Cultural Assertion - A Necessity
The collective memories of a people can never be destroyed.
Thousands of Decades before Europeans knew Africa existed, African nations had developed complex social institutions and civilizations. Africans were advanced mathematicians, architects, traders, navigators, farmers and doctors.
Amilcar Cabral, the late leader of the Guinea-Bissau liberation struggle, once pointed out: “culture is simultaneously the fruit of a people’s history and a determinant of history, by the positive or negative influence it exerts on the evolution of relations between man and his environment and mong men or human groups within a society.’
The truth of Cabral’s statement is evident in the fact that when Europe colonized Africa, the colonizers either suppressed the indigenous cultures or forced their African subjects to assimilate into the colonial cultures. Cultural assertion, therefore, was a key factor in the Africa national independence movements of the 1950s,1960s and 1970s.
The collective memories of a people can never be destroyed. That is why despite the ravages of colonialism and neo-colonialism, the institutions and traditions of African culture-passed on from generation to generation- have survived.
Therefore, Cultural assertion is necessary for the psychological redress of the African people whose culture had been decried as primitive. It is also imperative that culture is seen as social process and not a state, It is ultimately an essential infrastructure crucial to the development of Africa.
CoolAfrican boldly asserts this mood in the form of a bold text "CULTURE" print on a bright yellow sweatshirt composed with 85% organic ring-spun combed cotton and 15% recycled polyester.
