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.