The Search For an African Identity

If President Nyerere's declaration at Arusha was a call for self help, it was also part of a search which he and other Africans have conducted to develop a new, modern African civilization with its own values and its own validity, just as Edward Blyden a century earlier was seeking an African identity in a world that seemed to be collapsing before European technological strength, so today the same process is to be seen--the utilization of those tools from the rest of the world which will help Africa become strong, but a selective utilization combined with revived values and institutions from traditional Africa.

The process is not easy because African civilization has been profoundly affected over the past century and a half by ideas and institutions, chiefly from the West, and this development, if anything, is accelerating. Moreover, it is difficult to be selective, to take, for example, the principle of capital accumulation without the incentive to personal profit, or the desire for material plenty while avoiding spiritual aimlessness. Finally, throughout its history Africa has contained a great variety of social and political groupings, until recently isolated and only now reaching out toward national unity, continental cooperation, and racial identity.

Nevertheless, the early years of political independence have been characterized by a determination to achieve cultural independence as well, to re-examine the moral tenets of the past, to sing again the old songs of love and hope, to regain the ancient life force of the ancestors, and to rediscover in the tested values of traditional Africa a spiritual thrust which will help propel the new societies of modern Africa. The search takes many forms. In Senegal, the philosopher-poet statesman, Lèopold Senghor, speaks of the intuitive judgment and sympathetic harmony with nature which the black man brings to human knowledge and argues that contemporary society cannot reach perfection until all the races have contributed toward what he terms the "Civilization of the Universal." In Nigeria the medical school of the University of Ibadan operates a psychiatric center in a village near Abeokuta, which makes effective use of the age-old African sense of family and arts of healing. In Tanzania, Julius Nyerere sees African socialism as an expression of genuine human equality, drawing on the ideas of mutual ownership and community sharing which evolved in traditional society and applying them to instill ujamaa, or family-hood, in the mind of the modern African striving to better his lot.

The concept of human dignity occurs again and again, as Africans seek to establish an African world presence and to gain the respect of others through the development of respect among Africans for their own way of life. This comes in many forms--the study and performance of traditional music, dance, and sculpture, the writing of African history, the search for a fresh African idiom in contemporary artistic expression, the reshaping of Western-style educational standards and values, the turning to indigenous forms of Christianity, and the continuing debate over national language. In the African universities there is a sea drift away from the curricula bequeathed by colonial administrators toward one suited to African needs. Institutes of African studies examine the old arts and experiment with the new, scholars explore past civilizations and present politics, while departments of pedagogy debate the degree and nature of schooling needed to put sinew into developing societies.

One of the most virile expressions of the new African identity is found in the creative arts and letters. Schools of art and design attached to universities are numerous, in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Ghana, for example, but they are supplemented by informal clubs, theaters, and ateliers whose activities are frequently more productive and original. In Ghana there is an interesting experimental theater and an excellent traditional dance group. In Nigeria the playing companies of Ogunmola and Duro Ladipo as well as the Mbari societies of Ibadan and Oshogbo have stimulated much writing, painting, and theatricals. Black Orpheus has long been an important vehicle for new African writing, while the revue, Transition, has presented original works along with literate comment on a wide range of affairs relating to Africa. Senegal played host to an immense international congress on African culture in 1966, and Abidjan offered itself as the locale for the annual meeting of the International PEN club in 1967, while a pan-African cultural festival was held in Algiers in the summer of 1969.

Africa has achieved a substantial literary production in the years since the Second World War. The work of authors like Camera Laye, David Diop, and Cheikh Hamidou Kane differ as much from each other as they do from the writing of Chinua Achebe, James Ngugi, or Ezekiel Mphahlele, but all are attempting to explain the phenomenon of Africa to themselves as well as to the world around them. One of their problems is the recurring search for a language of expression. They are torn between the desire to describe their world in its own authentic tones and to communicate what they have to say to others. Thus far virtually all African writing has been done in foreign European idiom, but if this is a limitation, it is one which seemingly can be overcome by the talent of the artist.

This matter of mode of expression arises more generally in Africa over the question of national language. There is an overwhelming desire to have a national tongue native to the land, but the practicalities appear to be insuperable. While Tanzania has established Swahili as her official language, others have been obliged to settle for French or English, in order that their people may communicate with one another and all with the world beyond. In fact, this may be a most appropriate development since the search for an African identity is made precisely so that Africa can knit herself more tightly into the world community. When the Nigerian playwright, Wole Soyinka, says he wants to be a good writer, not a good African writer, he is expressing what is in the mind of every African. For Africa has indeed become part of the modem world.