Kindezi: The Kongo Art of
Babysitting an Introduction
By Marimba Ani
In his
ground-breaking work Self-Healing Power
and Therapy, Dr. Fu-Kiau tells us that muntu (the human being), the “living
sun,” is perceived as a “power”, “a phenomenon of perpetual veneration from
conception to death” and beyond. Kindezi is about the process of how this
“living sun” is nurtured once he/she has been brought into the physical world. The task of caring for this sacred muntu is
the most important responsibility in Afrikan civilization.
Dr.
Fu-Kiau intentionally translates Kindezi as the art of “babysitting” to shock
us. My immediate impression upon reading
the subtitle of his book was to question him, respectfully pointing out what
seemed to be a mistaken translation- a poor choice of an English term. Dr. Fu-Kiau’s response was given in his
characteristically soft, patient, and considerate manner, which forces one to
hang on his every word, convinced that wisdom is about to be bestowed. He explained that in European culture
“babysitting” is thought to be an insignificant activity- a job for the least
important people in our society. We know
that “teenagers, “ who supposedly have
nothing important to do, are given this task, and Afrikan women are imported
from the Caribbean to care of European-American children as a testament to our
alleged racial inferiority. Yet,
according to the authors of this book, Kindezi is the greatest honor that can
be bestowed upon a person in Afrikan society.
Fu-Kiau is bringing home the point, in a sharply critical
manner, that while childhood is devalued in European society, Afrikan
civilization is child-centered. This
becomes clear as we understand human life in the context of spiritual
community: a never-ending process of growth, development, transformation and
accountability. The well-being of the
community depends on the health and wholeness, the successful maturation of the
persons who constitute its membership.
Kindezi, then, is an art that is focused not only on the
nurturing of the young within the society, but on growth of the ndezi (the
caretaker, one who practices that art of Kindezi). In other words, as one develops the skills of
Kindezi, one develops oneself as well. The ndezi must help the muntu, the
“living sun,” to “shine” with the power of a living sun. Because this process is continuous, the
highest Kindezi (experience of service to the community) rests with the
elders. Elders in Afrikan society are
those who have become physically more frail, but who are spiritually stronger
because they have grown further in personal development and have moved closer
to the Ancestors, to the spiritual world and to the “Source of Life” itself (Kalunga).
An “elder” is not just an “old person”, but is someone still “mentally and
spiritually strong and wise enough to maintain the community united but, above
all, to build the moral foundation of the community youth and of generations to
come”
The Afrikan art and practice of Kindezi places great
importance on the presence of “elders” in the community and their
responsibility for the health and wholeness of the group.
By linking the elders to the youth of the society, the
concept stress intergenerational continuity, meaningful communication,
consistency of value formation and transmission, and mutual responsibility and
accountability. This brings us to the contemporary relevance of this book.
The greatest challenge that faces people of Afrikan descent
displaced from our grounding in the Motherland is social fragmentation,
disconnectedness and axiological or value confusion. The spiritual strength of our enslaved
Ancestors brought us through the brutal and inhumane disruption of the
Maafa. They did this by finding ways to
raise their children and teach them values.
Indeed the only source of resistance available to us was the strength of
our spirit- our “Soul-Force” (Leonard Barrett)- which we used to continually
recreate community. This sense of community
was always a strong and powerful force on which Afrikan descendants have
depended during the major historical periods of our saga in this forced
Diaspora. Since the 1960’s, however,
which appeared on the surface to bring what many thought were political and
economic gains, our cultural consciousness has deteriorated. The importance of family has diminished in
our minds, and the increased exposure to the destructive forces of American
society has successfully eaten away at the fabric of our social institutions.
Our youth, on whom we depend for the future development,
vindication, and strength of our community, are stolen from us by an arsenal of
intellectual and cultural poisons. They
are spiritually attacked from before birth with the weapons of an anti-Afrikan
enivorment. We lack tru “elders” because
they themselves have not been taken through a process of cultural
development. Those “elders” that we do
have are discarded and relegated to the garbage heaps of a capitalist society,
which values only that which brings material gain. Since babies are regarded as burdens that do
not add anything materially to the group, they also become peripheral to
significant endeavors. “Babysitting,” therefore, is one of the least valued
tasks in our cluttered lives, and elders become “useless” embarrassments. We
have imitated Euro-American decadence until we no longer recognize basic
Afrikan values. Kindezi provides an
answer for a people in crisis, an antidote to chronic “cultural Misorientation”
(Kambon).
Dr. Fu-Kiau and his co-author Psychologist Lukondo-Wamba
bring us ancient wisdom from our Ancestral home in the form of Kindezi. The necessity of a focus on the nurturing of
young children and the value of our Elder-Teachers is a simple, but not
simplistic, truth. It is the process
(dingo-dingo) through which “social patterns” are transferred to “ the
community’s youngest members”
Kindezi is a critical ingredient of the anti-viral serum
needed to combat our condition of “cultural AIDS”. It is the basic process of Afrikan
socialization. We are talking about the reconstruction of the family in its
most fundamental and dynamic sense.
Kindezi is about using the spiritual, mental, and cultural
strength of our elders to contribute to the process of developing generations
of culturally healthy youth, who grow to become powerful elders, who then in
turn, produce culturally healthy youth, and so on for millennia to come.
While the system of Kindezi is an ancient one, it took on
greater importance during the period in which the Bakongo people were fighting
against the impending onslaught of European colonial domination. Women had to be freed to fight alongside of
their men, often leading the community in battle themselves. The art of Kindezi allowed them to do without
sacrificing the care and socialization of their children. Fu-Kiau and Lukondo-Wamba go on to explain
that Afrikan women have always been “farmers" spending long hours away
from their children. According to the
authors, it was Kindezi that allowed Afrikan women to be “liberated” so that
they could meaningfully contribute to the economic welfare of the family. This, they claim, is where European women got
their concept of “women’s lib” because such models were lacking in the
patriarchy of their own cultural history.
In brief statement contained in these pages, Fu-Kiau and
Lukondo-Wamba team up to present a surprisingly thorough description of the
Afrikan socialization process. The book
focuses on the importance of Afrikan Youth.
Socially, elders teach and they give counsel, so they give children a
sense of their history and explain to them the meaning of “the path of life”
and their importance in the life of the community. Economically, elders help to contribute to
the well-being and vibrance of the community by performing the vital function
of Kindezi. In this way, they remain
useful and reciprocally are taken care of with special attention to their
physical and emotional well-being. The
authors draw attention to the profound depth of the Afrikan understanding of
the human spirit, explaining that because elders in traditionally Afrikan
society feel useful they are (or were before Afrikans began abandoning Afrikan
ways) less likely to suffer from “psychosomatic” illness and unnecessary
bio-physical deterioration. Meanwhile,
more and more Afrikan Elders in the Diaspora are suffering from Alzheimer’s and
other forms of dementia, which totally debilitate them and cause them
unwillingly to become a burdensome responsibility for the adult members of the
family. Our authentic culture is
spiritual and therefore physical destruction. However, the authors have
presented us with a model for contemporary cultural healing.
The practical value of this book is immense. Fu-Kiau and Lukondo-Wamba explain Kindezi in
terms of its social, economic, and political significance. In this regard, this small book has great
value in the development of an Afrikan-centered pedagogy. The approach of teaching through song is
discussed at some length, a method that has traditionally spoken to the spirit
of Afrikan children, but is only now being acknowledged in European pedagogical
theory. The authors explain how
language-the powerful energizing force of Afrika-becomes the effective and affective
tool of pedagogy through the art of Kindezi.
The answer to Afrikan cultural reconstruction lies in
Sankofa, the reclamation of those processes which become the threads our mended
cultural quilt. Kindezi is a most
valuable primer for Afrikan-centered (re) socialization, the healing of the
Afrikan Family, and Afrikan culturally reconstruction...
Wale’mbwa lela
kale’ndi bakula ntoko
za moyo ngatu
za buta mu
zola ko
“Whoever
never babysat”, says a Kongo proverb, “will never understand the beauty of life
nor that of parenting with love.”
