The media, minstrels and African traditional values

Abstract

Africa is a continent with rich cultural/traditional values. Though there are variations in African cultures, there exists commonalities which bind the people together thereby giving room for unity in diversity. Among these shared values are: motherhood, oral tradition (story telling), reincarnation, belief in the sanctity of human life, kinship, respect for constituted authority, moonlight gathering, festivals and others. Despite these values inherent in African countries, it is observed that this present age due to Western influence in the name of civilization has lost touch with some of our highly revered traditional values. This has made some of these cultural practices go into extinction. It is on this note that this paper, employing the qualitative method of research strives to examine the problems underlying the gradual extinction of some core African values. This paper might not explore all the themes mentioned earlier hence its focus is on oral tradition. However, the objective of this paper is to reawaken these traditions which are germane to African unity using the media.