One aspect of life which many people fear and find very unsettling is the aspect of change. But whether we like it or not change is the law of growth, and growth is the law of life: change therefore is the basic law of life. The late world-renowned anthropologist, Margaret Mead, said: "No one will live all his life in the world into which he was born, and no one will die in the world in which he worked in his maturity." Change must be accepted as an inevitable condition of a meaningful life.
All significant social changes are related to changes in the need situations of man, which vary from the needs of social and physical life to those of the moral and spiritual life. In different parts of the world people respond to the changing needs of life on the basis of what they consider to be desirable and satisfying, that is, on the basis of values. These give direction to human behavior and serve as a lodestar through the various changing processes of life.
My first major submission therefore is that the present socio-economic and political confusion and impotence of African nations is a reflection of the fundamental changes that have come about as the result of the meeting of indigenous humanistic value systems with the Western market-value orientation, and our inability to assimilate these changes effectively to a new way of life. Any attempt therefore to work out a theory of education and development, any attempt to forge a consistent and united theory of value that will serve as a guiding principle for the building of a nation and as a guide to the individual in the creative use of his energy, time and opportunities, must identify and clarify the relative worth of the indigenous humanistic orientation, on the one hand, and the market-value orientation, on the other.
This conclusion points to one general function of education in our fast-changing social context. To be meaningful in our situation, education should be able to help the child to have a clear notion of the nature of both the invading and indigenous values that impinge upon his or her experience. It should help him/her work out principles for selecting the values they will need in order to cope effectively with the demands of modern living, while maintaining at the same time the integrity of their indigenous cultural identity.
Value clarification, the working out of sound and objective principles of value selection and the preservation of the integrity of our indigenous culture, are of crucial importance for two main reasons. Africa today is a world of shaken beliefs and uncertain and changing values. This is the time when we as self-governing people need a framework of ideas, guiding principles and clear values that will help us define and determine our collective as well as individual destiny, and retrieve and maintain our self-respect as a people. The study of values is therefore not a mere academic exercise; it is an inescapable imperative for rational and meaningful national development.
VALUES
Definition of Value
Before we look in some detail at the two major value orientations that have formed the main reference points for our social and individual behavior and suggest a procedure for their use as subject matter of education, I want to be clear about the use of some axiological terms: What are values, and what indigenous and emergent values do we have?
As there is no universally agreed definition of values, they have been interpreted in a number of different ways. Raths, Harmin and Simon contend that "out of experience may come certain general guides to behavior. These guides tend to give direction to life and may be called values." The major function of values is to provide the basic standards against which people can judge a given act, the direction which the political and religious leadership is taking, and other factors that determine the drift of society.
The definition of value I have referred to so far is associated with the philosophical systems known as pragmatism and realism. These philosophical systems maintain that values have no ontological status and so are not found ready-made in the natural or supernatural order of things. They are dependent upon efforts, interests and the needs of people; in other words, values are created by people out of their experienced needs and desires. Values therefore are bio-social and spiritual creations, and are invented like any other social creations by individuals and societies to serve the purpose of guiding human choices and behavior. Such values are derived from experience and tested, verified and maintained by experience.
Indigenous African Conceptions of Value
There is an interesting African conception of values which we find in some proverbs and maxims. To our people, value is primarily the power to satisfy human needs. It is found in a person, in things, in situations and relationships. It is this ability of value to satisfy needs and desires that causes people to desire those things in which it is found. I want to use three proverbs to illustrate the African conception of value.
1. It is the tasty soup that draws seats around it.
2. Goodness sells itself, badness walks about looking for buyers.
3. The beautiful bead does not speak, i.e., does not advertise its beauty.
In the first proverb the value of the soup or meal is its ability to satisfy human hunger in a palatable way. In the second and third proverbs goodness and beauty are abstract values which have the power to satisfy the need to be creative and to behold what is pleasing to the soul.
Values, however, have a potential and instrumental character. The potential and instrumental character of value is brought out clearly in one proverb which says: "The shrew mouse (which stinks) says: `They say I am no good, but I become good when the juju-man is preparing his medicine.'" The instrumental (or, actual) value of the shrew mouse is relative to certain need situations, but it always has the power, i.e., a potential value, to satisfy needs whether the needs arise or not.
This conception of value has some implications for marriage in our indigenous society. When a man marries a woman he marries her in the first place for her potential value, that is, for the power to produce children, which power we call fertility. He also marries her for the sake of her instrumental value, that is, for her ability to extend his lineage by bringing forth children. When the woman comes into the marriage and she is not able to actualize her power to reproduce, then troubles begin. This can lead to a divorce, to the man marrying another woman provided his own potency has been proved; it can also lead to a strained marital relationship in which the value of the woman is said "to have been dead" (Asi ku le enu - Ewe).
The major functions of values are, as already stated, to serve as guides and judges for individual actions and to direct the choices and conduct of people in a culture. In respect of individuals and cultures, values are interdependent. They are first created by individuals out of their group experience, and then flow into and help to shape the culture. The culture in turn helps to maintain, diffuse and nurture those values created by individuals and accepted into the culture. In time all individuals habitually introject certain values from their respective cultures. Individuals who are more independent in their thinking, however, are able to rise above at least many of the culture's values that impinge upon them. These individuals, e.g., Freud, Karl Marx, Jesus and Copernicus, in fact, are the prime movers of progress. Such independent individuals change the course of ideas and loosen the hold of obsolete values, and, in the end, change the course of history itself.
It is therefore not enough to have teachers and teacher-surrogates who can pass on values from one generation and culture to another. We must have original individual teachers who can transform and adapt values and invent new ones to meet the need for modernization and progress. The teacher of value education should always keep in mind that:
Time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward
Who would keep abreast of Truth.
Present socio-economic and political confusion in Africa reflects fundamental conflicts and changes that result from the meeting of our indigenous value orientation, which is basically humanistic, with the imported Western value system, which is mainly market oriented. This position must be qualified, e.g., by adding the fact of contact with all kinds of invading values, among which we may mention Christian, Islamic and socialist values. However, the most serious clash is the meeting of our humanistic values with market values.
I will first discuss our humanistic value orientation because it is the root of our value system.
THE MARKET VALUE ORIENTATION
While the humanistic value orientation derives its origin from man's devotion to the ultimate or the infinite in the finite, market value orientation derives its source from devotion to man's economic and social interests and well-being, which are believed to be the chief ends of life. Instead of being seen as made up of creative humanities, society is viewed as comprising incompatible individual socio-economic interests, divided into groups with opposing socio-economic interests. There is therefore a constant struggle in society to maintain and safeguard privileged socio-economic interests and positions. Life then becomes a struggle for existence and survival of the fittest, with the weak falling by the way.
The most cherished value in a system which is based upon conflict and struggle is power. This is not the same type of power we encounter in the African humanistic value orientation. Where life is seen to be based mainly on conflict and competition, power becomes the ability of each competitor to realize his goals and objectives in the face of opposition from competitors. Success is regarded as a satisfactory outcome of the competition. Feelings of insecurity are usually heightened in a society that is based on such competition. Cooperation is not completely eliminated from a conflict-based society, but it is not an absolute value, and is significant only as it contributes to the competitive struggle.
Market oriented values are not totally alien to African societies. They
have emerged prominently in our time and have become the prime and leading
movers of both social and individual behavior. Such main principles of a
market-oriented life as competition and unbridled individualism have been
introduced into the fabric of our society. Various national governments either
consciously or unconsciously have been attempting to build their nations upon
market values.
AFRICAN HUMANISTIC ORIENTATION
Three salient features of the African humanistic orientation are:
1. the value of life,
2. the value of human being,
3. the value of communal social organization.
The Value of Human Life
Dr. K.A. Busia remarked that among Africans there was always the awareness that human life was the greatest value. The Ewe sum up this view of life with two personal names: Agbenyega and Agbewu, meaning "life is the greatest thing and is more important than anything else," and the Akan expressed it with the maxim, Su nkwa na mma nsu adze, meaning "Cry or pray for life and not for things, because it is the most important of all things."
The life that is regarded as the greatest value, however, is not the vegetative and instinctual life that human beings share with plants and animals, but rather the life that is founded on the principle of syntropy. This maintains that there is an urge or dynamic creative energy in life, called Se, which works towards wholeness and healing, towards building up and not pulling down, towards creating and not destroying and towards synthesis and not conflict. Our people therefore conceive human life as a force or power that continuously recreates itself and so is characterized by continuous change and growth which depends upon its own inner source of power. This principle of continuous rejuvenation is represented in our indigenous religious tradition by the goddess of the earth: Miano (Ewe), Asase Yaa/Efua (Akan). One proverb expresses this conception of the ideal life thus: "The termite says that human life is like an anthill; it is built from inside out."
Since the essence of the ideal life is regarded as power and creativity, growth, creative work and increase have become essential values. Powerlessness or loss of vitality, unproductive living, and growthlessness become ultimate evils in our indigenous culture. For many Africans one of man's chief ends as an individual and as a member of an extended family is to multiply and increase, because he is the repository of the life force, and the right use of it is his responsibility. The loss of vitality, i.e., impotence, is therefore the worst tragedy that can happen to a man; to a woman it is infertility.
The second greatest end of man is to live productively, i.e., to work, because work is considered as the only way of realizing one's creative potential. Several proverbs and maxims in our indigenous culture extol the virtue of work. One says, that nobody cultivates his farm the same way as he courts a woman. (Ahia media abe agble eneo--Ewe). This is a way of saying that the value of work comes before that of pleasure. Today the order has been reversed: pleasure comes before work, which is no longer a joy but a curse to be endured. We have become a pleasure-seeking and pleasure-loving people. Yet a new nation can be built only on hard work, not on pleasure.
The value of hard work was very deeply entrenched in our indigenous society and found expression in various ways of greeting. Both Ewe and Akan greetings illustrate this point.
Ewe: Greeting: Dono, dono "Mother of Work" "Mother of Work."
Akan: Greeting: Adwuma, adwuma: "Work, Work."
Response: Adwuma ye: "Work is good."
The first and greatest humanistic value is then the syntropic life which is essentially creative power expressing itself as work, and as change and growth. True human life is thus dynamic and progressive as it unfolds in the observable life of the individual. Our present stagnant life is therefore a poor reflection of the indigenous conception of life.
The Value of the Human Being
Two proverbs state that:
1. It is the human being who counts:
Call on gold, gold does not respond;
Call on clothes, clothes do not respond;
It is the human being who counts:
2. "One who has family and friends is richer than one who has money."
The human being who counts more than material and economic values in these proverbs is the one who, among other things, embodies the dynamic creative power. He or she is described as having that creative personality or creative humanity which is the supreme goal and end of human development, i.e., of education. In the humanistic orientation persons are treated as ends and not as tools because they have a creative purpose to fulfill in life; this is one's ultimate destiny, called in Ewe du or dzogbese.
The greatest evil of which man is capable is the use of his energy without discipline. The Greeks referred to this state of being as hubris, which is wrongly translated into English as `pride'. Whenever one uses his or her energy without creative discipline one becomes destructive. The Ewe characterize such behavior as `nuvowowo,' which means "doing something that should be feared because it is destructive." Discipline then is a necessary factor for creative living; as such it is a cardinal humanistic value.
A person therefore is good not because he is good for something, but primarily because he has a creative humanity and so is a creator of the good. Likewise, behavior is right in humanistic morality not because it conforms to a code of conduct which has been laid-down, but because it builds up instead of pulling down--in short, because it is syntropic.
The Value of Social Organization
In the African humanistic value system the community as well as the individual has a creative purpose to fulfill because the community is seen as a network of relationships of people and creative power is the essence of such personal relationships. This point is forcefully made by J.S. Mbiti in his African Religions and Philosophy, (p. 2) "To be human is to belong to the whole community and to do so involves participating in the beliefs, ceremonies, rituals and festivals of the community." One can be a person only through others. Creative personal relationship is therefore always regarded as a basic value in humanistic society.
As has been pointed out above, the relationship between the individual and the society is mutual and interdependent; each has a mutual responsibility for the other. The individual in our indigenous society is always aware that his well-being lies in the welfare of his society. He is taught to live for his society just as his society lives for him, and to cooperate with others to create a wholesome society. In other words, the individual is expected to contribute to the educative power of society which in turn helps to develop the individual's creative powers.
This awareness is responsible for the unique indigenous social orientation which may be characterized as the "we orientation." In the we orientation life is comprehended not from the perspective of `I' or `they' alone, but from that of both which unite to become `we'. This `we' comprehension of life is given expression in various forms of speech, greeting and action.
The best symbol used to express the `we-istic' comprehension of life is the hand. In the symbol of the hand the fingers represent individual members of society, who are free, unique and independent. But they are firmly rooted in the whole which is the hand, and derive their being and importance from their relatedness in the whole, individually and collectively. The community, symbolized by the whole hand, derives its existence from the interrelatedness of its fingers. Without the fingers there will be no hand, without the hand there will be no fingers.
Inter-dependence and inter-relatedness are therefore very important values in the building of the African humanistic society. Several proverbs express their importance:
1. "When the right hand washes the left the left also washes the right, then both of them will be clean."
Julius Nyerere stated this proverb vividly in another way by saying: "In Africa your neighbor is your other arm."
2. "If your parents look after you to grow your teeth, you must look after them to grow theirs."
The point of this proverb is seen in the relationship between parents and their children. Parents help their children to grow up and their children must also help them to live in their old age.
3. "No housewife keeps the dish in which her neighbor sends her food. She returns it with her own food in it."
In a humanistically oriented society the individual always has a stake in the welfare of the community and vice versa, but room is also made for individual initiative, drive and enterprise. This last point is symbolized by the two traditional motif of crocodiles with one stomach and two heads. They work individually for their sustenance, but what they get goes into the same stomach.
To summarize: indigenous African humanism is founded on a trio of values. The first is the value of human life. Human life is considered one of the greatest values because it has within itself the power of change, growth and development. This dynamic, creative energy in life works towards building up instead of pulling down, towards creating and not destroying. Life becomes meaningful and worth living because of the dynamic creative energy that is lodged at the heart of human existence.
Human beings share in this creative energy; they are the only beings who are conscious of the creative power in them. The human being is then, the greatest value in the trio because he/she is endowed with that creative urge which makes one restless until one has expressed this energy creatively and productively.
This power, however, is initially only a possibility and must be developed. The purpose of its development is to enable one to realize a creative humanity in actual living. This creative humanity enables one to use one's energy purposefully and productively, which can only be done through rigorous discipline. Moreover, this is a necessary factor in creativity because whenever one uses one's life-energy without purposeful discipline, one becomes destructive. Discipline, then, is a very important value in a humanistic value system, and is the second in the trio of values. The third is creative sociality. Society was never seen by our forefathers as made up of a collection of human beings who happen to be thrown together by chance; rather, they saw it as an association of individuals trying to express their creative energies cooperatively in constructive and purposeful living. Society is therefore built on the personal relationships of individuals who only become truly themselves as they creatively employ their life forces as a community. The individual contributes to the transformative power of society, which in turn helps to develop the individual's creative powers.
VALUES AND THE AFRICAN NOTION OF ANCESTORS
The African's devotion to his ancestors and ancestresses has been taken as the singular characteristic of African religious awareness. This devotion and its object, however, have been misinterpreted by several scholars of the indigenous African Culture. Our purpose here is to present a careful analysis and exposition of this very important African cultural practice and to draw from the study conclusions relevant to nation building.
The Concept of Ancestor
Reverence for the ancestors has been regarded as so typical of the indigenous African culture that some early writers referred to African religion as "ancestor worship." This is an unfortunate misrepresentation of the ancestor ritual due to lack of understanding of the African conception of the ancestor and the moral significance of the ritual. The questions then, are, who is an ancestor, according to the African conception, and what is the significance and meaning of the ancestor ritual?
Who is an Ancestor? The English word "ancestor," meaning "one from whom one is descended and who is usually more remote in the line of descent than a grandparent," is used to translate African words which are not quite similar in meaning. The Akan and Ewe words for "ancestor" illustrate this point. The Akan and Ewe words for ancestor as used in the ancestor cult are nana saman (sing.), nananom nsamanfo (Akan: plural), and togbui (sing.) togbuiwo (Ewe: plural), respectively. The plural forms of these words, viz., nananom nsamanfo (Akan) and togbuiwo (Ewe) are usually employed in the libation prayer and so they will be mainly used here.(158)
In the first place the words togbuiwo and nananom are titles among the Ewe and Akan of Ghana, as are the words "lord" and "knight" among the English. They are conferred upon those who earn them by the excellent way they conduct their lives. Nananom is then, first and foremost, a moral title and is earned by living virtuously in this life. Once earned in this life, it is taken with one into the other world. The title nananom or togbuiwo is conferred upon living chiefs and elders of the society who are usually considered its moral paragons. They are collectively called nananom or togbuiwo while they are alive, and nananom nsamanfo (Akan), or togbuiwo (Ewe) when they are dead. Strictly speaking then there are two classes of nananom or moral exemplars in the indigenous society: The living moral exemplars, called nananom, and the living dead moral exemplars, called nananom nsamanfo.(159)
The important thing about them is that they are moral paragons; death is not a factor in their exaltation to this enviable moral and social status. Thus Bishop Sarpong said, "In determining the status of a dead person, the Lugbara (of Uganda and Zaire) take into account also his position in life, the manner of his death, the age at which he departed, and so forth."(160) This means that it is not just anyone who dies is called nana or togbui. As P.K. Ametozion said, "It is our custom to remember as our forebears particularly those who behaved bravely during their lives and those whose actions brought and still bring honor and acclaim to their clan or to the society to which they belonged." He concluded his conception of nana by saying "The veneration is also accorded to those who have had many children, or have led particularly constructive and dignified lives."(161) In short, to become nana or togbui one must lead a creative, productive and dignified life.
Thus the English word "ancestor," meaning simply a "remote great grandparent," cannot be used to translate nana which has a moral connotation. Nana or nananom is a moral title rather than a label for the dead great grandparents. Thus it is sometimes prefixed to names of God, e.g., Nana Bluku.
Ancestor Statues: The essence of the title nana, which unfortunately has been translated "ancestor," is therefore not personal and human at all. The reverential attitude to nana is a way of conceptualizing the ideal life among Africans. Ancestral statues and masks are artistically fashioned symbols aiming to depict human beings not as they are seen, but as they are thought to be. They are symbolic representations,(162) communicating to us a message that must be read. Thus, the individuality of the nana saman is not as important as it would be in Christian hagiography. The ancestors are usually not shown in the statues and masks clad in raiment; their nakedness accentuates their universal and abstract character.
The ancestor figure is also the symbol of the source of life and power. This is shown in the pervading sexuality of the figure, which is not erotic but didactic. It stresses the fact that procreation and increase of the lineage is the chief responsibility of the lineage. The expression of the importance of potency and fertility by the ancestor statues points to the primacy of creativity in the African view of the world.(163)
To Africans, then, one is less important as a unique individual than as an individual link in the chain of generations. The creative powers of life pass through him, rather than belonging to him as his own. Through his participation in the ancestor relationship, the African sees himself as a part of the great creative powers of life that transcend him and so he does not consider it sacrilegious to be given a name of the High God. Thus Nyame (Akan), Mawu (Ewe), Kra (Ewe) and Akan) are personal and family names.
Nananom as Source of Moral Sanctions: Due to the superior moral and
constructive qualities of the ancestors, the pattern of their lives and the values
and principles they cherish have been used as normative standards of conduct.
For that reason, chiefs and elders become character trainers and models of the
ideal life. The ancestors likewise exercise moral constraints in the behavior of
the living through the periodic rituals which remind people of what they stand
for. They are able to play this role not because they have become "spirits" or
"ghosts," but because they have become internalized superegos as well as
moral authorities. Thus, the exemplary way they lived can be used to help
others grow and pursue the ideal life. Just as the lives of Jesus and the apostles
have become ideal standards of behaviour for Christians, so the exemplary
lives of the nananom have been used by Africans as models of the ideal life.
Consequently, the primary thrust of the ancestor institution is moral and
general human creativity, even though it may contain some religious elements.
This point will become clearer as we examine the conditions of nanahood.(164)
Conditions of Nanahood (Ancestorship)
Marriage: The first mark of an exemplary life according to the African understanding, is marriage and the having of children. Permanent bachelorhood and spinsterhood will disqualify a person from becoming nana because a bachelor/spinster does not help to increase the number of his relatives. Confirmed singles are thus considered useless persons whose names should be blotted out of memory. p'Bitek brought out clearly in one of his poems this African understanding of the importance of marriage. He said:
You may be a giant
Of a man,
You may begin
To grow grey hair
You may be bald
And toothless with age,
But if you are unmarried
You are nothing.(165)
Having Children: It is not enough to marry, one must have children. A person who dies childless is never acknowledged as nana because, as S.G. Williamson observed, in indigenous Africa "Man's chief end, as an individual and member of his clan, is to multiply and increase."(166)
Historically, the emphasis upon having as many children as possible in Africa was not a sign of irresponsible parenthood. It was a way of fulfilling an understanding of the essence of human existence which involves full participation in the creativity of humanity and the passing on of the creative power of life from one generation to another through the process of marriage and procreation. A satisfactory discharge of this responsibility partly earns one the title of nana.
Good Health: The third criterion of nanahood is that a person must have a sound mind in a sound body. Especially one must not suffer from any "unclean" diseases like leprosy, dropsy, epilepsy, madness, sleeping sickness, smallpox and blindness. Such diseases are believed to be used by the gods to punish evil-doers and communities. So contracting any of them means that the sufferer is morally unclean and so is disqualified from becoming nana.
Natural Death in Old Age: It is generally believed that certain deaths defame a person, while others enhance one's reputation. The deaths that defame a person are suicide, death by drowning, by vehicular crash, all deaths by accident, and especially falling in war while retreating from the enemy. One is honored, however, when one dies defending one's community. Such a death and also death in old age when one has fulfilled one's destiny as a creative being are considered honorable and earn a person the enviable status of nana. By implication bravery is one criterion that qualifies one to become nana because the living dead are said to form a company of warriors in the other world, and so only the brave can join them there.
In addition to the above major factors of the exemplary life, there are some character traits which go to make the exemplary life. A person who desires to be addressed nana should not insult others--especially in public--should not steal, take other people's wives, be a talkative, an alcoholic, or an extravagant type. He/she should not harbor malice towards others, but should be hard-working, kind, loving, pacific, respectful and merciful. One must keep one's promises, associate with good company, be truthful and be discrete. Finally, one must be hopeful, cheerful and neat. Anyone known to consistently manifest traits opposite those mentioned above is not a person to be imitated. He cannot be nana asaman for, if one is not good in life, how can one's "ghost" be good?
It is interesting to note that wealth does not qualify or disqualify a person from becoming nana; it is the use of wealth that determines whether its owner should be called nana or not. It is the generous use of wealth that is always encouraged and qualifies a person to be called nana. The individual in the indigenous society is therefore taught from early childhood to share whatever he has with others, i.e., with both the living and the living dead. For this reason a little water or drink is always sprinkled on the ground for the ancestors when the individual is going to eat or drink. Likewise in any libation prayer the gods and ancestors are always called upon to partake of the drink, and in turn are asked to bless the living and help them to prosper, as shown in the following libation prayer:
Oh! Oh! Oh! Three things constitute life.
Oh, Mawu Sodza, Aklama ,(167)
The Provider of hunters and palmwine tappers,
Take and drink!
I call on you the ancestors whom I cannot
name one by one,
Take and drink!
Let my arms and heart enjoy good health,
I am in your hand,
Grant me a little prosperity,
And I will share it with you;
May the barren become fertile,
And mothers procreate more,
Let the beasts of the forest
Bring forth males and females
And the rivers too teem with fish,
Pray, Aklama, grant my petitions,
Let me live in the protection of Mawu forever.
Peace, Peace, Peace.
This recitation in the libation prayer which is an important aspect of the ancestor ritual, reveal certain very important aspects of African value orientation. To the African, life is a process of never-ending human and communal relationships which are defined in terms of reciprocal obligations and privileges. Death therefore does not end the obligations of the living to the living dead or the privileges that the living enjoy from their forebears. Even the relationship between God and man is defined in terms of reciprocal obligations and blessings, as is implied in lines ten and eleven of the above prayer.
The living are therefore continually interested in the well-being of the living dead and the living dead in the well-being of the living, and especially in the provision of the conditions necessary for the realization of the ideal life.
Conclusion
This discussion of the procedures relating to the ancestors has concentrated on its moral and philosophical significance because, contrary to popular belief, it is a complete system of moral and social philosophy in itself. As a moral philosophy it portrays what the ideal life is thought to be among Africans. The essence of the ideal life is creativity which is seen as the foundation of all human existence. Morally conceived it is a life of one never-ending process of human and communal relationship, defined primarily in terms of reciprocal obligations and rights.
Flowing from this creativity-oriented view of life, the individual is viewed as a channel and part of the great creative power of life. Thus his ultimate end is to create and realize a creative personality as an individual link in the chain of generations born and yet unborn. What Feuerbach said in his manifesto about man is very similar to the indigenous view of man as seen in the ancestor ceremonies, namely, "The individual man for himself does not have man's being in himself, either as a moral being or thinking being. Man's being is contained only in community, in the unity of man with man--a unity which rests, however, only on the reality of the difference between I and Thou."(168)
Finally for the African, life and death are not two antithetical realities, but one single reality in the shape of two phenomena. They form unity in duality and span over time into eternity. All these truths and values, and those enumerated above, are enshrined in the ancestor custom.
The contention of this paper is that the ancestor custom marks the acme of the indigenous African moral, social and spiritual awareness. It is a condensed and dramatized psychology and moral philosophy of life. The exposition has made it clear that the ancestor ceremonies do not constitute a worship of dead grandparents, but rather a devotion to the loftiest spiritual values of creative humanity as well as to the value of sociality which is realized only through a creative dialectical tension between the I and Thou. The ancestor idea therefore can form the basis of a safe, creative and positive system of values for any developing nation in Africa.
VALUES AND RELIGION
The type of interpretation of the Christian faith that does justice to us Africans and brings out the best in us is the one that presents the Christian religion as an affirmation of life, including health. I call this type of Christian faith "Affirmative Christianity." To us in Africa this is what should be called the true Christianity. True Christianity affirms, that is, it strengthens and fortifies one's life and health, one's relationships and one's identity; it does not deny anything that will make one's life fuller. Such is the faith of Jesus, and so he said, "I have come that you may have life--life in all its fullness." The ministry of Jesus therefore is one of strong affirmation of life in its totality. First, he affirmed his oneness with the Father, i.e., with the supreme creative power, by saying, "The Father and I are one." He also affirmed health by healing the sick, and affirmed the good that was in cheaters like Zacchaeus by lodging him in his house.
The Presence of God as Creative Principle
Africans are an incurably life affirming people. This is attested to in our daily greetings, expressions and personal names. To say, "How are you"? in one part of the Volta Region, we say," Ele Agbea"? which literally means "Are you existing life"? and the reply is "Mele agbe" meaning "I am existing life " One way to say "Good night" in Ewe is, "Do agbe," meaning "Go and sleep life." The Guans affirm life daily in the expression of gratitude: to say "Thank you" they say "Nkpedzi wole," meaning "life is yours." Our personal names are full of life affirmations, for example, names like Sunkwa, meaning "Cry, that is, pray, for life" because it is the greatest value. The Ibo of Nigeria take such personal names as Ndubisi, meaning "Life is the head." The head is regarded as the most important part of the body and so life is considered by them to be the most important thing.
The life that is affirmed in our personal names and daily expressions is not, as I pointed out earlier on, the vegetative or the sensitive life that we share with plants and animals, but rather the life that is a continuous flow of dynamic and creative energy. In African theological thought this is the essence of the godhead. The life that our people primordially sense and daily affirm can best be called the God-life, because it is the supreme creative power of God in the whole of creation. This supreme dynamic and creative power of life is referred to in Ewe as Se, in Akan as Okra or Kra, in Yoruba as Ori and the people of the Bible referred to it as the Messiah, the Spirit of God, the Power of God or the Christ, which is the Greek translation of Messiah (see Luke 1:35; 4:14, Acts 1:8.)
The first and the most important thing to be said about Affirmative Christianity is that it conceives of God as the dynamic and creative principle of life whom our people and the people of the Bible confess and affirm in their daily life. God as the dynamic and creative principle/power of life is confessed and affirmed to be the eternal ground of all that exists. St. John in his Gospel referred to this creative power of God as the Word or Logos and said, "and through him all things came to be; and no single thing was created without him."
The Christhood of All Peoples
The second most important thing about Affirmative Christianity is what I call the Christhood of all peoples. In Affirmative Christianity it is not only the universal and eternal presence of the dynamic and creative power of God that is affirmed unequivocally; but also its eternal presence in man is equally affirmed.
This spiritual truth of our being is what St. Paul called the glorious secret which God has for all peoples. "The secret is that Christ is in you, which means you will share in the glory of God." In this powerful and revolutionary statement Paul was affirming categorically the divinity of man. In fact, the Christhood of all peoples was affirmed first in Genesis where the author said: "so God created human beings, making them to be like himself." Jesus affirmed and confirmed the Christhood of all peoples when, teaching his disciples to pray, he said: "Our Father . . ." These two words "Our" and "Father" fix the nature of God and at the same time the nature of man. Man partakes of the divine nature of God which we call the Christ, the Messiah, Se or Okra. This means that Christ as the dynamic creative power of God is not external to anybody; rather he is in us and we are in him. St. Paul expressed this truth beautifully and simply by saying, "the life I now live is not my life, but the life which Christ lives in me." And to his Christian converts in Colosae he simply said: Christ is in you; not only in me and not only in the so-called chosen ones of Israel, but in you too.
This has been a very important belief of our people and is the reason why some Ghanaians do not blaspheme when they call some people in whom there has been a unique revelation of Christ (se, Okra): yame, Mawu or Kra, meaning God. Some are called Nyame or Kra as mere surnames today, but these names were theologically very meaningful to our forefathers. Christ is in us.
The Christhood of all people is then the second fundamental religious concept that is shared by Africans and the people of the Bible. It develops the first concept, namely, that the eternal and universal presence of God is the dynamic and creative principle, where principle is used as primary source or origin of all life.
Unity of Peoples
Christ as the Supreme creative power of God then is our true human commonality, the commonness that we share with people in other countries, in other ethnic groups and cultures. He is the ground that cements us who are many and different into one people. He is our spiritual commonality; we have to rediscover the spiritual truth of the Christhood of all people, to see the Christ and not the Ewe, Akan, Ga or Chokosi in our neighbors. To achieve better racial harmony and relations in the world we have to see not black or white, but Christ as the only racial color.
The time has come for us in Africa to stop thinking and saying that the Christian God is an importation and an imposition on us. The time has equally come for Western Christians to stop saying that they are taking Christ to Africa because he was in Africa before they came. He is our eternal ground, but we and they did not know it. We have been living in the House of God all these years but we did not know it. Our religious contact with the West as a whole has helped to raise our consciousness of the universal and eternal presence of the Christ in us and among us to a very high level. Our Christian duty today is to continue devotedly to develop to a new degree the consciousness of Christ in us and in our life-ways.
The eternal and primordial presence of God in Africa explains why religion in Africa from time immemorial is far more than rituals reflecting beliefs; it is reality reflected in an actual way of life. Religion from earliest time became in Africa the dynamic force in the development of all the major aspects of Black civilization. Christianity as a religious faith can be a dynamic force for reconstruction and development if we come back to understand our practice of the Christian faith not as a status symbol of social respectability, but as a dynamic creative power which God has made available to us and in us for salvation.
Our individual vocation is to express God in glorious ways. Man's spiritual vocation is to let God manifest Himself wholly in him. This is our true human destiny: to existentialize God as best we can; our bodies and cultures are means to that end.
Affirmative African Christianity affirms the individuality and otherness of our expression of the Christ in us. As it respects our otherness in our unity, one can become a true Christian without ceasing to be a genuine African. In other words, in true Christianity, there is no fundamental conflict between the indigenous African and the Christian life-ways. Because true Christianity affirms your Africanness and sees the Christ potential in it, it does not subvert its integrity nor denigrate it.
AIMS OF EDUCATION IN VALUES AND VALUE DEVELOPMENT
In the light of the crisis in our values one important role of the school is to serve as an agent of social reconstruction through the carefully selected values that it transmits. To some extent I have indicated the content of such education in the body of the discussion; I wish now to outline briefly its purposes. These should be:
(1) To help the child have a clear notion of the type and nature of indigenous and alien values that impinge upon our experience as individuals and as a group. Since certain values beliefs and attitudes that are strongly held can become obstacles to one's ability to modify one's environment, the child should be helped to evaluate both indigenous and alien values and to transform them into nation-building values. This will also involve helping the child to work out principles for selecting from our various cultural traditions, values that he/she will need in order to cope effectively with the demands of progress and modernization. Some of the needed values are: hard work, co-operation, discipline, self-correction, initiative, respect for evidence and verifiable knowledge and the experimental method of solving problems.
(2) To develop and raise the child's consciousness of the presence of the creative dynamic life power in him, in others and in society, and to help him/her make disciplined use of this energy.
(3) To help the child appreciate the value of change and growth in life and to grow through learning. This is the surest way to free the child from the hold of any unworthy traditionalism or authority.
(4) To help the child use values as the basis of all his/her choices and actions and to equip him or her with the ability to develop new values in new problem situations.
(5) To help the child affirm his/her indigenous cultural roots so that he/she does not become alienated.