Why Tanzanians fail to have individualistic norms? of course we have a legacy of western education that favors individualism, but still its hard to forget a deeply embedded culture that cherishes clan/family status as against personal perspective.
This generation as it was the last generation (pre-independence)stresses formal education as a reference point that determines achievement in life. And yet our own tradition of togetherness, social settings conflicts with individual excellence that we learn in school. When a candidate seat in an exam, he sits alone, and he alone excels in that exam. We expect this newly grad to pursue a profession that would guarantee good life for himself and the family.
Yet as described by Mwl Nyerere; it is the whole village that sends a lad to go to school. The village expects him to behave at it pleases to the point of interfering the personal freedom that would otherwise cherish creativity,innovation and resourcefulness into the mankind.
Take marriage as a typical example. Do we have the age limit as when one should marry? Do we marry out of our own inner force or is it the community that forces one to marry? What is more important, marriage or wedding? Obviously time changes and the old-age habit that our parents where forcing us to marry from ones tribe is over. And yet up to now it is the wider community that influences timing and nature of that big day. Today, when A man proves to be economically independent ( he has a house and reasonable income,) his family, friends, workmates and the wider community expects him to marry. Sadly men spend enormous time and resources to please others so as to witness a big bash. What this community fails to appreciate is that this man is an individual with unique emotional needs, unique interests and above all personalized needs that can not be distinguished by their zeal to see a grand wedding.
What most of us fail to comprehend is that it is not necessary for one to have a wedding as against marriage. Marriage is sacred one but wedding is a sacrifice of personal freedom that people who are forcing one to have extraordinary bash will not be ready to share with him. Sometimes the freedom one is forced to leave behind may not only affect him as an individual but it can also lead into a loss of the whole nation. For example, take a student who fail to concentrate on his PhD dissertation simply because he is attending wedding preparation endeavors? Obviously the interests of the wedding preparation committee does not tally with the interests of his tutor who expects this student to excel in the dissertation.
With all inter connectivity with a Caucasian race over years since slavery, it seems forces of African tradition and norms still overrides individualistic tendency inherited from the early contact.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment