CULTURE: Globalisation Poses a Serious Threat to Black Arts

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Aug 29 2001 (IPS) - Globalisation poses a serious threat to Black culture, arts and indigenous languages, say scholars.

“Globalisation is a fresh phase in re-colonisation of African societies which attempt to continue the promotion of Western linguistic heritage and literary aesthetic cannons at the expense of African indigenous languages and literature,” said a statement by the scholars at the end of a two-day symposium in Lagos last week.

“African indigenous languages face a serious danger of extinction and globalisation can intensify this process of decline,” said the statement.

The scholars from Nigeria, the United States, Kenya, Gabon and Cuba argued that the use of English, Spanish and French as languages of learning in schools tended to erode the wide use of local languages which have mostly been abandoned by the elite.

The symposium, on the ‘Black and African Cultures and the Challenges of Globalisation’, claimed “there has been a sustained and mindless assault on Black and African Cultures in an effort to portray them as dysfunctional and perhaps inferior to the cultures of other races”.

“Globalisation has imposed alien cultural values (such as dressing, hair-styles, music and behaviour) on African societies thereby distorting the African value system and identity,” the statement added.

Abiola Irele, of the Ohio State University, urged Black people to “promote, protect, preserve and modernise Black and African cultures in order to empower them to compete favourably in the emerging global world dominated by Western cultural values and standards.”

Irele said Black people should “aggressively collect African oral poetry, proverbs and oral traditions, and preserve them in audio-visual format in order to conceptualise the mechanics and techniques of African Performing Arts, as well as enhance their utilisation for research and development purpose.”

Ade Ajayi, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos, argued that Black and African peoples cannot develop in the modern era unless they base their development process on their cultural values and identity. “Globalisation is about competition and struggle for dominance which encourages the continuation and expansion of Western imperialism in the new millennium,” he said.

Ajayi said for globalisation to be meaningful, it must encourage global democratisation of all societies, and promote equitable economic and technological development of all race and interest groups.

To restore a pride in the Black works, Yakubu Nasidi of the Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria, appealed to museums and private collectors in Europe and North America to return to Africa the artefacts looted from the continent.

Last year the Sunday Times of London reported that ethnic crowns, carvings and terra cotta statues dating back to more than 2000 years are being plundered from the African continent and sold cheaply to European collectors.

The paper said organised gangs with up to 1000 workers have dug up protected sites to satisfy demand by European dealers. It said the trade is so well established that artefacts that would have fetched 30,000 Pounds (about 45,000 U.S. Dollars) a decade ago, are now on sale for a tenth of the price.

Recently, 44 artefacts, stolen more than a century ago, were returned to Nigeria from Zurich, Switzerland. The items — worth millions of dollars — include 19 Benin bronzes and Yoruba cultural statues.

The items are the largest single haul ever handed over by a single foreign gallery since the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo began the battle to retrieve Nigeria’s looted properties early this year. A three-man delegation headed by Omotesho Eluyemi, Director General of the National Commission for Museum and Monuments (NCMM), toured Europe to negotiate the return of the treasures.

The team visited some gallery corners and art dealers in Zurich, Paris, The Hague and London.

“The African art objects, once the repositories of metaphysical and spiritual values, or of significant historical events, now find themselves commodified within the terms of a new political economy. Consequently, traditional cultures, not structured by the logic of this political economy, suddenly find themselves faced by complete annihilation,” said Nasidi.

The symposium was organised by the Lagos-based Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilisation (CBAAC). The centre aims at creating a new identity and opportunity to enable black people compete on equal terms with peoples of other races.

CBAAC, which is part of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, was established in 1979 following the successful hosting of the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture in 1977 by Nigeria. The centre has become a “sort of museum” where the cultural materials used by the 59 Black and African countries that participated in the 1977 festival have been displayed.

The Third Black and African Arts and Culture Festival will take place in South Africa in 2002. More than 100,000 artists, entertainers, and culture practitioners from Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe will participate in the event.