Modernization

Modernization: Old vs. New

“You have had to listen to a lot of talk this afternoon about traditional values, traditional society, your great ancestors, your glorious past. In spite of what has been implied I want to start off by telling you that I have as much respect and admiration for you history and tradition as anybody else. I believe most strongly that there are values and principles in traditional African society which could be studied with great profit by the Western Civilization so scornfully rejected by the previous speaker. But at the same time, I know, and you know, that Africa no longer lives in the past” (4).

This quote is an excerpt from the feminism debate, but I think that it contemplates another universal theme, the theme of culminating the traditional Africa with the modern West. This issue is constantly looming in the background of every African-Western conflict. Colonization occurred, everyone can agree with that, but now that a unique society has been inundated with foreign ideas, principles, morals, and laws the question which fails to be answered is how the two cultures can coexist? How can Africa learn from the west and vise versa? These questions get at the idea of a reciprocal education, but there is a clash between those who believe that pre-colonial Africa was a primitive and savage existence that doesn’t deserve recognition and those that glorify and reminisce traditional Africa. There are also the “hybrid” children like Nyasha from Nervous Conditions who don’t really have an identity or culture to fall back on. They have the same taunting responsibility as the country, to combine the old with the new. This task is a lot harder said than done, and a universal struggle that the Bamuruku and the strikers from God’s Bits of Wood also face. How much can a society abandon it’s old ways and adopt new, beneficial ones without being a complete sell-out with an identity crisis? These questions also lend to the African intermediaries that exploit this predicament to stifle the villagers progression and maintain power by suppressing their ability to advance. It’s hard to tell how far they “progress” without loosing their integrity and dignity. This question of how to move on after the western intrusion is one that is hard to answer. Traditional Africa will not survive in this day and age, but to what extent and in what ways should the African culture change to accommodate their circumstance? How should Africa’s history be told, only to the extent of it’s contact with the west? Who wants to “hold back Africa’s progress, and keep it locked up in the past” and why? The fundamental question is how the new identity of Africa can be formed, respecting the past and being true to itself, while fostering growth and keeping up with the 20th century.

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