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Appreciate own cultural values, urges 'Ukwa'

Appreciate own cultural values, urges 'Ukwa'
By Joseph Mwenda
Friday October 12, 2007 [04:00]

RENOWNED Nigerian actor Nkem Owoh popularly known as Ukwa has urged Africans to begin appreciating the value of their own culture and civilisation. Speaking when he addressed trainee journalists at Post newspapers offices yesterday, Ukwa said Africans were, however, not to blame for not appreciating their indigenous traditional values and culture.

He said Africans did not appreciate their cultural values as much as they recognised the Western norms because the young generation was being introduced to the Western world at a tender age.

Ukwa said much as it was wrong for Africans to prefer Western cultural products, it was not justifiable to entirely put the blame on them because the continent was being flooded by foreign products.

“We have to begin to appreciate the value of our own culture and civilisation. The Western civilisation has had strong influence on Africans and because of that, you find African investors are being turned down in preference of Western investors. This is because of the perception that we have of recognising people from the western world as more civilised than us. But we are also civilised in our own way,” Ukwa said.

He urged Zambians to exercise courage and zeal when promoting local products including art and music. He gave an example of one of his popular movies, Osuofia in London, which he said exposed the African culture to the Western world.

“That movie brought the Western world to the realisation that we also have our own culture and we are civilised in our own way,” said Ukwa.

He also wondered why most African hotels did not recognise African foods when they offered services to Africans.

Ukwa also advised youths in Africa to guard their lives against the HIV and AIDS pandemic. He, however, expressed concern that statistics on HIV infection rates in Africa were being exaggerated by the Western world.

Ukwa is in the country for a series of performances in Lusaka and the Copperbelt. He arrived on Wednesday.

Labels: CULTURE

posted by MrK @ 6:06 PM