Page 151 - A People Called Afrika
P. 151

Afrika’s Indigenous Knowledge Systems

             a co-relationship between them and this co-relationship needs
             to be restored through a circular global agricological system.”

             As Afrikans, in order for us to circumvent the on-going global
             health crisis, we must begin to transform our understanding
             and appreciation of the role and value that our indigenous
             knowledge systems played in the past and can still play, espe-
             cially as they relate to health through healthy farming practic-
             es. We must simply embrace the values of our traditions and
             how they birth life and sustainable relationships between man
             and plants, plants and man, man, plants and the ecosystem.

             It is true what someone said, that you are what you eat. Nothing
             could be more correct than this. This was the life principle of the
             ancient Afrikans who lived on this continent for millennia and
             was a viewpoint shared by early proponents of ‘modern’ med-
             icine who said, let food by your medicine. You cannot heal on
             the outside the symptoms that are created from the disease in-
             side. It is simply not possible. Meaning that for Afrika to come
             back to the place of health and the restoration of wellness, we
             must come back to the place of healthy farming by stopping
             the Capitalistic farming practices that we have swallowed from
             the Capitalistic and gain-oriented West, which produces killer
             food products due to the alteration of plant cells, called GMOs.


             As already mentioned, one fundamental way to rethink the
             current global economic system is by focusing on agriculture,
             and not just agriculture, but healthy farming. This is because
             agriculture has always been a fundamental aspect of the econo-
             my on which humanity has survived throughout the centuries.
             However, the modern system of industrial economic manage-
             ment of farming, under Capitalism, has undermined the vital-



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