History of Africa - No Longer at Ease

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or good night, depending on when you read this blog and work on your lesson planning.  Today, I am working through the History of Africa series.  This episode is called No Longer at Ease and the run time for this episode is 45:12.

Zeinab Badawi continues her exploration of the history of Africa.  This time, Zeinab explores the lives of Africans before the arrival of Europeans.  She goes to Kenya and sees traditional religious practices in Kenya.  Then she meets with a traditional medicine practitioner in Congo.  In Uganda, she sees traditional justice in action while community elders hear a marriage dispute.  She interviews a local king in Zambia.  This episode is a run-up to the episode on slavery and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

History is not only about events but it’s about culture.  Zeinab sees similarities between cultures but does not try to generalize the whole continent.  This exploration begins in Uganda at a street festival.  Before the arrival of Europeans, Africans lived in small communities under a chief or lived in a kingdom and were subjects of a king.  They were farmers.  Sometimes they worked for their chiefs.  Zeinab visits a community in Zambia.  It has over one hundred inhabitants and she sees how life revolves around the family and the community.  The people are from the Tonga People and she learns about the Tonga people.  The Tonga people raise cattle and work crafts to sell.  These communities were the bedrock of African society.

Zeinab interviews a research scientist about these communities.  James Nyaga was the scientist and he talks about how these communities were organized.  He talks about the clear hierarchy of these communities and how governance was set up.  There was no formal education, but generation after generation were instructed by their parents and grandparents.  The role of the chief was important and it continues today.  Zambia includes this tradition in its government.  The parliament has a house of chiefs and they meet once a month.  Zeinab meets and interviews one of these chiefs.

Chief Ignatius Ngabwe talks about the role of chiefs in modern society.  They continue the tradition of looking after the people and the natural resources.  They are the government in the area.  The people looked after the people.  There were no orphans, there were no widows, and everyone was looked after.  She then tours a museum on African culture.  She learns about the matrilineal societies in Africa.  Women had power in these societies. 

This leads to a short discussion on polygamy.  It is a complex topic to explore.  In some places, the women made the rules and would have proposed to the woman on behalf of the husband.  Additional polygamy was about population and the men needed lots of wives to grow food.  It was widely practiced across Africa.  It was a rather funny section with lots of laughter.

Zeinab talks about how Africans lived peacefully in cooperation with each other.  There would have been conflicts but they were resolved amicably through fines and mediation.  There was also punishment and sanctions.  Marriage was used to help cement relationships, and I cannot help but think of how the Hapsburg married off their children to keep the peace in Europe in this section.  Blood brotherhood and friendships were also used to keep the peace.

In light of this discussion, Zeinab goes to a local village to take in the administration of justice.  There is a marriage dispute that is being two individuals.  It is overseen by a chairman of the elders.  This was a rather interesting look at how disputes were settled.  To continue to follow Zeinab’s travels, continue to watch this episode to further the journey.

Hey, this episode was divided up into smaller chapters to allow for easy breakdown and viewing.  It was too bad that this was a consistent exercise across all episodes.  This series continues to be fascinating.  The information is something you never really hear about so it is very interesting and Zeinab continues to knock her narration out of the park.  With the size of Africa, I feel like this series should have had longer episodes.  I would have this on my list for a history class and a social history class.