Patriotic Romanticism as a False Route to African Identity

Abstract

It is appalling that Africa is still bedevilled with identity crisis. That the crisis originated in
the cultural shock of Africa’s forced contact with the Western world is hardly excusable. This
explains the belief of many African philosophers that the only way of redefining the current
false African identity is a backward march into the traditional African society. This is
propped on the assumption that the true African identity is in the traditional African society
that was so glorious. This is patriotic romanticism, a belief in superiority of one’s traditional
beliefs, values and customs and a concrete move towards recapturing them. A thorough
logical analysis of qualitative data on the ideology and values of traditional African society
carried out in this text punctured this ego and argues that traditional African society was not
so beautiful and many of its values ill-fit for contemporary life. Thus any proposal for a
return to traditional Africa society is a false route to authentic African identity. The study
concluded that authentic African identity lies in refining the good values of the African past
to suit contemporary society and recommended conscious adoption of some foreign values
where necessary, and passionate protection of the irrational aspects of African culture.