Review of African World History Project: The Preliminary Challenge - Chapter 8
Chapter 8 of ASCAC's African World History Project: The Preliminary Challenge is Adisa A. Ajamu's essay entitled "From Tef Tef to Medew Nefer: The Importance of Utilizing African Languages, Terminology, and Concepts in the Rescue, Restoration, Reconstruction and Reconnection of African Ancetral Memory". Tef Tef is destabilizing, disempowering discourse that characterizes Western society. It is typified by the proliferation of advertisements whose products and services usually deliver far less than implied. Medew Nefer is African good speech. It is undergirded by Maat and reflects the integrity that Maat fosters. A person who speaks Medew Nefer is one who does as she says. Medew Nefer is empowering and is fundamental to our growth.
A valuable aspect of Ajamu's essay is his explanation and use of African centered terms that we could begin to weave into everyday usage. (Many of them were introduced to us by Marimba Ani.) Some are Sebai-teacher; asili-cultural foundations; utamawazo-worldview; utamaroho-cultural manifestations; and egbe-group of persons on a spiritual journey.
Ajamu's overall message is that (1) we have been programmed to embrace a foreign utamawazo, (2) genuine growth requires that we restore our own and (3) utilization of African languages will become a necessary aspect of the process as it matures. He presents his arguments over five sections.
The first section is entitled "Ndoongo Ya Ita: The Illusion of Objectivity - The Function of Theory and Method in Western Historiography". In this section Ajamu debunks the notion that Western methodologies for examining information and establishing knowledge is the gold standard. He notes and gives illustrations to show that ingrained proclivities towards one's own group and against others preclude the possibility of a neutral frame of reference. Casual observation by any African, who has not been seduced by Western training, reveals a methodology that props up the West's image, often at the expense of others. It protects the image by fending off conflicting knowledge. This is dramatically illustrated by their ability to proclaim that their culture is rooted in morality, and the curious appearance that they actually believe it. This all necessitates our extracting ourselves from a Western refernece frame and establishing our own utamawazo.
The second section is entitled "Orogi: Intellectual Colonialism and the Incarceration of the African Mind". In this section Ajamu explains how the West hijacked our ancestral memory and replaced it with a foreign asili. The consequential result is a diminished capacity to conceive and therefore pursue our unlimited human potential. Wade Noble identifies three tactics the West uses to establish intellectual colonialism. They are unsophisicated falsification, integrated modification and conceptual incarceration. Unsophisicated falsification is typified by the outright denial that the ancient Kemites were Black Africans. Integrated modufication is typified by their artificially moving the foundations of Western civilization from Kemet to Greece. Conceptual incarceration is accomplished through Western centered training of Black thinkers that ingrains the West's assumptions and approaches to academic pursuits. This results in Black scholarly works that establishes the Western perspective as the point of departure, focuses on explaining and ameliorating perceived deviations in Africa and Africans, and consequently offer nothing to our crucial psychological and economic development needs.
Ajamu's third section entitled "Nommo or Nomenclature: Language, Thought and World View - The Mechanisms of Intellectual Liberation of Conceptual Incarceration" discusses the most obvious sign of intellectual colonialism - our loss of our own languages. Much more than a medium for everyday communication, language is an "image forming agent in the mind of a child" and a "means of transmitting and imparting images of the world and reality". Loss of language weakens cultural unity and historical continuity. Ajamu echoes Jacob Carruthers' belief that African scholars must get training in both Kemetic and traditional African languages.
Ajamu's fourth section entitled "So Dayi: Distinguishing Essence from Expression - Embryonic Reflections on the African Conception of the Word" discusses the Word and the Power of the Word. These are fundamental growth inducing concepts that are imbedded within African cultures and intrinsic within African languages. The Word represents the universe's primordial essence and the Power of the Word represents the universe's expression that results in action and change. A key point is that Africans saw and see their thoughts/speech as reflections of the Word, and the resultant actions and changes as reflections of the Power of the Word. One whose early development is imbued with the concept that his or her thoughts/speech and actions are intimately connected with the dynamics of the universe automatically tends towards ethical behavior - especially in doing what she says. Those of us who have lost our language were denied this African early development guidance.
The fifth section is entitled "From Tef Tef to Medew Nefer: the Power of the Word and Importance of African Languages, Concepts and Terminologies in the (Re)Construction and (Re)Connection of Ancestral Memory". One of the points Ajamu makes is that communication takes place on multiple levels. It is more than the stream of words perceived by the cognitive level. Communication also takes place on the feeling level via a language's tone and rhythm. Communication at the feeling level takes generations to refine and is lost to those of us who have lost our language.
Ajamu closes with an appeal for us to return to our African Way, such as "the Way of virtuous thought and correct action not as disparate entities but as an inextricable whole" and "the Way of seeing truth and justice not as abstractions but as practical principles".