated, not from his or her African identity, but from his or her Peuhl identity. That is my problem when I heaar people say "just scrap it all and institute swahili as the language". I have nothing against swahili personally, but you're still crushing the other African languages in the same way.

What about creating schools for each language, so that every children can be taught in his native language? Well, that would amount to create schools for each ethnicity. How does that work in a context where we try to avoid tribalism? How does a country work in unison if its populations speak so many different languages?

Maybe we should take a look at how the Netherlands, for example, do...


All in all, this is a pretty entangled issue, that will require great creative thinking to solve.

Very well said. It is definitely a complex issue.

I really do feel this complexity is due to the unnatural way we go about solving our language and other societal issues. While we are trying to be civil and equitable about our styles of government, religious practices, monetary systems and language; most well developed states/regions do not arise that way. Each state effectively consumes its neighbors without prejudice and imposes its iron will in order to unify all parties irregardless of their individual feelings as ethnic groups.

We saw this in the

• unification of Germany
• Unification of China
• unification of US
• unification of Britain,
• Unification of Mali, Songhai
• Unification of kemet
• Unification of the Kingdom of Kongo
• Etc.

In literally all of these cases, standardization was not voluntary or equitable. The morality of forced unification under Otto Von Bismarck, Ramses II, all 3 Khans, and Musa is obviously questionable, but the end result justified the unsavory means and saved countless lives that would’ve otherwise been lost in the ethnic squabbles we see in Africa today.



While I can sympathize with the plight of the Peuhl of Senegal, the Suba of the Great Lakes, and the countless pygmie tongues of the Congo; is their cultural identity worth the lives lost to the inability to share vital ideas and the inability to defend themselves as one ethnic whole?






Also, good point with the Netherlands. I can definitely see the similarities between Africa and the Dutch. Their borders and allegiances were drawn arbitrarily by foreign powers just like us. But it is also worth noting that they were treated favorably by France, Austria, and UK in hopes of becoming a buffer state. This favorable treatment (treaty of Rastat, treaty of Senlis, League of Nations meddling) aided them in unification after each world war and the napoleonic wars. Obviously, we didn’t get that treatment.




Could the unification of Germany be a better model given their similar treatment by outsiders and overall outcome of their reorganization?

 

[Secure Da Bag]

After that video, this popped up. And I have been thinking this for years now. It's not a wealth gap, but a knowledge gap that plagues Africa.

 

[2Quik4UHoes]

About that: we talked a lot about colonial languages being actually a weapon for pan-africanism by being de facto lingua franca on the continent
-> https://www.thecoli.com/threads/french-is-a-black-language.495625/

Even though you cannot dispute that, and that for this reason I tend to disagree with people saying that the colonial languages should be trashed all together... Reading her book (Indigenous Knowledge and Education in Africa) and hearing about my parents' education on the continent are leading me to believe that the education system still needs a major upheaval when it comes to colonial languages.

In Africa, the children spent their first years in school learning french, or english, so as to be able to follow the curriculum which will be cruised through only in these languages. Not only does it make the entirety of education more complicated, but it also atrophy their mastery over their indigenous languages and alienate them.

From the book:


And thinking about it more, I'm pondering: in fact, if we look at some European countries such as the Northern countries or even Germany... Those are countries in which English is taught as a secondary language, not a primary one, but they still master it pretty damn well if you consider the general national level, right? That allows them to converse in English with foreigners without alienating themselves.

So even though I believe we do need to keep those colonial languages as lingua franca... I don't know.

On the other hand, trashing these languages or even relegating them to the status of secondary languages would generate more issues, notably: in which language will school be taught? How do you choose in which language, out of the hundred of languages spoken in Ivory Coast the country will educate the youth? What gives you the legitimacy to even choose one over another for all those children coming from different ethnic groups? The issues of power arising from such a choice would be critical, because choosing one over the other is giving power to the group practicing the language over the others.

And you'd still encounter the same exact problems evoked previously: the little Peuhl boy or girl that have to learn Wolof to go through the curriculum is set aside and alienated, not from his or her African identity, but from his or her Peuhl identity. That is my problem when I heaar people say "just scrap it all and institute swahili as the language". I have nothing against swahili personally, but you're still crushing the other African languages in the same way.

What about creating schools for each language, so that every children can be taught in his native language? Well, that would amount to create schools for each ethnicity. How does that work in a context where we try to avoid tribalism? How does a country work in unison if its populations speak so many different languages?

Maybe we should take a look at how the Netherlands, for example, do...


All in all, this is a pretty entangled issue, that will require great creative thinking to solve.

I think it’s two fold, you translate that knowledge that’s being taught in English or French into the indigenous languages. I think usage should depend on colonial experience and which western language is the most dominant. In this case, English would be primary and French would be secondary. With the right education system and the new technology available today, I think it would even be possible to teach many of those languages.

But I think the indigenous languages should also be taught in schools. The primary indigenous language at home will still be used while also getting a boost from school studies. Moreover, it would help teach tribes about each other so they can communicate and understand one another better.

Very well said. It is definitely a complex issue.

I really do feel this complexity is due to the unnatural way we go about solving our language and other societal issues. While we are trying to be civil and equitable about our styles of government, religious practices, monetary systems and language; most well developed states/regions do not arise that way. Each state effectively consumes its neighbors without prejudice and imposes its iron will in order to unify all parties irregardless of their individual feelings as ethnic groups.

We saw this in the

• unification of Germany
• Unification of China
• unification of US
• unification of Britain,
• Unification of Mali, Songhai
• Unification of kemet
• Unification of the Kingdom of Kongo
• Etc.

In literally all of these cases, standardization was not voluntary or equitable. The morality of forced unification under Otto Von Bismarck, Ramses II, all 3 Khans, and Musa is obviously questionable, but the end result justified the unsavory means and saved countless lives that would’ve otherwise been lost in the ethnic squabbles we see in Africa today.



While I can sympathize with the plight of the Peuhl of Senegal, the Suba of the Great Lakes, and the countless pygmie tongues of the Congo; is their cultural identity worth the lives lost to the inability to share vital ideas and the inability to defend themselves as one ethnic whole?






Also, good point with the Netherlands. I can definitely see the similarities between Africa and the Dutch. Their borders and allegiances were drawn arbitrarily by foreign powers just like us. But it is also worth noting that they were treated favorably by France, Austria, and UK in hopes of becoming a buffer state. This favorable treatment (treaty of Rastat, treaty of Senlis, League of Nations meddling) aided them in unification after each world war and the napoleonic wars. Obviously, we didn’t get that treatment.




Could the unification of Germany be a better model given their similar treatment by outsiders and overall outcome of their reorganization?

In thinking about this with regards to Africa, I think it all starts with a common philosophy that unites everyone. From there, all of the other factors will begin to shape themselves. Unification requires that as much as any necessary force is required to maintain unity.

 

[Sinnerman]

After that video, this popped up. And I have been thinking this for years now. It's not a wealth gap, but a knowledge gap that plagues Africa.

Agreed The last time we had a true educational center in Africa was Timbuktu, but that declined significantly once the Songhai Empire fell.

In the country I'm from, Nigeria, the elite send their children to western schools. Hell, the elite raise their kids in the west a lot of the time. There's no real incentive for them to improve the education system in any meaningful sense because it doesn't affect their children. You can apply that line of thinking to a lot of the problems that plague similar African nations.

It's really going to take a shift in the mindset of the people in power if we want to build an African superstate.