Re-asserting Cultural Perspectives: Old People and New Ideas in Bole Butake’s Lake God and The Survivors and Sankie Maimo’s Succession in Sarkov | Chapter 10 | Perspectives of Arts and Social Studies Vol. 2
African cultures have undergone
transformations from the colonial period to the present, often to the detriment
of its cultural evolution and within the larger global community. As it were,
colonial education subordinated African communalism and created in its place an
anti-African spirit evident in the assimilation of western values. This did not
only end up in a kind of cultural betrayal, but also posed as a serious threat
to the dignity and identity of the people. Those who fall prey to this kind of
cultural imperialism are the young people who are often irrationally carried
away by western fashion and modes that they tend to neglect and/or forget their
cultural ways of life as they join the race of “progress.” This situation has
given rise to a conscious effort by creative writers to re-assert and protect
African values while at the same time liberating themselves from the
longstanding western effort at suppressing, controlling and dominating their
thoughts particularly through neo-colonialism. These writers focus on the need
for Africans to rediscover who they are, especially in relation to their
cultural values. It is not just rediscovering themselves, but it is also using
this rediscovery to reconstruct that unique part of their culture that has
almost been annihilated through external influence. The old people who have not
yet acquired western/colonial education and who still stand firm on the
practices that hold their communities together are the major medium through
which the above mentioned writers envisage an emergence of a new vision of
Africa. They act as conscientising forces to the younger generation who are
intent on obliterating their values and giving up their identities. It is at
the backdrop of this that I seek, in this paper, to show how the old are
represented as custodians of African cultural wisdom in Bole Butake’s Lake God
(1999), and The Survivors (1999) and Sankie Maimo’s Succession in Sarkov
(1986). In this role, the power of the myths of old re-emerges and is handed
down to ensure social and political stability of the land. Hence it is believed
that Africa can plan its future through its indigenous cultural traditions at
least in the aspects that are compatible with the newly acquired western
perspectives.
Author(s) Details
Eleanor Anneh Dasi
Higher Teacher Training
College, University of Yaounde I, Cameroon.
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