African Men and Self Knowledge: Why Knowing Self Must be a Priority | Baba Buntu | TEDxGaborone

I move slowly in this world accustomed to aspiring no longer to appear I'm using this as my entry line for this talk because it explains part of my experience in life and as I have connected with and had conversations with so many African people around the continent and the Diaspora I realized that this also describes the experience of many other Africans black men know yourself I've chosen this title it's lifted from one of the tracks on Femi Kuti album from that was released about 20 years ago called shoki shoki and in this song he motivates the African man to denounce the effects of colonialism of the culture that has been taken away from from Africa in many ways or denounced and ridiculed and for African men to stand up and own their journey and their identity and this talk is inspired by that song knowledge of self we could say that self-knowledge is the beginning of all knowledge ease it's the platform that you stand on is the ability to be without it from an African point of view you will be unable to really form a purpose and to hold yourselves in terms of self-determination in terms of who you are supposed to be as an African man or as an African woman this is a sensitive subject and I need to make a disclaimer when I say for instance I referred to certain challenges that African men and Joe it is not in opposition or it's not to the neglect or it's not to undermine their many many atrocities and experiences that are enjoyed by African women it's also not a competition about who's got it worse I think it's more a realization that we all have problems and this talk wants to address some of the ones some of the issues that African men face it is also not a pity party it's not this is not about feeling sorry for ourselves this is not about African men just pleading with weakness this is about taking responsibility and it is also not to paint all black men with the same brush and say that we all have exactly the same experience I think we have many common denominators but we are aware of the diversity of experiences of African men and it's not to the neglect of that so who is the African man I think if we were able to go deeply into history we see that the African and African man appears in this world as somebody of responsibility of somebody as somebody as who is a builder a healer a great contributor to his society his family and his nation if we go a few steps further in history we see how enslavement how colonialism and the many atrocities that has been done by people who invaded this continent how it has also affected the African man to such an extent that it seems like we remember the African man more for what he is not so the African man is not seen as a good provider not as a good politician not as a good knowledge holder not as a good community person we remember a whole lot of negative images and it's important to question that especially at a time when we hear voices saying that all black men are trash all black men are useful useless it's important to question where that comes from and whether that is in fact true this reminds me of a conversation I had with young men 20 years ago I was living in Norway at the time and we had an organization called African youth in Norway and we wanted to have a youth camp so we had one youth camp for the young men and one for the young women and in both camps we asked who is your role model who do you aspire to who I would you draw inspiration from and almost exclusively in the young women's camp they chose mother's auntie's women that they have met women that they can go and visit women are in their lives and almost exclusively in the young man's camp they chose men that they have never met men that I probably will never meet men that they know through TV through music through sports and it made me ask is it so that many of us as African men struggled to find role models so struggle to look up to other African men and as I'm saying this I would like for you in your own mind to just reflect how many men that you have access to would you describe as great role models for you I hope you come up with a big number but from the work that I've done I wouldn't be so surprised if some of you struggle to come up with many numbers because it seems like we are not really dwelling so much on the contributions that African men have made and this is interesting to me as it has become part of my journey I work with men women children youth elders but part of my work is solely dedicated to understanding African men communicating with African men through my scholarly work through my writing through my interaction I have dealt with lots of lots and lots of African men from different countries different parts of the world but I think what I'm left with is even more their ability to engage and see that African men across nationality is a cross religion across many things that divide us have many common experiences and many of them are under communicated so as I've been walking this journey 10 years ago and idea came into my mind that this voice that African men obviously have and that I'm it's like I'm being made a participant of conversations that I don't really see reflected in the general society and I'm thinking we really need to be able to position a platform for African men and this became the project called that is called Chewbacca men of Africa which has been going to many African countries and tomorrow will be doing it for first time in Botswana so this journey is really about decolonizing what masculine seas have become icy and I experienced that many of us as African men have gotten stuck in a very problematic understanding of what a man is supposed to do and be and many of those traces was back to what happened to us during invasion the problems with our families the problems with identity the problems with understanding who we are has created for many men different and quite disconnected understanding of masculinity so this is the statement that I come across with a lot of African men saying I need to understand who I am and I wanted to illustrate in a brief way what some African men declare or talk about when they sit in a session of explaining themselves and I want to explain this through a synthesis of stories that I'm going to present to you through the character of Africa so Africa is a young African man he grows up in a village he's the heard boy and he is expected to go out in the field work with other boys and and and look after cattle now his experience is that as a young boy he goes out and he's being taken advantage of by the bigger boys who beat him up who do things to him that obviously is painful and degrading he then decides he cannot he doesn't want to be out in the field so he makes up a lot of excuses yes headache yes stomach stomach ache so that he can stay closer to the compound his father is devastated what kind of boy is this this boy is supposed to be out in the field and now he's scared now he doesn't want to go and the father statutory term ending call him names say he's a say he's a girl to the point that even one day he takes a picture of Africa and put a dress on him and say look at my stupid little girl I thought I had a boy but look at this and he puts the picture on the wall and it itches itself into Africa's memory as the definition of what he can never become a man the African man so African men know your power power is a very problematic experience for many African people and in the context of African men the aftermath of having been invaded the aftermath of white supremacy as a power the aftermath of having been marginalized completely to the side has an effect where many African men struggle to understand where to position their power there is never any excuse for rape but if we want to understand what rape is about if we want to resolve it these are some of the questions we need to ask what has happened to the experience of power because the experience of power we have is to invade is to take is to own is to define and as a very problematic power constellation when you take it into a relationship into interacting with somebody that you are supposed to treat as a royal partner so Africa grows he um at one point as a teenager he's invited to a party and he has now experienced that he's interested in girls but he doesn't know how to approach them and he finds that other boys are talking very roughly about what they do to girls how they grab them how they take them and he doesn't have any intention of doing that to women so he doesn't know maybe this is because of what my father said I'm a girl I'm a weak person I cannot do this so he's at this party he's he hears some commotion in one room and one young man comes out and grabs him and say come here now you're going to show that you're a man and he realizes that he is drawn into a situation where a young girl is being raped by several young men and she's lying there in his mind he wants to flee he wants to escape but the need for him to show and prove and demonstrate that he is in fact an African man takes over and in that moment he engages himself in something that he would never have believed he could do understanding that he's actually contributing to the soul murder of the young lady African men know your culture culture becomes a very difficult place to go to when you see that African culture has been ridiculous been downgraded has been associated with barbarism and things that don't really work at best African culture appears to be cute and colorful that's not a place an african strongman wants to go so a lot of African men become removed from their cultural identity and it has an effect on how they then need to draw cultural tools to raise this African men within themselves Africa gets a scholarship he moves to a town and he's accepted into a good education which leads to a good job which leads to good money which is the dream of every African parents to be able to end so he is now at the point ways actually seem to be a successful man but within himself he cannot connect everything that he has done seems like he has had to check his African s at the door and not bringing into the place of operation so he strives to be more Eurocentric he strives to speak good English he strives to prove to the world that he's not a barbaric backward African he's the modern Eurocentric westernized African man and this becomes quite problematic he goes further he meets a woman and a great woman and the woman agrees that she likes him they get married they have children now he's even elevated to another level that many African men envy and many African men look to that this is the greatness of success but because of the pain and the brokenness within Africa he finds it difficult to be next to a woman who always is interested in how he really feels how he what his opinion is over time and he finds himself wanting not to be so much at home so he spends time at the bar he spends time with other women and he becomes a man who's unfaithful the African family is supposed to be a place of strength we say that African culture is built on the African family but what happens when the African family is so affected by its history and its lack of cultural strength that it reproduces some of the oppressive effects that we have enjoyed for centuries on this continent abraca is now at the point where he is no longer expecting to be a strong man he falls into a deep hole within his mind and his soul and it takes to drinking he consoles himself for all the things that he feel his not he abuses himself for the shame that he has of what he has not accomplished and he slowly dies within now Africa has changed Africa has been able to understand more of his history understand more of what is expected of him as an African man moved to a stronger place that does not mean the problems disappear it does not mean that life is necessarily easy but he approaches it from a completely different point of view because he has developed a sense of self a sense of rootedness a sense of anchored Ness so when he moves he moves with a different sense of power and when he's confronted with issues he doesn't just react with fear or don't or the need to dominate he can humble he can take a step back reflect and find a solution this to me is the practical interpretation of what Steve Biko explained as black consciousness the ability to rally around the center of our oppression which is the color of our skin and at the same time also operate as a group to to cut the shackles that have represented the oppression that we have enjoyed I no longer move slowly in this world I refuse to be accustomed to aspiring no longer to appear this is the call for African men who no longer should just be marked by being men who obey very problematic messages and pressure points men who violates because the voice inside is so full of Rage and men who shut down because they don't know how to develop a language to express what is happening within what we call for African men to become a men who rise men stand up with confidence men who rebel and this is an important point to mention because when you stand up as an African man the world around you will see it as a declaration of war we don't expect that African men should be honorable responsible and strong in a balanced way we have gotten so far that we don't expect a lot from African men and as African men we know it and it kills us we need my African men who can relate because the African man is nobody without being able to relate to African women to African children to the African community your identity will never be whole just because you have a success in your own corner African culture roots you because you are part of a bigger whole as I'm standing here I raised my face not just as a symbol of struggle and rage but also in confident belief and faith in what this world will become when black men know themselves [Applause] [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 25,342

Rating: 4.9244266 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Humanities, Africa, Africans, Identity, Social Interaction, Social Science

Id: BmBdYnQQV3E

Length: 16min 45sec (1005 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 11 2018