By Voice of Lara
Folks have charged me of being westenised which I didn't receive as a compliment because it wasn't meant as such. Instead, it was considered unflattering and discredited to my native upbringing. I mean, I wouldn't be caught dead tying a wrapper and a blouse to work on a weekday; neither would I speak my indigenous language carelessly in a corporate environment unless situations required but that doesn't portray me as less cultured.
I was born into a typical African family, an Ibadan father for that matter and we were raised to live the African life. Among other training, we girls were taught to go on our knees and the boys prostrated whenever we greeted - that was what our cultural norm demanded and we obliged exuberantly without any interrogation. We were 'forced' to read Yoruba books, accommodate extended family members in our home, wore traditional attires, ate food like 'amala' and 'ewedu', 'asaro' (yam pottage) ikokore, (mama hails from Ijebu in Ogun State), and above all we were raised in Ibadan.
So, how did we (my siblings and I) become so westernised? But truthfully, we've all evolved. Growing up, we were compelled to do things our parents' way even contrary to our opinions, but we kept discovering our own identities as we grew. In their defense, parents know better. We were also obligated to listen to the traditional Nigerian/African music that existed at the time but the foreign music collections of each of us siblings now that we are fully grown are enough to open a record store. You wouldn't live in my father's house and not watch Baba Sala, Ogunde and Ade love films which naturally should further enhance our love for Nollywood Yoruba films, right? Wrong.
But one thing refuses to change though - our family values. Raised with good morals and standards, mother did an excellent job. But how much of family values do parents infuse in their children these days? The other day, my friend's daughter who stayed the night over in my house woke up the next morning and refused to say any word of greeting. Her parents swiftly came to her rescue and blamed her behaviour on westernisation. They have lived abroad for a while and as such, their children have adopted the foreign cultural practices.
In another instance, a friend boasted of how his children don't speak the Yoruba language because it is too local. So because he would want them to go to college abroad, prohibiting the 'local' indigenous language would be the first step in achieving their goals. In sadness, I grinned at his ignorance. In a very sad manner and regrettably so, listening to his teenage children speak English, it's a shame that they could neither speak their mother-tongue nor their adopted L1 as fluently as expected at that age.
While I couldn't agree more that some of our African cultural practices need some appraisal, adjustment and some form of reform from time to time, I also believe that some negative perception of our culture and traditions needs to be dropped in order to uphold a more dynamic society. This brings me to the question - Why are we flushing our cultural values down the drain all in the name of westernisation?
As a scholar, I witness day-in-day-out the influx of Westerners whose lifestyles we blindly imitate so staunchly into our country to learn our local languages. And when they do, they return to their country to augment their folks with the language treasure that Africa has enriched them with.
Sadly, some of our local languages and cultural heritage are gradually going into extinction but isn't it an irony that those Western countries are now salvaging our trashed treasure and remodeling an extraordinary artifact out of it? Our locally made fabrics and indigenous African dishes are still crawling at snail pace to get some recognition in the intentional markets while foreign foods like pizza all the way from Italy aare now dominating the African menu. In case this doesn't sound convincing enough, Kola Tubosun and many more became full bright scholars in promoting the Yoruba and other Nigerian languages that some uninformed people have tagged local.
Yemisi Aribisala and others are doing all they can to introduce Nigeria cuisine to the world. Beyonce once wore the African ankara print and it really looked good on her. Sorry to break it to you but we've disparaged our African cultural heritage to our own peril far too long but it's not too late to make that astute turn around in real time. Source
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