African Worldviews on Land and Links to Conflict
The traditional African perspectives on
matters such as land and ownership of property are directly informed by the
African worldview which in its essence is good. The problem which one could
like to address is the origin of conflicts. The fact that traditional African
worldview is good is so much incompatible with the many conflicts which have
hit the continent in the past and many more others being experienced today.
This is quite perplexing and unraveling such a puzzle calls for deliberate
efforts.
Africa has the potential to develop but
the development process has been substantially derailed by civil conflicts and
wars since one of the major draw-backs in the region is its high scale armed
and unarmed conflicts. Most of Africa’s wars are closely related to inter-ethnic
conflicts which are mainly informed by the incompatible perspectives to
different issues among the inhabitants.
In the traditional African setting, land
belonged to the community. Everybody had to utilize land in regard to how much
he needed and the size of the family. All members of the society had equal
access and rights to the use of land. The value of land was not really measured
by economical parameters. On the contrary, land value was based on other strong
cultural ties and beliefs such as indigeneity (act of being indigenous).
Societies attached both their origin and identity to land. It would be absurd
and almost an abomination to think of an African society without land. It is
land that confers a home to a people, in other words, people can only claim belonging
basing on the fact that they possess some piece of land without which they
belonged nowhere and hence were considered ‘no people.’
Therefore, land forms part of the
identity of the African traditional societies. People occupied land which had
been handed to them from their ancestors and as such land carried not only the
physical and utility value but also spiritual and ancestral dimension. The
economic value of land is just a survival interest and at times its
contravention can be tolerated but the spiritual, ancestral and identity
dimensions attached to land in traditional African society is a vital interest
and as such never to be compromised. With the latter perspective, society has the right
and duty to defend the land that rightly belongs to it. Compelled by this
perception and the obligation underlying it, societies are ready to fight and
even die in defense of their land.
African Worldviews on Land and Links to Conflict
Reviewed by Ibrahim Magara
on
February 10, 2017
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