Page 28 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 25
P. 28
Community
LAMENTATIONS OVER
CRUMBLING PILLARS OF it seems as though identifying
AFRICAN with one’s roots of origin and
its associated practices is no
IDENTITY longer a fashionable gesture.
Sadly, the only time households
By: Tawanda Mupatsi, Harare, Zimbabwe reunite is during funerals where
praises are showered for the
departed yet when one was
still alive no extensions of
arewells usually prove to reflect on how the scales of the much-needed generosity
how emotionally fragile events shall tilt when the entire were extended. Everything is
Fhumanity is, in those unit of elderly custodians no now fast-paced, we talk of fast
goodbyes, there is no assurance longer grace our paths. When foods, high-speed internet, and
that our paths will ever cross my time also comes will I have easy returns with little thought
again, at least in the same state gleaned enough to impart a of labor bordered on swindling
under the same circumstances. sense of African pride in my a brother. On the broader
For those who would have children? continental stage, African
traversed through the plains leaders in summits talk of
of this world imparting and When Ubuntu Is Now An fostering unity that translates
preserving inherited gems of Endangered Philosophy to economic prosperity but
ancient wisdom and history in some of their backyards
for the benefit of posterity, One of the prominent features the flames of xenophobia are
farewells are warm life of African identity has been being fanned. Have we spiraled
chapters. For they know in its commitment to ‘Ubuntu’ downwards to the depths where
doing such they would have which is a value system one is prepared to wield a
done their bit in immortalizing highlighting the invisible cord machete against a brother or
a People’s Identity. As a young of comradeship that binds sister based on the difference in
African existing within a space humanity together. Present-day language we speak? Are we as
where shared pillars of African realities in African society have a continent going in the gloomy
Identity are crumbling and few indicated the opposite direction direction where ‘Ubuntu’ is
are prepared to lend an ear, of this philosophy. Family now an endangered value?
it’s always a chilling thought units are slowly dismantling,
28 | we tell the true afrikan story
