The Dynamics of Igbo Cutural Revitalization
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www.idosr.org Emeribe and Chinagorom ©IDOSR PUBLICATIONS International Digital Organization for Scientific Research ISSN: 2579-0773 IDOSR JOURNAL OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES 3(3): 12-23, 2018. The Dynamics of Igbo Cutural Revitalization 1Mary Joy Emeribe and 2Longinus Chukwuemeka Chinagorom Page | 12 1Department of English Language and Literature School of Languages Alvan Ikoku Federal of Education, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria. 2Department of Linguistics and Igbo, Imo State University, Owerri, Nigeria. ABSTRACT Language is a carrier of culture and so language and culture are inextricably bound together. The culture of the people finds reflection in the language they employ and thereby use their language in ways that reflect what they value. Ndiigbo constitute a cultural group and community, with a distinct identity. Culture is characterized especially by a communalistic social interaction with one another. The dynamic nature of culture is activated through interaction with other people. ‗Igboism‘ thus emerges the totality of experiences; negative and positive. The distinguishing mark of Ndiigbo is that they are continually in search of new and perhaps more result oriented for which they would like to achieve at all cost. They have as well given up a lot due to their natural quest to adapt and be accommodated by other cultures. The Igbo are ultra-republican and utilitarian in nature. In the face of these threats, the paper calls for urgent need of revitalizing the Igbo culture in order to restore the valuable aspects of the culture, its peculiarity and identity. The fruit of this work would go a long way in ameliorating the ugly aspects that negate their cultural values. The fruitful dialogue, and interaction with other cultural groups are expected to usher in firm panacea in re-positioning its members a true sense of self- acceptance. Keywords: culture, language, Igbo people, values, identity, threats, revitalization INTRODUCTION Chinua Achebe recounts his reminiscence whenever they are violated. These taboos before the coming of the White men on cut across killing somebody, stealing Igbo life scripted through his most popular promiscuity, kidnapping, sorcery and so novel, Things Fall Apart, taught us about on. Everyone is cautioned from childhood the dint of hard work and quest for dignity to desist from such acts that are offensive that characterizes and orders Igbo life [1]. [5]. The Igbo people believe that life is Before things started falling apart, a greater than wealth and so such names like typical Igbo man is known and seen as his ‘akuagwu’, ‘nwakaego’, ‘nwabugo’, brother‘s keeper. What concerns the ‘nwanne’, ‘nwabugwu’, ‘nwabueze’ and as others, concerns another [2]. Togetherness such, their care and respect for every was the basic necessity for development creature provokes love amongst them; and progress in communities in Igbo land thereby unity is assured in their and these transformed immensely the life communities. They are hardworking of communities and Igbo people. They people who do not believe in short cuts in relied so much on collective efforts for money making [6]. survival and achievement [3]. These Over the years, Ndigbo have recorded communal living find expression in words, enviable achievements through self-help names, or phrases like “gidigi bu ugwu and collective effort. This style life has eze( a trooping crowd is the king’s dignity), preoccupied their minds for many years of “ibu anyi danda‖ (loads do not weigh ants existence. But today, these ethos have down), ―agbakoo agbakoo nyuo mamiri ya been totally overtaken by irrelevant agboo ufuu‖ (when people urinate foreign alternative which have made them together, it foams very well), ―igwe bu ike aliens in their father land. Concerning this, (strength comes from the kinsmen‖, onye Osuji in Eze-Peace.. This is to say: ―just like ahala nwanne ya‖1 (nobody should every other culture and tradition, some of abandon his brother), among others [4]. these practices have been watered down Again, the Igbo of innocence in a kindred by incursion of western education [7]. In spirit have strong traditional and culture addition, social and economic imperative (taboos), which everyone frowns at have introduced their ameliorating 12 IDOSR JOURNAL OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES 3(3): 12-23, 2018. www.idosr.org Emeribe and Chinagorom practices amongst Igbo [8]. Today, the society, thereby living in false life. The reverse is the case. Instead of these only reasonable remedy for such mentality communal attributes, what we have and colonized people would be to revitalize experience is selfishness, self- their culture. The present paper seeks the aggrandizement, killing of innocent souls, dynamic ways to revitalize Igbo cultural I am because I am, one man show, count values [13]. me off syndrome. In their enterprising spirit, they have become aggressive Language and Self Identity Page | 13 individuals who are now exploitative, One‘s opinion is communicated to others grasping, greedy, jealous, and, even to inter-subjectively, artistically, their own brothers‘ wives, children and symbolically, linguistically and others. They are no longer their brother‘s incarnately, whereby an individual idea keeper [9]. They have turned to the biblical becomes accepted and understood. In spirit of Cain against his brother, Abel. The that case, meaning depends on spirit of selfishness, lack of moral communities, their history and situation. discipline, and respect to supreme beings It is precisely the existence of a common has driven the Igbo man to become a meaning that sustains a language, there kidnapper, murderer, a child trafficker, a could be some subdivisions of the sorcerer, and an armed robber. All these common meaning which eventually give negative attributes have slowed down the rise to secret societies; one could also rate of development amongst the Igbo [10]. talk of medical language, psychological And these negative low moral values language, legal language, philosophical indicate that the Igbo collective identity is language, and so on [14]. This means that dead and hence the need for revitalization. social divisions, be it class, group or club Exhuming precedes death. Revitalization create more meaning in the community suggests reawakening, giving life, strength in the form of symbols, symbols, signs, and energy to something on the verge of letters or language and thereby death and collapse. The various ways of contribute to the disintegration of the restructuring and revitalizing those I in a community. Bernard Longergan describes conflict Igbo cultural values can be the making of a community in this way: achieved with the use of prototype theory. A community is Way of looking not only at how concepts not a number of may be formed, that is at the cognitive men within a dimensions of linguistic behavior but also geographical at how we achieve our social competence frontier. It an in cultural values [11]. achievement of The historical experience of European and common colonization, foreign ideologies and meaning and devastating civil war distorted the Igbo there are kinds psyche and cultural vitality. This culture, and degrees of the universal, underwent what has been achievement. referred to as ‗pseudo- speciation‘, a Common distortion of external acquisition of meaning is decisive views of the Igbo into the Igbo potential when self-consciousness and cultural awareness. there is a Therefore it is quite evident that in order common field of to avoid imbalance of personality and experience, and acquisition of a sound identity, one has to to withdraw fight for continuity in culture that from common tolerates a systematic enlightenment and field is to get assures a stable individual identity. The out of touch. fact one has to identify oneself with some Common or one successful figure in the community judgments…. in order to feel accepted and to reduce common tension, one finds oneself in a conflict coheres or when one‘s people are accredited with a divides, begins negative identity and negative attributions or ends just culture. It is even worse when the people where the actually accept this negative and low common field or position [12]. The person involved would experience, therefore strive for the foreign ideals and common culture which are highly esteemed in one‘s communities 13 IDOSR JOURNAL OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES 3(3): 12-23, 2018. www.idosr.org Emeribe and Chinagorom begin and end should therefore not be substituted [15]. but enriched to avoid conflict, Since common meaning gives rise disunity, and loss of identity [20]. to communities as well as a Conceptual Clarification: Igbo Cultural linguistic unity or group, and since values communities or groups come to Dynamism, as the topic suggests, projects stay through an accepted common and focuses on the varieties, and practical symbol around which the group manner where by the Igbo people could Page | 14 orientates itself and gives sense to make their culture and language come into its existence. One could therefore life in every aspect of life. The Igbo conclude that common meaning is tradition establishes a code of conduct or a symbol of unity or a creator of moral code embodied in Omenala – unity. However, where there are a customs. Omenala is the corpus of most multitude of meanings in a given a of the legal, social, moral and ritual norms given sphere, for example, in of Ndiigbo. In Omenala, ajoihe is anything language there would then be that is considered evil whether physical or divergent symbols as well [16]. moral, a sfortune or deliberate fault, while When one takes cognizance of the mmehie- transgression is a moral fault. fact that man acts when he speaks Ndiigbo distinguishes two kinds of moral because language is a part of faults, namely, bad behaviour or ajo human activity which is in omume which consists of breaches of rules connection with the rest of human of etiquette and social conventions. Other activities. One comes to see that minor faults as Joseph Amaegwu posits, common meaning which sustains a such as: not greeting elders, laziness, language is an idea, because people unhygienic habits, gossiping do not carry act according to the ideas they any specific sanctions, but they are already possess.