TRADITIONAL AFRIKA by Ellendi Tedla

[Baba Ahmed]

"[T]raditional African societies tend to be organized around the requirement of duty. Precedence is given to the common good, and the fact that the individual owes his/her existence to others....

But [d]oes this African emphasis on community, duties, responsibilities,virtues or moral order crush the individual and his/her rights?

In raising such a question, one automatically creates a dichotomy in which the individual is viewed as being separate and independent from the community: a perception which assumes that the community has very little to do in the definition and identity formation of self. Furthermore, it assumes

• (a) that the individual has rights that are independent of the community,

• (b) that there is conflict between individual and community interests, and that the law needs to protect the individual from the community.

Such assumptions, which view individuals as separate atoms, are alien to the African notion of person and community. The above question does not relate to the African notion of the fusedness of 'I' and 'we.' For the 'I' is only understood in terms of 'we.' The aim of everyone is to attain personhood, that is to become a person since one does not become a person at birth simply because one is born as a human being.

The very definition of person comes out of the community. Thus becoming a person means caring for others and ensuring that through the community everyone's needs are met.

The individual in turn does not view the community as infringing or sufficating him....[On the other hand, european] relationships are understood as impersonal and utility-oriented. One's value depends on what one is capable of doing or producing.

The Creator separated from nature and humans recedes into the background like an absentee chief mechanic. Society is seen as composed of atomistic individuals, bound by no morals, obligations or duties to others. They simply act based on their own self-interest since 'there is no agreement on what is 'moral.''"

Elleni Tedla
Sankofa: African Thought and Education