Recent years have witnessed Africans telling their stories from an African perspective. This aspect is evident in movies and documentaries that seek to make the world see Africa from a different perspective. For a long time, the world has known Africa for inferiority, weakness, and poverty. Most stories portray Africa as an incognito existence. Whites continue to judge Africa and Africans through their western lenses resulting in cultural and intellectual imperialism. Consequently, it makes Africa appear as a mask of anguish. The world continues to alienate Africans because of the all-frequent stereotypes, forcing them to reject themselves and their identity. They end up embracing the Western humanization narratives to gain acceptance. However, most African countries can attain a world power status. They have enormous wealth, in the form of natural resources and have intelligent individuals who can create and maintain stable governments. Africans and blacks are rising to tell African stories from an African viewpoint. The paper seeks to create a new African society with new social systems, including spiritual, education, health, and defense systems. The paper provides an accurate picture of how an African society should be.
Educational System
The education system of the new African country will seek to reflect society’s positive aspects. The system will try to preserve the society and deal with the various issues of life. Current education systems are based on inappropriate knowledge structures that facilitate foreign dominance resulting in psychological problems among the young and old ( Kaputa, 2011). Elite education has made most Africans reject their identity and adopt foreign cultures such as speaking foreign languages with foreign accents and discarding their native languages. The current African society seems to condemn those unable to converse in foreign languages such as English and French. The new system will be based on traditional philosophies and African historical background. Moreover, it will encourage members to play their roles, with parents and the elderly given the task to nurture the young.
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The new education system will seek to encourage critical thinking and not prepare learners for manual work. The existing system prepares Africans to be semi-skilled personnel for the labor market and to provide cheap labor resulting in inequalities in the society. ( Kaputa, 2011). Underfunding within this system contributes to high wastage rates. The new system will seek to reverse this situation by emphasizing on critical thinking and employing appropriate African epistemology. This aspect will provide learners with the necessary skills promoting innovation and creativity. Consequently, it will enable most young people to be self-employed, eliminating the problem of unemployment. Graduates will use their skills to provide innovative and sustainable solutions to address the energy, defense, agricultural, and infrastructural issues. This education system will get enough funding to ensure that all children progress and serve the community in various ways while getting some income.
The new system will provide equal learning opportunities to all individuals. Currently, most learners in Africa lack equal learning opportunities because of their socio-economic backgrounds. The system will apply the African philosophy that considers individuals to be spiritual beings linked to one another and their ancestors ( Kaputa, 2011). Such communal entity will be significant in ensuring that all individuals get equal learning opportunities. Incorporating communalism principle into the education system will promote the development of this new society. The Tanzanian Ujama system emphasized free education and the incorporation of traditional knowledge into the education system ( Kaputa, 2011). The new country will use this concept to serve as a self-liberation tool and promote national development. Moreover, the system will incorporate African beliefs into the education system and use African native languages, African costumes, and resources. It will also bridge the gap between the community and the school.
Health System
The new African country will have a health system that will consider the African cosmological beliefs in the medical practice and universal moral law to provide holistic healing. In the traditional African setup, causes and treatment of diseases were linked to human-to-human and spiritual aspects (Ozioma & Chinwe, 2019). In the contemporary world, medical practice relates the causes and treatment of illness to only natural causes. The new health system will try to understand how spiritual, humanly, and godly manipulations result in diseases and inform on treatment measures. The system will rely on the fact that people become sick with valid reasons interpreted through some supernatural and humanly agencies.
The system will utilize spirituality, considering that God, ancestors, gods, and ancient spirits are custodians of social order. They can claim redress by punishing those against the moral order. Spirits of the dead may also result in illnesses as they make demands for sacrifice (Onwuanibe, 1979). This system will encourage the sick and their families to make sacrifices to appease the dead instead of subjecting them to only modern medical interventions that offer little or no help. This system will also use African cosmological beliefs to address mental health challenges. Mental problems emanate from both physical and spiritual forces. Medical providers and healers will try to understand the causes of disturbance within one’s spiritual world. They will then use both physical and supernatural powers to treat these mental disorders.
Since the new system will combine herbal and religious treatment, the training of medical providers and doctors will be more complex than in the current medical practice. Moreover, just like in the current system, medical providers will specialize in different fields. The system will allow all individuals interested in becoming medical providers to pursue their course, not just those viewed as academically smart by society. This system will also be egalitarian, giving a chance to everybody regardless of his or her gender, socio-economic background, family lineage, and position in the state. Furthermore, the country will offer free health services to all citizens in every part of the country.
Spiritual System/ Cosmological Beliefs
The spiritual system of the new country will be holistic and will be based on the concept of Ubuntu. The system will emphasize self-management to promote quality of life and rely on elders to teach the young the idea of Ubuntu. Ubuntu asserts that beliefs inform all aspects of humanity (Masango, 2006). The new society will use religion for guidance regarding health, education, leadership, artwork, defense, economics, nutrition, and death. The system will be egalitarian, accommodate all members, and discourage sexualization of women.
This system will focus on four significant aspects, including mystical powers, spirit beings, divinities, and the Supreme Being. The belief in mystical powers will be informed by the fact that all things and creatures in the society have impersonal force. The system will allow transmission of mystical powers through spiritual forms for the wellbeing of the society. The belief in divinities will be applicable in the establishment of various structures and promote religious tolerance, adaptation, accommodation, and assimilation within the spiritual system. The new system will encourage a plurality of divinities to avert theological crises, as witnessed in modern religions. The belief in spirit beings will be established on the basis that spirit beings control the spiritual and social occurrences (Turaki, 2020). The society will use the spiritual world to influence and improve quality of life. This system will also believe in a Supreme Being. The society will use divinities, as intermediaries, in the daily religious practices but acknowledge a Supreme Being.
Defense System
The defense system will be egalitarian to accommodate all individuals in society. Since tension is always present in a social network, this new society will unite all the different families and tribes through its spiritual and education systems. Both systems advocate for communalism and unity. Leadership system will be rotational to avoid political conflicts. Besides, both men and women will participate in governance issues. As such, society’s defense system will serve to defend its borders against external attacks. The system will include both women and men and develop technologies that will protect the new society and its surroundings. Women and men will undergo similar training and serve the same roles. They will be proficient with various traditional and modern weapons. They will also be taught to solidify their loyalty to the new society. Although most of them will reside along the borders, few will be scattered throughout the country to handle any aerial attacks. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that the system will prefer individuals with appropriate physical capabilities. Moreover, it will also include the traditional African measures of defense and use African inspired military fatigues.
The new African society will have unique systems that together promote the development and improve the quality of human life. This society will be contrary to how the world perceives the current African society. The systems will work together to eliminate injustices and poverty since all individuals will have equal opportunities and participate in building this society. Moreover, they will help develop selfless and robust individuals. This society will provide full support to all members eliminating stereotypes associated with African society and prove to the world that Africa can also be superior. Consequently, this new society will change the perception of the world about Africans and Africa and improve the wellbeing of its inhabitants.
References
Kaputa, T. M. (2011). An Appropriate Epistemology in African Education. Zimbabwe International Journal of Open & Distance Learning, 1 (2), 67-74.
Masango, M. (2006). African spirituality that shapes the concept of Ubuntu. Verbum et Ecclesia, 27 (3).
Onwuanibe, R. (1979). The philosophy of African medical practice. A Journal of Opinion, 9 (3), 25-28.
Ozioma, E.-O. J., & Chinwe, O. A. (2019). Herbal Medicines in African Traditional Medicine. IntechOpen .
Turaki, Y. (2020). Africa Traditional Religious System as Basis of Understanding Christian Spiritual Warfare . Retrieved from The Lausanne Movement: https://www.lausanne.org/content/west-african-case-study
