Document African Culture

Lazarus Sauti

Africa is possibly the most misunderstood continent on earth. It hides secrets, treasures and ancient wisdom in the forms of lost civilisations, architecture, art and cultures.

The sad thing is that over many centuries, African people have produced an abundance of proverbs, legends, fables, riddles, superstitions, songs, poetry, stories and quotes but only a fraction of this creative treasure has been captured in print. Most of it remains unrecorded as it continues to be passed from generation to generation. This proved that Africa shows little care on its cultural heritage.

Timbuktu is a good case. The deterioration of the Timbuktu manuscripts should be of deep concern to the African nations and to the world but the wear and tear of Timbuktu shows that Africa is a melting pot.

It is also critical to note that neglecting African culture is a gross violation of human and people’s rights since the right to culture in human rights law is essentially about the celebration and protection of humankind’s creativity and traditions. The right of an individual to enjoy culture and to advance culture and science without interference from the state is a human right.

Consequently, under international human rights law governments have an obligation to promote and conserve cultural activities and artefacts, particularly those of universal value. Culture is overwhelmingly applauded as positive in the vast majority of human rights instruments.

To promote, protect this basic human right and to unravel its cultures to the universe, Africa must appreciate its heritage and document its cultures.

In his research work titled ‘Value of documenting African knowledge’, Collence Chisita mourned the failure to document African culture to “lack of appreciation and a total disorientation of the mind resulting in some kind of intellectual inertia on the part of intellectuals amongst the indigenous Africans.”

However, appreciating and documenting the continent’s secrets enhance the preservation and restoration of Africa’s history for the future.

This assertion was supported by Miss Munyaradzi Shoko – an information and documentation specialist based in Harare, who said documenting African cultures helps to increase international awareness of African heritage and creates an accurate record of important sites for restoration and conservation purposes.

Shoko said: “Documenting the continent’s cultures preserves Africa’s history and the data can be used for conservation, restoration, research and education. The main intention should be to provide data for the future, should cultural sites deteriorate or be destroyed.”   

Recording African culture reconnects Africans with their cultural heritage and brings back life to some of the traditions or practices of our ancestors since the best hope for preservation of Africa’s culture lies in those who constitute the cultures.

Burkinabe Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, Paul Zoungrana supported this view when he said: “Beyond refusal of all exterior domination is the urge to reconnect in a deep way with Africa’s cultural heritage, which has been far too long misunderstood and rejected.”

Cardinal Zoungrana’s comment reinforces the importance of recording African cultures for research, education, conservation and restoration. 

Thus, preserving African cultures is the only possible panacea for the negative effects of globalisation - the ability of many people, ideas and technology to move from one country to another. This implicates globalisation as oriented to achieving universalisation, homogenisation, integration and centralisation: factors which portend danger to the cultural and linguistic identity of most of the peoples of the world, especially the African peoples. In fact, the benefits advanced by the proponents of globalisation make this danger difficult to be observed.

In his book “A Fine Madness”, Mashingaidze Gomo explicitly states that globalisation can be interpreted as neo-colonialism. He said, “Globalisation is a system with socioeconomic cover equipped to destroy the remnants of African cultural and linguistic identity left by colonialism.”

According to Gomo, the only workable way of preserving the remnants of African cultural and linguistic identity is via documentation of African cultures and languages, developed, undeveloped or underdeveloped ones.

Gomo said, “African culture and history must be made by Africans who are determined to re-visit the past to make amends on the present.

He added: “More so to promote and protect the African dream (African Renaissance), African libraries, museums and cultural institutions or ministries need to manage their cultural heritage in such a way that they will become access point to users. To do this, these heritage resources need to be digitalised for better preservation.”

The purpose of preserving anything is to enable access to it in future. Without access to African cultural heritage it would be difficult for people to learn from the past successes and failures. Therefore, the challenges of digitisation, preservation and accessibility of cultural values remain a big task for library and information professionals.

Munyaradzi Shoko said: “Professional librarians in Africa should have the task of repackaging their cultural heritage in order to meet international standard. This is so because survival in the new global business market calls for improved productivity and increased competition.”

However, documenting the African culture is a daunting task and capital intensive. This is because it involves special equipment and elaborate local run. Accordingly, the government of each African country, and private organisations in the continent and beyond should be accessed with a proposal detailing the benefits of documenting African cultures and soliciting their contribution in the provision of funds and other logistics.

 

In one of his research papers, Collence Chisita also highlighted the need for African governments to take the drive to protect and preserve African cultures.

 

“We have to convince our African Governments of the importance of documenting African cultures. We need to convince them of the importance of putting aside funds for the documentation and research on how African cultures can be applied and used for the benefit of the African people,” said Chisita.

 

As a cradle of humanity, Africa should refuse to have her experience interpreted for her by Europeans whose kith and kin disposed her ancestors. To realise this dream, Africa should document her culture. Africans must not allow their cultures to be dwarfed into ragamuffin villains in Eurocentric culture.