Real identity is not lost in the midst of change

I HAVE to take issue with Sandile Memela on his take on authentic Africanness (“There is a simple solution to the African identity crisis”, Cape Argus, August 8).

Progress is something that has taken place for centuries.

We don’t see Picts, Celts and Scots roaming all over England and Europe any more, or Native Americans having it out with the white settlers in the US.

We evolve and take on new identities, cultures and customs.

He says since 1652 indigenous citizens have never lived in an authentic Africa. According to him, Africans were inclined to seek or live by an intuitive connection with Europe. Why not? Medicine has progressed amazingly in the last hundred years. Must we not take antibiotics because they came from Europe?

Must we continue to go to witch doctors because we don’t want to go to a doctor trained in the Western way? The death of thousands of initiates during circumcision rituals is a case in point.

But it doesn’t make our identity any different. A Jew is still a Jew. The same goes for Muslims, Greeks and everyone else. So why should an African not be African because, according to Sandile, South Africa is too Western?

When he says this is not the Africa envisioned by Steve Biko, I would say precisely the same, but because he would have hated the corruption that has overtaken us, not because South Africa is not African enough.

He says that even our constitution is minimal in its Africanness, but embraces universal human principles. We have the best constitution in the world, so how can that be wrong because it is not African enough?

BARBIE SANDLER Claremont