Culture is one of the strongest aspect of life

Many people define culture differently, but the simplest way of defining it is what people have, do, and think as members of society.

People differ much in the way they perceive the world, as every ethnic group in the global has its own origin differently from the others.

When attending the Cultural Anthropology course at Tumaini University, I do remember our late Professor Samuel Mshana, saying, in order to have a full understanding of your neighbor you need to study harder on the culture.

He kept saying people in the world are now fighting, simply because they fail to understand one another.

During the session of studying Somali societies and how they came to American, I learned a lot of the Somali culture.

I came to learn that Somali culture fosters community settlement, which I think it is good in the sense that by being together, Somali people still maintain the brotherhood, sense of home though are far from their own land.

On other hand, it gives a room for new generation to learn and practice much of their culture, religion and language.

My former lecturer kept on emphasizing that in order to solve cultural based conflicts always try to understand another culture and judge it using the same cultural standards.

I followed up on how Somali people especially women dress, it reflects their religion which in this case is Islamic, where women are not allowed to expose most of their body's parties, to honor their god.

Here is when problems begun, due to cross cultural miscues, other people in global do not understand it all together. It really hard to understand as to why they need to cover much of their face, and most of the other parts of the body, as it is hard to comprehend as to why other people like nudism. 

On other hand, any person can doubt as to why you want to cover yourself too much, do you have any hidden agenda, out of curiosity one can try to investigate more on the move, as to him/her it does not make any sense as to why you want to cover that way. If he/she associates the dressing code with bad behaviors such as suicide bombing and alike, she/he will be in a position of making wrong decisions, Using his/her cultural standards to judge the dressing code. 

However, the judgement may be triggered by some incidents which he/she heard or witnessed  in other parts of the  global. Therefore the brain will keep on sending alerting signals,  which force him/her to take precautions over the situation. 

The  Nice Aspect of culture is  can be learned, keeps changing with time. I tell you as days go on, an element of culture such as a dressing code may change, through diffusion  of other cultural elements from other societies which are integrated with a particular society and admired. The admired cultural element can be easily encoded to that society while un admired one being rejected.

Remember, culture influences peoples' minds, the way they perceive their own world and the one surrounds them. If you change how people think over a certain cultural element such as a dressing code or eating habits you are able to influence other aspects of culture such as what people do. 

Doing  is the manifestation of what people think, an outward expressions on how people feel, is a way of representing the mental picture for others to see.

Eventually goes deep to what people have. What people have is  a results of to what extend people are able to create the mental pictures. For example a building constructor starts his/her project with the drawings which reflect the mental picture of the buildings he/she want to create.

In order to bring cultural Changes which will have positive impacts to people's lives, such as the maintaining of peace, harmony and corporations among societies, we need to learn to be tolerant to others culture, and respect them while taking time to influence them positively towards the changes.

We have to learn that there is NO superior culture in this world. If you think your culture is superior to others you are making a horrible mistake. In many cases YOU may become a SOURCE OF PROBLEMS, as YOU will be sowing seeds of bitterness and rage among societies. I urge you to trace down all the elements of your culture to spots bad ones. Have you found some? You may SAY NO EVEN ONE! I tell you being egocentric is also one of bad elements in its own ways! 

Tanzania for example is still struggling with how to promote pastoralists societies educationally, as these societies can not afford to settle in one area. Educating the Masai for example has been hard.

As the government takes trouble to study the Masai societies now and then, it comes with more effective strategies to help them.

Norms such as of sharing wives among Masai men relatives, are now rarely practiced as the society is now aware of H.I. V Aid, through educational programs.

You may jump into conclusion and say sharing wives was a worse thing, how come these people practiced it? I don't say it wasn't disgusting, No, what I say these people had their own reasons as to why they practiced it.

To judge the practiced you have to be in their shoes, have a shift from being egocentric to relativism! However, the notion doesn't verify the correctness of the practice instead it just help you to understand as to why people behave the way they do.

If you interview the Masai who practice wive sharing among men relatives in the clans, they may tell you their own stories such as it was the way of keeping the society strong, as through inter marriages many diseases are spread from one clan to another. You may marry weak clan. Also you may be told that it helped them to solve the problems of infertility among Masai clan members.

As I told you culture is one of the strongest aspect of human life. People tend to believe and practice what they have been taught in their life time as they integrated with cultural norms, customs and taboos.

Does this mean that we have to give in into whatever cultural practices just because they are pattern parcel of strongest aspects of human life,  A big NO. We need to help people know the negative aspect of them if any in an acceptable manner which won't injure their reputations and feelings. 

Taking Female Genital Mutilation as an example, is very dangerous to women. Many die due to excessive bleeding, the practice also adds up to more complications during delivery which results into higher maternal rate. We really need to say NO to IT to save many women.

However, If you happen to interview members of societies who practice it, you may be shocked to hear what they say concerning the practice! I do remember our late Professor one day, he paused the question on whether we support or oppose the practice, I thought it was not a question at all, thinking all of us may SAY A BIG NO to it, as we were considered to be one of well educated group.

To my surprise the discussion divided us so much, some of us strongly supported the notion saying it helps them to be really women, "with being really women" I truly did not understand it was as if they were talking Chinese to me, instead of Swahili.

Through culture these well educated women still yield to cultural elements which endanger their lives. 

It took the 80 minutes of the class that day to discuss the matter, without reaching into a conclusion.  However, Professor Samuel Mshana made more efforts to enroll these students who supported the practice into a more meaningful counseling so as to help them, This concludes that culture is one of the strongest aspect of human life which needs more efforts to understand clearly.

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