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Arts As a Vital Insrument in Correcting the Distorted and Deformed Identity of the African Self

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Arts As a Vital Insrument in Correcting the Distorted and Deformed Identity of the African Self International Journal of Humanitatis Theoreticus. Vol. 2, No. 2; September, 2019 ARTS AS A VITAL INSRUMENT IN CORRECTING THE DISTORTED AND DEFORMED IDENTITY OF THE AFRICAN SELF PETER O. AIHEVBA, PhD [email protected] DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE ARTS UNIVERSITY OF BENIN. ABSTRACT This essay is an attempt to sign post the fact that the average African is a victim of colonialism, existing in a prism of inferiority complex and a state of confused identity. The African can best be described as a specie suffering from cultural Schizophrenia, and loss of identity as a result of the indirect rule and “Macaulayism”, a system invented to create in the African consciousness an alternate vision of reality so as to achieve the possibility of total domination of the African nation. Today the African is a hybrid of two unrelated cultures and experiences suffering from identity crisis as a result of the evil called colonialism. Hiscreative energies and imaginative impulses are highly restricted and deluded. The African lives in perpetual servitude to the West, believing that all that is western and white is superior and the indigenous inferior. This essay also shows how arts can be enlisted to recapture the African essence; vision and philosophy so as to propagate her cultural values and strengthen the peoples shared ideology and ethical principles. INTRODUCTION: It is not a fallacious claim to state that the African is greatly engulfed in a cultural schizophrenic dilemma. The African is a hybrid of two unrelated cultures as a result of the evil called colonialism. We are confronted with an Africa that is suffering from identity crisis, a people that have no love for their continent. Colonialism may have ended long ago but it has left in its wake an indelible scar on our identify, our life style, our desires, our taste, our appetites and our character. Our young men and women are constantly humiliated at the embassies of western nations as they besiege the diplomatic houses seeking “the almighty green card”. We hear stories daily of our fellow Africans drowning in the Mediterranean as they seek to be enslaved in Europe. During the slave trade era, Africans wailed, resisted and kicked as they were chained and taken away. But today Africans willingly beg for enslavement in Europe and America through all sorts of visa lotteries and immigration programmes. Africans are gradually losing their self-pride, self-worth and identity. They are not proud of their indigenous products and made in Africa goods. Even potatoes fried in the most remote village in Africa are called French fries. Our film industry Nollywood is a copy of Hollywood. Our youths kill themselves over and sing the praises of Real Madrid FC, Manchester FC, Barcelona FC, Arsenal FC etc instead of Eyimba of Aba, Warri wolves, Bendel Insurance FC, Shooting Stars FC, ETC. Africa is in a tragic dilemma. The African is dominated and conquered in his mind. This is a direct consequence of colonialism. MACUALAYISM: In order to make the Africans governable the British Colonial Administration invented the indirect rule and implemented the socio-culture-political system of governance called “Macaulayism” a term derived from the name of British politician Thomas Babington Macaulay. Macaulayism according to Wikipedia 2017 Is the conscious policy of liquidating indigenous culture through the planned substitution of the - 59 - International Journal of Humanitatis Theoreticus. Vol. 2, No. 2; September, 2019 alien culture of colorizing power via the education system… In his address to the British parliament in 1835 Macaulay postulated that: …I have seen in this country such high moral values, people of such caliber that I do not think we would ever conquer this country unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage and therefore I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her, culture for if Africans think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own they will lose their self-esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want, a truly dominated nation. Some people have argued that Macaulay could not have made such diminutive statement about Africa since he was an educationist. But if we carefully consider the philosophy of Macaulay and the methods employed by the colonialist to govern British colonies in Africa you can’t but agree less. Macaulay held western culture in high esteem and sew his undertaking as a ‘’civilizing mission” according to him: We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, a class of persons, Indians in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions in morals and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population (Wikipedia 2017) Macaulay’s plot was to strike deep into the cultural roots of the governed masses, adulterating their language, religion, cultural and historical reserves. This plot was to neutralize the native’s ability to develop, to retain a conscious identity of self and to be forced to conform. The average Nigerian is a psychological prisoner, who wallows in deep, mental and spiritual inferiority complex. He is a product of two separate cultures. Through colonization the African essence experience and reality has been distorted disorganized and dismantled. In a bid to implement Macualayism, attempts were made by the imperialists to transfer entire cultural patterns of the Europeans to Africans. Uwangboje (1977:101) avers that the imperialist’s attempted forcefully to: Destroy or suppress the arts and attendant ceremonies that inspired their creation. The Ancestral ways were largely destroyed or neglected… new ideas, modernism, western amusements all contributed their share to undermine the traditional culture of Africa. - 60 - International Journal of Humanitatis Theoreticus. Vol. 2, No. 2; September, 2019 The colonial domination of Africa has impacted negatively in the African consciousness and identify. There is obviously a lack of underfunding of the African person. The African is created as a cultural being by birth and race but recreated as a dysfunctional being through western Education. He is now a mesh of the indigenous and the western, the traditional and cosmopolitan, leading to the difficulty of self-identification and the truthful expression of the African experience and reality. We are not pure Africans, yet we are not Europeans. This crisis of identify is vividly captured in GabrielOkara’s poem “piano and Drums”. Commenting on the significance of the poem Jack Hydes (2009:27) opines that: ‘’Piano and Drums’’ quite clearly is a poem about the cultural dichotomy of traditional and western cultures in post-colonial Africa but the raw emotion of the poem makes it an expression of confusion and any one tied to more than one culture…the imagery of the poem is powerful enough to express his confusion – we can almost feel Okara’s indecision seeping through the page. Okara’s metaphor are simple but fitting: the drums represent traditional African life, while the piano represents the western world. We are not fully the drum neither can we reproduce the true symphony harmony of the piano leading to discordant tunes. The disfigurement of self and truth occurs as a result of the imposibility of the former self to represent itself truthfully in the language of the reinvented self (Imhanwa 2005: 35) after a careful study of the African dilemma, Kwesi Wiredu (1980:36) argues that “we are all of us Africans victims of western Education. In a certain sense we are all children of our circumstances” this implies that Africans are victims of colonialism and western Education. Okello (2000:65) puts it this way It is a polite way of saying many African elites are victims of racial psychological poisonings, where symptoms are called inferiority complexes” and which are manifested as yearnings for the gratifying impulses of being contrived by the other dominant race. A careful consideration of the foregoing clearly establishes the fact that the African is trapped in a prison of missed identify, a character of disfigurement and a tragedy of Schizophrenic dilemma. The African lives in perpetual servitude to the west (Kwenda1997:3). The African is neo colonialist in his thinking. Our cultural values have been destroyed, beliefs and practice replaced our religions are now regarded as fetish. We are forced through our transcendental reinvention to stick with one wife, a practice which is alien and contrapuntal to our rich polygamist heritage practiced by our forefathers. Our rich culture, language, traditions ethics and values are quickly eroding and vanishing into oblivion. We have all together become endangered species. We need salvation and a reorientation from this complex defeatist reality enjoined upon us by colonialism. We need to represent our culture, our rich heritage and our values in a medium that is enchanting, pleasing and highly expressive such that our people can eagerly embrace our great historical reality and our strong and spiritual identify. If you dismantle and mutilate a people’s culture, you have taken their identity, their essence, their creative impulses and their ability to prevail. Culture is so integral to the life of a community that it is what actually forms society and distinguishes one people form another. It is vitally important for the African to be - 61 - International Journal of Humanitatis Theoreticus. Vol. 2, No. 2; September, 2019 reeducated to challenge, debunk, confront the conception that Africans are inferior. One tool to achieve this is arts.
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