The non-place of African ontology in its traditions

If I could remind us of something at this moment, it's that a culture cannot perpetuate itself without its language.

We affirm this by paraphrasing a well-known expression of Dr. Marimba Ani, referencing the complex defense system of the human body: "Your culture is your immune system," and without culture—the set of material and immaterial elements that constitute a people—it is not possible to identify their ethos, their meaning, a key element for the constitution of their unity.

One of the most strategic means adopted by white European colonialism to separate our African ancestors from their culture was the separation of our ancestors from their families/community as well as from their names.

For many African cultures, if not all of the diverse cultures that make up the continent, it is understood that a name is a word of power. The name, and even more so, the language in which it is attributed, culturally and ontologically characterizes a being within society. Nevertheless, it is common in cultural expressions such as capoeira and candomblé in the diasporas to have a ritualistic moment of renaming that will bring about a sense of belonging to the community.

This name needs to be formed from the cultural language of the practice into which this individual is being initiated. Thus, not only personal names, but also the names of the ritual and social elements in which the individual is involved.

When we observe this from the imposed, colonizing perspective, we have what we call structural racism, because the symbols, signs, names, and spiritual and religious practices reconnect the individual to this dominant culture. In other words, in this sense, for Black people it is a non-place of ontology and belonging, a non-place to define themselves culturally and existentially as Black.

It is crucial to understand the need to rescue and preserve the forms, languages, characteristics, and subjectivities that make up African expressions. Orality and its protasis, a non-textual element, alive and full of meanings that belong to each being, a universe, a living library for advancing in matters such as sustainability, modes of production, consumption, and relationships. These are issues that have proven increasingly difficult to address in this monotonous, egoic, and individualistic systemic way, even through the most humanist philosophical currents of the Western world.