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African Values and the Human Rights Debate: An African Perspective

Author(s): Josiah A. M. Cobbah


Source: Human Rights Quarterly , Aug., 1987, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Aug., 1987), pp. 309-331
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/761878

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HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY

African Values and the Human Rights


Debate: An African Perspective

Josiah A.M. Cobbah *

INTRODUCTION: CULTURE IN THE HUMAN RIGHTS DEBATE

There is an ongoing debate among scholars over whether or not the con
of human rights is entirely Western.' Questions that have been rais
clude the following: Can we really expect non-Western peoples to em
the international human rights instruments which are by and large We
in character? 2 If non-Western cultures do not possess the Western con
tion of human rights, do they have other approaches to the enhancemen
human dignity? 3 It is perhaps in the nature of such a discussion that t
questions will never be satisfactorily answered. There seems to be some
sensus, however, that the concept of human rights as generally underst
is historically a Western concept. The more troubling questions fa
Westerners and non-Westerners alike pertain to whether contemporary
ternational human rights instruments, given their Western biases,
said to apply to peoples from non-Western cultures.
Despite an increase in the discussion of human rights in Africa, very
exists in the form of literature that approaches the idea of human rights

* An earlier draft of this article was presented at the Seventh Annual International H
Rights Symposium and Research Conference, Center for the Study of Human R
Columbia University, New York, New York, 9-13 June 1986.
1. Dunstan M. Wai, "Human Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa," in Human Rights: Cultur
Ideological Perspectives, ed. Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab (New York: Pra
1979), 116; Jack Donnelly, "Human Rights and Human Dignity: An Analytic Critiq
Non-Western Conceptions of Human Rights," American Political Science Revie
(June 1982).
2. Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab, "Human Rights: A Western Construct with
Applicability," in Pollis and Schwab, note 1 above, 1-18.
3. Raimundo Pannikkar, "Is the Notion of Human Rights a Western Concept?" Di
120 (Winter 1982): 75-102.

Human Rights Quarterly 9 (1987) 309-331 ? 1987 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

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310 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 9

an African perspective. What most Africans ha


tends to be either attempts to show that the W
African cultures4 or Western-style condemnatio
rights in Africa.s In addition to these African writ
scholars have made quite a contribution to the l
contributions have usually been of the second ty
of African regimes or African peoples for violatin
segments of the African population.6 While the in
human rights in Africa is both timely and refreshin
leaves one with the impression that scholars procee
although traditional concepts on the enhanceme
present in African culture, African societies hav
point where a discussion of these traditional con
or indeed a pretext by Africans to avoid the ha
rights violations to which the Western world ex
In other words, Africans have not attempted in an
for the international human rights community
dignity or perhaps human rights, one that flows f
on the self and one that perhaps the rest of the in
also use.
It is the aim of this paper to direct African and non-African scholars
along a cross-cultural path. First, the natural rights origins of the Western
human rights concept are examined to show that the concept denies culture
in a very fundamental sense. The purpose of this analysis is to demonstrate
that we should talk about rights within a cultural context. Second, an
Africentric conception of human dignity is presented as a valid worldview
which should inform the cross-cultural fertilization of ideas. The effects of
Western ethnocentrism and the disregard for non-Western philosophical
choices in international affairs are examined, leading to the conclusion that
African communitarianism has ingredients that should aid the formulation of
cross-cultural human rights norms. The contention is that Westerners may
indeed have a lot to learn from Africans.

WHY WESTERNERS SHOULD STUDY AFRICAN CULTURES

In a recent article, Kent decries the domination of Anglo-American


theory by ethical individualism which has come to supplant the commu

4. Wai, note 1 above.


5. See, e.g., Olusola Ojo and Amadu Sessay, "The O.A.U. and Human Rights: Prospects for
the 1980s and Beyond," Human Rights Quarterly 8 (February 1986): 89-103.
6. See, e.g., Rhoda Howard, Human Rights in Commonwealth Africa (Totawa, N.J.:
Rowman and Littlefield, 1986): chaps. 6 and 7.
7. See, e.g., Howard, note 6 above, 22-34.

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1987 An African Perspective 311

interest theory of Aquinas and oth


through ethical individualism we a
"natural duties not to harm others an
supererogatory acts of benevolen
sacrifice." 9 Supererogatory acts are n
of charity and goodwill. Thus conserv
the concern for the needy falls under
to do with rights. Through this distin
group responsibility for the needy. K
an organized community made up
fathom individual and community o
logic of supererogation and ethical ind
worldview that approximates Africa
Human rights ideas in international
from a Western natural rights pers
the existence of the needy's right
obligation to satisfy this right. The A
that goes beyond charity is just what
push the idea of economic rights be
tivists and human rights textbooks. W
ceptions seriously. Western social scie
sanctity of the liberal individualist pa
contemporary Western problems. F
to question the effect of individualism
as marriage and on the important s
care of the aged. In this regard non-W
the West.
Even more pressing is the fact that with increasing immigration from the
Third World to the Western world, Western political systems cannot in good
conscience expect that non-Western peoples will always simply shed their
traditional worldviews and take on the predominant worldview. In many
cases social legislation will have to take into account the worldview of im-
migrants with respect to important institutions such as family and marriage.
Along these lines it has been suggested that one of the problems that U.S.
society has with the "difficulties" of black family life in the United States is
white America's basic ignorance of the bases of African-American kinship
values in African traditional life."1 It can be expected that as the face of the
United States changes from simply being white, Indian, and black, to feature

8. Edward Allen Kent, "Taking Human Rights Seriously," in Rationality in Thought and Ac-
tion, ed. Martin Tammy and K.D. Irani (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986), 37.
9. Ibid., 38.
10. Ibid.
11. See Niara Sudarkasa, "African and Afro-American Family Structure: A Comparison,"
Black Scholar 11 (November/December 1980): 44.

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312 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 9

Hispanics and Asians, cross-cultural appreciation of


will become even more important. Figure 1 rep
thesize an African worldview in comparison wi

WESTERN LIBERALISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS

To understand liberal political philosophy it is necessary to understan


medieval Western conception of society that preceded the liberal er
medieval political thought the individual was seen basically in terms
complementarity with other individuals, that is, as part of society
associations were considered to be microcosmic forms of the divinel
stituted harmony of the universe.12 Individuals were simply part of socie
a holistic sense, ruled by the king and by God above all. Every indiv
made a contribution to the organization or community to which h
longed and society functioned based on these contributions. Equality
not required "any more than the working of the human body or of
universe itself requires equality of its parts."13 In a sense the idea of an
dividual identity separate from society did not imply a notion of opposi
between the parts and the whole.
The political philosophy of liberalism was largely a reaction to
medieval thought.14 It was a philosophical opposition to traditional autho
that was based on divine wisdom, religion, and the common law. The
of the Western concept of human rights lie in liberalism. The original li
theorists saw a direct connection between rights and human nature.1
cording to Hinchman, the writings of Hobbes and Locke inaugurated
intellectual and political tradition in which the individual as a political ac
was abstracted from the harmonious and holistic totality of medieval soc
The old order thought of rights and duties only in terms of local, nation
estate, or religious traditions. Rights, if they existed at all, existed only f
individual as a member of an established, ongoing community.16 Thu
lord had his rights, as did the peasant.17 Hobbes introduced the id
human rights as a conception of human nature. The "state of nature"
logical and rhetorical device upon which Hobbes built his poli
philosophy.'18 This state of nature was for Hobbes "an inference made fr

12. Gerald E. Frug, "The City as a Legal Concept," Harvard Law Review 93 (April 1
1086.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., 1087-90.
15. Lewis P. Hinchman, "The Origins of Human Rights: A Hegelian Perspective," Western
Political Quarterly 37 (March 1984): 8.
16. Ibid., 9.
17. Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1966), 466-467.
18. Hinchman, note 15 above, 10.

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1987 An African Perspective 313

the passions, chiefly the fear of violent d


to be the most 'natural' or fundamental of
Hobbes' desire was to give us an unde
like if we were divested of all our lear
cluding "family loyalty, patriotism, religi
quently override the more natural passion
is one in which man heeds his natural p
this state Hobbes sees man as possessing
his desire.
Locke similarly rejected medieval notio
nature incorporated strong suggestions th
less the "model for natural behavior, inclu
conclusion of agreements."21 Like Hobb
of all historical loyalties and beliefs, who
their security. This process of abstractio
"right of nature."22 Hobbes saw this right
his own power as he will himself, for th
that is to say, of his own life .... "23 Ho
"absence of external impediments to mloti
meant that there are no impediments to
(motions that are governed solely by th
right to "natural motions" meant that to
to give up their natural rights. The indivi
only if he would gain some advantage.25
Hobbes posited that although hum
wicked, human reason and necessity led
through which humans formally agreed to
divine ruler.26 Locke also refers to the aw
coexist. In Locke's scheme, however, th
brought individuals together to form a
pointed an individual from among the c
Locke, the ruler could govern as long as h
munity.27 Similarly Rousseau espoused a
which sovereignty continued to reside in

19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid., 12.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid., 12-13.
26. Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan (1651; reprint, London: Oxford University Press, 1909),
chaps. 12-15.
27. John Locke, Two Treatises of Civil Government Book II (London: Dent, 1953), 96-99.

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314 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 9

right of the ruler did not compromise the fundame


community members.28
Aspects of this theory of natural rights form
mainstream human rights scholarship. First, the
postulates the equality of all human beings. There is
A second postulate is the inalienability of rights. Th
the security of the individual and provides the post
fight intrusions on his rights by the state and by s
example, has an inalienable right to own and keep
rights theory postulated individualism. As mentione
is consumed by a desire for self-preservation in a sta
need for individual survival that leads to the social contract.
Perhaps it is the individualist postulate of natural rights theory that raises
the most suspicions about the Western view of human dignity and liberty.
For example, how do we deal with situations in which some people are
disadvantaged? How do we deal with those who cannot compete because
of physical or mental disabilities? With the introduction into the human
rights discussion of economic rights and the right to develop, it has become
imperative that Westerners seek to accommodate group rights concepts
within their hitherto liberal and individualistic human rights framework. It is
suggested here that Westerners can benefit from looking at other cultures
and specifically at how those cultures approach the issue of human dignity.

THE SPREAD OF LIBERALISM

From the revolutionary ideas of Hobbes and Locke a new Western wo


evolved. The seventeenth and eighteenth century produced the English Pe
tion of Rights (1627), the U.S. Declaration of Independence (1776), the
Constitution (1787), the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citi
(1789), and the U.S. Bill of Rights (1791). All these documents were based
the image of the autonomous man. A new age of popular sovereignty and
dividual rights had started. Thus the Declaration of Independence coul
that
all men are born equal . . . endowed . . . with certain inalienable
rights.., among these..,. life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; men are
born and remain free and equal in rights. The aim of every political association is
the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights and
liberty, the ownership of property, security and the right to resist oppression.

Autonomous man was possessed in nature with natural rights that were prior
to and supreme over the sovereignty of all associations of which he is part,
including the sovereign state.

28. Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract Book I (London: Dent, 1913), chaps. 6, 7.

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1987 An African Perspective 315

As should be expected, these ideolog


and eighteenth century were accompan
changes in Europe. The communal bon
dustrial capitalism and urbanization. U
made demands on government for po
rights became the legal vehicle for preve
In the United States, the settler menta
dividual initiative, and competition
autonomy.29
The evolution of liberalism undermin
held an intermediate position between
sovereignty of the State and the Sover
[became] the two central axioms from wh
would proceed, and whose relationship
all theoretical controversy."30 Frug has a
of intermediary institutions has had an e
U.S. cities.31 As Frug sees it, liberalism e
termediate groupings such as the mediev
porateness merely to entail "the sum
simultaneously, a 'fictional' person create
state."32 The original Germanic concep
organic entity that is not reducible to
poration as an association had a real ex
tion of the State.33 Liberal thinkers a
wholeness and isolated the individual as o
sovereign state but against all sub-state e
Through colonialism, Western conce
have found a place in many non-Weste
colonial period the political and legal sy
superimposed upon the traditional and
cesses of African peoples. In British West
indirect rule ensured that although certa
the customary manner, the English Com
authority. In other words, the African
Western due process of law in defense of
style court.
African legal education and educa
mainly in the liberal tradition. At the ti

29. Pollis and Schwab, note 2 above, 3.


30. Otto Friedrich von Gierke, Political Theories
Maitland (Cambridge: Cambridge University P
31. Frug, note 12 above.
32. Ibid., 1089.
33. Gierke, note 30 above, 162-165.

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316 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 9

African countries inherited liberal states w


Western individual rights and constitutional law
In December 1948, at a time when most o
south of the Sahara was still under colonial dom
dominated by the Western world adopted a Universal Declaration of
Human Rights at the United Nations. There is no doubt that the Declaration
was a product of Western liberal ideology. As Pollis and Schwab point out,
"the Declaration itself read like a political 'bill of rights,' and... that is
precisely how it was viewed during the drafting stage."34 It is usually argued
that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights together constitute an International Bill of Rights. If
these international norms constitute customary international law then they
bind people of all cultures.

LIBERALISM'S FUNDAMENTAL ASSUMPTIONS: WHERE IS CULTURE?

Theorists of the Frankfurt School of Social Theory have questioned


assumption that one's passions and desires are emphatically one's own.
other words, "[w]hat if one compulsively adapts to cultural patterns
ideas out of an irrational desire to conform?"36 Along the same line
Habermas draws a distinction between technical and political issues. To
extent that the issues prevailing in the political arena are technical
therefore beyond the faculties of the average citizen, individuals "may ten
to abandon their own critical faculties to the supposedly higher wisdom o
technocratic elite."37 Another source of criticism comes from modern
psychological thought which can envision a conflict-free and more human
society construct around careful measures of social control.A8
Hegel rejected the liberal theorists' classical idea of "man in the state of
nature."39 In Hegel's view Locke and Hobbes degraded the individual by
peeling away the layers of society and culture,

leaving aside everything contingent until, finally, one comes by analysis to the
abstraction called natural man.
If one thinks away everything which might even remotely be regarded as par-
ticular or evanescent, such as what pertains to particular mores, history, culture,

34. Pollis and Schwab, note 2 above, 5.


35. Hinchman, note 15 above, 13.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid., 14.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid., 16.

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1987 An African Perspective 317

or even the state, than [sic] all that remai


nature or else the pure abstraction of ma
left.40

Hegel was disturbed by the claim of the classical liberals that the true nature
of something so supremely complex as modern society should be sought in
the abstraction of the "natural man."41 This method implies that the
understanding of anything complex lies in reducing the complexity to its
simple elements and perhaps to its beginnings.42 In the words of Hinchman,

Hegel distinguishes between the characteristic Lockeian question, "What is the


origin of X" . . . and the question, "What is X?" What "X" is may in fact only come
to light when we take into account the developed and articulated form of"X," in-
cluding all the supposedly contingent elements of history, custom, the state, etc.,
which the state of nature approach peels away. In "taking apart" existing society,
studying its "parts," then reconstructing it, Hobbes and Locke have left something
out- not something accidental, but the very essence of man's social and political
relationships. For this reason their project of grounding human rights in man's
pre-political state appeared to Hegel fundamentally mistaken... Only if one
could somehow purge human memory of everything not included in Hobbes'
and Locke's state of nature, could one possibly re-condition men to think and act
as the liberal theorists say they do, for example, solely and always for the sake of
self-preservation .43

It is not my intention to do a full-blown analysis of Hegel's view of


human rights in this paper. However, there could not be a more urgent call
for seeing man as a cultural being. In this sense a cultural worldview may at
the very least be a more useful framework within which we can understand
human behavior and concepts of human dignity. Such a worldview that I
suggest is very African and may even have validity in the West.
Notwithstanding the claims of the natural rights advocates, philosophers
such as Hegel sought a correlation between rights claimed by one person
and the potential duties imposed on other persons.44 Hegel argued that it is
an indispensable precondition that rights and duties be correlative.45 For
Hobbes, man was motivated above all by a fear of violent death.46 Hegel,
however, depicted man's desiring consciousness as being "driven by the will
to find confirmation of its own identity and selfhood in experience."47 Even if

40. Ibid., quoting G.W.F. Hegel, "Glauben and Wissen," Janaer Schrifkn 1801-1807 (1970):
445.
41. Ibid., 17.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid., 19.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid., n. 17.
47. Ibid.

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318 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 9

man was originally in a pre-political condition,


replaced by a condition in which human be
other and recognize rights as correlative to
political "state of nature" man's struggle for se
crude desire to survive as an individual to a desire for clearer
self-awareness.48 The new "self" then depends on the relationship o
beings to one another.49 "We began with 'natural' individuals who c
relationship, but we end with a relationship which 'creates' o
'defines' the individuals, making each be what he is."so
I suggest that a more solid foundation for modern human righ
built on a conception of man in society rather than the Lockeian ab
of natural rights. While it is true that conceptualizing human
society may mean giving up the convenience of equality in n
necessary that we deal with society in real terms in order to effec
desire as an international community to understand and affect
human dignity and human rights. It is true, as Donnelly suggests,
natural rights tradition of individualism does make a contribut
should understand the "participation in the practice of rights enme
dividuals in a network of social relationships and social struct
autonomy of action that rights warrant and protect is autonomy w
network." 51
Some philosophers have argued for some kind of continuity
family relations and all social relations generally. For these philosop
social contract theory of society appears one sided because it
phasizes quasi-contractual exchange of self interest as the basic
of social relations. For these philosophers, there are "relationships w
more significant than and prior to the merely legal one."52 For exa
family community is characterized by non-reciprocated, non-c
dependence of children on parents. Betrand de Jouvenel was m
point when he wrote that "social contract theories are views of chi
who must have forgotten their own childhood."3 The philosoph
has also frowned on the fact that "our [Western] political theory a
society of tough-minded celibate males-no women, no fam
sexuality, no relationship other than those of the market."54 To re
situation Turner calls for the discovery of a whole world of critica
philosophy, which is "submerged as it is under a mass-market-min

48. Ibid., 20.


49. Ibid., 22.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid., 23.
52. Denys Turner, On the Philosophy of Karl Marx (Dublin: Scepter Books, 1968), 32.
53. Betrand de Jouvenel, The Pure Theory of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1963), 45.
54. Turner, note 52 above, 33.

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1987 An African Perspective 319

udice, in the analysis of the political si


fact still struggling with a complex array
vantage we have with a philosophy of i
tage of avoiding the difficult questions.
It is true that the history of liberalism
groups of individuals (women and black
ically been excluded from the full ben
rights. Through all this history, liberals
ualism. Thus legal emancipation and fu
States has failed to provide the equali
African-Americans that many naively ho
Thus it has become a relevant question
individualism provides an adequate th
movement and minorities in the United States.56 There is little doubt that to
effectuate the goals of equal opportunity (and the actual realization of this
opportunity) in the United States we have to recognize "the inescapably col-
lective nature of our society" and the "pressing need to develop adequate
collective political principles and theory."57 The problem, however, is that
the ideology of individualism makes the development of such theory very
difficult. To break the deadlock it should be helpful for Westerners to look to
other cultures in order to reestablish the fact that our rights as individuals
and as a society should eventually relate to our dignity as human beings. The
recognition of this fact would open the way for a theory of community as "a
complex and interdependent collectivity."58
In practical terms we are asking a cultural question when we pose the
question: "What is the basic unit of society?" The avowed social contract
theorists will say it is the individual. Aristotle and like minded philosophers
will answer that it is the family. An African philosopher may answer that it is
the extended family. As Turner points out

[t]here is at stake a basic clash of styles of thoughts, the one liberal and in-
dividualist the other "communitarian" and "holist." The one sees the individual,
and his freedom, his interest and his projects at the center of the field, society and
social relationships as marginal to the hard irreducible core of his individuality,
the other starts with the social relationships themselves and sees the individual as
a function of them, regards the individual not as an independent being related
only externally to others, but as a being whose whole nature is constituted by the
character of the social relations in which he stands."9

55. Ibid.
56. See, e.g., Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, "Women's Rights, Affirmative Action, and the Myth
of Individualism," The George Washington Law Review 54 (January and March 1986):
338-374.
57. Ibid., 340.
58. Ibid.
59. Turner, note 52 above, 36.

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320 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 9

Modern African society as analyzed and asse


scholars and activists clearly exhibits this clash of
African societies are communitarian. It is only
munities for what they are that we can understand
dignity and further enhance or even modify the

AFRICAN CULTURE: RIGHTS AND ENTITLEMENT


WITHIN A COMMUNITY

For the African, a philosophy of existence can be summed up as:


because we are, and because we are therefore I am."60 A comparis
African and Western social organization clearly reveals the cohesive
African society and the importance of kinship to the African lif
Whereas Westerners are able to carry out family life in the form
nuclear family and often in isolation from other kin, Africans do not ha
concept of a nuclear family and operate within a broader arena of t
tended family.61
Within the organization of African social life one can discern v
organizing principles. As a people, Africans emphasize groupne
sameness, and commonality. Rather than the survival of the fittest and
trol over nature, the African worldview is tempered with the general g
principle of the survival of the entire community and a sense of cooper
interdependence, and collective responsibility.
The extended family unit, like family units in nearly all societies, a
each family member a social role that permits the family to opera
reproductive, economic, and socialization unit.62 These roles of ki
however, are defined differently than in Western families and the beh
of kin toward one another is different than that which pertains in the
In many African societies, for example, there is no distinction bet
father and an uncle, or a brother and a cousin. Among the Akans of
the English word "aunt" has no equivalent. For the Akan all aunts
mothers-i.e., older mothers and younger mothers. Likewise there
equivalence for the English word "cousin" in the Akan language. A cousi
simply a brother or a sister. The differences that one finds in responsi
toward different kin people usually revolve around whether the par
society is matrilineal or patrilineal.
These kinship terminologies, that is, the way relatives are name
related to the ideals and expected behavioral patterns and norms

60. John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (New York: Doubleday, 1970),
61. Herbert J. Foster, "African Patterns in the Afro-American Family," Journal of Black S
14 (December 1983): 210.
62. Ibid., 211.

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1987 An African Perspective 321

govern family members. The kinship


tionalizes the family member's social role
which each kinship member customari
kinship member has toward his kin." Vie
kinship member is the duty of the other
member is the right of another.63
Sudarkasa recently remarked that "[i]f
ogists should have learned from their stud
and complex family groupings do not pre
they present to Europeans."64 Given the
to Africans, it is imperative that we seek
reality rather than attempt to obscur
analyses that seek to superimpose Western-derived individualistic
paradigms.
The cohesion of the African family is derived in a large measure from the
existence of explicit rules of appropriate behavior. As a family member,
therefore, the African is made to "suffer" what will be considered as inconve-
niences by the Westerner but at the same time the African holds an entitle-
ment to visit the same on his kinsman. Sudarkasa has organized the com-
plexity of rights and duties around four underlying principles: respect,
restraint, responsibility, and reciprocity.6s
"Respect is the cardinal guiding principle for behavior within the family
and in the society at large."66 Although African society is communal, it is
hierarchical. Respect governs the behavior of family members toward the
elders in the family. It has been said that the African child learns to respect
his elders even before he learns to speak. In Akan society anyone older than
you (even if by a day) should command your respect. This respect is
manifested in greetings, bows, curtsies, and other gestures that signal
recognition of seniority. As one grows up in the society, therefore, one ac-
quires seniority rights and moves up in the hierarchy of the community.
Seniority rights bear no relation to one's other attributes. These rights are
strictly guaranteed. Ideally every member of the family with the exception of
the very young enjoys some seniority rights.
Restraint is the principle that makes communalism within the family and
within the wider society possible. This simply means that a person does not
have complete freedom. Individual rights must always be balanced against
the requirements of the group. The principle of restraint becomes evident in
the differing patterns of communication. It is also evident in the sacrifices ex-
pected of parents in order to provide for their children and sacrifices ex-

63. Ibid.
64. Sudarkasa, note 11 above, 44.
65. Ibid., 50.
66. Ibid.

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322 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol.9

pected of grown children in order to provide for


rights, the principle of restraint requires that fam
in terms of their own rights and always consid
group as a whole.67
Responsibility is a much broader concept f
Western families, given their larger size. For the
work of security, but it also imposes the burden
Reciprocity of generosity is expected in Afr
that acts of generosity among kinsfolk will be
long run. Sometimes, obligations of one generatio
the next generation.69
For the African, therefore, entitlements and o
basis of the kinship system. African observers ar
the hullabaloo over child care and the care of
lems. In African societies child care is a communa
can always count on the entire community for su
firm are guaranteed help and support within t
the Akans, a destitute family member is seen as a
ily, and family members bear the responsibility
disadvantaged through sharing.
In a society like the Akan, the pursuit of hum
with vindicating the right of any individual again
tion of family seeks a vindication of the commun
point is not the individual but the whole group in
the dead.
Writing on political rights in traditional African society, Wai argued that
African political systems were marked by checks and balances, relationships
that ensured that rulers did not become dictatorial.70 Thus among the Akan
one finds that the traditional political authority structure still engulfs family
heads who have a consultative relationship with the chief. Traditionally, just
as every member of the extended family had a distinct role to play as a
member of the family, every extended family as a whole performed a given
state function within the traditional political structure. The search for ap-
pointees to specific state offices took places within specific extended
families.71
Among the Akan there is a hierarchical political structure comprising an
intricate network of chiefs and subchiefs, linguists, state craftsmen, state
musicians, and warriors. Thus every individual in the system is predeter-

67. Ibid.
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid.
70. Wai, note 1 above, 116.
71. See, e.g., Joseph B. Danquah, Akan Laws and Customs (London: Routledge, 1928), 182.

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1987 An African Perspective 323

mined to play a role in the total functi


bears its own privileges. Given the
one's role in this network without com
who may belong to another exten
"higher" spot in the hierarchy. In effe
in the functioning of society (for exam
to fall into a hierarchy to assure th
society.72
It should be pointed out that many of these traditional roles discussed
above were in fact purely ceremonial or sometimes "emergency" roles. In
everyday life people went about their business mainly within their extended
families. They lived as farmers, fishermen, or craftsmen, catering to the
needs of their families.
An important difference between African and Western cultures is that of
the ownership of land. While private ownership of land is considered an in-
alienable right within Western society, land in African society is communally
held.73 For the human rights scholar, guaranteed access to communal land
and the overall spirit of communication should have significance. Through
the communal system one is guaranteed social security and at least
minimum economic rights.
African communalism is more than a mere lifestyle. It is a worldview. It
may indeed be an exaggeration to claim that the individual in African society
is completely invisible within the clan or kin. The African jurist, Elias, pointed
out that "[a]nyone who cares to look into the actual social relations between
the individuals who make up the group-whether this is family, clan or
tribe-will realize soon enough that disputes do take place in all manner of
situations."74 The point is that problems revolving around individual
disagreements and preferences are present but these disputes are resolved
not on the basis of a worldview that posits individual autonomy. The African
worldview places the individual within a continuum of the dead, the living,
and the yet unborn.75 It is a worldview of group solidarity and collective
responsibility. In effect, in the same way that people in other cultures are
brought up to assert their independence from their community, the average
African's worldview is one that places the individual within his community.
This worldview is for all intents and purposes as valid as the European
theories of individualism and the social contract.

72. For example, traditional Ashanti warfare strategy classified extended families into the ad-
vance party, the rear guard, and the left and right flanks. Each division had its chief, sub-
chiefs and commoners.
73. Taslim Olawale Elias, The Nature of African Customary Law (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1956), 83.
74. Ibid., 82.
75. Mbiti, note 60 above.

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324 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 9

The questions that we should seek to answer a


to "modernize" to become individuals in the Western sense and whether the
modern liberal state with its Western traditions should be allowed to break
up African traditional systems.
In other words, is it possible to enhance human dignity within the
worldview of African culture without resorting to the unbridled in-
dividualism of the West? The African worldview is not grounded in self-
interest but in social learning and collective survival. In the Western world,
however, the theories that have been advanced are those that ground all
human motivation on self-interest. This trend is perhaps best illustrated in
the psychological literature and in the practice of psychoanalysis. Freudian
psychology teaches that everything we do ultimately serves our need to rid
ourselves of unpleasant external stimulation and to exploit whatever we can
use outside ourselves to satisfy our internal needs.76 In a Freudian sense, life
revolves around the individual's biological needs. Restraints upon the chan-
neling of all the individual's energy to self-satisfaction are seen as being fun-
damentally at odds with the individual's nature. Thus Neo-Freudians have
been said to approach "the individual psyche a little like the way free market
conservatives view the economy."77 In other words, maximum
psychological health is attainable only when "we just let everybody do their
own thing. .. . ." 78 The modern Western psychologist sees Rousseau's noble
savage and Locke's man in nature, and approvingly seeks to return in-
dividuals back to their romantic state in therapy. Maslow and Rogers could
therefore conclude that a process of self-actualization will inevitably lead to
the decline of restraining institutions such as government, the church, the
school and marriage.79 It may in fact be argued that in the framework of
mainstream modern Western psychology the African communal spirit can
be seen to produce neurosis.
Some psychologists have questioned the basis of these egocentric
Freudian assumptions. One wonders whether these assumptions have not
indeed become ideological to the extent of making psychologists concoct
"their own epicycle to save their egocentric theory."80 A minority of
psychologists, who should have little difficulty appreciating African com-
munal life, do see a social basis of behavior and an innate capacity for we-
thinking that resides in the human species, alongside all other tendencies.8'
Wallach and Wallach posed the question succinctly: "Is it not possible, even

76. Michael Wallach and Lise Wallach, "How Psychology Sanctions the Cult of Self," The
Washington Monthly 16 (February 1985): 49.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid., 50.
80. Ibid., 51.
81. Ibid., 50.

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1987 An African Perspective 325

likely, that evolution has equipped us


well as in a self-centered fashion?"82
Throughout his life the African expresses his humanity in terms of his
society. This is not necessarily to say that the African self flows with an
overabundance of altruism. As mentioned earlier, the evidence is that
African communal structures exhibit a strong element of reciprocity, and
that a family responsibility may in fact be passed over from one generation to
another. I do not argue here that self-centeredness is an entirely European or
Western trait. My contention is that such self-centeredness is countered in
African society by a deep and lasting socialization towards we-thinking
resulting in a conception of the self that is unlike the Western conception.
The psychology of such a worldview would be essentially different from a
worldview that emphasizes and encourages individuality, uniqueness, dif-
ferences, competition, and independence. Similarly it can be expected that
the conception of human dignity will be different.

JUDGING AFRICA: THE ETHNOCENTRIC DIFFICULTY

In his very reflective paper, Pannikkar observed that "[n]o culture, tradition,
ideology, or religion can today speak for the whole of humankind, let alone
solve its problem. Dialogues and intercourse leading to a mutual fecunda-
tion are necessary." 83 On the one hand, Pollis and Schwab have argued that
"it is evident that in most States in the world, human rights as defined in the
West are rejected or, more accurately are meaningless."84 Donnelly
disagreed with Pollis and Schwab and argued that these claims by Pollis and
Schwab are "strong claims" and "that for the most part they are not
justified." 85 While plainly admitting that the historical roots of human rights
are Western, Donnelly forcefully advanced the view that the concept has
universal application. He suggested "that for most of the goals of the
developing countries, as defined by these countries themselves, [Western]
human rights are as effective or more effective then either traditional ap-
proaches or modern non-human rights strategies."86 Speaking of the
possibilities for an African communitarian model, Howard argued as Don-
nelly did for the rejected of "this model of rural Africa." In Howard's view, if
we base human rights policy on this model we shall be ignoring the changes
which have occurred and are still occurring in the way Africans live.87

82. Ibid., 51.


83. Pannikkar, note 3 above, 75.
84. Pollis and Schwab, note 2 above, 13.
85. Donnelly, note 1 above, 313.
86. Ibid., 314.
87. Howard, note 6 above.

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326 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 9

Howard was clearly suspicious of the political el


use these "[c]onstant references to comm
systematic violations of human rights in the in
Donnelly and Howard are representative o
wisdom of their cultural heritage misunderstan
lem. To them the issue is how to make Africans "Westernize" faster and
peacefully. They remind an African nationalist like this author of the prover-
bial Western expert in Africa who quickly comes up with a solution that is
essentially a toned down variation of the model he applied first in Iowa, then
in Mexico, and lately in Pakistan. I am indeed reminded of the African
animist in the Gold Coast, who after accepting the missionary's Christianity
and becoming a preacher was not allowed by the Christian missionary to oc-
cupy the Christian pulpit in African garments. Such garments were un-
Christian. The European missionary did not find African religion redeeming.
But converting to Christianity alone was not enough. To worship God the
African had to dress in the image of the European. In fact to the missionary,
Western clothes were synonymous with Christianity and indeed morality
The lesson was that you could not be a proud Kente-wearing African and
satisfy the moral demands of Christianity. Similarly there may be African no-
tions of human dignity, but since Africans are in the process of joining the
modern (Western) world these notions are not appropriate and should be
discarded. This kind of Western chauvinism reminded Pannikkar of human
rights becoming "like the way technology is often introduced in many parts
of the world: it is imported to solve the problems that is has itself created." 89
The problem of human rights abuses that Professor Howard seeks to ad-
dress may be in the dysfunction that plagues the imposition of Western
liberalism over communal African lifestyle. In other words, we may be see-
ing these abuses because we are attempting too hard to make Westerners
out of Africans. This is essentially Howard's argument. As for the African
scholars who have mastered the litany of Western human rights and seek to
apply the same to Africa in their quest to modernize the continent, I will only
direct their attention to the fact that the individualistic assumptions of the
Western human rights concept, like all their Western and non-Western
philosophical concepts, are still being debated. Coming from a society in
which the worldview emphasizes commonality rather than individuality we
may have something to contribute to the international fecundation of con-
cepts about human rights and human dignity. Nobles has insightfully
characterized the difficulty of the African social scientist who operates from
the alien (Western) framework:

88. Rhoda Howard, "Evaluating Human Rights in Africa: Some Problems of Implicit Com-
parisons," Human Rights Quarterly 6 (May 1984): 175.
89. Pannikkar, note 3 above, 90.

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1987 An African Perspective 327

The worldview, normative assumptions, an


paradigm is based, must, like the science
culture and cultural substance of the peop
with the cultural definition of the pheno
and/or evaluate that phenomena become essentially conceptually
incarcerated.90

African social scientists, politicians, human rights scholars, activists, and


lawyers are seriously handicapped by this incarceration through their
Western training and have to liberate themselves.

TOWARD A MUTUAL LEARNING EXPERIENCE

To facilitate cross-cultural discussion and understanding of the wa


which different societies guarantee the dignity of their members Pannik
calls on human rights scholars to abandon conceptualizations that ha
their starting point a view that Western culture is indisputably superior w
it comes to human rights.91 The question is how different cultures s
needs that we have come to identify at the international level as nece
for the nurturing and maturity of human dignity. Simply put, Western
non-Western scholars should seek to overcome their gaping We
chauvinism and help admit other worldviews into the international
discourse.
Close to 80 percent of Africans still live in the rural areas on the African
continent. For these people the communal lifestyle with its responsibilities
and entitlements has great meaning and value. For the African who lives in
the relatively Westernized African city it is far from true that the worldview is
now Western. Research indicates that the communal spirit is alive and
thriving in the urban areas.92 For example, my research in Ghana indicates
that dependency loads even among the poorest in the informal sector of the
urban economy in Accra are very high. Despite the low level of well-being
within this sector, kinsmen feel the obligation to meet their kinship duties
and to recruit and support those who are less fortunate both in the urban
area and in the rural areas.93

90. Na'im Akbar, "Africentric Social Sciences for Human Liberation," Journal of Black Studies
14 (June 1984): 396, quoting W. Nobels, "African Consciousness and Liberation
Struggles: Implications for the Development and Construction of Scientific Paradigms,"
presented at Fanon Research and Development Conference, Port of Spain, Trinidad,
1978.
91. Pannikkar, note 3 above, 77.
92. Kenneth Little, West African Urbanization: A Study of Voluntary Associations in Social
Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965).
93. Josiah A.M. Cobbah, "The Role of the Informal Sector in National Development and In-
tegration Processes" (Ph.D. diss, University of Cincinnati, 1985), 92-96.

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328 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol.9

The worldview that predominates Afr


approach to human dignity that is not only di
approach but may indeed serve to improve the
discussion at the international level. It can b
the paper has concentrated broadly on resp
within African kinship systems, it is rathe
perpetrated by African dictator regimes on th
concern among human rights activists.94 In
out that this paper's approach is warranted
post-independence liberal state in Africa has n
commodate the cultural nuances of Africans. Af
been everything but African. Fundamentally
right-individual rights approach, implicitly
political transformation of Africans into Eu
liberal state from the colonial past, African co
international (Westernized) community to the
The approach taken in this paper is based
Africans may have to accept the political bo
their colonial masters, they do not have to acc
of Western liberalism.
For example, from the perspective of Western democracies the one-
party State in Africa has been condemned as being authoritarian and
undemocratic. From the same perspective Western scholars and Western-
ized scholars are increasingly analyzing the human rights abuses of the
African woman,95 the African child, and the list goes on. There is no doubt
that within African societies injustices of many types exist and human rights
activists, both African and non-African, should be concerned about these in-
justices. The question, however, remains as to how these injustices should
be corrected.
It is my contention that to correct injustices within different cultural
systems of the world it is not necessary to turn all people into Westerners.
Western liberalism with its prescription of human rights has had a worth-
while effect not only on Westerners but on many peoples of this world. It is,
however, by no means the only rational way of living human life. There may
indeed be a universal human nature, but as Pannikkar rightly pointed out:
"Man's self-understanding, belongs equally to this human nature. Thus to
single out one particular interpretation of it may be valid, but it is not uni-
versal and may not apply to the entirety of human nature."'96 Instead of im-
posing the Western philosophy of human rights on all cultures one's effort
should be directed at searching out homeomorphic equivalents in different

94. Ojo and Sessay, note 5 above, 92-93.


95. Howard, note 6 above, chap. 6.
96. Pannikkar, note 3 above, 89-90.

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1987 An African Perspective 329

cultures."97 In other words, we should


not the same as equivalence and striv
equivalence in different cultures."98 Unti

the undoubtedly positive concept of Huma


horse, surreptitiously introduced into other
obliged to accept those way of living, th
Rights is the proper solution in cases of con

To begin the hermenetic understand


truly international human rights norms i
earnest to examine comparatively, sp
specific values, and specific structural
systems. When this is done the genera
only be more convincing but will also be
both inside and outside cultures. Such an
experience for both Westerners and n
the study of African-American life: "So
highly abstract levels, we make it possib
crete historical and sociological studies
continue to misinterpret or misrepres
observation applies with equal force to A
that matter to all who seek universal hum
not dismantle all that they inherited
keeping the colonial political bound
whatever goes on within those bou
acceptable.

CONCLUSION: THE POSSIBILITIES FOR


CROSS-CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING

The dialogue and intercourse that will lead to the mutual fecundat
human rights have indeed begun. Cultural reactivist viewpoints are
currency in the human rights discussion. The problem, however, is tha
discussion is still Western and the African voices are still those of the
Western educated political and academic elites who, like Donnelly,
acknowledge the relativity of concepts but are trapped in their unquestion-
ing acceptance of the Western concept in the name of modernization and
images of a global (Western) village. For example, Donelly recently wrote a
paper in which he held onto his view that human rights are Western, but at

97. Ibid., 77-78.


98. Ibid., 78.
99. Ibid., 90 (emphasis added).
100. Sudarkasa, note 11 above, 57-58.

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330 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 9

the same time he argued that all cultures should a


He then posited a framework within which there
relativism" which would recognize a comprehe
universal human rights and allow only relatively ra
variations and exceptions.1'1 This sounds fine exce
appear willing to give up a priori his Western cult
to universalize his own narrow definition of huma
we are being told cultural relativism is all right, b
only for the benefit of the non-Western cultures.
feels Westerners have anything to gain in subje
cepts to the intercultural test of cultural relativity
At a time when the debate over economic rights

Figure 1. Comparative World-View Schematic

EUROPEAN WORLD-VIEW AFRICAN WORLD-VIEW

Individuality P h a lGroupness
Uniqueness Psycho-Behavioral
Moda lities Sameness
Differences Modalities Commonality

Competition Cooperation
Individual Rights Values and Customs Collective
Separateness and Responsibility
Independence Cooperateness and
Interdependence

Survival of the Fittest rSurvival of the Tribe


Ethos

Control over Nature One with Nature

I Experimental Communality I Experimenta


L---------

Taken from Wade W. Nobles, "Exte


Journal of Black Psychology 2 (Febr

101. Donnelly, "Cultural Relativism


(November 1984): 401.

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1987 An African Perspective 331

the Africentric view of society may i


ment of the duties that a moral societ
I submit that an Africentric appro
economic rights seriously. Ultimately
community of cultures is for all peop
being heard in the human rights di
that Africans do not espouse a philoso
from a natural rights and individualis
within a communal structure wher
from his or her transcendental role
world, we can expect that some spe
change. It can be shown, however, tha
main and that these values should be admitted into the international debate
on human rights. The debate I believe should be on whether these cultural
values provide human beings with human dignity. We should pose the
problem in this light, rather than assuming an inevitable progression of non-
Westerners toward Western lifestyles. If we do this then we can really begin
to formulate authentic international human rights norms.

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