FORGOTEN WEALTH IN AFRICAN CULTURE: Time to Fully Commercialize Our Culture

By Prof. Dr. Halimu Shauri

Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com

The weekend started in earnest with an exploration of the Pokomo Culture [PC].

It took me two hours and 30 minutes to drive to Tarasaa in Tana River County, a small clean and unpoluted rural town from Pwani University in Kilifi County, Kenya to attend “Hasawa”, a traditional wedding ceremony for the Pokomo Community.

On arrival, I was amazed with the green and clean environment around the town and surrounding villages.

Life there seemed relaxed and easy with villagers going through their usual motions without the tension you would observe in major towns and cities.

However, one of the major observations I made quickly is the culture of the Pokomo community.

I wondered, such a rich culture and the government, both national and county, have not yet tapped into it as a resource and an Income Generating Activity [IGA] for the community.

I saw an opportunity to improve the livelihoods of the people and create job opportunities for the youth from the rich culture. I saw money and wealth that could flow out of commercialization of this culture.

However, what I saw is not unique to what I see in many communities in the country and many African countries I have visited.

While culture is a resource or industry, I would say without fear of contradiction, worth zillions of dollars or Euros in Africa, and by extension shillings in Kenya, it remains untapped or unexploited resource.

African governments have not yet realized its worth, or African leaders have not yet come out of the colonial mentality that demonised our cultures.

More precisely, they were intimidated during colonisation to see themselves and their cultures as inferior, and their mindset has stagnated since then from the tricks and Innuendos of the colonialists.

While the colonialists had their interests to achieve and the only way to do so was to make Africans feel they were lesser beings, inferior, and their culture backward, uncouth, barbaric, and it’s people incapable of their own identity and development.

Decades have passed, and since then, many African countries have liberated themselves from colonialism.

However, the million Kwacha questions that remain unanswered are: Do we still see ourselves in the same light as portrayed by the colonialists? Do we still see our cultures as backwards and uncouth? Have we been able to decolonise our mindset from the inferiority mentality infused to us by colonialists? Have we liberated our cultures?

Alas! Most of us still feel inferior and lesser humans in front of Europeans, including some of those we consider our leaders because we have not yet shed the inferiority mentality or complex that was infused to us by the colonialists.

Going forward, I would recommend a retrospective and reflective mental exercise for all of us, Africans, regarding our diverse cultures, and to now see them as an industry or a resource that can be harnessed and commercialised to transform this continent socioeconomically.

Prof. Dr. Halimu Shauri Dean & Consultant Sociologist PWANI UNIVERSITY, KENYA