The world Health Organization defines good health as a state of complete physical, social and mental well being - not necessarily absence of diseases. Culture on the other hand is defined in the Encyclopedia Britannica as the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief and behaviour. Culture, thus defined, consists of language, ideas, beliefs, customs, taboos, codes, institutions, tools, techniques, work of art, rituals, ceremonies and other related components.
The purpose of this paper, it must be stressed, is not to criticize any religion, or any culture for that matter but to highlight the effects of some aspects of our culture on our environment and consequently on our health both positively and negatively.
It will be pertinent to know what the present level of our appreciation of the future is and the general attitude of the people towards it. This situation is best described by a common and wise saying that the man who knows nothing is confident in everything. In most African cultures, the responsibility for the future is not often the concern of the present generation or at most left in the hands of the gods. Some believe that the future is very far away to bother them more so when little breath is spared in taking care of the present. Across all the religions, it is very common to hear that God or the gods will provide for tomorrow. We are thus over confident, believing that the future must be good without making any effort to make our wish come true. This wish might have become a reality if the unnatural human activities had not interfered so much with mother nature's auto-regulatory ways.
The following illustration demonstrates the gulf of difference in preparing for the future by two different peoples from different locations on the earth: Kovacs had been sitting by the Danube river in Hungary the whole day. He is a veteran angler with more than thirty years experience. This particular day the fishes refused to swallow his bait and he was just about to give up when his sinker nose-dived into the water. His happiness at getting a catch was short-lived when he realized that the fish was loaded with eggs. This means returning the fish into the river. This he did reluctantly but gladly with the understanding that there will be fish for his children and grand-children in future. The other episode happened along Ibadan-Ife road. Ogunsola is a hunter, so were his forefathers. This particular hunting day was a very hot one. It did not help matters that all the bushes around had been burnt leaving no shade under which to hide his burning forehead from the scorching sun. The river from which he normally drank had almost dried up with the surface covered with floating dead fishes apparently caused by a greedy fisherman who had applied insecticide to maximize his catch thereby wiping out the entire future fish supply to the community.
One would be tempted to ask why this gulf of difference in the attitude towards the future in both cases. One major thing that plays a key role is EDUCATION. This is confirmed by that saying: If you are planning for today, feed your children, if you are planning for tomorrow, plant trees and if you are planning for a life time, i.e. the future, educate your children. The effect of our culture and our belief on our environment and health could be better and more easily explained and positive changes influenced, if need be, if educational foundation is properly and solidly laid. That ignorance breeds suspicion is best illustrated by the old story of an environmental sanitation officer whose duty it was to ensure that the community drinks pure and uncontaminated water. In the course of his duty he found the larvae of insects inside the water pot of one of the residents. Knowing that this water is unfit for consumption, he poured the water away. He was instantly declared an enemy by this resident who saw him as an intruder and impostor. The sanitation officer was only lucky to escape with machete cuts. It is therefore obvious that an ignorant and uninformed man will resist any programme or changes, even those which will be of great benefit to him.
When the hump is removed from a camel, it will be obviously cease to be identified as one. This is true of people all over the world. Once you remove their culture, the identity of the people is lost. This is why it is desirable to maintain and retain our culture. Being consistent in any situation could mean being as ignorant today as yesterday, for this reason we should not swallow all that our forefathers handed over to us hook and sinker. We need to retain those that promote good health , preserve our environment and help us to pass a better world to our children.
It will be beneficial to discuss such lifestyle and beliefs that promotes good health and those likely to promote poor health in future.
The World Health Organization has warned that combating illness in the future will not be as simple as swallowing pill despite medicine's feat over a battery of diseases in the past 50 years. The further man strays away from nature in search of sophistication, the more distress he brings on himself-noted an American author and journalist. Most of the illness will be consequences of wrong life style; wrong diet, polluted air, polluted water source, poor environmental sanitation global warming and many other man-made aethiological factors.
The most natural setup of our collective togetherness is the "FAMILY". Most African culture is family-centric and this has promoted the individual and the community health in no small way in the past. What are those family values that I am talking about? One of the most important values which had almost gone with the winds is caring for our brothers , sisters and our elderly ones. Most of the -African languages have no word for cousins, nephews, nieces, aunts or uncles. There were only brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers. This shows extreme closeness even in the extended family systems. We now tend to be individualistic in our approach at the expense of the community or the family. The introduction of an alien concept called government has drastically changed many attitudes. Maintenance of the village source of water, the roads, the market place etc. used to be the responsibility of the community until this strange concept, called government showed up and it is expected to solve all the problems. There are two sides to a coin. The closeness of the family has its own little price. Isolating a sick relation with a communicable disease for instance could be considered as not showing enough love. With adequate education this negative aspect can be corrected. What has caused these changes in family values?
Population Explosion: brings about crowd effect which in turn breeds selfishness, violence and crime. There is a vicious cycle of poverty and ignorance. Urbanization and overcrowding also breeds a state of anonymity and a state of individual irresponsibility. With overpopulation the resources are over stretched since there is no corresponding increase in firewood supply, the water resources, the food and shelter etc. A hungry man is not likely to understand that an animal which is a source of protein to him is an endangered specie when he himself is endangered by hunger. Neither will the same man understand why he should preserve trees and forests when there is no other source of energy to cook his food. In 1798 when Thomas Malthus, a British economist and demographer, wrote that famine, disease and war keep population at supportable levels, there were 800 million people in the world. Earth now supports seven times that many, thanks to improvement in public health and farming. Vaccination, for example, has eradicated smallpox, which would otherwise kill millions of people each year. To arrest this situation family spacing should be encouraged and polygamous practices should be discouraged. Many people will argue that monogamy is un-African but I emphasize that it is the best practice because it is healthy for all the parties concerned - the wife, the husband, and the children.
Foreign culture: influence of foreign culture cannot be underestimated in the changes in the family values we are experiencing. We copy many things blindly not minding whether they are detrimental to our health. For instance many nursing mothers would prefer the "modern way" of feeding their babies with infant formulae they see being advertised on the television or in the newspapers. The natural breast milk has an untold advantage for the mother, the baby, and the husband. The bond between mother and child is greatly strengthened by breast feeding thereby reinforcing the family ties that lasts a life time. Most Africans are likely to take care of their aged parents themselves rather than committing them to old peoples' home because of the strong bond which had been formed from cradle.
On the other hand, many see it as too burdensome to care or cater for so many relations. These modern Africans are re-defining the concept of family. They will only cater for their nuclear family members. Since the number to be catered for is so overwhelming and the resources are limited, one cannot blame them much.
Another aspect of family values worth mentioning concerns marriage. This used to be a strict family affair. It is not just the couples who are being joined together but the two families. What the traditional marriage in essence is all about is joining the two families together. Divorce rate was almost zero. The concept of street children was unheard of. Relations are always there to take care of the children in case of bereavement. The natural African way used to be that the younger brother of the diseased can take the widow as a wife with the full responsibility not only to the widow but to the orphans as well. It is however disheartening to hear that in some communities the wife is considered as an inheritable object and thus forced to marry the relation of the diseased husband. She is denied livelihood as all the properties they have both laboured together to acquire are taken away from her by the relations of her husband. If one hears what untold burdens some widows are made to bear one will be highly distressed. These are practices which education and enlightenment programs will do a lot to eradicate.
Talking about children, one must not forget to mention about our negative attitude towards the female child. Her ordeal starts early enough. Her arrival is usually unwelcome. The nursing mother faces the contempt of all the relations of the husband as if it was her choice to bring forth a female child. For this reason she may not be properly fed and this will consequently affect the nutritional status of the baby girl thus starting life in a disadvantaged position in the competitive world. In the name of circumcision, some of them have their genitals mutilated with the attendant future obstetric complications. In some communities the female child is forced into marriage at such a tender age as eight or nine years. She gets pregnant at about twelve or thirteen years of age. Since the body is not physiologically ready for this praecox motherhood, the life of the "baby-mother" is complicated by serious trauma to the birth passage in the form of Vesico-vaginal fistula VVF or Recto-vaginal fistula RVF. With this serious stigma, she becomes an outcast. Even she is abandoned by the supposed husband. It is noteworthy that many of these cases are now being helped by surgical procedures.
Thinking that she will eventually end up all her career in the kitchen, little is invested in the female child in terms of formal education and training. She eventually gets married without any skill and has to depend on her husband for every thing. If she is "unlucky" to have any female offspring, the vicious cycle continues.
There are many forms of celebrations and ceremonies in the family. It starts with the celebration of birth to which I have no objection in as much as the nursing mother and the baby can still be well catered for after the multitude of the invited guests had departed with their over-loaded stomach. The celebration of life - that is what I will call the wedding or marriage ceremony. With moderation, I think it is really worth celebrating. The third one is the celebration of death or burial ceremony. Funeral rites vary from community to community. Since we believe and attach so much importance to the spiritual realm, with all modesty, it is healthy to celebrate the passage of elderly ones. Since I strongly believe that our good ancestral spirits will not feel comfortable wherever they are, seeing their off-springs suffering untold hardship consequent upon the funeral ceremony, I think the mode of celebration needs to be reviewed. A celebration which gives priority to the dead over the living cannot be a healthy one.
It cannot be overstated that health is wealth. The health-care system needs to be scrutinized with a 'microscope' at the same time with a 'telescope'. The former allows us to see more closely and the latter more distantly. In most communities it would not amount to over statement to state that there is no clear-cut system at all. The orthodox or western medical practice that may seem to be preferred by many people is out of reach physically and financially to many. Since most of the drugs and equipments are not manufactured locally, this is expected. Training of personels is also very time consuming and expensive. The alternative is to patronize the native herbalists. There is no doubt that nature has endowed us with many potent roots, barks and leaves. Lack of hygienic way of preparation, standardization, and dosing has been stumbling blocks in making a break through. There are various types of medical providers each having a roll to play in making the community a healthy one. The true native healers are to be encouraged to be more hygienic in the way they prepare their mixtures and to keep good record for future reference. Every type of health care provider must be made to respect its limit and limitations. Mixing of orthodox capsules or tablets with the traditional drugs is a grave sign of overt ignorance and can be very dangerous to the user. Syringes and needles in the hands of a herbalist can really turn into a most deadly weapon. If every practitioner is honest enough to only claim what he really is, there will be no quackery and the patient will be better for it.
It is widely known that prevention is not only better, it is very much cheaper than cure. All hands must be on deck to ward off diseases. Healthy life style must be cultivated from cradle to the grave. Immunization against preventable diseases must be made available and compulsory. It is really ironical that people are still dying of these preventable diseases while the surge of expensive-to-treat AIDS and HIV cases is seriously threatening to consume all our attention and resources.
In conclusion, it is important to identify the values of those traditional practices that promote good health and preserve our healthy environment. The good values should be taught in schools, in churches, in the mosques and various homes. Since God has given us the strength and wisdom to influence our environment, we should stop passing the buck back to Him by taking our future and destiny into our own hands.