Page 241 - Volume 1_Go home mzungu Go Home_merged with links

Changes!

Commentary

At least one significant area of Africa had a form of rule which today we would

recognise as being a constitutional monarchy.

In many areas, society was matrilineal as opposed to the western European concept
of patrilineage. A number of African territories historically had some form of dual gender

government where the role of women in matters of governance was formalised. It was the

m’zungu who imposed through their missionaries the concept that a woman’s role was a
domestic one.

*****
African culture and traditional African religious beliefs have more relevance to modern-day

environmental concerns than the commodification that so often drives m’zungu
economies.

Traditional African religion revolves around Animism, whereby everything around us
has a spiritual value which we need to respect. This contrasts with the culture of

commodification that led m’zungu slavers and m’zungu colonists to treat African human

beings as commodity to be traded at a price.

This cultural difference creates one of the biggest problems in modern-day Africa.

That of the ownership of land. m’zungu people and corporations view property as nothing

more than a commercial transaction. It’s not the same for most Africans.

*****

African societies are more in line with a culture of communitarianism whereby the

community is regarded as a living entity. And a person’s place in the community is a
reflection of their behaviour. This belief has a greater affinity with the concept of Human

Rights than does the culture of commodification.

African slavery before the m’zungu colonisation is a good example of this difference.

Under African slavery, slaves had certain rights & privileges, the right to marry – even to a

free person - a right to earn an income. They had legal protection. They had possibilities of
social, political, and economic mobility. Only the king or chief had the power of life and

death. Under m’zungu colonisation, slavery became a business, and the slave became a
lesser being.