{"id":41334,"date":"2025-03-21T12:00:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T19:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=41334"},"modified":"2025-03-21T12:00:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T19:00:16","slug":"what-about-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/what-about-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"What about Africa?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe used their banana trees,\u201d I responded to whether we had found a place to \u201cfaire les besoins.\u201d[1]<\/a> Our medical evangelical team was caravaning back to the city after a week in the interior. A few vehicles were delayed, so we pulled over and took advantage of the jungle around us. We had stopped in front of a home, and the women were invited to go behind the buildings into the banana tree grove to have privacy for our \u201cneeds.\u201d Seeing the ladies of the home, sitting outside around a massive cooking pot preparing manioc by hand using ancient tools is fascinating. There was no electricity, vehicles, or visible modern conveniences on the property. It seemed as if we had stepped back in time. As I write this, I am in C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire, West Africa. I am now in a big city. I just returned from shopping in an airconditioned grocery store, seeing Burger King, and I am now sitting in the air conditioning. Just a few hours away and even just a few neighborhoods away, people live as they have for centuries. It is ironic to me to write about postmodernism after seeing people still living out ancient customs and practices.<\/p>\n

Stephen Hick examines the philosophy and ideology of postmodernism in Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault<\/em>. Hick\u2019s defines postmodernism as \u201can activist strategy against the coalition of reason and power.\u201d[2]<\/a> In the first few sentences of the book, he writes, \u201cLeading intellectuals tell us that modernism has died and that a revolutionary era is upon us\u2014an era liberated from the oppressive strictures of the past, but at the same time disquieted by its expectations for the future.\u201d[3]<\/a> I immediately thought of hundreds of people who visited our medical clinics this week. These are people that postmodernists would say are living in the confines of the past. It is what they know. It is their way of life. Is it our place to say it is wrong or oppressive?<\/p>\n

Postmodern philosophy is deconstructing reason, truth, and reality. Hicks explains that postmodernists \u201cbelieve that in the name of reason, truth, and reality Western civilization has wrought dominance, oppression, and destruction.\u201d[4]<\/a> He shares the inconsistency and contradictions in postmodernism, \u201cSubjectivism and relativism in one breath, dogmatic absolutism in the next.\u201d [5]<\/a> As I wrestled with these philosophical ideologies, I kept thinking about the Ivorians I saw this week. Or the Mauritanians I have met who continue their nomadic traditions, moving their herds and families to find water. How does postmodernism affect these and others in Africa who continue to live in the ways of the past?<\/p>\n

Since my current setting is Africa, I explored how postmodernism may affect Africa. Peter Takov and Ngoran Banlanjo address this in their double-blind peer-reviewed article in the Global Journal of Human-Social Science. Takov and Banlanjo argue that postmodernism \u201ccan cause radical but destructive shifts in traditional African cultures and the Indigenous values that these cultures define and uphold.\u201d[6]<\/a> The following are some specific areas in which they believe postmodernism will threaten African cultures.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n
      \n
    1. Annihilation of traditional African ethics of communalistic lifestyles for individualism.[7]<\/a><\/li>\n
    2. Religious reverence seen in African cultures is being threatened.[8]<\/a><\/li>\n
    3. Destruction of the hierarchical worldview of the continent.[9]<\/a><\/li>\n
    4. The identity of Africans as their traditional cultures is threatened.[10]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Takov and Banlanjo confirm my concerns about postmodern ideology and its effects on Africa: \u201cPostmodernism has deconstructive and eroding consequences on African Indigenous cultures, their belief systems and practices, as well as the norms and values that these Indigenous cultures uphold.\u201d[11]<\/a> In response to postmodernism, the authors believe African cultures can withstand the pressures through their centuries-old values and philosophies as they maintain their authenticity and integrity.[12]<\/a><\/p>\n

      What is my response as I navigate postmodernism in my context in Africa? Postmodernism is a philosophy founded on contradictions, a lack of reason, and no absolute truth. In contrast, the Bible tells us in John 14:6, \u201cJesus replied, I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.\u201d Henri Nouwen reminds me of what is needed for followers of Jesus to proclaim Truth to the World:<\/p>\n

      The gospel proclaims human freedom and dignity more than human enslavement and depravity. What is needed is a balance of biblical values and emphasis on the empowering quality of the gospel. The spiritual values of humility, long suffering, endurance, and obedience are to be affirmed alongside self-reliance, freedom, proclamation, mission, and authority. The gospel that proclaims the intrinsic worth, sacred value, and essential dignity of human beings encourages our work for equal rights, good housing, good medical care, and good education, and our fight for justice and peace in the world.[13]<\/a><\/p>\n

      \n

      [1]<\/a> The discrete way in the Ivory Coast is to ask for an area for personal toileting needs.<\/p>\n

      [2]<\/a> Stephen Ronald Craig Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault<\/em> (Roscoe, IL: Ockham\u2019s Razor, 2011), 13.<\/p>\n

      [3]<\/a> Stephen Ronald Craig Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault<\/em> (Roscoe, IL: Ockham\u2019s Razor, 2011), 11.<\/p>\n

      [4]<\/a> Hicks, 12-13<\/p>\n

      [5]<\/a> Hicks, 200-201.<\/p>\n

      [6]<\/a> Peter Takov and Ngoran Banlanjo, \u201cPostmodernism Vis-a-Vis African Traditional Cultures: Rethinking the Pathways to Authenticity,\u201d Global Journal of Human-Social Science: A Arts & Humanities- Psychology<\/em> 21, no. 2 (2021): 33\u201343.<\/p>\n

      [7]<\/a> Takov, 38<\/p>\n

      [8]<\/a> Takov, 38.<\/p>\n

      [9]<\/a> Takov, 38.<\/p>\n

      [10]<\/a> Takov, 39<\/p>\n

      [11]<\/a> Takov, 40.<\/p>\n

      [12]<\/a> Takov, 42.<\/p>\n

      [13]<\/a> Henri J. M. Nouwen, Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life<\/em>, Kindle Ed (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2013), 141.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      \u201cWe used their banana trees,\u201d I responded to whether we had found a place to \u201cfaire les besoins.\u201d[1] Our medical evangelical team was caravaning back to the city after a week in the interior. A few vehicles were delayed, so we pulled over and took advantage of the jungle around us. We had stopped in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":206,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2967,1764],"class_list":["post-41334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03","tag-hicks","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/206"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41335,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41334\/revisions\/41335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}