African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic ... - Blackherbals.com

Continued from page 47 – The Global Capitalist Crisis and
Africa’s Future
Even in the area of linguistics that we all believe should
be at the core of our work, and it is in fact in this area
that we can be inspired to develop new ways of
knowing ourselves, there is a lot of innovative work
that has to be done. Prof. Greenberg adds that the
Africa displays a greater degree of linguistic
complexity than other continents and that the
classification of African languages that has so far been
carried out by mainly western linguists have created
even more confusion because by following their
individual conceptualisations, “the linguistic divisions
constructed by one researcher or another are
disturbingly reminiscent of the colonial divisions of
yesteryear [Greenberg, 1989: 121].
To cure this problem, he calls for more monographs to
be written so that more “scientific identifications of the
outlines of the groups that may exist between the major
“families” and the basic units, “which are currently the
only irrefutable evidence. For this to be done,
Greenberg, calls for Africans scholars themselves to do
this work and this cannot be done in my view without
the African griots and other indigenous linguistic
experts becoming part of the process of research and
teaching.
This work was in fact begun with the pioneering
attempt by Cheikh Anta Diop to link the Egyptian
language with several West African languages followed
by the work of Professor Theophile Obenga in the same
field. It was with their work and struggle that the
ancient Egyptian language, which had previously been
linked to Semitic group of languages, was corrected at
the UNESCO Symposium organised in Cairo in 1974
on ‘The Peopling of Ancient Egypt” to be part of the
family of African languages. This major achievement
brought nearer the acknowledgement of Egypt as an
African civilisation and not an Asiatic one as had been
argued by the Eurocentric ‘Egyptologists.’
The essence of the matter is that African scholars must
be prepared to do the kind of research that is original
and that can enable them to abandon Eurocentric
clothing of academia and engage in dialogue with the
experts in their communities. They have to admit that
in that case, they alone cannot determine the research
agenda from above, but must humble themselves to
come under the feet of the African sages and griots, just
like the Greek students like Plato did in Egypt to learn
at the feet of the Egyptian scribes. The designing of the
research is not a top-down affair. It has to involve those
who have the knowledge and information required for
whatever is desired to be achieved by the research. In
-48- Traditional African Clinic August 2012
that case, the methodology cannot be predetermined. It
has to be ‘negotiated’ with those ‘who know’ and
during this process, the problem of the academic
disciplines in which the hypotheses are formulated will
be determined by the result of the dialogue between the
researcher and (the researched)-those who know. The
crucial question will be: “What is the purpose of the
knowledge to be created.” Is it for knowledge’s sake or
is it intended to result in some good for the community
who will participate in such a research and knowledge
production? This question cannot be answered in the
abstract. It can only be answered with the people who
can produce the knowledge and for whom it should be
produced because they will know what use it is for.
Time has come when the African elites must stop
looking down at their community compatriots as
ignorant and illiterate, while the villagers look upon
them as agents of foreign culture and economic
interests. Hostility exists between the two and there is
no trust between them since relationships between them
is based on top-down “development” dictates passed on
by the elite to the “ignorant masses.” This is the reason
why African cultures and civilisation have stagnated,
only changing to accommodate foreign inspired
solutions.
If we are therefore we are to create and provide space
and platform for African automous thinking on issues
of the future of the continent free from disadvantageous
foreign influences that have resulted in Africa’s
weakening, we have to begin by liberating ourselves
from the dominant epistemologies and adopt such an
epistemology such as Afrikology that can enable us to
draw knowledge and inspiration from our own
heritages, which our people created through their
languages. This knowledge is a living knowledge and
incorporates our heritages. A Nile Heritage has deep
roots in the origins of the Human Cradle, which is
located in the Nile Valley. Ethiopian, Nubian and
Egyptian civilisations were its flowering. Since then,
our heritage was invaded and taken over by foreigners
in Egypt and now in the rest of the continent. This
injurious invasion must be fought back as the struggle
in the Sudan has demonstrated. It is a long and arduous
struggle, which must not only take an armed form. It
has foremost to take the form of RESISTANCE
THROUGH KNOWLEDGE and such knowledge is to
be found deep in our heritage. So let us work on it. We
are very much behind time.
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