Decentering Africa
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Decentering Africa
If you wanted to know what a person is like, why they like what they like, and why people do the things they do; you would look at their culture. A persons culture is the one thing that spate and identify them. Ones culture gives a deeper history of where they come from, what they believe, and explains the deep roots of a person. Culture is defined as the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations The customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time he set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization (merriam-webster, 2012). As we look at the Cultures of the world we can see that if makes or breaks society. Your culture I what defines who you are. But what would happen if you were told that you could not be you. What if all that you believed and held dear was all of a sudden strip away from you? What if you were told that you could be arrested for practicing the culture of your forefathers or ancestors? What if you were you were told that others were better than you and your culture was inferior? How would you react to having a new culture was forced upon you? How would you feel if you had no choice but to accept it? Decentering is defined as to cause to lose or shift from an established center or focus; especially: to disconnect from practical or theoretical assumptions of origin, priority, or essence (merriam-webster, 2012). Africa known to some as the Motherland is thought to be the cradle of creation is one of the most disturbed and altered Cultures in the world. Africa being naturally rich continents on the planet was home to some of the most proud and advanced cultures of its times. When Europeans start to settle in the land they forced these nations to give up all of who they were to fit in the life of its invaders. Proud cultures that had been around centuries were decimated in a flash because the European wanted complete control. The Europeans cultures felt that the African culture was irrelevant and was banned from being taught because others thought it was worthless and unneeded.
Why was African culture so important, is whats going on in the African continent a result for what happen in their past. In order to understand Aica now we first must understand the Africans before Europeans. Looking away from what we were taught Africa was not a land of savages. African as a whole was a world of different nations building empires setting trends. Africans from the B.C. era were establishing nations, setting up international trade, making great strides in medicine and funeral preparations and even cultivating the harsh land for farming. Africa had many advanced civilization and cultures, most think of the Egyptians yet there were several other strong advance cultures like the Mali, Songhai, Swahili and so many more. Really taking off and exploding around 400 A.D. most of these cultures go back as far as 3300 B.C. Prior to the fortieth African nations and cultures were not influenced by the Europeans. Songhai, Mali and Ghana are examples and a testament to how rich and full of culture Africa was before European decentralization (Quigley, 202).
A culture and a nation of the ancient time the Songhai was a culture that rivaled the Egyptians in their height. What made this culture and nation great was the fact that they were a trading central for the known world. The Songhai capital city was Timbuktu and from here they traded with all the nations and continent of their region (McKissack & McKissack, 1995). The Songhai was not a simple spice or goods trader they traded all that could be traded form goods to education even faith. Whatever you needed you could go to the Timbuktu to get it, doctors for the sick, and judges for the persecuted, priests for those in need of prayer and sacrifice and merchants for the desires of your heart. The Songhai were great seekers of knowledge, Scholars, artist, and inventor brought their work, studies, art Ideas and inventions to the great market to sell and trade with those who desired (Villiers & Hirtle, 2007). Being a culture on the pursuit of knowledge the king paid scholars form foreign land to teach his people in the areas of construction, literature, medicine, and so forth. The Songhai location paid a huge role in their growth as a culture and nations, being on a huge bend off the Niger River many travelers going from land to land were able to stop in to Songhai (Villiers & Hirtle, 2007). The Songhais stood apart from other cultures having their own morals, laws, rituals and faith.
Another advanced civilization in Africa was Mali. Having a wealth of Natural resources most of western Africa was ruled by one principle culture being the Malineese . They built illustrious towns and palaces they became known as the place “Where the Kings Dwell”. One King who made this culture stand out was the King Mansa Musa. He was a king known for his generosity and well-loved among his people (Niane, 2006). This culture believed n peace and helping others, the kings would give away gold to anyone who would request an audience with them. Basing their culture off the Islamic faith the Mali nation established government and social hierarchy across the region (Quigley, 202). The Mali culture was one of the first to establish a code of laws where no man was exempt from the rule of the king. Regardless of your social