Globalization and African Culture Identity

4178 Words17 Pages
Introduction There is no doubt that Africa, as a continent, is facing a lot of challenges on account of the phenomenon of globalization. In the course of history, Africa has at one period or the other become a battle ground for external socio-political, economic and even cultural forces struggling for her soul. For instance, one of the fallouts of industrial revolution in Europe was the massive influx of European powers into the continent in search of raw materials for their industries. But even before this phase of industrial revolution, the so-called discovery of the new-world had unleashed on the African Continent, the notorious trans-Atlantic slave trade, which led to millions of Africans to be forcefully taken away from Africa to the Caribbean. The subsequent industrial revolution and its mercantilist economic dialectics led to the scramble and partitioning of Africa into areas of influence by the colonizing powers of Europe, and thus was unleashed on Africa the period of colonial governance. Throughout this period, African spirit of brotherhood and communalism was sufficiently broken. Africans became slaves to alien cultures, political processes and value orientation. Globalization, which has gained currency particularly in international economic discourse in the last two decades, is tending towards becoming the dominant feature of world economic relations in the next century. For better or worse, globalization is already straddling all aspects of human life in many countries of the world. Though it is essentially an ideology of economic liberalization, it no less impacts on economic systems of all nations as on their political, social and cultural systems. The engine of globalization is the revolutionary advances in information technology. Especially through its communication dimension, globalization is fast bringing the vast diverse countries into a
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