Stifling Human Responsibility? Human Agency and Transcendency in African Spirituality and Cultural Idioms

Abstract

This article is an African traditional religious and cultural analysis of human responsibility as expressed in proverbs and idioms that demand human agency and transcendence in chiShona, Zimbabwean isiNdebele, and isiZulu languages. The analysis is done in line with the common spiritual belief that material wealth is a product of spiritual or magical power. The article analyzes selected proverbs and idioms from the three languages that demand or express agency and transcendence. This demand for agency and transcendence is juxtaposed with a religious belief of wealth as a product of spiritual and magical powers. Spiritualizing material wealth promotes a blame syndrome that is detrimental to human responsibility. A framework of human agency and transcendence that promotes human responsibility in African contexts of poverty is proposed. The article aims to contribute with an African response to poverty that promotes human responsibility and avoids a defeatist and escapist reliance on magic and spiritual solutions.