Africa: Culture and Society• African People have a remarkable cultural

unity, but there are numerous ethnic, linguistic and religious groups.

Cultural Unity• The shared characteristics and a shared

experience have given African people south of the Sahara a common identity; despite the great diversity of languages, ethnic groupsand religions.

This has also resulted in what is called unity in diversity.

Although it is very difficult to define African Identity, but sure culture and cultural diversity represents the African unity.

Culture means the totality of knowledge and behavior, ideas and objects that constitutes the common heritage of a society.

In other words, culture means the way of life of a group of people.

• It could be said that African identity could be explained through African characteristics and culture in the African continent only.

• If we look into the structure of its population, it is diverse and could be subdivided into several broad groups depending on their

1. Economic activity (peasant farmers, herders, gatherers and hunters ),

2. Language families,3. Ethnic groups (tribes) or any other

criteria.• All of these subdivisions share a

common African identity.

Several elements of the African identity may be identified

1. Possession of a black skin. Blackness is a shared characteristic of the Africans south of the Sahara.

2. Africans view the relationship between mankind and nature differently from western societies. i.e. Christians see nature as separate from God and man is outside and above nature, and nature exists for the wellbeing of humans.

African traditional religions believe that spiritual forces are found in the environment.Gods and Spirits are associated with major elements of the physical environment such as rivers, earthquakes, thunderstorms, lightening and winds.

3. Past and future generations of Africans are linked through a “chain of life”. Large families are preferred, to maintain this chain of life and children are taught the tradition of the group. Africans who live in cities sustain their link through marriage, gifts, visits, sending money to parents or relatives in rural areas.

Chiefs, religious belief and common value systems, all work as social control; which could maintain this stream of culture; and could be a source of punishment to individuals who do not follow the common norms.

4.African identity is closely tied to land and Africans work as Farmers, herders and hunters. Most Africans are still practicing these activities.That means African people have close relationship with nature.

African societies protect access to land by treating it as communal ownership, rather than an individual property, especially in rural areas.

However, from development view points, planners do not agree with this view point. Planners believe that ownership of land has to be an individual property, so that the owner can take good care of it.

Africans respect their leaders and chiefs, because they are social administrative, spiritual and political figures. Usually those leaders have wisdom, integrity, and wealth.

6. Africans live in extended rather than nuclear families. This illustrates the communal spirit of the society. That means individuals live as part of a group and not as an individual. This is why sharing others social events are a top priority for the Africans. The group looks after the individual and his family (sons and daughters).

The arts, especially sculpture, music, dance and storytelling are good indicators of the African identity

8. A shared history of colonialism contributes to the sense of unity.

Cultural DiversityCultural diversity has its effect on social,

political life and patterns of development. Cultural diversity could be viewed in terms of 1- ethnicity, 2- language and 3- religion

Ethnicity:• During the 1960s the term ethnicity was

described as tribalism and pluralism.• However, ethnicity means affiliation or loyalty

to a group sharing a common sense of origin whether real or artificially constructed.

• Most ethnic groups share the same language, culture, political and economic institutions.

Few nations are somewhat ethnically homogenous such as Somalia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana.

On the other hand, nations such as Tanzania,Cameroon, Sudan and Nigeria are ethnically diverse and they contain hundreds of ethnic groups.

In Nigeria, Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo are the dominant ethnic groups in the country and they are 20-25 million each.

Political conflicts with ethnic dimensions have always received considerable attention in the western media.

For example, in the 1960s, riots and the subsequent civil war in Nigeria.

The Hutu and Tutsi conflicts in Rwanda and Burundi.

Sudan north-south war ( the notion of African in southern Sudan fighting against the Arabs of the north) and

The ethnic disputes in Uganda under Edi Amen regime.

• All of these conflicts together with underdevelopment of the continent have led to a very pessimistic view which is that Africans cannot rule themselves.

• For this reason some have called for colonial forces to come back.

• However, Africa has rich diversified cultures; nevertheless, there is a common cultural inheritance and unity among African people.

Language: • Africa South of the Sahara has a great

linguistic diversity; there are more than 1,000 African languages.

• Students of African languages have identified over 100 group of languages, belonging to four major languages super families, of which Niger-Congo is the largest.

The African Language Families:

1. Niger-Congo (Bantu, Hausa)

2. Afro-Asiatic (Arabic)

3. Nilo-Saharan (S. Sudan, C. Africa, Chad. Uganda)

4. Khoisan “Bushmen”

• Many of the languages that were spoken by few have changes and replaced by lingua franca, or official European languages

1. W. Africa- French

2. E. Africa- English

3. Sudan Juba-Arabic

4. Swahili (spoken in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda)

• European languages have been retained as official national languages mainly Englishand French because:

1. They are international languages for science and technology.

2. Most African countries in which they are used have no indigenous language suitable for this purpose.

Religion:• In Africa, religions, encompasses Christianity,

Islam, and traditional religions.• Islam predominates in the states adjacent to

the southern edge of the Sahara, Christianity further south.

• Nigeria and Ethiopia are the only States with large proportions of both.

• African Christianity dates from 400 ACE with the emergence of Christian Kingdom “Nubia‐Sudan and Axum‐Ethiopia”.

• Islam began to take hold when the ruling class of ancient kingdom of Ghana converted in the 12th century into Islam. 

• Islam grew remarkably during the 19th

century as a result of militant Islamic reform movement centered in present day Sudan, Nigeria and Mali.

• In each case, leaders launched Jihad “holy wars” and established an Islamic state.

• The number of Muslims has increased and new converts are attracted by the unity and discipline of Islamic community and easiness of becoming a Muslim.

Q 1. Final Exam.

• Write an essay about the main Characteristics of the African

Identity. Give at least 3 examples.