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A PAPER TITLED REDISCOVERING OUR IDENTITY AS AFRICANS: AWARENESS PRESENTED BY BEKEH UKELINA UTIETIANG TO THE STUDENTS OF DOMINICAN INSTITUTE, SAMONDA, IBADAN ON THE 30TH OF NOVEMBER, 2001.




INTRODUCTION
I wish to begin this paper by thanking in a very special way the students of the Dominican Institute, Ibadan for giving me the opportunity to present this speech and making themselves available. I also want to thank in a very special way the Dominican Institute Academic Circle (DIAC), the organizers of this gathering.

This paper is supposed to be a presentation of my most recent book titled, “Rediscovering Our Identity as Africans: Awareness” published on the 4th of December 2000. While I shall try to limit myself to the book, in some cases, I would go beyond the book because of new insights I have got since the publication of this book. I have also decided to limit this work to only some chapters of the book.

The English writer, John Ruskin an art critic in 1865 said that all books fall into two categories: the books of the hour and the books of all time. This book falls into the two classes but much more in the former. The book could not have come at a more appropriate time than now when most of us, Africans have lost our Identity as Africans. Many western writers leaning on this have argued that Africans have no reason, nay knowledge. It has become very necessary to make a philosophical reflection on what constitute our identity as Africans and try to redeem it.

This paper shall first and foremost give a brief definition of Identity, after this, I shall look at the state of Africa before and after the trans-Atlantic slave trade and Colonialism. This will serve as a basis for understanding the place of African identity in the development of Africa. When this is done, I shall look into the elements of African Identity. Although, there are numerous elements that characterize the African people, I shall look at only three: Names, Language and Religion. In the conclusion, I shall propose the way forward.

WHAT IS IDENTITY?
I do not have the audacity to plunge into the controversy of the definition of identity, for the whole time I am given to present this paper would not be enough for introducing the controversy itself. Yet, one may not start a paper of this type without having a clear idea of what is understood by Identity. I shall take as a working definition that presented by Osuagwu.

According to him, Identity is substantially that which constitutes a being to permanently remain itself in its singularity, specificity, peculiarity, individuality, sameness, unity, autonomy or distinctiveness. On this level, identity refers to both basic and material constitution of man. Man’s identity can also be measured on the semi-substantial or subsidiary points of color, height, size, place, and aesthetic. Ontological or existential identity makes a being be what it is itself, and not another, on given levels of relativity or comparison. If a being is not substantially or accidentally confused or mistaken for another, the necessity of an otherness, a difference arises. In other words, it is in identity and difference that beings are recognized and not confused for what they are or are not. Originally and justifiably, the African possesses his or her own share and grade of identity and difference.1

AFRICA BEFORE THE TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE
Africa of antiquity has been a center of attraction for many. The great civilizations of the world began in Africa. This was the reason why ancient philosophers and scholars such as Thales, Aristotle, Pythagoras, etc. all visited Africa to develop their philosophical doctrines. At this time, Europe was never recognized in world civilizations. Thus Izu Onyeocha writes that Africa was an intellectual Mecca to European scholars in antiquity. Thales of Mellitus and Democratus who were Ionian philosophers as well as the first luminaries of Greek science, made their most important discoveries in astronomy and Mathematics after their visit to Egypt and Mesopotamia. He also said that Pythagoras who developed one of the most famous mathematical formulas spent twenty years studying in Egypt. At this time, Europeans were still living as barbarians, dependent on hunting and simple farming.2

Africa of antiquity was far above Europe in many fields. Let us take for instance medicine. According to the great poet and scholar Homer, in terms of the knowledge of medicine, Africa left the rest of the world behind.3 Africa is blessed with so many herbs that can cure illnesses which even seem to be above the Western orthodox medicine. Even to this day, African herbal medicine still occupies a prime place in the society. Take Nigeria for an instance, in every Nigerian State; there is a herbal board to uplift the Herbal Medication and to standardize it. Ogbonna writes, “Medical doctors are bitter and are doing every thing within their power to prevent the practice and use of natural science. Pharmacists are not quarreling with herbalists simply because they know what it means to use herbs.4 Many European nations are also returning to this science. The historian Motley after a wide historical research on medicine, came out with the result that, “The first physician of antiquity of any fame was the black Egyptian Imhotep, who lived about 2980BC during the third dynasty (…). He cured physical and mental sicknesses.”5 Following the same line with Motley, Onyenwenyi writes that the Egyptians were the first to do surgery, even brain surgery. They treated tuberculosis, arthritis, gallstones and even dental problems. In fact, it was they who carried out the first ever fertility recipe.6 Herodotus who also visited Africa during this ancient period reports that medicine was widely practiced in Egypt and every doctor treated not more than a single disorder.

As reflected above, medicine was not the only area Africa was above Europe. Most of the philosophical and mathematical theories were developed in Africa. The Ionians were more of exporters of these theories. There is no way you can write an objective history of the world without first of all outlining the positive contributions of Africa to the technological enhancement we have today. Izu Onyeocha captures this idea when he posits that the idea of zero, and positional number systems, were crucial historic moments in the advancement of science and technology in our world. None of these had a European or Western origin. At later dates, metallurgy, writing, coinage, printing, paper, silk, porcelain, steel, cotton, coffee, and tea added new feathers to the cap of civilization. It was the Carthaginians, the forebears of present day Tunisians that invented the art of writing and therefore created the art. Yet none of them was European in origin either. Systematic astronomy, eyeglasses, etc., were invented or developed by Jews, Africans, Phoenicians, Japanese, Indians, Arabs, or Chinese. Further, presenting the views of Olusola Akinbode, he said, “Europe’s role was mostly that of a popularizer and commercializer of any product or invention that it found useful. Even in the basic matter of food, Europe has been a borrower. Asia, Africa, and pre-Columbian America developed almost all of the important foodstuffs of the world. The principle of democracy, capitalism, socialism, communism, and many central dogmas of the world religions, were borrowed from African ideas that were either further developed or otherwise further distorted to promote racial ascendancy in world leadership.”7

Walter Rodney also offers us a lot about the development of Africa before the colonial era. From his researches, he discovered that Africans of five centuries ago were producing high quality products that attracted the attention of the whole world. According to him, through North Africa, Europeans became aware of a superior brand of red leather from Africa, which was given the name ‘Moroccan leather’. This leather it is said, was tanned and dyed by Hausa and Mandinga specialists in northern Nigeria and Mali. This was also the case with cloths. As soon as the Portuguese reached the old kingdom of Kongo, they sent back word on the high quality cloths made there that were comparable to velvet. The Baganda were also specialists in making bark cloths. Before the Europeans arrived Africa, Africans were widely manufacturing the best cotton cloth. Even to the last century, local cottons from the Guinea coast were stronger than those from Manchester. Also in Katanga and Zambia, local copper continued to be preferred to the imported one because of the quality. The same holds true for iron in Sierra Leone.8

Africa before the trans-Atlantic slave trade was indeed a nice and comfortable place to find refuge. No wonder the ancient Greek scholar, Menalaus said, “My travels took me to Egypt (…) I saw Libya too, where the lambs are born with sprouting horns, and their dams yean three times in the course of the year, where nobody from king to shepherd, need go without cheese or meat or fresh milk either, since all the year, ewes have their udders full.9 It is interesting to ask, what is the situation of Africa after the trans-Atlantic slave trade?




AFRICA AFTER TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE AND COLONIALISM
Africa after the trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonialism has not been a pleasant continent. Today, Africa is discussed in terms of poverty, slavery, illiteracy, wars, etc. In fact, Africa has become almost synonymous with these elements. I am strongly of the view that Slave trade and Colonialism are the consequences of Africa’s problems.

SLAVE TRADE: It is the most voluntary form of human servitude. No other people than the Europeans created the slave trade in the vicious form that it assumed. According to history, it was the Portuguese by name Alonzo Gonzales that was the first man ever in the history of the world to point out to his fellow Portuguese that Africans could be articles or objects of commerce or trade. This was precisely in 1434. In 1440 Gonzales having kidnapped twelve Africans, put a woman among them on the shore in the hope that her people would come forward to redeem her. Next day, some hundred and fifty appeared. The Portuguese did not feel venturesome on that day, and they were handsomely treated to a volley of stones.

Not too long from this time, Africans started running away from the Portuguese. This made it difficult for the Portuguese to capture them for slavery. The Europeans decided to show some concern and ‘friendliness’ that in its true sense was not a genuine friendliness. They started buying presents such as Rum, Umbrellas, Mirrors, gunpowder, etc for Africans who continued to capture people for them in return for the ‘kind gestures.’ As the slave trade continued to thrive, wars over the control of African commerce became more intense. During the four centuries in which the slave trade was going on, Africans in their millions were victims. It is recorded that by the year 1700, about 25,000 slaves were taken out of the continent every year. The trade grew more than this after 1700. 1n 1780 alone, about 80,000 slaves were taken out of Africa. By 1800, eight years before the slave trade was finally abolished, there were about 930, 000 slaves residing in the United States. It is also said that in all, more than 9.5 million slaves were forced to work in Agricultural plantations of the Caribbean, Southern and Central America. The most painful thing about slave trade in Africa is that most of the slaves were captured by their own African brothers and sisters and sold for bottles of Rum, Umbrellas, Mirrors, etc. No wonder the Europeans argued in the seventeenth century that if Africans could sell their own people, the Europeans had the right to buy them.

You might like to ask, how does slave trade contribute to our predicaments as Africans? Majority of those who were taken out of Africa in slave trade were able-bodied adult men who would have contributed to the growth of the African continent. This was the beginning of African underdevelopment. According to Walter Rodney, the European slave trade is the basic factor of African underdevelopment. For him, the changeover to warlike activities and kidnapping in Africa due to slave trade must have affected all aspects of economic activity - agriculture in particular. The consequences of slavery on agricultural activities in Africa were extremely negative. There is no need doubting the fact that for a country to achieve economic growth, she must make good use of its labour force and natural resources. This is the problem Africa went through during the slave trade. The Europeans robbed her of both her labour force and natural resources. Here we are today.

COLONIALISM: Colonialism simply means the domination of one country by another - most often through aggressive, often military means. With the end of the slave trade in the 19th century, Europeans devised another method of subjugating Africans. This is what has come to be known as Colonialism. There was a lot of scrambling over which European country controlled which part of Africa. In order to curtail these tensions that were already mounting in Europe, the Seven European power nations then sat down in a conference in Berlin in 1885 and divided Africa among themselves as a mother dividing a slice of bread among the children. This was the beginning of Africa’s predicaments. From this moment, Africa’s natural resources, labor, land, human resources, were systematically channeled towards developing Europe and America.

History has shown that there are many types of European colonies, which include, colonies of settlement and colonies of exploitation. Most of the colonies established in Africa were those of exploitation. These colonies did not attract a large number of European permanent settlers. They were just there as administrators, merchants, military officers, planters, etc. The colonies were conditioned in such a way that they would perpetually remain politically dependent and economically tied to their “mother country.” That is why even after political independence, many colonies found developing their economies too difficult. This is because political independence is granted the colony without granting them economic independence. No sooner will the colonized realize that he who controls the economy equally controls politics. What happens within these colonies economically is that the colonizing country would control important markets for its exports and deny these markets to its competitors.

Professor Omoregbe in a speech he delivered recently at the Seminary of Ss. Peter and Paul, Ibadan - Nigeria said that through colonialism, Africa was drained in order to develop Europe. He described colonialism as a system of subjugation and oppression in which Africa’s indigenous civilization was halted by the whites. Our African values were all demolished and our languages became what they called vernaculars.

Many have ignorantly argued that even if colonialism brought nothing good for Africa, it brought us good roads and education. I want to briefly say that roads were built not for the interests of the colonized but for the onward transfer of goods to Europe. Let me also state it clearly here that education was in existence in Africa before the colonial masters arrived its shores. There is no doubt that there were Christian and Muslims schools existing indigenously. Apart from this, there were such Universities as the University of Timbuktu in Mali, the Al-Azhar University in Egypt, the University of Fez in Morocco. The education brought to us by the colonial masters was not in any way intended to pull Africa out of the woods as claimed by some European apologists. David Lamb, an American Journalist argues from this perspective that, “The colonialists left behind some schools and roads, some post offices and bureaucrats. But their cruelest legacy on the African continent was a lingering inferiority complex, a confused sense of identity. After all, when people are told for a century that they’re not as clever or capable as their masters, they eventually start to believe it.”10 This is what colonialism has subjected Africa. Fr.Ekwuru following the same line of thought accepts with Niebuhr Reinhold that most of the treatises by which the European nations have divided the spoils of empire are textbooks of hypocrisy. He went further to assert that, “In the same way, colonialism, like any form of imperial political system, imposed and sustained itself largely through the propagation of false ideologies, which asserted the superiority of the colonizer and the inferiority of the colonized.”11

What do you expect of an Africa that has gone through these twin evils of slave trade and colonialism? Your answer is as good as mine. Africa would be in a situation in which it is now. The solution is from the hitherto neglected elements of rediscovery such as African names, languages, religion, etc. The following paragraphs would discuss this trio in details.

AFRICAN NAMES
Due to European colonization or missionization of Africa, many Africans have lost their identity as represented in Names. Many Africans were made to take names that were not African. How could you explain that despite my parent’s insistence on a native name during my birth, of which I was given the name “Bekeh”, they were forced to give me an English name during baptism and when I was enrolled in a Catholic primary school and junior seminary? I corrected this mistake after more than twenty years, and today my parent’s, friends, family members can boldly and happily call me “Bekeh”, the name of their heart. There is something special about this name, just like there is about many African names.

For us Africans, names are a part of our identity. Identity here should not be taken to mean identification marks but what defines whom we are. A name indeed tells a lot about the person who bears it. This means that it carries along side with it a personality, an identity and in fact, a destiny. This constitute why in many traditional African cultures, much care and time is given to the naming of a child. In most cases, by the name alone, an intelligent mind can begin to deduce certain facts about the family of the bearer, as well as the family’s intentions for the future of the bearer, its hopes, aspirations and philosophy of life. An Igbo man who gives the Igbo name for instance “Ogadinma” (things shall be good) to a child, does not just give the child the name for naming sake but must have seriously reflected on his family situation and has high hopes for the future. Take another instance, the Bette name “Bekehnabeshie” (They are wondering what to do against him). The name immediately tells you something about the family of the bearer. It launches you into a sober reflection and you will ask yourself certain basic questions: why are they wondering what to do against him? Who are these ‘They’? What was the situation like when this name was given to this child? Many a times people ask me to tell them the situation of my family when this name was given to me. This is different from European names, which have no meaning to us Africans not to talk of raising any interest when heard.

African names also immortalize the bearer. My surname “Utietiang” has been in existence for more than 150years and it has the possibilities of remaining as far as there remains this ancestral lineage. This is because in many traditional African cultures, one continues to live even after death. The belief is that one does not die when the soul ceases to live in the body but true death only occurs when a person is entirely forgotten by his or her people. The easiest way one can forget a person is when the person’s name is erased from the family history and the easiest way a person can be immortalized is when his or her name lingers in the family.

Another interesting thing about African names is their explicit expression of the notion of God. The way Africans see God is reflected in African names. Most African names are Theo-centric. Even African names that do not have the word “God” within the name point indirectly to God. Thus, the Bette name Undiukeye (meaning, it is not man that gives) points to the fact that it is God that gives even though the Bette word for God “Unim” is not directly inclusive in the name. From this name, one can easily infer that the Bette people look at God as the only giver. Let us look at the Igbo notion of God also from one of their names. The Igbo name “Chukwubuike” is often translated to mean ‘God is power.’ Through this name you can easily understand that, the Igbos see God as a very powerful force that cannot be reckoned with. Suffice it to state that the English language cannot give us a good translation of our African names. If we should attempt to give what I feel is a better translation to this name, it would mean, “God is power itself.” This is because the Igbo verb “bu” which has to do with identification carries more weight than its English equivalent “is”.

Our African names do not end at reflecting the notion we have about God, they also express the way Africans perceive human life, the universe and all human values. For example, the Ebira people bear the name Ozovehe which means, “The human person is life.” With this name, you don’t need any person to tell you that the notion the Ebira people have about a human person, is that, a person is sacred. I do not need to emphasis the value that Africans generally place on life. Names like Ozovehe are found in many African traditions. In Bette it is “Unwaawhobiwom” meaning, a child is greater than everything; for Igbos, it is Maduka meaning, the human person is the greatest; for the Yorubas, it is Omololu meaning, children are supreme, children here referring generally to human life.

African names like their expression of the notion of the human person, express Africans notion about the universe, or even human values. African names have such deep meanings that if a society were carefully studied according to its name patterns, whatever one needs to know about the life of that African society would be uncovered through their names alone. Thus Ehusani writes, “The African ‘name’ is in fact a concept or a set of concepts and notions about God, the universe, human life and human values.”12

As we have seen above, African names occupy a very prime place in our identification as a people. They are contextual names that tell a lot about us as a people. Okere would tell us that to name in our African context is to make a statement of meaning, ranging from the most simple matter of fact to the deepest thoughts that probe the mystery of reality.13

The colonial masters, the European Christian and the Arabic missionaries who missionized Africa failed to realize the pride of place of African names. Thus, their actions were a great challenge to our identity. The result of their actions was that after many years, African names became irrelevant. Within the Christian fold, one was not allowed to use an African name for baptism while new converts to Islam where made to take Arabic names. This means that instead of Bette man to take the name, “Unimke” or Igbo man, “Chinenye” meaning, ‘it is God that gives’, African Christians were made to take names such as Richard, Kelvin, Julian, etc, while their Muslim counterparts took names such as Maryam, Alfa, Ibrahim, etc. The question now is this, if Africans must take names that have a godly meaning, why were they not allowed to take names such as Chinenye or Unimke? Apart from this, how godly are names such as Raymond or Alfa? The porous reason always given is that those people who originally bore these names were holy men. This also raises another question; does it mean that in Africa, prior to her missionization, they were no holy men?

It is time for every African to rediscover his African name and begin to use it officially. This is an affirmation of our identity, that we are really proud to be Africans. To us names mean a lot and this is one of the catalysts for our development as a continent. Let us remember, “To us [Africans], names are cultural. They tell us who we are, what our thoughts and aspirations are. They express our relation with our maker. Above all, they present our attempt to understand the universe and ourselves, our place in the universe and our attempt to achieve order in our human midst.”14

AFRICAN LANGUAGES
Language plays a very important role in the lives of a people. It represents the most effective medium of conceptualization. It is one of the most basic and first cultural characteristics any individual acquires. Exterminate a people’s language, and then, you are putting them out of identity. One of the areas in which African identity is suffering is language. Ever since the colonial masters landed the shores of Africa, European languages have gradually replaced African languages as official languages. Today we have English, French, Spanish, etc. in use in some African countries as official languages. Language as earlier stated occupies a very prime place in a people’s cultural setting. It is important not only as a system of symbols for communication but also as a concrete means of organizing a people’s mode of thought.

Vygotsky in his well-researched publication titled, “Thought and Language” posited that children’s linguistic difficulties affect seriously the level of their intelligence. He tried to prove that language was very important in fashioning the way one thinks. Obemeata presenting past researches on this problem posited that the importance of language in the process of thinking has the backing of the linguistic Relativity Hypothesis, which states that the language one speaks determines the way one thinks. Whorf also in 1941 demonstrated this when he pointed out that the language in which one speaks leads one to conceive the world in certain unique ways. Goldman and Taylor (1966) undertook a critical survey of studies and literature review on the academic problems as well as potentials of colored immigrant children in Britain. What they found out was that language was one of the major factors in culturally induced backwardness of immigrant children. The survey also showed that language goes a long way to affecting he assessment of ability and actual school performance.

There is always the problem of translations. Every culture has its thought pattern and when an attempt is made to transplant the thoughts of one culture to the other using language translations, the end result is always catastrophic. Obemeata carried out a research on the influence of Yoruba language as responses to questions in English language. He was able to establish that subjects tended to transfer what obtains in Yoruba to English. They would seem to have believed that what was right in Yoruba was also right in English. Let us take for instance a question he asked in his research. He asked, “Which word completes the following statement? As white as -------------.” 1. Cloth; 2. Day; 3. Cotton wool; 4. Snow; 5. Yam flour. From the research, out of the 527 persons who tried to answer the question, 211 persons gave the correct answer as Yoruba people give it while only 193 persons gave the correct answer in English. Let me immediately point out that the correct answer in English is Snow i.e. ‘As white as snow’. The case is different in Yoruba where the answer is Cotton wool i.e. ‘As white as cotton wool’. When an analysis was further carried out on the answers of those who answered correctly in English, it was discovered that out of the 193 persons who gave the correct answer, 115 of them were from high socio-economic status backgrounds. The implication of this according to the report is that these persons have attained a high level of proficiency in English and perhaps were born speaking English rather than their mother tongue. It should be noted here that the Yoruba vocabulary does not have the word “Snow” in it. It is normal that a Yoruba subject would not know about it until he has been taught about it.15 Supposing I was taking an examination and I am confronted with such a question, I will not hesitate to say, cotton wool. This has been the problem of many an African using European languages to study. There is always the problem of translating one concept from one language to the other. In many languages, these concepts do not even have their equivalents. There is no doubt that in the process of translation, there is always the alteration of meaning. This is the problem of using foreign languages for communication or academic purposes. As long as we use foreign languages our ideas would continue to be marked down in examinations because we cannot present them scientifically as they are needed in all the foreign languages. It must be noted here that it is not the way the Bette people present things that the Irish do. So, if I were to write a paper for an Irish using the Bette thought and presentation pattern, he might become confused and vice versa.

The worst of this problem is that most of our scholars today having studied using European thought patterns now see through the optics and hermeneutics of the Europeans. When our African scholars begin to expose African issues within the thought patterns of the West, he or she would fail woefully to engage in any meaningful dialogue and communication with Africans, not to talk of attempting to solve their problems. Yes, he would not be able to solve the problems of the people because in the first place, he does not even know what the people’s problems are. You cannot give a solution to a puzzle you do not know. Ejezie captures this problem when he writes that, “The zeal, for instance, that the African elite manifests is a misguided one if considered critically. The ideas, the values that relate him to Mother Africa, that make him feel for her, are not what they are supposed to be. They are no longer the original ones. The original ones do no longer (sic) occupy any space in the mental thesaurus of the elite. They cannot be called back no matter how hard the brain is cudgeled. (…) In their stead we have an infinite new set of values that are more foreign than Africa. These new ones are cross-breed.”16

Writing further, he comments that the African elite has become an Africanist and a classicist instead of a true African. He is now an African only chromatically. Due to this elitism of him, which is completely foreign, his mental productions are mere productions; all he does is geared towards satisfying a given convention. Ejezie however accepts the fact that elitism has helped in universalizing African values but he adds that the extent to which it has universalized them, it has decimated them. Still on the problem of elitism, he wrote, “The elite who translates these values into literature does not live them. Even when he does, his learning or orientation makes it impossible for them to be true. (…) He sees through the optics of his masters – who are, in the final analysis, aliens. (…) The elites account is always bereft of real African imageries. It is often cosmetic. Instead of a rich concatenation of vivid African reality he presents a poor congery of some imagined antecedent phenomenon that cannot be temporally and spatially pegged to any people, talk less Africans.”17

Take it or you leave it, the imposition of European languages on us has caused a set back to our intellectual, economic, sociological, political, etc. development. Language as Ekwuru would tell us, was an effective instrument of cultural alienation and enslavement. The use of foreign languages brought about a paradigm shift in our mental perception and conceptualization of our African reality. Foreign languages have taken the pride of place our African languages enjoyed, in the traditional setup; its use among the elites caused a serious dichotomy between them and the rest of the society.18

They were a lot of motives behind the imposition of European languages and this has really marred our growth. This is what prompted the Negro Writers and Artists to begin a search for a communal African language. They wrote, that the relationship between African languages is as strong and as clear as that between Indo-European languages. To give but one example, a relationship has been established between languages as far apart (geographically speaking) as Ronga from South Africa, Sara, Wolof, Diola, Fulani, Serer, Sarakole, [spoken in French West Africa] and ancient Egyptian. It was their proposal that:
1. Free and federated black Africa should not adopt any European or other language as a national tongue;
2. One African language should be chosen. This would not necessarily belong to a relative majority of peoples since the richness and character of a language are more important qualities linguistically. All Africans would learn this national language besides their own regional languages and the European language of secondary education (English, French, etc.); the latter would be optional.
3. A team of linguists would be instructed to enrich this language, as rapidly as possible, with the terminology necessary for expression of modern philosophy, science and technology.19

Something must be urgently done about our languages if we must redeem our identity as Africans, which is deeply rooted, in our languages. We must seriously commend the efforts of Eastern African countries for their successful development of a regional language known as “Kiswhahilli”. Other African regions should follow up in this development if we must not remain hewers of wood and drawers of water.

AFRICAN TRADITIONAL RELIGION
The Christian missionaries to Africa condemned the traditional religion and presented Christianity as the alternative new religion. To achieve this, they attempted all possible means to dismantle the old indigenous religious cultural dispensation. They tried to subject Africans to conform to the new religious paradigm of their cultural template. The traditional man was told to abandon his religion that was Cosmocentric, localized within the circumference of private shrines, and demanding less external acts of collective worship for a new religion that is foreign to her.20 The missionaries went further to call African Traditional Religion, Fetishism, ancestor worship, superstitious, etc.

Africa right from antiquity has been blessed by a traditional religion which cannot point at any body as a founder and which has no Holy Book unlike Christianity and Islam. Its moral codes are written in the hearts of every one. There are many similarities between the African Traditional Religion and the Judeo-Christianity. These similarities would have been the pedestal for a proper evangelization of Africa. This is the reason why Pope Gregory the Great, advised St. Augustine and his companions when he dispatched them to Canterbury to condemn nothing of the peoples customs rather there should be a critical interaction and accommodation. Not too long after this, Pope Gregory wrote a letter to Mellitus, an abbot in France who was joining St. Augustine. He wrote, “Tell Augustine that he should by no means destroy the temples of the gods but rather the idols within those temples. Let him, after he has purified them with holy Water, place altars and relics of the saints in them … thus, seeing that their places of worship are not destroyed, the people will banish error from their hearts and come to places familiar and dear to them in acknowledgement and worship of God.21 I will be of the opinion that, not just purifying but entering into a dialogue with the people. This dialogue is not considered as an unnecessary attachment to our cultural heritage but it is necessary for the deepening of the Christian faith within the African context. The first task of every missionary approaching any people, any culture, another religion, is to take off his or her shoes, for the place he or she is approaching is holy. If not, he or she may find out that he or she is treading on another person’s dreams, and more serious still, may forget that God was dwelling in that place before the arrival of that missionary.

Africans prior to their westernization cannot be said to be pagan. To say one is a pagan in the technical sense, means he or she has no knowledge neither does he or she worship the Supreme Being – God. From this definition, C. S. Momoh argues that Africans had no notion of the Supreme Being before contact with Christian and Islamic religions. He argues from the point that there is no one word for God in any Nigerian language he had analyzed. I want to categorically state that his argument does not hold. This is because he assumes wrongly that it is only a word with one syllable that can express the notion of God. What Momoh’s position implies is that even the Jewish people also had no notion of the Supreme Being – God since they called him “Yahweh” (I Am Who I Am) which is even a duo-syllabic word.

Africans had the notion of the Supreme Being before the advent of the missionaries. They have been religious right from the outset. Thus Mbiti attests to the fact that Africans are notoriously religious. The cult of ancestors Africans had were not to undermine the existence of God. For Africans, worship is only due to God alone and no one makes a mistake about this. In African Traditional Religion, the ancestors venerated in the shrines are like what the Christian church calls ‘saints’. It is pertinent to note here that it is not every African who died that was made an ancestor. They are basic criteria to meet among which include: you must have lived a very long life; you must have died a natural death – not by accident or other wise; you must have lived a very good life, etc. it was only when these basic conditions were met and there is much conviction that you have returned to the fore fathers that a stone could be erected in the shrine for you as an ancestor. The ancestors were messengers who presented the needs of the community or family to the supreme deity – God. Otite and Ogionwo write that African religion that is focused on ancestors is significant in creating and maintaining solidarity in the group and friendship and love amongst its members.22

Ehusani affirms the existence of this notion of God among Africans prior to Africa’s missionization. He quoted Mbiti by saying the entire life of an African is saturated with a sense of the divine. He said that African people do not know how to survive without religion. The growing child does not have to be taught formally about a God. The child catches the religion as he or she grows up.23 In support of this, Izu Onyeocha tells a story of an Nri priest who in his brief encounter with a missionary explained to him that “Among us everything is religious, even the way we walk and the way we eat.”24

African Religion has also been accused of being superstitious and fetish. Before I continue this paper, let us look at the meanings of the term superstition and fetishism. According to the Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, superstition is a belief or practice generally regarded as irrational and as resulting from ignorance or from fear of the unknown. Fetishism on the other hand is a form of belief and religious practice in which supernatural attributes are imputed to material, inanimate objects, known as fetishes.25 Going by these definitions, African Religion can in no way be said to be superstitious or fetish. Africans cannot be said to be superstitious because their beliefs are based on long time experiences. Let me make it clear that if one considers any mystical element as superstition, then Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other world known religions are victims of this crime. There is no religion wherein one cannot see some mystical or mythical elements. In Christianity for instance and Catholicism to be précised, it is a common belief that with the use of the Scapular, one is protected. One cannot say it is just the piece of cloth that grants the protection, it is clear that there are some divine powers behind this that could be said to be mystical.

Another serious issue raised against African religion is that of fetishism. The correction we must make here is that, in African religion, supernatural attributes are not attributed to material things. There is no adherent of African Religion that would see a tree and say it is divine. It would be a form of madness on the part of such a person. What we find in African religion is that, certain material objects could be used as a means of getting in touch with metaphysical realities. Not only this, they could also be mediums of communication with the divine being. That a stone is placed upon the shrine and intentions are made in the presence of the stone does not mean that the stone is expected to be the divine force that would grant the intentions. The Christian Church prays before the statues of saints, the crucifix, etc; Muslims pay pilgrimage to the Ka’ba; etc. these are elements that are found in almost every religion, that of the African religion should not be extraordinary.

CONCLUSION
In the last forty-five minutes or thereabout, I have devoted some time to analyzing some elements of our identity as Africans that we have lost due to Slave trade, Colonialism, etc. The position of this paper is that we must rediscover these elements and that there are necessary for our development as a continent. Suffice me to state that Identity plays a very important role in every culture. A people without Identity are no people. If they are no people, then nothing relevant can come out from them. There is high need for Africans to become proud of their Africanity and work for the promotion of this identity. When this is done, Africans would no longer be tied to the apron string of Europeans, remaining hewers of wood and drawers of water.


1 Osuagwu Maduakolam, A Contemporary History of African Philosophy, Owerri: Amamihe publications, 1999, p.207-208.
2 Izu Onyeocha, Africa: The Question of Identity, Washington: The Council of research in values and philosophy, 1997, p.34.
3 Homer, The Odyssey, trans: E.V. Rieu, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1946, p.70.
4 Ogbonna Phillip, The use of Alternative Medicine: The Contribution of An African Herbalist, in Philosophy, Christianity and Science in the Third Millenium, Proceedings of International Symposium held at the Claretian Institute of Philosophy, Maryland Nekede, Owerri, Nigeria, 2000, p.93.
5 Motley Mary, Africa, its Empires and People, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1969, p.42.
6 Onyewuenyi Innocent, The African Origin of Greek Philosophy, p.52.
7 Izu Onyeocha, op. cit. p. 33.
8 Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, p.50.
9 Homer, op. cit. p.66.
10 David Lamb, The Africans: Encounters from the Sudan to the Cape, London, 1986, p.140.
11 Ekwuru Emeka, The Pangs of an African Culture in Travail, Owerri: Totan Publishers Ltd., 1999, p.33.
12 Ehusani George, An Afro – Christian Vision “Ozovehe” Towards A More Humanized World, op.cit. p. 125.
13 Okere Theophilus, Names as Building Blocks of an African Philosophy, in, Identity and Change, Nigerian Philosophical Studies, I, Washington: Paideia publishers, 1996, p.147.
14 Sofola J. A, African Culture And The African Personality, Ibadan: African Resource Publishers, 1973, p.117.

15 Obemeata Joseph, Language and the Intelligence of the Black man, Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1992, pp.13 – 14.
16 Ejezie Smart, Elitism and Afrophilia, op. cit. p. 143
17 Ibid. p.144
18 Ekwuru Emeka, op.cit. p. 53.
19 Wauthier Claude, The Literature & Thought of Modern Africa, London: Paul Mall Press, 1966, pp.44-45
20 Ekwuru Emeka, Ibid. p.45
21 Gregory the Great, Letter to Abbot Mellitus, in Neuner J, and Dupius J (ed.), The Christian Faith, New York: Alba House, 1982, nr. 1102.
22 Onigu Otite and W. Ogionwo, An introduction to sociological studies, Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books, 1979, p.163.

23 Ehusani, op. cit. p. 207.
24 Anthropos: 1923, Quoted by Izu Onyeocha, Op. cit. p. 129
25 John Saliba, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2000.

Bekeh Ukelina Utietiang resides in Ellicott City, Maryland, U. S. To send him a mail: bekehangel@eudoramail.com. He would appreciate your comments on this paper.