The Living Dead: A Past that Links the Present with the Future

Abstract

An age prioritizes rationality and regards belief in invisible entities as imaginary, illogical and irrational. African belief systems however, uphold invisible beings as real and central to the day to day running of human affairs. For this, it is underestimated and neglected in global discussions on human freedom, continuity and survival. This work explores the relationship between modern science, an envisioned new age and indigenous studies by examining concepts of singularity, extension, enhancement and expansion as ideas embodied in the African worldview and myth but enabled through scientific and rational processes to become universal. It argues that the African worldview does not separate, clearly distinct or differentiate between the realms of spiritual and physical therein, it contradicts the notion of the world as fragmented, limited and ending. In this presentation of harmony in nature rests the promise of discoveries that would advance science and humanity. The intersectional critical historical approach adopted demonstrates Africa’s relevance to humanity’s continuity, survival and growth. It highlights racial discrimination, culture erasure and death of God as overlapping historical facts in the discontinuity and continuity of knowledge production among a people regarded as primitives but with potentials, beneficial to science and humanity Keywords: African studies, Science, Technology, New Age

    Similar works