The University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica: UWI Journals
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Ontologically Legitimated Ableist Language against Disabled Persons in African Traditions
Get PDFThere are ample evidences to show that a disabled person in African traditional (indigenous) communities such as a person with albinism, a person with angular kyphosis, a person with mental illness, or a person with physical disability go through a difficult life of intense social discrimination and stigma. One obvious evidence for this is to be found in the deeply normalized and socially accepted ableist language used against disabled persons in many African communities. The linguistic representations in forms of terms and phrases culturally and socially accepted as terms and phrases for disabled persons clearly shows the disdain for, and discriminations against such persons. For instance, among other terms and phrases, a person with albinism among the Yoruba people is termed ‘afin’ which means ‘horrible.’ In this essay, I defend two positions concerning the ableist representations of disabled persons in African languages. First, the normalized status of the ableist language against disabled persons is legitimated through an ontology that largely excludes disabled persons from the accepted community of beings and generally portrays disabled persons as entities lacking human personhood. If this is the case, then the moral obligations toward a fellow human being such as fair treatment and care for a disabled person is blurred in such an ontology. Second, I argue that nothing much would be achieved in any attempt to overcome the ableist representation of disability in African languages if attention is not first paid to a critique of the ontological representations of disability within African framework of thought, representations that legitimate the use of such ableist terms and phrases. I conclude that it could be a source of harm if certain moral guidelines are absent in its use
AFRICA IN THE IDEALS OF FUKUYAMA’S NOTION OF THE END OF HISTORY AND THE LAST MAN: A SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY QUEST
Get PDFThis essay pursues a critical examination of Fukuyama’s appropriation of the Kantian/Hegelian/Marxian philosophies of history, particularly the notion of the end of history, and the idea of the last man. Fukuyama uses the concepts to explain what he claims to be the triumph of liberal democracy over socialism and many other ideologies. In Fukuyama, the notion of the last man has at its centre the triumph of liberal democracy – personified in the United States of America – over other socio-economic-political ideologies. This triumphant advent and settlement of liberal democracy has impact on weaker nations of Africa and other parts of the world. The paper advances an argument that the advent and triumph of Western liberal democracy, its universalization and declaration as the final form of government has perilous implications to African human sociocultural development. Its purposive end cannot mean the end of human capability to come up with a new forms of governing framework: since not all nations wholly embrace the ideology as the logical conclusion for social, economic, and political development. Fukuyama did not think within the possibilities of the aftermaths of such a conceptualization of history that it has a tendency of overlooking his position as a source of enhancing the disenfranchisement of the weaker states of the world, in particular, those in Africa. Africa is left out of the movement of human history towards the ‘superhuman’ by intention. The main ideals of Fukuyama’s notion of the end of history, namely, freedom, recognition and consciousness have proved not to be meant for the African people unless they assimilate into the Western cultural preconditions. The paper will use descriptive/analytic method
The African Religions and the Crisis of Capitalism: Speculations for the Refoundation of Political Economy
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In the bruising election campaign of 1987 to choose a successor to Ronald Reagan, this most neo-classical of all American Presidents, George Bush Senior qualified the economic programme of his Democrat challenger of Voodoo economics. In the American world view, indelibly scarred by the tragic experience of African American slavery, Voodoo stands for anything irrational and devoid of propriety. The term is a mispelling of Vodun, the African religion practised by the black slaves at their secret meetings or during the mandatory Saturday night dancing sessions, to boost morale, after the week long toil, on the plantations. If President Bush’s quip to his opponent carried any message it is that there could be no alternative to Reaganomite, as was known the set of neo-classical measures applied to the American economy, during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Little did he know then that his own unique mandate would be plagued by the Irak war which ushered in an acute economic recession. In a matter of years, stagflation undermined the confidence of the Reagan years, setting many economists to question the pertinence of neo-classical remedies to cure the ills of the American economy. If this is the case, Voodoo economics may not be so outlandish as it would, at first, appear. It is argued in this paper that African religions have a lot to offer, in terms of value, to the on-going debate on the refoundation of political economy. After an exploration of the causes of the recurrent crises of capitalism, in the first part of this paper, a full account is given, in the second part, of the values sustaining the African religions which are antithetical to the widely held view on capitalism. Finally, the third part of the paper draws on these African values to make proposals for an overhaul of political economy as an academic discipline
Marriage for a Meaningful Existence
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Marriage customs and practices are predominantly human affairs although our experience with natural habitats suggest that there is a very close affinity between male and female in social relationships for instinctive procreation purposes. This paper is not about non-human ‘marital relationships’. This paper is about human institution of marriage that has defined the phenomenon of existence and its various forms of development. I will examine four different forms of marriage namely, monogamy, polygamy, companionate, and gay marriage and how each of them promotes a meaningful existence.
There are, however, some interesting questions that people normally ask when the issue of marriage is discussed: What is marriage? How did it begin and for what purpose? Is marriage a rite of passage between a male and female or an institution for gender partnership? Is marriage limited to a relationship between a male and female alone? Why do people prefer one form of marriage to the other? What are the social, moral, religious and political implications for choosing any form of marriage? How do we make the institution of marriage conceptually and practically meaningful in the new generation? I am aware that questions about marriage cannot be exhausted and I don’t pretend that the above questions are the only ones to be asked.
There has always been a tension within the social, political and religious strata of human society about what informs the preference for a particular choice or form of marriage. For instance, toward the end of the 20th century and at the turn of 21st century the western world has penchant for gay marriage. Whereas in most African countries gay marriage is considered an abomination, while polygamy is culturally accorded a noble practice. Does any form of marriage provide necessary and sufficient condition for a meaningful existence? A curious mind will ask: What constitutes a meaningful existence in marriage? My intention in this discourse is to attempt to respond to all these questions on the model of marriage as a human institution that I have set out, noting its significance for underpinning a meaningful existence.
Keywords: Marriage, Monogamy, Polygamy, Companionate Marriage, Same-Sex Marriage and Meaningful Existenc
The Reality of Reincarnation and The Traditional Yoruba Response based on Odù Ifá
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‘Reincarnation’ is a concept and belief system that has attracted the attention of many thinkers across different intellectual disciplines because it is found in many cultures across the world. The discourses have taken various dimensions and different attempts have been made to explain the place of reincarnation in the cycle of life. Some have identified reincarnation with partial rebirth of some spiritual parts of humans into a body; others have referred to reincarnation as the transmigration and metempsychosis of souls. These different views still have not resolved salient questions about: i) the true nature of reincarnation, ii) how many times the soul can be embodied and iii) the idea of predestination, etc. This paper discusses reincarnation within the belief system of the Yoruba, using Odù Ifá as a reference point for the ideas of the people in order to show the basic principles responsible for the belief, as well as to clearly indicate the nature of the belief and how this belief differs from the views in some other religions. To achieve the aim of this paper, interviews with Babaláwo (custodians of the Ifá Corpus) were conducted and a review of existing literature on reincarnation was done. Different scholars and philosophers have either denied the reality of reincarnation or improperly discussed reincarnation among Africans because of the influence of religions from the Arabia. Findings clearly show that there are two basic understandings of reincarnation among the Yoruba as contained in Ifá Corpus; first, there is a clear understanding of a total return of a person - body and soul - into the world, to complete a chosen destiny; and the other is a partial return of a person which is expressed in a desire for an ancestor to return in a bodily form and live in the family.
Keywords: Ara àti èmí, Odù-Ifá, Reincarnation, Yoruba, Religio
