CILILIZATION –A BETTER UNDERSTANDING

I have asked a lot of people the meaning of civilization both young and old in their own understanding. I was surprise at the some of the answers I had, one particular that keeps me wondering is one from a university student who said "civilization is all about keeping pace with the great countries" and ended with a smile.

I guessed he was referring to the West. But according to the Macmillan English Dictionary for advanced learners, civilization is a society that has developed its own culture and institution.

But I beg to ask, have we developed our own culture and institution? We all agree civilization started from Africa and I know it didn’t spread through the whole of Africa. The youth have been taught to think civilization is all about the West and its cultural advancement which of course has liberated Africa from some barbaric customs and beliefs. Though Africans are benefiting from the civilization of the West, it has failed in the course of time to develop its own cultures and institution which would have been the best in our governmental and social setting rather than derivative systems.

Our cultures are either suffering from neglect or stagnation because we failed to develop them, whiles the people we are constantly copying are constantly developing and adding value to their cultures. Who ever tries to develop them falls into the verbal condemnation of being archaic. Our institution suffer the same conviction of the many masses with the belief that adding or improving some cultural and institutional systems does not amount to incivility, less reverence have been giving to the chieftaincy and marriage as an institution. It will not be surprising if an African child who has been bred in Africa tells you how uncivilized you are because he/she saw you drinking a bitter herbal medicine made from his own country.

In the light of civilization Africa is still not aglow with our culture and institution because we have adopted cultural and institutional systems which are incompatible with African traditional values Is the adoption of foreign cultures and institutions civilization? Certainly no. For the people with high civilized life like the West never copied but rather developed theirs own. Brazil as an emerging powerful country keeps on modernizing their culture e.g. is the samba festival which has seen a thrilling face now.

Egyptian civilization developed from its own cultures and institutional settings and latter it spread through some part of the world. Though Egypt is the first civilized country that many countries emulated, the West never shunned theirs but like the Egyptian developed their own which has developed to an appreciable level of recognition and practice. But will some agree with me that even Egypt has failed in the course of time?

It is left with Africans to take a second look at civilization and really move in its definition rather than sticking to alienist civilization. For it is not civilization to imitate the West’s fashion

RELIGION

For me I believe religion is the started point or civilization. But where is Africa’s cultural beliefs, holding on to our cultural beliefs does not necessarily mean we are polytheistic or disbelievers. It is different from sticking to culture and practicing idol worship. Almost every contemporary religion believes in the supremacy of one deity which African traditional worshipers believes in, so we just cannot paint it black just because we are Christians and Muslim. We shouldn’t forget some people do not still believe in Christianity and Islam.

EDUCATION

Upon what foundation is our educational system built on? It is purely western. We even give less reverence to our Ghanaian languages though they are being studied, and surprisingly it ends there because we obviously do not use it in any working establishment. The educational system needs to be revised to integrate more cultural and African modules.

MEDICINE

The question I keep asking myself is before the coming of the Whites, did we ever get sick and the answer obviously is yes. If yes were they thy taking medicine, which is also yes. If the two answers yes, then it means it efficacy could be trusted and was trusted because it cured them. So the big question is why can’t it cure as now? Instead of us adding value and improving its efficacy, we are rather condemning it just because we have been psyched to believe they are dangerous concoctions. We have so much trust for Western drugs that, the moment one is given herbal medicine he/she pre-conceives that the sickness cannot be cured which can have the effect of not working because there is no faith or belief(DEBATABLE) . Now there are efforts to reinvent the wheel and make it more appealing and I think it will take some time. It really needs orientation of the society. There has been a failure there too.

SOCIO-CULTURAL

I understand not why one has to go through traditional marriage and then latter engagement ending with a wedding. The meaning of wedding from the Macmillan English dictionary is defined as a ceremony in which two people get married. This means we get married to one person more than twice. The Western wedding we see consider as the ultimate is a culture of Western countries like Britain. In purely traditional marriage, there used to be merry making and some cultural display and that obviously is our own. I am even surprise at our churches, it is about time we come to the truth that the wedding we practice now came the culture of Britain and not the Bible. Where in the Bible was ring exchange? And I don’t also think there is any evil in our traditional marriage that may contradict our religious beliefs.

I will not delve much into our dressing because it is quite glaring.

I agree civilization is a complex society with different divergent views. In my quest for better understanding of civilization, I came to realize that Africa contributed immensely to it but has really failed in the course of time to give it a better meaning with respect to its own cultural, social and political establishment, that has left us under the feet of the West in that regard.