A Poem on African Values with Critical Analyses

The foreign language, dressing, education, politics, medicine, eating, etc. have overthrown African ways of life. Many things about Africa today are dictated by the white. It is serious! The poem has been worked on for researchers and those who want to learn more about appreciating and analyzing the power.

Our Heritage, Our Pride

Our Heritage, Our Pride

Our heritage, our pride

Our heritage, our unity

Our heritage, our oneness

Our heritage, our love

Our heritage, our respect

Our heritage, our moral

Our heritage, virtue

Why do we forget our glory?

Why do we disown our source?

Why do we abuse our origin?

Why do we disrespect our fount?

Why do we dishonor our roots?

Why are we playing with cobras tall?

Why not leave a sleeping dog to lie?

Our language is no longer modern

Our dressing is no longer stylist

Our eating mode is no more fashionable

Our education tech is no longer advanced

Our medicine is no longer scientific

We retain alien language; we promote foul language

We retain strange dressing; we promote naked dressing

We retain foreign eating mode; we promote stupidity

We retain unfamiliar technology; we promote fraudulence

We retain distant politics; we promote corruption

We retain unknown medical; we promote chronic diseases

Is it not the time to remember our starting point?

Is it not the time to think of our history?

Is it not the time to ponder on our spring?

Is it not the time to go back to our birthplace?

Africa’s beauty, Africa’s love, Africa’s peace

Our pride!

Poet: Deola Adelakun

The Brief of the Poem

The poet expresses his dissatisfaction with how African people imbibe and retail strange culture and devalues our heritage. Culture is a way of life. Culture explains people and backgrounds. And a man cannot grow beyond the society he/she is brought into.

The poet promotes and appreciates our source and encourages African people to embrace our heritage. He has values for his heritage and he is discouraged by how people abandon their source and strictly imbibe alien culture.

We have disowned our fount, forgotten our source, disrespected our roots, and dishonored our glory. The poet says that the alien culture we imbibe is destroying because it has affected many aspects of the African ways of life.

The foreign language, dressing, education, politics, medicine, eating, etc. have overthrown African ways of life. Many things about Africa today are dictated by the white. It is serious!

The poet declares that as we retail unfamiliar culture; we promote foul language, naked dressings, stupidity, fraudulence, corruption, and chronic diseases. Many disasters that occur in Africa are a result of the culture we imbibe. Series of cultures and customs we don’t know how they are configured.

The poet encourages African people that we have to embrace our culture in Africa and promote it because African culture is our birthplace and pride. Our culture almost dies. If care is not taken, we are still coming to experience the second colonization.

Theme

Some cogent themes have been identified in this poem. Those thematic preoccupations have explained the beauty, the attitude of African people towards African culture, the negative effect of retaining the alien culture, and our calling to uphold African culture.

Appreciation of African culture

The poet recognizes the fact that culture is a way of life and one should uphold one’s culture. That is why the poet calls the attention of African people who have lost their heritage to come back to their origin. It is because there is beauty in our culture.

The values of our heritage

The value of our heritage is peace, unity, oneness, love, respect, moral activity and virtue. No African culture allows segregation, violence, disrespect, immoral and bad character. The bad experience we had presently is a result of the alien distant culture we imbibed. It is the time to place value on our culture.

Respect your tradition

Many of us have disrespected our traditions. This caused us harm. We have abused and disowned our roots and source. Every good thing we were provided has been away, and we opt for a culture we don’t know. African people don’t have respect for our dressing, language, eating styles, education, policies, medical,  and so on.

Calling for upholding of our culture

The poet calls all African people to uphold their culture again. If we lose our culture we have all. If we disregard our culture, we have disregarded all. The foreign culture we retain does not pay us. It is unfamiliar to us. The culture is unknown and strange to African people because it is not our heritage.

Language 

Stanzas and lines

The poem has five rhyming stanzas in which the first and second stanzas are septet, and they both have seven lines each. The third, fourth and fifth stanzas are sextet, and each of them has six lines. The first stanza explains the beauty of African culture while the second and third stanzas point to the attitude of African culture. The fourth stanza exposes the negative effect of retaining foreign culture while the last stanza calls us back to our source, African culture.

Rhythm

The poem has a good arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables that result in a metrical movement that is determined between sounds and events.

Symbolism

The poet uses the word “Heritage” to symbolize pride, unity, oneness, love, respect, morality, and virtue.

Mood/Tone

The poet feels concerned about the African culture. He is eagerly expecting the African people to appreciate and respect their culture.

Figures of Speech

Repetition 

The poet makes use of repetitive words to emphasize the importance of his message. “Our heritage” throughout stanza one, “Our” throughout stanza one and stanza three; “Why” throughout stanza two, “Do” in the first five lines of stanza two, and, “We” in the first five lines of stanza two. “Our” throughout stanza three, “We” throughout stanza four, “Retain” throughout stanza three; “Is it not the time” in the first four lines of stanza five.

Alliteration

The poet uses some alliteration, such as “Is it not the time to think”, and “t” and alliterates in the first line of stanza five.

Rhetorical question

The poet makes use of rhetorical questions, such as “Why do we…?” throughout the second stanza and “Is it not the time…? throughout the four lines of the last stanza.

Metaphor

The poet uses some without using comparative words. The poet communicates metaphorically to the readers of the poem.

Proverbial expressions

The poet makes use of some proverbs, such as “Playing with a cobra’s tail” and “A sleeping dog to lie”.

Practice Questions

1. Describe seven things our heritage symbolizes.

2. Comment on the use of rhetorical questions in the poem.

3. List six types of our heritage we don’t reckon with again.

4. Explain the remote cultures we retain and their consequences

5. Discuss the mode/tone of the poet as portrayed in the poem.

6. Explicate how the use of repetitions contributes to the development of the poem.