Resumo de Igbo Philosophy - T. Uzodinma Nwala

Igbo Philosophy is a book of comparative insight on the thought and traditions of the Igbo of south-eastern Nigeria. The author Uzodinma Nwala, being of Igbo ancestry, is himself a part of the culture whose philosophy he has sought to gather. The book has twelve chapters and Nwala explains in the preface that the book is divided into two main parts A and B. The first part deals with traditional thoughts of the Igbo people of Nigeria. It presents Igbo traditional world view as highly pragmatic and utilitarian rather than abstract and mystical. Traditional Igbo cosmogony has man at the centre of creation with the universe created to serve his interests. The order of existence is divided in two realms called "ala mmuo" (the spirit world) which the priests, diviners and magicians claim to be in communication with. The human world ?ala mmadu" is the material universe made up of the visible elements including the sun, moon and stars. In the beginning Chukwu (or Chineke) ?the Supreme deity- created the universe. The supreme deity told the first parents ?This is your home. Everything here is for your good?, hence the first word man learnt from the Supreme Deity was ?mma mma? which today is a standard greeting among the Igbo. Only the priests, diviners, magicians and their initiates can lay claim to knowledge of the spirit world which is also the world of the departed ancestors as well as the unborn. However the knowledge of the so-called initiates was never written or codified into a cognizable system hence such knowledge remained shrouded in myths, symbolism and superstitions.The second part, the author says, begins in Chapter 11 where the book studies traditional and contemporary thoughts of the Igbo. Nwala argues that the Igbo world changed tremendously during the century when the traditional gods largely deserted their sacred groves and the rituals became profaned. The agents for this cultural damage were the British colonialists who destroyed sacred places of the Igbo world in 1902. Furthermore the emergence of western type education and literacy effectively stymied traditional philosophy and replaced them with western Christian notions that hardly accommodated Igbo traditional philosophy. In this part the author also compares Christian and traditional Igbo philosophy noting but little difference between them. However Christianity was able to supplant traditional religion because it easily conscripted the younger, malleable generation in addition to society?s outcasts who became its mindless agents. Moreover the failure of traditional gods to exact its vengeance on the interlopers and desecrators of the faith hastened the demise of Igbo traditional religions and philosophy.The concluding chapter 12 examines what the author identifies as three great issues around the development of Igbo philosophy and the Nigerian society in general. These issues he identifies as western secularization of thought and western science. Nwala?s idea of secularization is hinged on the manipulation and domination of nature through western science and technology. The author is however silent on western failure to balance such advances with the pollution and destruction that came from manipulating and dominating nature.The issue of communalism as a collective ownership and enjoyment of social wealth is the third issue and sums the author's argument. While advocating the abolition of capitalist ownership of the means of production, Nwala claims to recognize the limits of traditional communalism in modern times and states rather glibly that socialism is the modern equivalent of traditional communalism and thus is the only realistic philosophy that can maintain continuity with traditional philosophy.

Resumos Relacionados