Africa’s governance could gain from embracing oral tradition

Last Tuesday, I had a catch-up lunch with a friend and her son. 

In our conversation she posed a question to me: would our development improve if we promoted an African-centered narrative?  In other words, should we tell our story from our own perspective?

Even those who never spare a minute to think about how we should tell our story know that we have lost direction somewhere.  Our stories are largely told by other people.

In the recent past, the African narrative in the West has changed from the "scar on the conscience of the world" as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair put it, to “Africa Rising”.  Our media is caught up in between these two extreme perceptions. 

More often than not, Western stories have a plot that mostly revolves around conflict.  It leads to a confrontation between two or more elements, with one dominating the other in the end.

Known as the ‘Hollywood’ three-act structure, it forms the very foundation of how Western media thinks and acts.  The reader expects this structure not just because it helps to understand the story, but also because it gets them involved. What changes in this narrative structure is style.

This is precisely what is happening with American politics. Donald Trump is creating conflict, in keeping with this narrative structure, before dominance is established by either him or any of the other candidates.  

It is the same tactic that is used in global negotiations such as the just-concluded WTO meeting in Nairobi (World Trade Organisation). If you followed the media closely, you would have found that Africa was left analysing conflicts and forgot to determine which views were dominant in the final draft. 

The Japanese way of telling the story, Kishōtenketsu or Yonkoma is a four-act structure with the introduction, development, twist and reconciliation.

 NARRATIVE STRUCTURES

In the four-panel structure, the last act is the basis for concluding the story into a rational end from the contrast between the first two acts and the disengaged third.  This narrative structure is ingrained in Japanese culture, and pretty much everything is seen from this perspective.

The African narrative structure may or may not have conflict, but it is always dominated by strong, powerful legendary figures, and revered mysterious animals. African stories are rooted in oral cultures and traditions that are vastly different from one place to the other, but this character is common throughout. 

Although the oral arts of Africa were rich and varied, they are currently under severe threat owing to dying oral culture. It used to be that grandparents passed on their stories to the next generation, but urbanisation and other modern forms of art are destroying what remained of the African traditions that used to flourish on the continent.

These stories are very important to the traditions and customs of all African peoples. Our lives sometimes imitate art. We should never be defined by a single story from Africa. 

This is the basis of the Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.  In it, she expounds on the effects of foreign narratives that have often broken our spirit with a single story about Africa. 

She makes a great point by arguing that stories can empower or break people although she doesn’t tackle the role of Africa’s spontaneous narrative structure in the lives of its people. If we used a foreign structure to tell our stories, confusion would result and we would never build cohesion in the end.

PASSING ON FOLKLORE

I have often wondered if Africa could be a better place if we reflected more on our own leadership narratives going back to legends such as Shaka Zulu, Luanda Magere, Kintu and others.

There is wisdom in the mystic powers that dominated our narratives.  Sometimes a big lie about the enigma of hard work can propel Africa to new heights. The hard work could lead to a more prosperous Africa.

For example, it could mean exploiting the concessions by Western countries to remove agricultural subsidies and provision of trade facilitation to the Least Developed Countries, amongst which Kenya is not.   

From past data on the performance of other bilateral trade agreements, Western countries clearly know that it would amount to nothing, just like in the past. This too is another story about Africa that can be changed if the narrative is right.

The holidays were the last opportunity for grandparents to interact with grandchildren to pass on African folklore but modernity is changing the narrative once more.  This is perhaps the most challenging period of any holiday, not just in Kenya, but globally. 

LIFETIME ABSTINENCE

It is a period when many households spend recklessly on binge drinking and as a result pay less attention to the children in their midst, who then get exposed to all sorts of content. Some even get access to narcotics and alcohol.  This isn’t the original African narrative of festivities.

It is common to see parents drinking as children play around in public places but it gets ugly when it gets dark, with parents unable to coherently speak and children struggling to find comfort in some of the drinking dens. These kind of outings were never part of African culture.

In virtually all African cultures, drinking was a function exclusively reserved for men and was sparingly indulged in during special ceremonies under strict rules. Nobody was allowed to drink until he (or she) underwent a special processes of admission. 

Women generally abstained from taking alcohol, a situation that has, luckily, persisted. Indeed a recent World Health Organisation report show that more that 81 per cent of African women reported lifetime abstinence.  Although close to 90 per cent of Kenyan women reported lifetime abstinence, there is a significant number of women who drink especially in urban areas.

While I respect the tenets of gender equality, the Bible and African traditions, children are more affected when the mother lowers her guard against the temptations of personal freedoms.  However this reality should not be used as excuse by men to drink themselves silly in the presence of their own children.

CORRUPTION AND FUNERALS

If there is any value system that we must make a common stand against, it is the destruction of our children by morally loose parents. In true African spirit, we must stand up and discourage this growing practice of going out to drink accompanied by children in festive seasons.

Africa’s people respond well to adversity through narration of magical stories.  In most drinking dens today, men pour liquor to the ground before drinking, for fear that their ancestors may be angry and kill them if they do not share with the living dead.  We need to create such magical stories around the problem of exposing stimulants to children early in their lives.

As for governance, I am still searching for better ways to apply the African narrative within the context of our Constitution.  I am intrigued by how rare it is to hear that money raised for the purpose of a funeral has been stolen.  Perhaps we should associate corruption with funereal rituals.

There is reason to belief that there could be a solution to our confusion between the Western and African narratives. Paul Auster an American author and director said:

“Children, I mean, think of your own childhood, how important the bedtime story was. How important these imaginary experiences were for you. They helped shape reality, and I think human beings wouldn't be human without narrative fiction.”

Let us create more African narrative fiction as a strategy to deal with emerging problems.

The writer is an associate professor at the University of Nairobi’s Business School. Twitter: @bantigito