Taboo and secular education: The engagement towards environmental conservation in Africa
Abstract
The paper presupposes that the secular conception inherent in Western science as part of the general colonial
baggage to Africa, has presented a clash of worldviews for Africa; Western versus African, and in essence
a form of civilizational clash. The resultant encounter has not largely integrated, but instead, through a
secular lens, partly ignored African ways, and partly displaced the African structures. One particular area
where this ignorance gained currency was in the colonial, and post-colonial educational policies in general,
and the environmental conservation policies in particular. While attributing the environmental woes in
Africa to this ignorance and displacement of traditional structures, this study upholds the potential role of
traditional African educational strategy for children in its employment of taboos towards environmental
conservation. The paper examines the renewed interest on traditional African taboos from a general
conceptual framework of hypothetical consonance and its relevance in the treatment of the relationship
between religion and Western science today. This approach discourages the dogmatism from both the
theologian, and the Western scientist hence has the potential for a more fruitful interaction. The expected
result from the engagement should be a unique educational phenomenon which is functional in the African
context; “a Western scientific education laced with the superstition of the traditional African life.
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