Cultural Genocide by the Global North and the Future of African Societies

By Nathan Kiwere

The term “cultural genocide” often brings to one’s mind a scene of violence and destruction, but that is not just the eradication of peoples. Cultural genocide systematically obliterates languages, customs, spiritual beliefs, and social structures that define societies. The history of colonial rule and the continued impact from globalization in Africa have symbolized an almost surgical way in which the Global North has stripped away the identity of indigenous Africa. Both eras have cleared a path to weaken African heritage, traditions, and sovereignty in ways still profoundly affecting the continent.

Colonialism: The Foundation of Cultural Erasure

The colonial project in Africa was a campaign of aggression to “civilize” African societies, merely framed as a benevolent mission by the European leaders. Britain, France, Belgium, and Portugal were the main colonial authorities in Africa, through which they had to break down the various traditional ways in which Africans had conducted their governance, languages, and religious beliefs. The 1884-1885 Berlin Conference, for example, formalized the dominion of Europeans over Africa through colonial boundaries meant to benefit the commercial and political interests of the Europeans rather than the cultural integrity of the societies.

It suppressed African languages and European languages. For instance, through enacting official languages in English, French, or Portuguese, colonial administrations immediately elevated these languages to gateway positions toward education and economic advancement. This act of elevating those few languages systematically devalued African languages and relegated them to informal, rural settings. For instance, in Uganda and Kenya, the British colonial government discouraged the use of ‘vernacular’ or indigenous languages in schools, regarding them as primitive and unsuitable for modern education. This shift in language compelled Africans to abandon their respective native languages and thereby lose some essential indigenous knowledge that was a part of those languages and make generations lose touch with their heritage.

Similarly, socio-cultural beliefs emanating from Africa were also condemned, prohibited, or absorbed into Western religious systems. For example, the spread of Christianity became a vehicle of cultural change in colonial times. Missionary schools socialized African youths into Western cultures while treating the indigenous beliefs as pagan or retrogressive. For instance, some African cultural practices in herbal medicine were either demonized or replaced by European medical practices. This often made Africans question the validity of their heritage and judge their customs through European eyes, creating cultural dissonance.

Globalization: The New Frontier of Cultural Domination

Globalization has continued to dissipate the African cultural identities through the imposition of Western standards by economic and media dominance. Economies of Africa, once based on agriculture, craftsmanship, and locally-oriented markets, have now fallen into the noose of a global economy controlled by a handful of Western nations. Neoliberal policies promoted by the World Bank and the IMF over the last several decades favored a Western orientation in African economies, meaning most of them have been subjected to free-market economies that destroy local industries and traditional economic ways. This often leads to the outcomes of “cultural commodification,” where African arts, music, and other traditions are used and commercialized for global consumption in ways that remove these elements from their original context and meaning.

Cultural erasure is also fueled through the dominance of Western media. Hollywood movies, Western television shows, and pop music often portray Africa stereotypically as either a land of pristine wild animals or a bottomless well of poverty and war. African youth, in their stereotypical view of themselves, are very often socialized to look at the West for examples of how to live their lives. American hip-hop and pop culture, for example, have become extremely popular in cities, very often to the detriment of traditional African music. While Fela Kuti and Miriam Makeba, for example, attempted to incorporate African themes into their work, much of contemporary pop culture tends to mimic Western music and sensibilities, thereby obscuring African cultural heritage into relative obscurity. As Matsinhe (2011) observes, much of this erases the presence of African culture entirely.

Furthermore, another realm in which Western cultural imperialism makes itself known is within the notion of fashion and beauty. In Nigeria, for example, skin-whitening products are very much in demand, regardless of several identified health risks. This situation portrays the still DEEP-seated assumption that lighter-colored people are more beautiful, an assumption tracing its roots to colonialist attitudes toward racial order. That such conceptions prevail among African nations indeed speaks of how deep-seated the dictates of Western ideals have become-as deep as affecting the self-concept of people and continuing cultural erasure.

Practical Implications: Cultural Heritage and Identity Lost

The lingering effects of colonialism and globalization are evident in the erosion of traditional systems of knowledge, indigenous spirituality, and linguistic diversity in Africa. According to the UNESCO World Atlas of Languages, from the estimated 2,000 languages spoken throughout the continent, many are considered endangered or face extinction. These languages, like the Khoisan languages of Southern Africa, which include a host of click sounds, are facing extinction due to language shift towards Afrikaans and English-written colonial rule inheritances. The erosion of this sort is not merely linguistic but is accompanied by the loss of cultural values, folklore, or ways of seeing the world peculiarly African.

Apart from language, there has been a progressive sidelining of the African legal system in place of Western-style judicial systems, which equally do not attend to the subtlety of African social structures and their methods of conflict resolution. The traditional court and council system of consensus-building is called “kgotla,” which has gradually been replaced by Western-style legal proceedings in Botswana. This substitution totally disregards the cultural context within which most African societies operate and further oppresses indigenous systems of justice and community management.

Restituting African Cultural Sovereignty

While this is sad history that can never be taken back, there is a growing trend in the continent now to reclaim and preserve the cultural heritage. Programs for the promotion of African languages, traditional art, and historical practices have slowly begun to sprout. Governments and their civil societies are trying to safeguard the rich cultural diversity of the continent. For example, the African Union’s Agenda 2063 affirms the necessity of preserving and revitalizing Africa’s linguistic and cultural heritage as a means to self-determination and prosperity.

This is a cultural genocide perpetrated by the Global North through colonialism and globalization, which has irrevocably marked the identity landscape of Africa-populated over centuries with practices, beliefs, and ways of life. Nevertheless, resilience and efforts toward cultural revival mean the heritage of Africa can continue to be a very real part of the world’s mosaic, connecting its past with its hopes for a future based on both indigenous wisdom and modern progress.

References

Mazrui, A. A. 1995. Swahili State and Society: The Political Economy of an African Language. East African Publishers.

Matsinhe, D. M. 2011. “Africa’s Fear of Itself: the ideology of Makwerekwere in South Africa.” Third World Quarterly 32(2), 295–313.

Batibo, H. M. 2005. Language Decline and Death in Africa: Causes, Consequences and Challenges. Multilingual Matters.