Cultural Preservation in a Globalized Nigeria: A Yoruba Perspective

Culture is more like the identity of an individual or a group of people, and that's because it depicts their way of life, beliefs, behaviors, and many more. Cultural norms are literally woven into our society, and they're usually visible in the interaction, perspective, and identity of a group of people. Down in my country, Nigeria, we've got loads of cultures, and I'm from one of the majority tribes, which I'll be telling you all about in this article.

Basically, every community has a culture that determines the way of life of its people, but with the advent of social cultural interactions and technology, people have come to learn about several other cultures that could either raise eyebrows or seem enticing to adopt, and this realization has both a positive impact for some cultures and a negative one for others because the knowledge of other ones has led to the gradual extinction of some.

As we all know, there are many things that make up a culture, which range from language to way of life, belief, ideology, and the like, but the advent of all of what I mentioned above poses dangers to some cultures, and that's due to their interactions with other cultures. For instance, down here in Nigeria, prior to colonization and independence, all communities were independent and had their own ways of doing things, which includes our culture and language, which ought to be preserved and passed on from one generation to another.

However, the advent of colonization brought British rulers to Nigeria, and by the time they left, we'd been woven into their culture to the point where that's deeply rooted in our language, and now the lingual Franca of Nigeria is English, which is in no way related to any of our culture, and it's quite disheartening how some new generations of parents would even scold their children for speaking any language other than English, which is, in my opinion, the bedrock of the extinction of such a language.

In the aspect of dressing, the same is almost the case, as most people now know what's to be dressed like a western man rather than wearing attire that promotes their culture and traditions. You'll see different people who are literally ashamed to wear their cultural attire out in public, except on special occasions, when such attire ought to be worn more often to propagate the culture to the world at large, just as Western culture is doing around the world.

As a Yoruba man, I cherish my culture, our language, and our cultural attire, which I prefer to wear: normal western clothing that seems to have been seen as the only culturally acceptable clothing in our community today. However, I must praise the Hausa people for now totally giving room for such to be the case with their culture, as they still pride themselves on their cultural norms despite the adoption of western culture and education.

I can remember when I was in the north, you could put on your northerly cultural attire to work from Monday to Friday without anyone questioning you, regardless of whether you're a teacher, banker, doctor, or any other profession. This, I believe, helps preserve their culture. The same isn't the case in other regions of the culture, but still, I must praise Lagos State for doing enough of the same thing in preserving the culture.

One of the things is that the lingua franca in the Lagos House of Assembly is Yoruba, not English or any other language. Outside the assembly, in schools, it has been stated that every Wednesday, the language accepted within the school premises is Yoruba, and this, I believe, helps the young ones understand their mother tongue. It didn't stop at that, because every Wednesday and Friday, workers from all walks of life in Lagos are usually encouraged to put on their cultural attire.

All of these are great and help us not only preserve our culture but also promote it to a larger audience who might appreciate and adopt it as well. In the aspect of marriages, I would say we've had it both ways by letting off some traditions that are odd and adopting those that seem better. On bad days, several couples get married and all their children end up being sick. To us, it was spiritual warfare, and we always tried to combat it that way, only to lose a Suvh child.

But the advent of technology and the adoption of other cultures have helped us understand the importance of blood groups and the danger they can pose to families. Since our understanding of this, most couples now know which blood group to avoid when choosing a spouse, which greatly reduces the chances of sickle cell problems we've been having in the past.

While that's a positive change despite letting in some cultural beliefs, the same isn't the case with other aspects of marriage. Our belief in the past was that it's only morally upright for a man and a woman to get married, and anything outside that is an abomination. However, the knowledge of other cultures is gradually eating up this belief in our community, and now you'll see same-sex marriage and dancing all over the place. This aspect is disgusting, in our opinion.

The last part of our culture that I'll be talking about is one that basically everyone has now deemed bad and doesn't want to have anything to do with, and that's our religion. Basically, every culture and community in this country were all traditional worshipers until the invasion of the British Empire, and since then, our people have been brainwashed to see the religion their forefathers indulged in as bad and then adopt that of the white man as good.

Although I'm one of those who have adopted the same, I still can't help but wonder how we could easily see a way of life that has helped us through the years as evil and didn't kill our forefathers, and now we're adopting a strange one and seeing that as the perfect one while ours is the evil one.

Like I said earlier, I'm a Yoruba man, and I believe most of our culture and traditions define me as a person. Well, not necessarily all, as I don't participate in our traditional religion and don't participate in festivals that eulogize gods and masquerades, but outside of that, I believe the norms in our language, behavior, dressing, and the like speak volumes about me.

Well, that's about it, and that's that's where I'd be putting an end to their writing. I hope you do enjoy the read and learn a thing or two from Nigerian culture. Do have a wonderful day and stay blessed.

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This is my entry for the day 10 of the #mayinleo prompt of the INLeo initiative, if you'd love to participate, you can read days about it in the announcement post.

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Thanks so much for your time. Have a wonderful day ahead and stay blessed.

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