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Tanaka Last Jere
Features Correspondent
African societies like other races in other parts of the world were complex in constructing their exact historic times.

Africans were advanced, imaginative and adaptive individuals who effectively domesticated yields, animals and man-made tools in order to survive. Culture and the statues succeeded alongside principled values and benches of rule. Thus, this article talks about old-style medication, role of colonisation, neo-colonialism and the way forward. It discusses the main aspects attached to the African systems be it indigenous knowledge, medicine, their way of living and doing things. It indicates how colonisation has impacted Africa’s indigenous system. The article shows how the superpowers have become influential in Africa to date and some of the legacies like the way in which they managed to teach  the so called 3rs (read, write and arithmetic), as well as using the bible for Western interests.

Old-style medication

Traditional prescriptions were used to be the central medical method obtainable to masses of publics in the continent, be it in rural and urban societies. Conversely, the onset of the Europeans manifests a momentous rotating point in the past of the practice and culture. Thus colonialism has resulted in a great impact on traditional medicine. Traditional treatment variously recognised as ethno-medicine, inherent curing is the ancient system of health upkeep method that was used to survive and treat innumerable illnesses that have exposed their reality and endurance. A traditional healer is an individual who is known by the public where he or she subsists as somebody capable to afford health care by using herbal, animal and inorganic ingredients. The diviner is often wrongly referred to as a witchdoctor. Although there were people who were responsible for evil practices, there were always those who were medicine men in that by divination, they would locate and provide cures for their patient’s ills. Therefore, is it not ideal for the Africans to seek some guidelines from the traditional healers and to use traditional medicines without fear of being sanctioned by the superpowers during this era of Covid-19?

Furthermore, in several parts of rural areas, traditional medicines are the most effortlessly accessible and affordable health resources obtainable to the local community. In Africa the majority of the people are regarded as underprivileged which makes their lives vulnerable especially with the pandemic like Covid-19 whereby some of them cannot afford to buy the so called sanitisers and even a recommended face mask. It is during this difficulty time that Africans should harness their indigenous systems.

Colonisation

In a colonial fiction the ventures of the colonizer make up the most of the important action. No narrative interests without European intervention. The narrative represents a world in which the colonial rule was accepted as the order of things. Coloniser’s meanings and values were seen as the only valid ones. It was during this era where negritude was introduced. This is an undertaking centered on the notion of a collective social bond on the share of all Black Africans wherever they might stay in the realm. Gaze was also introduced during colonial rule which is the approach the conquerors observed and almost examined the accomplishments of the colonized people through scrutiny and glancing. Colonialism resulted to harmful impact on African indigenous systems. The introduction of Western treatment and culture contributed to the upsurge of cultural-ideological clash which had previously produced an incapable power-relation that virtually destabilized and denounced the traditional health care structures in the continent because of the overriding supremacy of the Western medication.

Neo-colonialism

Superpowers still control economies of the once-colonised world, often beneath the semblance of political independence. The decay of one kind of colonialism leads to the rise of another, less obvious form called the super or new imperialism. The superpowers are still influential and controlling be it politically and economically through imposing or threats to impose sanctions to the former colonised. English is now recommended as the official language in some countries

which demonstrate the annihilation of the African culture and the hegemony of superpowers.

Way forward

Africans must unite and embrace their culture and should own land, embrace their herbs and be able to solve their problems. Africans should support one another during difficult times like Covid-19 and work together in finding the best solutions and medications rather than relying on superpowers. Africans must be masters of their specific destiny. However, superpowers must work together with some African healers to ensure that maybe the cure for Covid-19 is found. This can help in decreasing the spread and death of many people, rather than maintaining a Western dictation on what measures and medication are to be used while the majorities are vanishing.