Sugru Manwuriba Alhassan
Author of Africans Traditional Revolution

Throughout history, people have sought to impose their customs and traditions on other peoples. Europeans did it to Africans, the Arabs did it and now the Chinese and others are doing it through economic imperialism. I am not saying it is wrong to learn from other cultures; I am only saying that we must acquire knowledge from them but we should use our own brains to transform the knowledge into our own traditions. This is the best and only way for us to equip ourselves to face the challenges in the world.

For any group of people to develop and prosper, they must first understand themselves, their mindset, their culture and traditions. If a person fails to research into his own mind, body and spirit to understand them, there is no way he can study the materials in the universe and understand them to use them to design and create things that will benefit himself and the world. A man must first understand and appreciate his own mind, body and spirit before he can understand and appreciate others and make sense of the myriad of living and nonliving materials that surround him.

When this is done a person’s ability to think increases greatly. His sense of imagination and discovery receives a massive boost. He will not be a duplicator of what he learns from others, because once he learns something from you, his sense of creativity and innovation drives him to make a similar thing. Though what he produces is similar to what he learned from other people, it is not an exact duplication. Such a person has the ability to express his opinion differently because his reasoning and logic are very clear.

People who fail to study and critically understand their own mind, body and spirit have limited insight into the issues of life. No matter how long they study (even to the level of PhD), the best they can do is duplicate what others have done. They have little sense of discovery and creativity. Not all doctors are discoverers; majority of them are duplicators. They can apply the knowledge they have learned to treat people but they can’t design and develop their own system of treatment. A person who does not understand his own mind, body and spirit will always be a follower and not a creator.

In fact, a person’s failure to diligently study and understand his sense of being and sense of character is a big mental disease. Not knowing yourself is a potentially fatal flaw. One cannot judge fairly if he doesn’t know his own character. Understanding one’s own character gives you a huge moral opportunity to balance yourself in society and with others. A detailed self-evaluation will reveal all the dimensions of your character, and help you identify and correct any character flaws in order to achieve balance with other characters. It is only when you identify all the facets of your own character (both good and bad) will you be able to identify and appreciate other people’s character.

Regrettably, few human beings endeavour to study their own character and accept both the positive and negative parts of their character. These are the real creators and innovators. The vast majority of us don’t study own character but we are quick to critically evaluate other people’s character, many times condemning and judging them. Even for those who study and assess their own character, many of them deny and suppress the negative aspects of their character while emphasising and justifying the positive aspects.

Such persons feel they are better than everybody else, perfect and strong in character but there is no such thing as a perfect human being or perfect character. Each of us has positive and negative elements within our characters. The only one who can judge fairly is the one who studies his own character and accepts both the good and bad elements and decides to correct the negative elements. Such a person has the ability to correct those negative parts by learning from others who have already made those corrections.

WHY AFRICANS FAIL TO BE CREATIVE PART 1

Created by
Sugru Manwuriba Alhassan

Author of Africans Traditional Revolution
Email: sugrumanwuriba@yahoo.com
Facebook page: Africans Cultural Revolution (Africanology)