Nigerians And Their Blind Imitation Of Western Cultures
And Values
by Sabella Ogbobode Abidde
There are others, but three subject matters that habitually
become part of the public discourse are religion, ethnicity,
and culture. Religion, like ethnicity, can be very sensitive.
As an atheist, and as someone to whom ethnicity is
inconsequential, I shall vacate both subjects and instead
dwell on culture.
Let me say, here and now, that ethnicity, onto itself is
good. It only becomes poisonous and insidious when elites
or groups of individuals manipulate it. Insofar as religion
goes, it seems everyone around me is a born-again of
some sort. Declaration of religious or spiritual belief,
piousness, and closeness to Jesus Christ and to God
seems to be the litmus test of their humanity.
One of the most exciting things about culture is that it is
dynamic. It evolves. It transmutes. It is what meshes a
society and gives it meaning. But above all else, it helps
society transmit memory from one generation to another;
it is the vehicle through which we study the past, absorb
the present, and glean the future. In terms of definition, the
concept is expansive, hence, one means it here to specify
a “belief and behavioral system and patterns, shared
attitudes and values that are central to a people or groups
of people.”
And especially for those who conduct their daily lives in
agrarian societies like Nigeria, culture the Nigerian
culture -- seems embedded in their everyday lives and
vocabulary. For instance, most Nigerians, as I have come
to observe them, make frequent references to culture. In
other words, other than the obsessive reference to God, to
Jesus, or to money, Nigerians tend to invoke culture a lot.
In spite of my earlier attempt at providing a definition, we
all seem to know what we or others mean when “culture”
is mentioned. Assuming this assumption is true, I wonder
why we seem not to be vigorously promoting our culture
and cultural heritage; why we seem to condemn or shun it;
and why we seem to imitate -- in a wholesale manner --
the western culture? Yes, it is true that all living cultures
anywhere in the world have a way of affecting other
cultures; but must Nigerians neglect theirs? What seems
true of the typical Nigerian seems true of the typical
African: they neglect their cultures, while embracing other
cultures.
All Africans seem to have done, or seem to be doing, is to
copy and imitate the West, especially the United States
and Britain. Like parrots, we imitate without understanding
why the west acts and or live their lives in certain ways.
We imitate ideas, social scripts, fashion, and arts and
culture so much so. we are steadily becoming a shell of
our former selves.
Who are we?
What does it mean to be a Nigerian or African?
No one seems to know anymore as our humanity and our
essence and our way of life seems to be eroding at a rapid
pace. I am all for change, but change must be meaningful,
beneficial, and enriching.
Not too long ago, I had the privilege of watching/listening
to an instructive and intelligently produced documentary,
“ORIKI," by Femi Odugbemi. It is done in four parts. You
don’t find too many of such intellectual accomplishments
that center on the African/Yoruba culture. And you need
not be a Yoruba, or one who understands the language, to
truly appreciate Mr. Odugbemi’s work. You come away
with many lessons; but one of such lessons is that some
Africans are now becoming effective tools with which the
African culture is being supplanted and deracinated.
There are those who strenuously condemn the Traditional
African Religion (TAR) and culture. And they do so in all
ignorance, forgetting that long before Islam and Christianity
came along, the Africans had been religiously and
spiritually faithful. Especially amongst the Yoruba, it is not
uncommon to see individuals or groups of persons, forsake
their family/surnames simply because such names have
roots in TAR: Fadeyi, Ifagbemi, Fajebe, Fajemirokun, Falola,
Osanyingbemi, Ifabumuyi, Fadahunsi, Fafunwa, Fadeinde,
Fadipe, etc. This ungodly phenomenon seems to have
begun in the 1980’s when the Pentecostal sect became the
rave and the craze in Nigeria.
The irony is that none of the major religions of the world
-- Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism,
Christianity, Hinduism, and TAR -- teaches one to forsake
his or her cultural heritage. But somehow, adherents of
Pentecostalism in Nigeria have taken it upon themselves
to exorcise those values, ideals, beliefs and phenomenon
that are truly African.
To be African is to be backward and untouched by the wind
of westernization and modernity. Yet, thousands of years
before the West or the East, Africa was the canter of the
universe, the beginning of mankind, and the source for all
living things. Today Africans are relegated to the
backwater of humanity.
Now, it is possible that my observations are wholly
incorrect or slightly skewed. Even so, I am taking the
liberty to make public just a few of the things I have
observed as I traversed Nigeria.
FIRST, in virtually all Nigerian movies -- the Nollywood
movies -- you, for the most part, hear men and women
who speak in convoluted voices: accents that are not
Nigerian nor American, British, or of any decent society.
Whose culture or accent are they trying to imitate? You
have actors and actresses, most of who have never been
outside of the Nigerian border, act and speak as though
they are from the prehistoric era.
SECOND, when did it become fashionable to imitate
frivolity or silliness? The Nollywood characters are not
alone in this regard. You also have the television and radio
newscasters, the radio disc jockey (DJ), announcers at the
airport, and many others who seem to speak through their
noses. Perhaps, by so speaking, the everyday Nigerian and
listeners might think they are special, unique. What do you
suppose the American, the Canadian and the British
audience would think, if their newscasters and public
service announcers started sounding like Mauritanians,
Senegalese, or Ugandans?
THIRD, you now have women – very many women – who
wear wigs, clip-on hair, fake nails, fake eyelashes, and
stenciled eyebrows. You see forty, fifty or fifty-plus year
old women with shiny and slick synthetic hair. Where is
the natural hair? Where has the grey hair gone? There is
something beautiful, radiant and sophisticated about
women who look their age. At the extreme are women with
bosom implants and or silicone buttocks. Not to be
outdone, old and older men are now coloring their grey hair,
too.
FOURTH, we now see fifty-plus year old men pathetically
struggling to hide their true age. Men and women now
struggle to cover what they should otherwise be
celebrating. What’s next? Cheek and lip implants,
liposuction, Tip, femalecore and scrotum piercing?
Everything African is bad; but everything Western -- no
matter how horrific is both good and elegant. Oh well,
with time, Africans will imitate the aforelisted and many
other procedures, too.
FIFTH, in the near future, old-peoples-home (nursing
homes) may become the norm in Nigeria (as opposed to
children taking care of their aged parents). The West is
replete with such holding-cells. But before you know it,
Nigerians will begin to think these gallows are godly and
necessary and practical, and would start dumping their
mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles there. We may
dump them there and then send cards and flowers every so
often.
Oh heavens, have you seen some of those fashion shows
that are organized in Lagos or Abuja? Models, on the
runway or catwalk are dressed like extraterrestrial beings.
At parties, and at other social functions, you see men and
women dressed in ways that offends decency,
commonsense and good sense.
Not to be outdone, some university students dress as if
they work for brothels in Las Vegas. And finally, respect for
elders and the elderly is slowly eroding. In Lagos or in
western Nigeria for instance, when was the last time you
saw a young man prostrate for an elder; or a young woman
kneel or the grownups? Today, it is mostly “hi” and “hello”
and “how you doin” with heads grudgingly bowed, if at all.
Certain aspects of the Western culture are good and may
be copied. Also, certain aspects of the African/Nigerian
culture can be limiting and oppressive. Nevertheless, it is
shocking to see some Africans abandon, in whole scale,
their Africanness. This rejection manifests itself in ways
that are disgraceful, embarrassing and appalling.
Now, before I sign off, allow me to make a confession:
Maybe I am lost or stuck in the 18th century. Maybe I am
oblivious to the changes that are now taking place in and
around the country. Maybe I am resisting modernity and
globalization. Maybe I am just too old to adapt to all the
changes that are going on around me. Maybe!
Change is good.
But really, some of the changes I see are worth spitting on.
Source: saharareporters.co
And Values
by Sabella Ogbobode Abidde
There are others, but three subject matters that habitually
become part of the public discourse are religion, ethnicity,
and culture. Religion, like ethnicity, can be very sensitive.
As an atheist, and as someone to whom ethnicity is
inconsequential, I shall vacate both subjects and instead
dwell on culture.
Let me say, here and now, that ethnicity, onto itself is
good. It only becomes poisonous and insidious when elites
or groups of individuals manipulate it. Insofar as religion
goes, it seems everyone around me is a born-again of
some sort. Declaration of religious or spiritual belief,
piousness, and closeness to Jesus Christ and to God
seems to be the litmus test of their humanity.
One of the most exciting things about culture is that it is
dynamic. It evolves. It transmutes. It is what meshes a
society and gives it meaning. But above all else, it helps
society transmit memory from one generation to another;
it is the vehicle through which we study the past, absorb
the present, and glean the future. In terms of definition, the
concept is expansive, hence, one means it here to specify
a “belief and behavioral system and patterns, shared
attitudes and values that are central to a people or groups
of people.”
And especially for those who conduct their daily lives in
agrarian societies like Nigeria, culture
culture -- seems embedded in their everyday lives and
vocabulary. For instance, most Nigerians, as I have come
to observe them, make frequent references to culture. In
other words, other than the obsessive reference to God, to
Jesus, or to money, Nigerians tend to invoke culture a lot.
In spite of my earlier attempt at providing a definition, we
all seem to know what we or others mean when “culture”
is mentioned. Assuming this assumption is true, I wonder
why we seem not to be vigorously promoting our culture
and cultural heritage; why we seem to condemn or shun it;
and why we seem to imitate -- in a wholesale manner --
the western culture? Yes, it is true that all living cultures
anywhere in the world have a way of affecting other
cultures; but must Nigerians neglect theirs? What seems
true of the typical Nigerian seems true of the typical
African: they neglect their cultures, while embracing other
cultures.
All Africans seem to have done, or seem to be doing, is to
copy and imitate the West, especially the United States
and Britain. Like parrots, we imitate without understanding
why the west acts and or live their lives in certain ways.
We imitate ideas, social scripts, fashion, and arts and
culture so much so. we are steadily becoming a shell of
our former selves.
Who are we?
What does it mean to be a Nigerian or African?
No one seems to know anymore as our humanity and our
essence and our way of life seems to be eroding at a rapid
pace. I am all for change, but change must be meaningful,
beneficial, and enriching.
Not too long ago, I had the privilege of watching/listening
to an instructive and intelligently produced documentary,
“ORIKI," by Femi Odugbemi. It is done in four parts. You
don’t find too many of such intellectual accomplishments
that center on the African/Yoruba culture. And you need
not be a Yoruba, or one who understands the language, to
truly appreciate Mr. Odugbemi’s work. You come away
with many lessons; but one of such lessons is that some
Africans are now becoming effective tools with which the
African culture is being supplanted and deracinated.
There are those who strenuously condemn the Traditional
African Religion (TAR) and culture. And they do so in all
ignorance, forgetting that long before Islam and Christianity
came along, the Africans had been religiously and
spiritually faithful. Especially amongst the Yoruba, it is not
uncommon to see individuals or groups of persons, forsake
their family/surnames simply because such names have
roots in TAR: Fadeyi, Ifagbemi, Fajebe, Fajemirokun, Falola,
Osanyingbemi, Ifabumuyi, Fadahunsi, Fafunwa, Fadeinde,
Fadipe, etc. This ungodly phenomenon seems to have
begun in the 1980’s when the Pentecostal sect became the
rave and the craze in Nigeria.
The irony is that none of the major religions of the world
-- Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism,
Christianity, Hinduism, and TAR -- teaches one to forsake
his or her cultural heritage. But somehow, adherents of
Pentecostalism in Nigeria have taken it upon themselves
to exorcise those values, ideals, beliefs and phenomenon
that are truly African.
To be African is to be backward and untouched by the wind
of westernization and modernity. Yet, thousands of years
before the West or the East, Africa was the canter of the
universe, the beginning of mankind, and the source for all
living things. Today Africans are relegated to the
backwater of humanity.
Now, it is possible that my observations are wholly
incorrect or slightly skewed. Even so, I am taking the
liberty to make public just a few of the things I have
observed as I traversed Nigeria.
FIRST, in virtually all Nigerian movies -- the Nollywood
movies -- you, for the most part, hear men and women
who speak in convoluted voices: accents that are not
Nigerian nor American, British, or of any decent society.
Whose culture or accent are they trying to imitate? You
have actors and actresses, most of who have never been
outside of the Nigerian border, act and speak as though
they are from the prehistoric era.
SECOND, when did it become fashionable to imitate
frivolity or silliness? The Nollywood characters are not
alone in this regard. You also have the television and radio
newscasters, the radio disc jockey (DJ), announcers at the
airport, and many others who seem to speak through their
noses. Perhaps, by so speaking, the everyday Nigerian and
listeners might think they are special, unique. What do you
suppose the American, the Canadian and the British
audience would think, if their newscasters and public
service announcers started sounding like Mauritanians,
Senegalese, or Ugandans?
THIRD, you now have women – very many women – who
wear wigs, clip-on hair, fake nails, fake eyelashes, and
stenciled eyebrows. You see forty, fifty or fifty-plus year
old women with shiny and slick synthetic hair. Where is
the natural hair? Where has the grey hair gone? There is
something beautiful, radiant and sophisticated about
women who look their age. At the extreme are women with
bosom implants and or silicone buttocks. Not to be
outdone, old and older men are now coloring their grey hair,
too.
FOURTH, we now see fifty-plus year old men pathetically
struggling to hide their true age. Men and women now
struggle to cover what they should otherwise be
celebrating. What’s next? Cheek and lip implants,
liposuction, Tip, femalecore and scrotum piercing?
Everything African is bad; but everything Western -- no
matter how horrific
with time, Africans will imitate the aforelisted and many
other procedures, too.
FIFTH, in the near future, old-peoples-home (nursing
homes) may become the norm in Nigeria (as opposed to
children taking care of their aged parents). The West is
replete with such holding-cells. But before you know it,
Nigerians will begin to think these gallows are godly and
necessary and practical, and would start dumping their
mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles there. We may
dump them there and then send cards and flowers every so
often.
Oh heavens, have you seen some of those fashion shows
that are organized in Lagos or Abuja? Models, on the
runway or catwalk are dressed like extraterrestrial beings.
At parties, and at other social functions, you see men and
women dressed in ways that offends decency,
commonsense and good sense.
Not to be outdone, some university students dress as if
they work for brothels in Las Vegas. And finally, respect for
elders and the elderly is slowly eroding. In Lagos or in
western Nigeria for instance, when was the last time you
saw a young man prostrate for an elder; or a young woman
kneel or the grownups? Today, it is mostly “hi” and “hello”
and “how you doin” with heads grudgingly bowed, if at all.
Certain aspects of the Western culture are good and may
be copied. Also, certain aspects of the African/Nigerian
culture can be limiting and oppressive. Nevertheless, it is
shocking to see some Africans abandon, in whole scale,
their Africanness. This rejection manifests itself in ways
that are disgraceful, embarrassing and appalling.
Now, before I sign off, allow me to make a confession:
Maybe I am lost or stuck in the 18th century. Maybe I am
oblivious to the changes that are now taking place in and
around the country. Maybe I am resisting modernity and
globalization. Maybe I am just too old to adapt to all the
changes that are going on around me. Maybe!
Change is good.
But really, some of the changes I see are worth spitting on.
Source: saharareporters.co
posted from Bloggeroid
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