In our world today, western culture has dominated our core values and culture, people now prefer and mimic western culture and lifestyle neglecting our cultural norms and heritage which is not supposed to be so.
It is necessary to embrace our traditions and customs, there are our identity and they make us unique. I just wish everyone could come to an understanding that our cultural heritage are what make us special.
Our former President Goodluck Jonathan once said “Our diversity is our strength and our unity is power”, let’s celebrate our differences rather than trying to blend in or conform to a certain standard, let’s embrace our diversity and be united as one living no room for tribalism and discrimination.
Rather than letting our cultural norms to die off or to be replaced by western lifestyle I feel there is a need to pass on these norms to our children and generations to come.
CULTURAL NORMS THAT SHOULD BE PASSED DOWN FROM GENERATIONS TO GENERATIONS:
1.LANGUAGE AND DIALECT: our language are our identity, nowadays most people do not know how to speak their native languages fluently, the prefer to speak and learn English language much more than their mother tongue, in most schools English language is being taught and made compulsory but our native language is not considered as being important. The home is the first school of a child, our parents should teach children how to speak their dialect fluently.
2.RESPECT FOR ELDERS : this is also a vital norm that should be passed on to younger generations, in some cultures, younger people bow or prostrate on the ground to greet their elders, this is indeed a sign of respect to elders that should be imbibed and practiced.
3.TRADITIONAL FOOD: this is another aspect of our cultural heritage that should be learnt and passed on to the next generations, we could learn not only the food from our culture but from other cultures, along with the history behind each dish.
4.STORY TELLING: folktales are great stories we could learn a lot from. I grew to listen to my grandmother tell us stories of our ancestors, folktales, traditional songs etc , I enjoyed those days, this is also another means of passing down our cultural heritage to our children and generations to come.
5.TRADITIONAL ATTIRE: our traditional attire is one of the ways we could maintain and preserve our culture, they represent our identity and should be passed down to younger generations.
Nigeria is rich culturally and have diverse cultures, there are about 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria and three major ethnic groups which are the : Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba. The diverse ethnic groups are what makes us unique. If we could accept and tolerate other cultures the world would be a better place.
Let’s embrace our differences and grow as one. We are blessed with unique cultures, let us try to pass on these cultures to our children and ones unborn, together we all can grow stronger and be united as one.
Thank you for reading.
This post is in response to the July inleo prompt