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Ethics Brewed in an African Pot

2011; Society of Christian Ethics; Volume: 31; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5840/jsce201131127

2326-2176

Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator,

African cultural and philosophical studies

The following is a true story. I am a Nigerian. Coming to North Amer ica fourteen years ago, I was greeted with the following question by an American: Would you happen to know my friend in Tanzania? To get a picture of how daunting this question was, consider: the average travel time from Nigeria to Tanzania by air is almost the same as from New York to Los Angeles! More than two thousand miles of villages, cities, countries, desert, rivers, and tropical forest separate Lagos from Dar es Salaam. Any chance of running into my interlocutor's Tanzanian friend in the densely populated streets of Lagos seemed mathematically quite slim, if not possible except by chance. This simple story makes a point: it evokes stereotypes, generalizations, and im ages frequently associated with the idea of Africa in the Western imagination. Perhaps not unsurprisingly in the media-conditioned perception of many peo ple in the global north, Africa is a simple reality, albeit a reality riddled with complex and emergent situations of conflict, diseases, and misery. In light of this simplistic perception of Africa, a preliminary caution seems necessary: I do not speak for Africa. My experience of the continent is limited to about half a dozen countries out of fifty-three, not counting the colorful and of tentimes confusing blend of cultures, peoples, and languages that constitute the reality called Africa. My first advice to anyone trying to understand something of Africa is to rethink whatever he or she has thought about the continent. Africa is not one thing; it is a million things compressed into a vast geopolitical entity. As such, Africa lends itself to a multiplicity of meanings, interpretations, and con troversies. This dimension of cultural, political, social, geographical, and reli gious diversity should inform how we are to understand ethics and the moral