“Healing the World”: The Divine Role of Africa-Centered Metaphysics

Abstract

This paper argues that Africa is the cradle of civilization. That civilization evolved out of an understanding of the cosmos as well as the valorization of the metaphysical author of cosmogony. The paper asserts that appreciation of metaphysics created a stable and balanced cosmos. Civilization then meant living in harmony with fellow mankind, with the environment and with the cosmos as a whole. The paper suggests this was based on a clear understanding of the interdependence between the departed as well as the organic relationship between man, animal and nature. Now there is a gap between civilization and technological advancement. The metaphysics of unhu/Ubuntu as enshrined in the living law of Ma’at sank under the weight of capitalism; that pursuit of profit regardless of any moral price. Universal politics is now dictated by the desires of a few who stop at nothing to create a world order where humanity is reduced to a commodity. Wars and more wars have become the order of the day, threatening the whole world with extinction. This paper traces how Africa in particular has lost its metaphysical locus as a result of several foreign –induced imperial interventions culminating in the present intellectual, moral and cultural cacophonies that tear Africans apart. The paper argues that Africa can restore its glory as the citadel of civilization by returning to the “the way”. It is hoped that the whole world would also take a leaf, as it has done before, from Africa’s return to “the way”. The paper contends that the metaphysics of unhu/Ubuntu has this divine role to heal the world of various types of sickness: social, cultural, spiritual, intellectual, psychological and material.