Michael Afolayan:
I think Dr. Fyle said it well; the relationship between Africans and
African Americans should be one of quid pro quo. I also agreed about
his position that Africans need to understand themselves, validating
the dictum that "charity begins at home." Understanding ourselves is
pertinent to understanding others, much more so of our historically
distant relatives. We have a long way to travel on that path. There
is no light at the end of the tunnel, unfortunately.
Imagine this: Today, many Africans are opposed to their children
speaking their mother tongues or learning them at school; they would
rather have them speak two or more European languages fluently than
speak a word of their own mother tongues. I was in Nigeria last
summer and was shocked at the insidious number of Yoruba children
born and raised in Lagos, Ibadan, Ile-Ife, Osogbo, Ilorin, etc., who
could not speak one word of Yoruba, and yet the parents were proud to
quickly warn the visitors not to bother speaking Yoruba to them
because they did not understand it. It was not until I visited Ilawe
that I saw a few kids who really spoke and understood Yoruba quite
well. Those who are familiar with the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis will
quickly agree that when a language dies, much of the culture it
conveys dies. If African children do not have a clue of their
cultures, how would they grow up to appreciate the African Diaspora?
I have not actively lived at home for about two and a half decades
now; which means I may not be representing this next point quite
accurately. But through the 1970s when I had my undergraduate
training in Nigeria, I could not think of a single university in
Nigeria that had an African American studies or a Black Diaspora
program or department, not even as a consortium! Things might have
changed with more than 100 post secondary institutions in Nigeria
today, but I doubt it. Indeed, it would be a matter of celebration if
we can identify three or four universities in Nigeria that runs an
African Diaspora program. Therein lies the dilemma!